Prayer: Lord, how we thank You for this gathering, and we thank You for Your cleansing. We need the cleansing of Your precious blood. Lord, have mercy upon us and unveil Yourself to us. Open up the heavens to us. Lord, give us a clear sky that we all may see something in the heavens, something on Your heart, and something in Your Spirit. Lord, bring us all into this vision, and grant us the rich anointing. Give us the word, the instant utterance, the very expression, that can minister Yourself with Your ministry into the saints. Lord, speak a word to each one of us and unveil the mystery of Yourself, of Your plan, of Your economy, and of Your Body to all of us. Lord, be one with us in our speaking. We trust in You, and we trust especially in Your mercy. Amen.
In chapters one and two, we saw that prophesying is the excelling gift for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. In this chapter we want to see that all the Body of Christ causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself through every joint of the rich supply.
The New Testament shows us a very particular matter— the building up of the organic Body of Christ. The Lord does not desire to build up a congregation or an organization. He wants to build up a particular thing that is altogether organic. God’s creation is full of things that are types, figures, and shadows of the spiritual, heavenly things which are difficult to describe. Our human body typifies the Body of Christ (Rom. 12:4-5). A wooden stand is a collection of pieces of wood put together in an organizational way, but our physical body is an organism that is altogether organic. If a table gets damaged, the damage will remain unless it is fixed, but if our body gets damaged in a certain way, it will heal itself organically. A table can be repaired, but it cannot be healed. Our body, on the other hand, heals itself again and again. Often we may be worried about the church’s condition. Whenever I exercised my mind to worry about the church, however, the Lord always rebuked me. He told me that I did not need to worry because the church is His Body and it will heal itself. The church is the very Body of Christ, the organism of the Triune God. In today’s organized Christianity, the Body of Christ cannot be seen. What can be seen is many congregations, but not an organism. We must admit that even among us in the Lord’s recovery, we cannot see much of the Body of Christ as the organism of the Triune God. This is why I am desperately burdened. About thirty years ago, my burden was primarily to release the word concerning the divine Spirit and the human spirit. Today my burden is the organic building up of the Body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-16 is a portion of the Word covering this organic building. Verses 11 and 12 say that Christ has given some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. The work of the ministry is the building up of the Body of Christ. Verses 15 and 16 say: “But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ, out from whom all the Body, fitted and knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” In both verse 12 and verse 16, the building up of the Body of Christ is mentioned. The Body is built not only by the gifted ones’ perfecting of the saints and by the functioning of the perfected saints but also by the growth of the Body. The Body has to grow. The growth of the Body results in the building up of the Body. All the Body causes the growth of the Body. Have we seen the growth of the Body in our locality? Many of us may not care for this. We may not care for this in the way that we meet, serve, and work. We may like to see a very “splendid” meeting that is splendid in size, in appearance, in order, in singing, in praying, in praising, in sharing, and in testimonies, but do we care for the genuine growth of the Body?
The fundamental denominations try to get capable pastors who are eloquent speakers full of knowledge of history and of other things. Such speakers are able to give wonderful messages that make people happy. As a result of this, their congregations grow. Perhaps their congregations grow from five hundred to one thousand, from one thousand to three thousand, and from three thousand to ten thousand. If this good speaker is suddenly taken away by the Lord, however, his congregation will decrease and decrease. This shows that a congregation was built up, but not the organic Body of Christ. What would be the result if all of the Sunday morning meetings in Christianity were stopped? Many would enjoy worldly entertainments and satisfy their fleshly lusts. These ones were not built up in an organic way. I believe, however, that the day is coming when the Lord will have something totally organic on this earth instead of a congregation. Thousands of saints in city after city will be busy in praising, singing, prophesying, and preaching the gospel. We need to ask ourselves how organic we are today. If we closed the door of our meeting hall for six months, what would be the result? This is proof that there has not been much of the organic building up of the Body of Christ among us.
The unscriptural, traditional way of meeting and serving from Christianity has been existing on this earth for many years. When people think of Christianity, they think of a church building with a big congregation and a good pastor as the speaker. This is the traditional way to worship, serve, work, and exist in Christianity. In Rome during the second or third century, the Christians did not meet in the congregational way. They met secretly underground in the catacombs. Probably there has never been as much genuine worship of the Lord as from those saints who met in the catacombs. My point is this—we must get out of our traditional concept. We do not realize how much we have been kept away from the real vision presented in Ephesians 4.