We not only receive the divine life through regeneration but also grow in the divine life with regeneration as the base.
After being regenerated, we must be nourished with the supply of the milk of the word of God unto our daily, gradual salvation (1 Pet. 2:2). This gradual salvation is a daily salvation in which we are saved in the common situations of our daily living, both in big things and in small things. God’s organic salvation has a long span—from regeneration to glorification. Our regeneration is the initiation. Then we need to grow by feeding on Christ as the nourishing milk in the word of God unto maturity for glorification, unto salvation in full.
In order to experience this daily salvation, we need to live by the divine life through denying our natural life (Matt. 16:24). We have two lives within us: one is our natural life and the other is the divine life. We all must deny and reject the first life, our natural life, and live according to and by the second life, the divine life. We should live, walk, and conduct ourselves by another life—the divine life—as Paul said: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This is the proper living of a normal Christian.
Regeneration is not only the base for us to grow in the divine life but also the base for us to be built up in the divine life.
After our regeneration, we are being built up in the divine life by the growth and increase of the divine life in us (Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15-16). Regeneration is for us not only to grow in the divine life but also to be built up as the universal Body of Christ. Colossians 2:19 says, “...out from whom [the Head] all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.” We grow with the growth of God. The growth of God’s life within us is the increase of God Himself, God’s element, within us. As He increases in us, we grow. This growth is for us to be built up.
In this divine building up, which is based on the growth of the divine life, the regenerated believers as Christ’s brothers and members (Heb. 2:11; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:27) are constituted into the Body of Christ as the increase and fullness of the unlimited Christ (John 3:30a; Eph. 1:23) for the achievement of the purpose of God’s organic salvation.
Through regeneration we have become Christ’s brothers and God’s children, the members of Christ. As members of the Body and as Christ’s brothers, we are being constituted and built up into the universal Body of Christ. With regeneration as the base, the divine life grows and increases in us. As a result, we will become the increase and the fullness of Christ and thereby attain the ultimate purpose of God’s organic salvation—the New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem as the constitution of God with man is indescribable.