Everyone who wants to engage in spiritual warfare must first know the Body. Nothing requires us to know the Body so urgently as spiritual warfare, because spiritual warfare is not an individual matter, but a Body matter. No individual believer can fight with the enemy; it takes the whole Body. If we wish to learn spiritual warfare, we must first know the Body.
Why must we wait until the fourth stage to speak of knowing the Body? Because the Body referred to here is the mystical Body of Christ, the Church. This Body is formed by Christ as life in each of us, mingled with us. During the second and third stages of our experience of life, we are still living in our own life; therefore, we cannot know this life which mingles with us to form a Body. Only when our self life has been utterly dealt with and we have the experience of passing through the Jordan and entering into the fourth stage shall we be able to touch the reality of this life of the Body and come to know the Body.
Everyone who is saved is a member of the Body of Christ. Is the life in each one of us, then, a life pertaining to the members or to the Body? The Bible and our experience prove that though each one of us is a member of Christ, yet the life in each one of us is not a member life, but a Body life. All the members of our body are sharing one life. Each member shares in common the same life together with all the other members, that is, the life of the entire body. For example, an ear, unless it has been cut off, shares the same blood which flows through the eye, the nose, and the whole body. Similarly, in the Body of Christ, when one member is joined to the Body or having fellowship with the Body, his life is the life of the Body, and the life of the Body is his life. It would not do for him to be separated from the other members, or vice versa, because the life both in him and in the other members is of the same Body; it can neither be distinguished nor separated. It is this life which joins us together to become the Body of Christ; or, to say it more precisely and emphatically, it is this life which mingles with us to become the Body of Christ.
We cannot, however, experience this before the difficulties of the self have been entirely dealt with. If we are still living according to the flesh, in ourselves, and serving the Lord in our natural ability, the life of the Body, which is Christ Himself in us, has no way of being manifested, and there is no way for us to know the Body. The more we live by the flesh, the less we feel the need for the support of the Body. If we live by our self-opinion, we find no need for the sustaining of the church. If we serve with our natural ability, we sense no need for the coordination of the members. Only when our flesh has been dealt with, the self-opinion has been broken, and the natural life has been smashed, shall the life within cause us to realize that we are simply members of the Body and that the life in us cannot be independent. Hence, this life requires us to have fellowship with all other members and be joined to them, and it also brings us into that fellowship and the experience of being joined together. It is at this time that we begin to know a little concerning the Body and become qualified to engage in spiritual warfare.
On one hand, we say that if we want to fight the spiritual warfare and deal with God’s difficulty, we must first deal with our flesh, self, and soul life, thus solving our own difficulties; on the other hand, we say that in order to fight the battle, we must first know the Body, and in order to know the Body and live in the Body, we must first deal with our flesh, self, and soul life. Whether, therefore, we speak from the standpoint of fighting the warfare or knowing the Body, we all must first pass through the preceding three stages-coming out of the flesh, the self, and the soul life-in order to attain to the fourth stage of the experience of life.
We shall now consider the matter of knowing the Body from several aspects, beginning with God’s plan.
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