Since the day of His physical resurrection, the Lord Jesus has been enlarging His Body in resurrection life. What an immense Body Christ has today in His resurrection! Can you measure the size of the Body of Christ? Although it once was possible to measure the size of the physical body of Jesus, it is impossible to measure the immensity of the Body of Christ. The Lord continues to build His Body in resurrection, and Satan keeps on helping this. The house of God is still increasing in resurrection with the Body of Christ (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:5; 1 Cor. 3:9; Eph. 2:21-22). Today, we are still within “the three days,” because the Lord is still working for the building of His Body under the process of resurrection. A great part of the Lord’s Body has already been raised, but there are still some members of His Body who are not yet raised. Therefore, the Lord’s Body is still in the process of resurrection. Even with yourself, only a part has been transformed, which means that only a part has been resurrected. The Lord continues to work on you through the process of transformation. You are still in the process of resurrection. The church today is still in the three days’ process of resurrection.
All the damage that the enemy does to the church simply offers the Lord the opportunity to enlarge His Body in resurrection. If, since 1958, there had not been that storm caused by the enemy to destroy the church life in Taiwan, I might not be in this country today. Let the enemy do whatever he can, for his work simply gives the Lord the opportunity to do His increasing work in resurrection. Praise the Lord! Since the Lord started His recovery in the United States, many negative things have occurred. But we all must worship Him for His prevailing way. I have not seen one case in which the enemy has prevailed. He has helped the Lord’s recovery. The enemy can never defeat the Lord Jesus. The gates of hades can never prevail against the builded church (Matt. 16:18). The church is still going on and is still growing. Hallelujah! Although the enemy may try his best to tear it down, we shall see the victory. We shall see that not only the Lord Jesus Himself is prevailing, but that the church also is prevailing. The more negative talk there is about the Lord’s recovery, the more prevailing His recovery becomes.
In the changing of water into wine, the principle of life was set forth. Now, in the dealing with the temple, the purpose of life is shown. The principle of life is to change death into life. The purpose of life is to build the house of God. The principle of life is for the purpose of life. The changing of death into life is for life’s building, the building of God’s house. These two points govern the whole Gospel of John. This is why after the introduction in the first chapter, the second chapter follows to show us these two points by two events. Then from chapter three through chapter eleven is the record of the nine cases proving how the Lord came into all kinds of human situations and changed death into life. After all of the cases have been related and after the last message has been given in chapters fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, in chapter seventeen the Lord offered a prayer to the Father about oneness. This prayer for oneness was simply a prayer for the building. If we are not built together, we can never be one. For example, a heap of materials is not one, because the materials are not built together. A house is composed of many materials, and these materials are one because they are built together. Only when the materials are built up together as one building is there oneness. Oneness means to be built up together. Therefore, the purpose of life is to build up God’s house, God’s temple, for God’s habitation. The purpose of the Lord being life to us is to build the church as God’s dwelling place. Life is for the building. Life is for the church. It is for the building of the church, His Body and God’s house, that the Lord has come to be our life.
In John 2 the writer selected two events of the many things done by the Lord to show us the principle and the purpose of life. We must apply the principle of life for the purpose of life. Then we shall see that in the following chapters of the Gospel of John there are both the principle of life as signified in the first event and the purpose of life as shown in the second event.