God has a desire in Himself. In contrast to this, Satan also has an evil intent which is to damage. God has a plan, and Satan in contrast has a deception which is to frustrate. God has an economy, and Satan in contrast has a work which is to confuse. Hence, on the one hand, we have to realize God’s desire, plan, and economy. On the other hand, we have to expose Satan’s evil intent, deception, and confusion.
God’s desire is to work Himself into man to be life and everything to man. First John 4:15 and Philippians 2:13 both strongly confirm this fact. Since the time of Brother Nee we have been talking about this matter. When I began working in America, my speaking became even stronger. There are over one hundred messages already in print concerning this matter. Until today, when Christianity preaches the gospel, there is still very little mention of this matter. Mostly it tells people that man is sinful, that God is righteous, and that the Lord Jesus has died on our behalf according to the righteousness of God. When one believes in Him, his sins will be forgiven, and he will be justified by God. As to life, Christianity touches only briefly the matter of regeneration.
Regeneration is God’s coming into us to be our life. Hence, regeneration is to have the life of God in addition to the life which man has in himself. It means to be born again. First, God regenerates us in our spirit. Then He expands from our spirit to our mind, occupying and saturating all the parts of our mind. This is transformation. We will then be a mature person in the eyes of God, waiting for the Lord to come back, at which time our body will be fully saturated as well. That will be the redemption of the body. Hence, first there is the regeneration in our spirit, then the transformation in our soul, and finally, at the coming of the Lord, the redemption of our body. In this way our whole being will enter into glory, that is, into all that the Triune God is. The above words are the light and revelation which we have accumulated through our sixty years of studying the Bible and the spiritual books.
In addition to God being our life, He wants to be our everything. Life is not a simple thing. Life requires wisdom, power, and light. Life also requires virtues like patience, forbearance, and forgiveness. These virtues are created by God and manifested in humanity. The human virtues created by God are merely shells. They are like gloves. The gloves are different from the hands. The inward reality of these virtues is the divine attributes of God. When the divine attributes get into us to become the content of our human virtues, together they become the good works described in the Bible and sought after by God. The good works that God is after are the ones that are lived out from our human virtues when God gets into us, the created men, to be the content of our goodness. The Bible calls these works virtues (2 Pet. 1:3). Hence, virtue is not just a kind of meritorious behavior, but a kind of spiritual power.
When the Triune God works Himself into us to be our life and everything, we meet and fellowship by this life. Without this life there is no Christian meeting and no fellowship. Fellowship is the flow of the divine life. Today some have translated the word fellowship as communication. Communication gives a somewhat worldly connotation. First John chapter 1 clearly shows us that the divine fellowship issues from the divine life. When an unsaved person comes to our meetings, he can imitate our singing and prayer. But he is absolutely outside of our fellowship. This is because he is not the same as we are. He does not have the divine life. When Christianity was first introduced to China, the term “giao-you” (meaning, nominal church member) was a popular expression. After we were raised up by the Lord, we opposed the use of terms such as this. “Giao-you” is a worldly expression. We are not “giao-you”; we are brothers, having the same life. Because we are brothers sharing the same life, we are able to have fellowship one with another. Today, the basis of our meeting, gospel preaching, service, and work for the Lord is regeneration, by which we have the divine life.
God’s plan is for the men who have His life and who are joined to Him organically to be the organic members of Christ the embodiment of the Triune God. There are two strong phrases here: to have His life and to be joined to Him organically. Because we have God as our life, we can be joined to Him organically. A broken staff can be glued together. It can even be surrounded by a metal ring, or even wrapped with gold. But there is no organic joining together. The reason for this is that there is no life. But the grafting of trees is different. When a living branch is grafted onto a tree, very soon the two will grow into one. This is to be joined organically. In the same way, a broken arm can be joined together again through the circulation of blood, which is the fellowship of life.
There is an organic union between God and us. God grows into us, and we grow into God. God’s plan is to make this kind of people the organic members of Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God. God desires to make us who have His life and who are joined to Him organically the members of Christ. Christ is the embodiment of God. Hence, we become the organic members of Christ, the embodiment of God. These members are constituted the church, the organism of this Triune God (Eph. 1:23). This is a matter of constitution, and it is by life. The church is not an organization that has no life. Those who have His life and who are joined to Him organically are not just the members of Christ; they are also constituted the church as the organism of the Triune God. Even more, they are the Body of Christ as God’s fullness in Christ to express Him (Eph. 1:23; 3:19b).