CHAPTER FOUR

THE REALITY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST

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Scripture Reading: Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:10; 1:19-21a; Rom. 8:4; John 5:30-31; 6:46, 57; 14:19-20

Hymns: #972, #976

OUTLINE

1. The corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but are not living by their life, but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes have been expressed through their virtues.
2. A corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ through the power of the resurrection of Christ-Phil. 3:10.
3. The mingling living, in the eternal union, of the regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite God-men with the Triune God (who is the pneumatic Christ as the embodiment of the processed and consummated Triune God, who is the all-inclusive Spirit as the reality of the pneumatic Christ and the consummation of the processed Triune God) in the resurrection of Christ, of which the life-giving Spirit is the reality and which imparts the consummated God and releases the death-overcoming life into the believers.
4. Consummating ultimately in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God’s increase and expression for eternity.

Prayer: Lord, we worship You with all our thanks and praises that You have brought us through all these days by Your marvelous mercy and abounding grace. This morning our trust is still You. We enter into You to enjoy You as our trust while we are speaking and listening. Lord, anoint the meeting. Anoint Your speaking, Your oracle, not our speaking, through Your Spirit to reach us and to touch the depths of our being that we may be fully enlightened and unveiled by You for Your eternal economy. Lord, we need You again and again, even the more today, to be our sustaining power and our strengthening. Lord, lead us and guide us to speak with You. We do not like to do anything without You. Lord, we like to speak, to move, and to act with You. Lord, in our speaking we give all our adoration to You. You are the very God, the very Lord, the Master, and the Husband to us. Thank You, Lord. We can never thank You enough. We also ask You to cover us with Your prevailing blood.

In this message we come to the highest peak in God’s economy-the reality of the Body of Christ. We know the term the Body of Christ. We may even have seen the revelation of the Body of Christ. Yet we have to admit that thus far, over the past seventy-two years, through such a long time, we can see very little of the reality of the Body of Christ within us and among us. I am speaking not of the revelation, not even of the vision, but of the reality of the Body of Christ.

This reality has nothing to do with any kind of organization or with anything which remains in the nature of organization. Also, the reality of the Body of Christ is not a system in any way, because no system is organic. The reality of the Body of Christ is absolutely and altogether organic.
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