In these past few days we have seen more and more clearly that the church is the result of our subjective experience of the Lord. We have also seen that our subjective experience of the Lord must be entirely in the Spirit and related to life, and it must also be the Lord Himself entering into us not merely as our life but also as the constituent of our spiritual being. These matters are not objective but are subjective experiences within us. Today the Lord is the life-giving Spirit. We can receive Him into us, and He can enter into us as our life and even live in us as our person. Thus, He becomes our element and is the inward constituent of our spiritual being. We all experience this Lord together and are built up together in this One to become the one Body. These matters are absolutely inward, subjective experiences. It is not that we have an outward change or that we merely have a kind of outward expression. Rather, we have become completely new in our essence, life, and nature. This is Christ who died and resurrected and now has been wrought into us to become the constituent of our spiritual being, and this also is the church.
This knowledge of the subjective aspect of the church has been completely lost over the past nineteen centuries. If you read church history, you will see that even after Luther accomplished the Reformation, those pure-hearted Christians did not have such a deep knowledge of the church. They did not see that the church is Christ constituted into His believers. Because this light was buried, this subjective truth was hidden in the Bible and was not released. Over the past several hundred years there have been many believers in the Lord, and all have felt that they were in the church and have become the church. Nevertheless, in reality they have not had the light of the church’s being joined to Christ as one spirit. Today the Lord wants to recover what He planned in the beginning and what was realized at the time of Pentecost.
If you read the book of Acts carefully, you will see that the condition of those early saints described in chapters two through four was simply Christ living in them. Christ became their life, their human nature, and their person. For them to live was Christ, just as the apostle said. Therefore, according to the revelation of the New Testament, the church is the mystery of godliness, which is God manifested in the flesh.
What is the church? The church is God manifested in the flesh. This is a mystery. At this time, if we are in a normal condition, one that is up to the standard, God will be manifested when we are meeting here together in His name and in His Spirit. Apparently we are ordinary people who are outwardly no different from any other people, but there is a mystery within us. This mystery is the manifestation of God in the flesh. What kind of mystery is this? It is the mystery of godliness.
In the New Testament, godliness does not refer to being well-behaved, self-composed, or God-fearing. These are not godliness. In the New Testament, godliness is God manifesting His image. When God is manifested, it is because of a certain condition in your being, and that condition is godliness. For example, a person might honor and obey his parents very much, but what is manifested in that person is honoring of parents. Some people are very moral, proper, and righteous, well-behaved in everything, so you see morality in them. However, Christians should not manifest only these things. Strictly speaking, when we truly live in the seven Spirits and walk by the Spirit, the condition that is displayed in us is not only honoring of parents or morality but also God being manifested. This is far superior to honoring of parents or morality. There is a condition in a brother that cannot be described by human language. It is hard to say whether it is his honoring, being humble, or some other virtue. According to the Bible, it is godliness. Godliness is God manifested. God is manifested in that person by a certain condition so that people cannot help but glorify God. This condition is godliness.
What does the mystery of godliness mean? It means that although we are men-some Chinese, some American, and some Japanese-when we sing and praise, a certain condition is manifested that makes people ask, “What is this?” This is not honoring of parents, nor is it morality; instead, it is a kind of indescribable condition. It is not merely noisy activity, nor is it excitement. These people are here in a kind of condition that is hard to describe and very mysterious, so it is difficult for people to understand.
If you get very excited when you watch basketball or baseball games, then others immediately know that you are a sports fan. When a baseball fan watches a baseball game, he gets excited. What about us? Here there is no baseball, basketball, or any other kind of ball. There is just a group of people sitting here who are well-behaved. They are neither too excited nor too formal; they neither laugh loudly nor laugh softly, but simply smile warmly. What is really happening here? Moreover, they keep coming here every morning and every evening just to hear such a person speak. He does not speak about astronomy, geography, politics, or military science, and he does not know anything about mathematics, technology, or other matters. Yet it seems they are “addicted” and keep coming back to listen. What kind of “addiction” is this? This is “God addiction,” which is a mystery, the mystery of godliness. In this godliness God is manifested-God is here. This is why 1 Corinthians 14 says that if some unbeliever comes to the meeting, “falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that indeed God is among you” (vv. 24-25). This is the mystery of godliness.
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