Prayer: Lord, we offer our worship to You. We thank You that You always take care of us and gather us, that You even gather us into Your holy name. Lord, we again gather into Your holy name tonight. May Your blood cleanse us, may Your Spirit be with us, and may Your Word be opened to us. Lord, we deeply believe that at this very moment You are present with us. You know that we are nothing and can do nothing. What we are looking to and depending on is You Yourself and Your blessing. Lord, lead us tonight, and guide every one of us. Do give each one of us a word which will touch the depths of our being, so that we would be supplied. Enlighten us that we may receive Your sustenance within. Lord, may You give us the utterance, the instant word, the fresh light. And we pray that You will release Yourself more and more so that we may be satisfied, and Your Body may be built up. Lord Jesus, grant us a clear sky. Through simple words reveal to us the mystery of Your Body. Grant us a thorough vision that we can see Your precious Body clearly. Be with us in an extraordinary way, and may Your all-pervading Spirit be upon us to touch us and possess us. Amen.
I have not been back here for a long time. I have come back, but this time I will not be staying too long, and after I leave, I will not return very soon. So I treasure these four meetings very much. I have had much consideration before the Lord and felt that I needed to speak some messages which are basic and crucial that will be sufficient for you for a year. If you know how to use them, they can even be adequate for your whole life.
The topic of the messages I am going to speak to you this time is “A Thorough View of the Body of Christ.” I use the expression thorough view to talk about this matter because concerning the Body of Christ you have heard enough already. You all know that the Body of Christ is the church. This is not wrong, but this realization is too shallow. The Body is a mysterious matter. Not to mention the Body of Christ, just our little body is extremely mysterious; its mystery lies in its being organic. Look at me standing here. Because I am a living person, whether I am speaking or moving, regardless of what my body is doing, there is an organic expression. If our little physical bodies are like this, the Body of Christ is like this so much the more. Christ is the One who fills all in all (Eph. 1:23). He is such an immeasurable and boundlessly great Lord. He needs a Body of fullness to express Him even more than we do. From this you can realize how mysterious His Body is. It is not something that we can study thoroughly. Nevertheless, I am looking to the Lord that in these four days I may do my best to give you a thorough view of the Body of Christ.
In this first message tonight we will see the history of the Body of Christ, or the origin of the Body of Christ. Tomorrow in the second message we will see the elements, essence, and reality of the Body of Christ. In that message we will really be seeing a thorough view of the Body of Christ. In message three we will see the living in the Body of Christ. This is the living we ought to have. Of course, we do not live the life of a sinner, nor do we live the life of a natural person, nor do we merely live the life of a moral person or of an ordinary citizen; we live the Body life. When we talk about the church life, it is better to speak of the Body life. This word church has the denotation of a congregation, and a congregation, superficially speaking, does not have anything to do with life; but when the Body is mentioned, it clearly refers to a living organism. Finally, in the fourth message we will see the service of the Body of Christ. After we have seen the living in the Body, we will see the service of the Body.
Now we must see the origin of the Body of Christ. We all know that everyone who is sitting here was born, not manufactured, into being. The idols in the temples are manufactured, not born. We human beings with our organic bodies are born into being from parents who are human beings like us. This birth is our origin. The Body of Christ is a totality of all the members of Christ, and we are the members in His Body. Therefore, in talking about the Body of Christ, we are all included, both you and I. When I speak about the Body of Christ, I am speaking concerning you and also concerning myself. So when we talk about the origin of such a mysterious matter as Christ and His Body, you and I are both included. When we speak about the origin of the Body of Christ, we are speaking about our own origin.
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