We have already seen that the Father is the source, that the Spirit came to regenerate, and that the Son came to be life, so that we and the Triune God may have an organic union. This is the “inside” story of the members of the Body of Christ. There is also an “outside” story; that is, the Triune God-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-having become the consummated Spirit, came to baptize the members of Christ into the unique Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13a). God’s essence is Spirit, and the last person in His divine Trinity is also the Spirit. Not only so, the totality of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit eventually also became the consummated Spirit to baptize the members of Christ, those who have been regenerated by the Spirit and who have the Father as the source and the Son as the life, into one Body.
You and I have been saved. Through regeneration, we have the Spirit, Christ, and life within. Also, through the baptism of the Holy Spirit once outwardly, we all have been baptized into the Body. Inwardly, we were regenerated to have life; outwardly, the Spirit was poured upon us so that we might be baptized into one Body. This completes the origin of the Body.
Now we have to see how the Triune God became the ultimate and completed Spirit. First, the Father was embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9) through incarnation (John 1:14a; Heb. 2:14a). The Son experienced human life (Heb. 2:17-18), was crucified and resurrected, and was realized as the Spirit. Before the Son was realized as the Spirit, the Spirit was there already. However, He was not yet completed. It was not until the Lord Jesus was resurrected from the dead and realized as the Spirit that the Spirit was completed (John 7:39). This completed Spirit is the ultimate completion of the Triune God (Rev. 22:17a), which implies that the Son through death and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3-4) became the all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, and compound Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), to baptize all the sanctified, regenerated persons into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19), so that they and the Triune God could become one (John 17:21a, 23a) and be baptized into the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13a).
Therefore, every time we preach the gospel and bring people to be saved, we baptize them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as soon as they confess the Lord’s name. Their outward expression corresponds to an inward fact; that is, by being baptized into the Triune God, the saved ones and the Triune God have been made one. By their becoming one with the Triune God, they become members of the Body of Christ.
Finally, I must tell you the story of this Body of Christ. Simply speaking, it is the story of the Triune God mingling as one with us, the chosen and predestinated ones. Long before time began, in eternity past before all things were created, God by His eternal foreknowledge selected us and also marked us out. Then in time the Holy Spirit came to work, to seek us and regenerate us. This regeneration is the beginning of the mingling between the Triune God and us, and it is also the first step of the Triune God being life to us after coming into us. This happens in our spirit. From then on, if we cooperate with Him, love Him, and fellowship with Him, He will have the opportunity to spread outward from our spirit to our soul so that our mind can be renewed and transformed. This indwelling Spirit is like a dove, gradually and gently occupying and saturating us. He also will spread from our soul to our body to give life to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11). In this way, the Triune God and we, the tripartite men, will be completely mingled as one.
At this point, we can clearly see that we have not only the Spirit within but also the Spirit without. This Spirit who has come upon us causes us to have the feeling of the Body. The Spirit inwardly is the Spirit of life; the Spirit outwardly is the Spirit of work. The inward Spirit of life is essential; the outward Spirit of work is economical. In actuality, these two are one Spirit. On the one hand, within us He is the essential Spirit; on the other hand, upon us He is the economical Spirit. Within us we have Him; outside of us we also have Him.
All the people along the lower Yangtze River in China like to drink tea in the morning to fill their stomachs with water. They say that this is wrapping water with skin. In the evening, they like to soak themselves in the bathtub; they say that this is wrapping skin with water. They wrap water with skin in the morning and skin with water in the evening. I feel that this is quite meaningful. If today all the Christians were like this, filled with the Spirit in the morning and receiving the outpouring of the Spirit in the evening, we would surely be members who are not disconnected but who are meeting and living in the Body. In the New Testament, there is a verse which speaks of the two sides of this matter. This is 1 Corinthians 12:13 which says, “For also in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” To drink the Spirit is to wrap the “water” with “skin”; to be baptized into the one Body is to wrap “skin” with the “water.” On the one hand, there is the Holy Spirit filling us within as the essential Spirit that we may have the life supply; on the other hand, there is the Holy Spirit poured out upon us outwardly as the economical Spirit to baptize us into the Body of Christ. Therefore, we may say that the origin of the Body of Christ is entirely a matter of the Spirit. There is the Spirit within, regenerating, transforming, and supplying us with life; this is the essential Spirit. There is also the Spirit without, being poured upon us; this is the economical Spirit.
All the problems taking place today in the church are due to neglecting the inner, essential Spirit for life as well as the outward, economical Spirit for work. Now since we have seen the origin of the Body of Christ and have also realized that everything related to the Body of Christ is entirely a matter of the Spirit, we should not pay attention to other things; we should only take care of the inward, essential Spirit for life and also the outward, economical Spirit for work that we may be normal and proper members in the Body of Christ. Hence, when we all follow the inward, essential Spirit for life and cooperate all the time with the outward, economical Spirit for work, and when we all live in the Body of Christ, we will be the organic Body of Christ. This is what we should see and what we should remain in.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee on April 12, 1990, in Taipei, Taiwan.)
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