God is constituting all those who have believed into this gospel and are saved and regenerated to be the churches in different places. God’s eternal desire is to gain a group of people in the universe, the saved ones throughout the generations, that they may be the Body of Christ as a vessel to express Christ and that He Himself also may be expressed in Christ. This is the purpose that God desires to achieve in the universe. In order to achieve this purpose, God establishes the churches in different places, first in Jerusalem, then in such places as Samaria, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, each place having one church. God’s intention is that every local church should be a miniature of His universal church, being exactly the same as the universal church in nature and in principle. Each of these churches in the different localities represents the universal church locally, expressing Christ and bearing His testimony according to the principle of the universal church, that the Body of Christ may be completely built up.
In the dispensation of grace God obtains all those who believe into Christ in the New Testament as the third part and the majority of the new race in God’s new creation, signified by the sun with which the universal woman is clothed in Revelation 12, for the accomplishment of the constitution of the New Jerusalem to be God’s ultimate and full expression in eternity.
When God determined that the purpose of decreeing the law had been attained and that the law had been used to its full extent, the Triune God became flesh in the Son; He was born of a woman to become Christ, who possessed both the divine nature and the human nature, bringing grace and reality. He passed through human life in humanity, experiencing every hardship and suffering, and He also lived out the Triune God in humanity. Furthermore, He passed through the death of the cross in humanity, accomplishing an all-inclusive death with a sevenfold status and releasing the divine life for multiplication and increase to constitute the Body of Christ, which is the church. Moreover, the Triune God was raised from among the dead with a resurrected body in humanity, that the only begotten Son might be born as the firstborn Son in His humanity in resurrection; at the same time, those who believed into Christ were regenerated to become His many sons. This Christ, who was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit, breathed Himself into those who believed in Him to be the reality of their spiritual life for their spiritual existence and living. Then this resurrected and glorified One was exalted in ascension. He was made both Lord and Christ to be a Leader and Savior, that He might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to God’s chosen people. Moreover, in ascension He poured Himself out as the consummated Spirit of the Triune God, baptizing those who believed and became His members in this consummated Spirit into one Body, that they might be His fullness to express Him. The above seven items mainly include the person and work of Christ and constitute the gospel of God to be preached to sinners, calling those who were chosen of God to believe, to be saved, and to be regenerated. God then constitutes them to be the churches in different localities that the Body of Christ may be fully built up. Thus God obtains all those who believe into Christ in the New Testament to be the third part of the new race in God’s new creation.