We have seen that in the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the believers corporately experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity through entering into the kingdom of God. Beginning with this lesson we will go on to see the believers’ corporate experience of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity through their living in the church life.
Through regeneration we have entered into the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5), and now we are living in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. This is a corporate experience and is realized through the corporate enjoyment of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. First, we corporately experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by entering into the kingdom of God and living in the kingdom; as a result, we corporately experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by living in the church life (1 Tim. 3:15-16).
The Christian life has two aspects: the individual aspect and the corporate aspect. The divine dispensing is first for the individual Christian life and then for the corporate Christian life. The individual Christian life is a personal matter, whereas the corporate Christian life is a matter of the church.
According to the New Testament, the church and the kingdom are intimately related. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus declared, “Upon this rock I will build My church.” Then in verse 19 He spoke of the kingdom of the heavens. In these verses the terms the kingdom of the heavens and the church are used interchangeably. This is strong proof that the genuine church is the kingdom of the heavens in this age. This is confirmed by Romans 14:17, in which the kingdom of God is mentioned in obvious reference to the proper church life. Hence, today the church is the kingdom.
Although the church and the kingdom are intimately related, the two are distinct. In the natural realm, a kingdom is a constitution of life; hence, a kingdom is life itself. For example, the animal life is the animal kingdom, and the human life is the human kingdom. In the same principle, the life of God is the kingdom of God. However, the church is not life, nor is life the church. Rather, the church is a product of life. The divine life is the kingdom, and this life produces the church. Without the kingdom as the reality of the church, there would be no way for the church to be produced and built up. The kingdom is necessary for the producing and building up of the church. The kingdom is the reality of the church.
Wherever there is a lack of the reality of the kingdom, there is a lack of the building up of the church. A believer who does not live in the reality of the kingdom can, at most, be a saved person; he cannot be built into the structure of the church.
When the New Testament gospel was first preached, people were told to repent for the kingdom of the heavens had drawn near (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7). This declaration indicated that the time had come for God to dispense Himself as life into man. The gospel brought God as life, and this life is the kingdom. The kingdom is a realm of life that allows life to move, work, rule, and govern so that life can accomplish its goal. The gospel brought in the divine life, and the divine life is a realm, which is the kingdom. Ultimately, the divine life with its realm produces the church.
According to the New Testament revelation, the kingdom is the reality of the church. If we do not have a proper kingdom life, we cannot live the church life. Without the reality of the kingdom, the church is empty. The reality of the kingdom is Christ as our life. Christ as life is the essence, the element, for us to live a proper life so that in this life we can be built together with other believers to bring in the genuine church life, the glorious expression of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God. This expression depends on whether or not the believers live a life in the reality of the kingdom as revealed and described in Matthew 5 through 7. These few chapters contain a complete message concerning the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. This constitution is the reality of the kingdom life, and this reality is the real content of the church life.
In order to have the reality of the kingdom as the content of our church life, we need Christ to be our life and life supply. We need to experience and enjoy Christ as life through the dispensing of the Triune God into our being. Stanza 1 of Hymns, #841 speaks of Christ being our life for the building of the church:
Thou art all my life, Lord,
In me Thou dost live;
With Thee all God’s fulness
Thou to me dost give.
By Thy holy nature
I am sanctified,
By Thy resurrection,
Vict’ry is supplied.
The words Thou to me dost give refer to the divine dispensing. All God’s fullness has been given to us in Christ; this giving is the dispensing into us of all that the Triune God is, all that He has, and all that He does.
This hymn also says that we are sanctified by the Lord’s holy nature. Sanctification does not relate to sinless perfection. Rather, sanctification comes from the holy nature being dispensed into our being. The holy nature that is dispensed into us is the holy nature of the Triune God. The dispensing of God’s holy nature does not take place once for all; rather, it occurs daily, hourly, and continuously without interruption. The holy nature of the Triune God is being dispensed into us all the time. This dispensing causes us to be saturated with the holy essence of the Divine Trinity and thereby sanctifies us.
This hymn also speaks of the Lord’s resurrection power giving us the victory. In ourselves we have no way to overcome anything, no way to be victorious. In ourselves we are sinful and even deadened in our spirit. However, we have received the resurrected Christ as our life. In His resurrection He is dispensing Himself into us. Therefore, as we enjoy Him, we enjoy the resurrection life and power. This resurrection life and power enable us to subjectively overcome all negative things and matters. Moreover, through this life, which is Christ Himself, we are able to live a life according to the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens, a life that corresponds with the reality of the nature of the kingdom, which reality is the content of the church life.
By living in the kingdom, we corporately experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. As we live corporately in the kingdom life, spontaneously we live the church life. Hence, the kingdom life issues in the church life.
According to the revelation in the New Testament, the church is the organic Body of Christ. For the church to be the organic Body of Christ, the church must be constituted with Christ as life. The church is a pure issue out of Christ as typified by Eve in Genesis. Eve was produced completely, entirely, and purely out of Adam (Gen. 2:21-24). Within Eve there was nothing other than Adam. Besides the element of Adam, there was no other element in Eve. Therefore, Eve was a complete reproduction of Adam. Adam and Eve are a type of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:31-32). This type shows the relationship between Christ and the church. The church must issue from only one element—the element of Christ. Anything other than Christ is not the church.
Jehovah caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and He took one of Adam’s ribs and used the rib to build a woman (Gen. 2:21-22). In life, nature, and form, the woman was the same as the man. In like manner, God caused Christ to die on the cross. When Christ was “sleeping” on the cross, His side was opened, and blood and water flowed out from Him (John 19:34). The water signifies the flowing life of Christ, the eternal life, typified by the rib bone. According to John 19, not one of the Lord’s bones was broken on the cross. This fulfilled Psalm 34:20, which says, “He keeps all His bones; / Not one of them is broken.” Christ’s unbroken bones typify the indestructible eternal life. Hence, Adam’s rib typifies Christ’s indestructible eternal life, from which the church is built up to be the bride prepared for Christ.
Just as Eve and Adam had the same life and nature, so the church also has the same life and nature as Christ. Hence, the church is a part of Christ.
The church is produced through the flowing out of the life of the crucified Christ. This life is the source and the substance of the church. This life is Christ Himself. Christ is the element that constitutes us to be the proper church that matches Him. Therefore, if we desire to have the church life, we must have Christ as our life and living.
Today we have the processed Triune God with Christ as His embodiment and the Spirit as His consummation. Day by day we should open to Him, call upon Him, remain in His presence, fellowship with Him, and allow Him to work in us, to dispense all that He is, all that He has, and all that He has done and is doing into our being. The spontaneous result of this dispensing is that the kingdom life will become our church life.
The corporate kingdom life and the church life are the spontaneous results of the dispensing of the processed Triune God into us. In such a divine dispensing we are sanctified, spiritual, and victorious, and we grow unto maturity.
Our corporate experience of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity takes place through our living in the church life. According to the New Testament, the church is intimately related to the kingdom. The divine life is the kingdom, and this life produces the church. Therefore, we need the kingdom for the producing and building up of the church. The kingdom is the reality of the church. If we would have the reality of the kingdom as the content of our church life, we need to have Christ as our life and life supply. We need to experience and enjoy Christ as our life through the dispensing of the Triune God into our being.
According to the revelation of the New Testament, the church is the organic Body of Christ. For the church to be the organic Body of Christ, the church must be constituted with Christ as life to the believers. The church is a pure issue out of Christ, as typified by Eve in Genesis. Just as Eve and Adam had the same life and nature, so the church has the same life and nature as Christ. Hence, the church is part of Christ. Christ is the element that constitutes us to be the proper church that matches Him. If we desire to have the church life, we must have Christ as our life and our living. The corporate life and the church life are the spontaneous results of the dispensing of the processed Triune God into us. In such a divine dispensing, we are sanctified, spiritual, and victorious, and we grow unto maturity.