The extent of the reality of the church life we possess depends upon the degree to which we have been perfected into one. Often we sing the words, “We are one.” But how much are we actually one? It all depends on how much we have been transformed by the Triune God and even with the Triune God. It is not a shallow or insignificant thing to claim to be the church. The church is not merely the divine person or merely human beings. The church is the divine Being wrought into human beings. This is deep. When some Christian teachers hear of this, they may oppose it and say that it is some kind of mysticism. But this is not mysticism or philosophy; it is the truth in the depths of the Holy Word.
My intention in this message is to point out that the Lord builds His church by baptizing people into the person of the Triune God. In the Gospel of John we see how we are put into the Triune God. John 14 reveals that the Lord Jesus is one with the Father and that He is also the indwelling Spirit, in whom we all have been baptized and in whom we all can be perfected into one. We have seen that in John 17 the Lord prayed that all His believers would be perfected into one. This oneness is the church. The Lord’s perfecting us into one is His building up of the church.
The Lord builds the church firstly by immersing us into the Triune God and secondly by perfecting us into one through the process of transformation. Again I say that transformation is the flowing into our being of the divine essence and the replacing of our natural element. The way to build the church is not to try to get close to one another. This is organization, the equivalent of putting wooden boards together to make a table. Organization is a matter of putting people together, but, according to the Bible, building is a matter of our being transformed into one person, into the Triune God. We all must be transformed into the divine person. The degree to which we can be built up with the brothers depends upon the degree of our transformation. By our natural life we cannot be built into one. If we would have genuine building, we must be transformed by the divine person and even with the divine person. The issue of this transformation is oneness, and the enlargement of this oneness is the church. The church is the oneness among those who have been transformed from the natural being into the divine Being. Although we remain human, we have been transformed into the divine Being, for the divine Being has been wrought into us. As a result, we are the church. Consider again the illustration of petrified wood. Because the mineral essence has been wrought into the wood to replace the wooden essence, the wood eventually becomes a stone. This kind of transformation is for the building of the church.
More than forty years ago, I did a great deal of admonishing. For example, I saw that one elder was very bold and that another elder was very timid. Due to this, they were not one. Therefore, I visited the bold one, and looked for the opportunity to say a word. When the right opportunity came, I said, “Brother, in the church life we are a group of brothers. Some like you are rather bold, and others, like Brother So-and-so, are timid. But we all must be one. Brother, I hope that from now on you will not be so bold and that Brother So-and-so will not be so timid.” The brother nodded his head in agreement and said, “Brother Lee, I am always bold. I was born this way. What can I do about it? I will look to the Lord that by His grace He will help me not to be so bold anymore.” I replied, “That’s fine, brother. I will pray for you.” I conducted myself like a good pastor. After a few days, I visited the other brother and waited for the opportunity to speak a word to him. At the proper time, I said, “Brother, it is wonderful in the church life to be humble, slow, and patient. But it is quite another thing to be timid.” Then the brother said, “Brother Lee, I was born a timid person.” To this I responded, “Since you realize that you are timid, you must pray to the Lord that you may become strong and bold.” Upon hearing this, the brother said, “Yes, I will pray that I may be strong and bold.” Again, I behaved like a good pastor. However, the following week the bold brother was still bold, and the timid brother was even more timid. My way did not work. Later, I tried another way, telling the bold brother to be bold and the timid brother to be timid. Eventually, they were transformed and said, “Brother Lee, you told us to be bold and you told us to be timid. But something within has changed us.” Through experiences like this I learned that I was pastoring a church, not building up the church.
In the seminary the ministerial students study psychology. Although I never went to a seminary, in the past I did practice a certain amount of psychology. The word I ministered was the word of psychology. Although psychology may enable you to pastor a church, it will not help you to build up the church. The way to build up a church is to put people into the person of the Triune God and to help them drink of the one Spirit that the flow of the divine life within them may carry away their natural essence and replace it with the divine essence. However, the more we pastor people in a psychological way, the more difficulties we shall have. Psychological pastoring merely feeds the natural life and nourishes it. I hope that we all shall see that the building of the church is the working of the divine person into our being. This produces oneness. In these days we are being perfected into one.