In God’s Building, the Mingling of God with Man, Christ is Everything

The entire Bible talks about one thing: God’s building. The Bible is a book of building, and God’s purpose as revealed in all the Scriptures is that He desires to have a building. If we see the vision of God’s building, we will have a correct understanding of the Bible.

The age we live in today, the age of the church, is an age of building – Christ is building His church (Matt. 16:18). Before He returns, Christ must obtain the built-up church. The desire of God’s heart and the goal of God’s salvation is God’s building.

In Exodus we see this clearly, as God brought His people into the wilderness to unveil His heart to them – He desires a tabernacle, a building, where He can dwell with man, communicate with man, and be one with man. Today it is the same – when the church is built up, the Lord can return. Only the built up church can hasten the Lord’s return.

All God’s efforts today are focused on building the church, the Body of Christ. God does a lot of things, but all His efforts and works are part of His building work. If we disassociate God’s works and activities from God’s primary work of building, we deviate from the central line in the Bible.

We need to see God’s building, and we need to see that the highest requirement of those who seek God is to be built up together. The highest virtue of one who truly pursues the Lord and enjoys Him is that he is part of the building: he is built in!

What is God’s Building?

If all of God’s efforts and activities in this age are focused on the building, we need to realize that God’s building is something very high and precious.

God’s building is not something trivial, something low, something we “mentally understand and agree with”. We need the Lord to shine on us that we may see what God’s building is.

There are some particular utterances by brother Witness Lee in his ministry concerning what God’s building is.

God’s building is the mingling of God with man, the corporate expression of the Triune God, and the enlargement of God.  (John 3:30; Eph. 3:17) God’s desire is to build Himself into man and build man into Himself.

The central thought of the entire Bible is that God is seeking a building – not a physical, material building made by man with stones and wood or precious materials, but a spiritual building, a building that is the mingling of Himself with humanity.

God doesn’t want “improved human beings” or “moral people who obey His word in the Bible”; what God desires is to mingle Himself with us in many ways and many situations. In our family life, our job, our church life, our service, etc – in everything, He wants to mingle Himself with us. Lord, mingle Yourself with me more!

God’s building is the Triune God as life being wrought into us that we may become His corporate expression, the enlargement and expansion of God.  (John 3:29, 14:10; 1 John 4:15; 1 Tim. 3:15-16) This means that God wants to make us His corporate expression on earth and in the universe.

The only way we can express something or someone is if we have that particular life – we have God’s life in us, and this life needs to saturate us and transform us until we express God. The processed Triune God as the Spirit is in our spirit and is spreading into our soul to saturate us and radiate from us.

The more we enjoy the Lord and allow Him to operate in our being, the more we grow in life, and God grows in us for the growth of the Body of Christ. Wow, God is enlarged and expanded in us more and more so that He would expressed through us corporately!

Christ is the Rock, the Living Stone, the Foundation Stone, and the Cornerstone

Since God’s building is something living, all the components of His building are organic. Even more, in God’s building Christ is everything – Christ is the rock, the living stone, the foundation stone, and the corner stone.

Christ is everything in God’s building, and as He is working Himself into us daily, we become “stonified” – being made living stones suitable for God’s building. We are clay, men of dust, but through the process of transformation we are being made into precious stones.

Daily, the Triune God as life is being wrought into us continually to make us His corporate expression for His enlargement on earth. Let us see more concerning Christ as everything in God’s building:

Christ is the Rock – the Rock of Ages (see Matt. 16:18). God’s building is built on the rock, the Rock of Ages, which is Christ as the embodiment of God (see Col. 2:9) and as the consummation of the Triune God (after all the steps of His process – incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension).

The unique rock on which God’s temple is built is the processed Triune God (see Matt. 28:19; John 1:14; 20:22; 1 Cor. 15:45). We are not the rock; the apostles are not the rock; Christ is the rock!

Christ is the Living Stone for God’s Building (1 Pet. 2:4). Christ is not a stone, but a living stone – a stone that possesses life and that grows in life. We come to Christ, a living stone, and we are being also made stones – living stones!

Christ came into us as the seed of life, and He is growing in us daily, making us living stones. He is working His stone nature into us to make us not just living, but living stones – those who can be built with others into His spiritual house (1 Pet. 1:23; 2:2-5; Eph. 2:22).

Though men of clay by creation (Rom. 9:21), we were regenerated with God’s life and we are now in the process of transformation into living stones, precious stones. How we need to be transformed into living-stone-men! By growth in life, the divine life in us not only expands and grows in us but also transform us.

Eventually, we will all become precious stone – in the New Jerusalem there’s no clay, only transformed precious stones. Lord, grow in us! Cause the stone to grow in us! Make us building and builded members of Your spiritual house!

Christ is the Foundation Stone (1 Cor. 3:11). Christ has already been laid as the unique foundation stone for God’s building, and He as the all-inclusive One is the only One qualified to be the foundation stone. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and He is the foundation stone – nothing and no one other than He is qualified to be the foundation of God’s building.

In God’s eternal economy, Christ is the unique One to be the foundation of God’s building. We love the Lord and we appreciate the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, but these two are NOT the foundation stone. Christ and Christ alone is our unique foundation. We are rooted and grounded in Him, we take Him as the foundation, and in Him we grow into a spiritual house, God’s building!

Christ is the Cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). As the cornerstone, Christ joins “the two walls”, the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. In Christ we are all part of the new man, and there’s no distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, learned and unlearned, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, but Christ is all and in all.

In the church life God has joined us together in His Body – we are of different backgrounds, cultures, colors, tempers, etc – but Christ as the cornerstone makes us one with the ones different than us for His building.

No matter whether we are Jew or Gentile, we all have been saved by Christ to be joined in Him for God’s building. This is God’s intention, to join us to Himself in spirit and to join us to all His believers into His building through Christ as the cornerstone! Hallelujah for Christ as the cornerstone!

Lord Jesus, grow in us! Lord, grow in all the saints for the building of Your house! Gain Your building! May we give all for what You desire, the building up of Your house. Lord, transform us. Lord, fill us with Your stone nature. Lord, work Yourself into us. Make us the same as You are in Your stone nature. We stand on You as the foundation stone, and we take You as the cornerstone to be joined to all the saints in Your Body. Lord, You are the living stone – we come to You to be transformed into living and precious stones for Your building!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from brother Ron Kangas’ sharing in this message and portions in, Life-study of John (msg. 1), and, The Vision of God’s Building (ch. 11), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on Crystallization-Study of Daniel and Zechariah, week 8 (entitled, Christ as the Stone with the Seven Eyes of Jehovah for God’s Building).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # On Christ, salvation rests secure; / The Rock of Ages must endure; / Nor can that faith be overthrown / Which rests upon the “Living Stone.”
  # Christ is made the sure foundation, / Christ the head and cornerstone, / Chosen of the Lord and precious, / Binding all the Church in one; / Holy Zion’s help forever, / And her confidence alone.
  # Thou art the Rock everlasting, / Spiritual Rock cleft for me; / Drinking of Thee as the Spirit, / Thus I become one with Thee.