Being Blended in the Body Life and having the Humanity of Jesus for the Church life

In order for us to be a meal offering church life for God’s satisfaction and man’s supply, we need to be blended in the Body of Christ and have the humanity of Jesus for the Lord’s recovery. God and man are hungry.

God is hungry for the God-man living of Christ being lived out in the members of His Body, and man is hungry for God and for a living that has the highest standard of morality.

As believers in Christ, we can partake of Christ at the meal offering and become the reproduction of Christ – the church as a corporate meal offering.

In Romans 8 we see how the Spirit has come into us to mingle Himself with us, how we are being conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, how we should live in resurrection by the Spirit to put to death the practices of the body, and how we become the reproduction of Christ. This is what the Lord is after today.

Christ came as an individual God-man, the first God-man, to not only accomplish redemption but live a God-man life, a life of the meal offering for God’s satisfaction and man’s supply and nourishment.

Then He went through death and resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit and be enlarged to be the Body of Christ, and we as His many members are His duplication, His reproduction, His enlargement.

Now we are the Lord’s continuation on earth, His extension and expansion, and we need to live the same kind of life that the Lord lived on earth. How can we live such a life? How can we have a living that is a repetition of the Lord’s living on earth, a life of the highest standard of morality, a life of the mingling of the divine attributes with the human virtues?

It is not by imitating Christ but by eating Christ as the meal offering so that we may be constituted with Christ and become the enlargement of Christ as the meal offering – the church as the corporate Christ, the corporate meal offering.

When we eat Christ, we are filled and saturated with Him, He will live in us the same kind of life He lived when He was on earth.

As we eat Christ as the meal offering by practicing to pray over God’s word, saying Amen to His word, and applying His word to our daily living in spirit, we will become a corporate meal offering, and Christ with the church will be a meal offering for God and man to eat, be satisfied with, and enjoy.

Two particular aspects of the meal offering that we want to get into today is the need for us to be blended together into one Body – just as the fine flour was blended with the oil, and the need for the humanity of Jesus for the Lord’s recovery.

Being Blended in the Body Life for the Meal Offering Church Life and the Fulfillment of God’s Economy

We need to be blended together into one Body by living the meal offering church life. The meal offering is a type of the blending for the fulfillment of God’s economy (Lev. 2:4; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:24; John 12:24).

The meal offering consists of cakes made of fine flour mingled with oil; every part of the flour was mixed, mingled, with the oil to become a lump, a dough, that was to be baked. This is blending. As the church, we are a bread, a loaf, made of fine flour (our humanity which is uplifted and resurrected) and oil (the Spirit mingling Himself with every part of our being).

Christ came as the unique grain of wheat, died by falling into the ground, and in resurrection He was multiplied and grew to produce many grains – which is us, the believers in Christ (John 12:24). Now we as the many grains are the Lord’s reproduction, and we are being ground into fine flour for making the cake, the bread, of the church.

We are being mingled with the Spirit so that we may be one bread, the corporate meal offering.

What does it mean for us to be blended in the Body life for the meal offering church life? In order to be blended in the Body life, the meal offering church life, we have to go through the cross and be by the Spirit, dispensing Christ to others for the sake of the Body of Christ.

We need to be blended together so that we may be harmonised, adjusted, and tempered in the Body life, to be mingled with the Spirit, and to dispense Christ to others for the sake of the Body of Christ. Everything that we do in the church life should be by the Spirit to dispense Christ.

Also, we shouldn’t do things for our interest or according to our taste, but do everything for the church as the Body of Christ. When we are about to do something, we need to fellowship with the Lord and with the saints. Fellowshipping with the saints will cause us to be tempered, adjusted, harmonised, and mingled.

To be blended doesn’t mean that we are loud or quiet, zealous or passive; being blended is a matter of being tempered. The Lord is the One who blends the Body together, but we need to be open to His blending, and do everything in spirit and by the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:24).

Blending is in spirit and by the Spirit, and blending is for the building up of the church. Blending also affects our soul, for in the fellowship with others our natural being, our self, and our soul life is being exposed and dealt with.

If we allow the cross to operate in our fellowship in the Body, we will be tempered, we will be adjusted, and we will be balanced; furthermore, we will be mingled with the Spirit and we will be built up with the saints to be a corporate meal offering, the church life.

We need to learn to be blended in the Body life; blending restricts us, blending causes us to lose our distinctions and saves us from leaving the impress of our personality upon the church’s life and work, so that Christ can be all and in all (see Col. 3:10-11).

Fellowship stops us, adjusts us, harmonizes us, tempers us, and brings us into being a loaf, a cake, for the enjoyment of God and man.

Lord Jesus, we want to be blended in the Body life for the meal offering church life and the fulfillment of God’s economy. May everything we do be done through the cross and be by the Spirit, dispensing Christ to others for the sake of the Body of Christ. Lord, we open to Your blending work, for it is You who is blending the members of the Body together. May we learn to fellowship so that we may be tempered, adjusted, harmonized, and mingled, thus losing our distinctions and being mingled with the Spirit and one with the saints for the Lord to gain a corporate Christ as the meal offering for God’s satisfaction and man’s supply!

Possessing the Humanity of Jesus for the Lord’s Recovery to Stand against the Degradation

When Paul wrote the letters to Timothy and Titus, the situation in the churches was one of degradation and ruin, and the same was the situation in society.

Today we are in a similar situation, for the situation in the church is degraded and ruined, and the situation in society in general is going downhill, with no morality, ethics, or integrity.

How can God gain a corporate meal offering with such a ruined, corrupted, and degraded humanity? We need to have and possess the humanity of Jesus for the Lord’s recovery, especially in today’s age of degradation. Who will stand against the tide of this age, and what will enable us to stand for the Lord’s testimony today?

As seen in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, what causes us to stand against the tide of this age and the degradation of the church is not the divine power but the humanity of Jesus.

The humanity of Jesus is what is needed today for the church life and the church service. What we need today is the divine attributes saturating, permeating, and being expressed through our human virtues.

What makes us useful in the Lord’s hands is not only our knowledge of the word or ability to explain the deeper things in the Bible, but our humanity, as it is being saturated with the humanity of Jesus.

When Paul wrote to Timothy, he didn’t tell him to seek to have the divine power or authority to live and serve in the church life, but to be an example to others in word, in love, and in the way he conducted himself – all of which are matters related to his humanity.

We need to have a strong, adequate, and proper humanity in order to have the Lord’s recovery in such a degraded time as today.

What causes us to stand strong for the Lord and receive the oiling / anointing of the Spirit for the meal offering church life is our humanity, as it is being saturated and permeated with Christ to express the humanity of Jesus.

In these end times people are lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, and not lovers of good or lovers of God (see 2 Tim. 2:19-3:14).

The world is corrupted and corrupting day by day. In the midst of this degradation and corruption, the Lord raised us up to be in the Lord’s recovery, and we want to practice the church life as revealed in the Word of God.

We need to stand against the downward trend today and stand as an anti-testimony, a pillar in this downward tide. What should we do? Should we try to get involved in politics to change something in our country? Should we seek to have authority so that we may “make things better in this world”? No.

What we need is to stand up with the uplifted humanity of Jesus. We are in a situation that requires the humanity of Jesus for the Lord’s recovery. Such a humanity is not just mere humanity, but the God-enriched humanity, the divinely enriched humanity of Jesus being lived out in us.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we want to stand for You against the tide of this age. Infuse us with Your humanity so that we may be able to stand as an anti-testimony against the corruption in the world and the degradation in the church. Lord, may we be those who possess the divinely enriched humanity of Jesus today, so that we may be mingled with the Spirit and become the meal offering for You to eat and be satisfied, and for others to eat and touch something of God. Make us those who have a proper humanity, the humanity needed for the building up of the church!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1971, vol. 2, “Christ as the Reality,” ch. 16, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 5, Eating Christ as the Meal Offering to Become the Reproduction of Christ for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Once Thou wast the only grain, Lord, / Falling to the earth to die, / That thru death and resurrection / Thou in life may multiply. / We were brought forth in Thy nature / And the many grains became; / As one loaf we all are blended, / All Thy fulness to proclaim. (Hymns #203)
  # Blend us, Lord, blend us, Lord, ’til we are in one accord. / Hallelujah—the saints going on! / Blend us, Lord, blend us, Lord, open hearts we can afford. / Hallelujah—the churches go on! / As the members of / His organic Body, / We need the others to go on. / As local churches, / We do also need / One another for our going on. (Song on being blended in the Body)
  # The more we eat and drink Him / In His humanity, / The more we may enjoy Him / While feasting corporately. / What fellowship, what fellowship / With God and man we share! / O what a joy, O what a feast / With all God’s people here. (Hymns #1104)