Praise the Lord, the Body of Christ – His continuation and extension on earth – is the fullness of Christ for His expression on earth!
The function of the Body is to express Christ, for the universally great Christ needs a Body to be His fullness, His expression, and this is what we are today, as the extension and continuation of Christ on earth.
This week we are enjoying and prayerfully considering the first two main principles of the Body, that is, the oneness of the Body and the function of the Body.
These are organic principles that control our being the Body of Christ, and we need to see these principles and be under a governing vision, and we need to be diligent to keep the principles of the Body of Christ so that we may live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
When we speak of the Body of Christ, the first governing principle is oneness; the Body of Christ has many members and each member has its own function, but the main principle of the Body is its oneness.
The Body is one; there are many members, but the Body is one, so we need to keep the oneness of the Body by keeping the oneness of the Spirit. There is no reason for division in the Body; if we have any reason for division, this means that we do not keep the principles of the Body and we do not live in the reality of the Body.
If we are right in many things but we are divided from the Body, then all the right reasons mean nothing, for the first principle of the Body is oneness. May we pay the price to keep the oneness of the Body by living in the mingled spirit and walking according to the spirit.
Oneness is not in our mind – oneness is in our regenerated spirit, so we need to live and be in the divine and mystical realm of the pneumatic Christ and the consummated Spirit.
When we turn to our spirit, when we live in the mingled spirit, we are mingled with the Triune God for the keeping of the oneness. The second main principle of the Body is its function, which is not mainly to move or do things but to express Christ.
The church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all and in all.
As we enjoy the riches of Christ in His word through our prayer and exercise of the Spirit, as we assimilate these riches into our being, and as we are constituted with Christ in all His riches, we become His fullness, His expression.
We as the Body of Christ are the Fullness of Christ through our Enjoyment of His Riches
The function of the Body is primarily to express Christ. When Christ was on the earth, He had a human body which expressed Him, and His personality and words were made manifest.
Through His death and resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit to regenerate many believers for His Body; now His Body is a mystical Body, a spiritual Body, the Body of Christ; we are now the continuation of Christ, and as His Body we express Him.
God subjected all things under Christ’s feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all and in all (Eph. 1:22-23).
No individual member of our body can express us fully; similarly, no individual member of the Body of Christ can fully express Christ. It takes the whole Body of Christ to manifest Him and express Him.
The universally great Christ needs a Body to be His fullness, His expression. How can we become the fullness of Christ? The fullness of Christ issues from the enjoyment of the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8; 1:22-23).
When we enjoy the riches of Christ, we become His fullness to express Him. The fullness of Christ is Christ experienced by us and constituted into us. The objective riches of Christ – which are outside of us – become the subjective fullness of Christ, and this fullness is the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is not a metaphor expressing a spiritual reality; the Body of Christ is a reality, a divine fact – the church is, in reality, the mystical Body of Christ.
As the Body of Christ, the function of the church is to express Christ. Christ – who fills all and in all – needs the church as His Body to express Him, to be His fullness.
The church is not only filled with Christ and His riches; the church is the fullness of Christ as the saints enjoy the riches of Christ and are constituted with these riches.
What are the riches of Christ? The entire Bible reveal to us the riches of Christ. There are many clear, obvious riches of Christ for the Body; He lived because of the Father, He lived not by Himself or by His natural life, and He did everything out from and in oneness with the Father.
Such a One is the riches – what He lived, what He has attained and obtained, all are in the all-inclusive Spirit as the unsearchable riches of Christ for us to enjoy.
When we enjoy the riches of Christ and are constituted with these riches, we spontaneously become the fullness of Christ.
The riches of Christ are boundless, immeasurable, and unsearchable, so we as the believers in Christ need to eat these riches, get them assimilated into us, and be filled with this riches; the result is that we become the fullness of Christ.
The fullness of Christ is Christ experienced by us, assimilated by us, and constituted into our being to become our very element; this is the fullness, which is the Body of Christ.
In ourselves, in our natural man, we are not a member of Christ; only when the life and nature of Christ enter into us do we become a member of Christ, and only what is of Christ wrought into our being is part of the Body of Christ.
Christ entered into us to regenerate us, and He needs to continue to enter into us, to dispense His element into us, in order to constitute us.
As a result, our entire being – from the inside to the outside – will pass through a process of being thoroughly reconstituted, so that we no longer remain natural but are being transformed.
As transformed human beings, as those who are constituted with the riches of Christ which have been assimilated into our being, we are the Body of Christ, the fullness of Christ.
The Body of Christ is the fullness of Christ, which comes out of our enjoyment of the riches of Christ. When the riches of Christ enter into us and become subjective to us, being assimilated into our being to become the very element of our inner being, we become the Body of Christ, the fullness of Christ, to express Christ.
Then we will no longer live and express ourselves but Christ will live in us and He will be expressed through us, as Gal. 2:20 testifies.
When we allow Christ to live in us, we put Him on and put off our old man; in this new man there’s no nationality or race or color but Christ is all and in all.
Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy Your riches and have them assimilated and constituted into our being until we are the Body of Christ, the fullness of Christ, for the corporate expression of God. Amen, Lord, may the universally great Christ gain a Body as His fullness, His expression. May all the members of the Body enjoy the riches of Christ and have these riches assimilated into our being until we become the fullness of Christ, the Body of Christ, to express Him! Amen, Lord, gain such a new man who lives Christ and expresses Christ!
The Body of Christ is the Extension and Continuation of Christ on Earth Today
The Body of Christ is the extension and continuation of Christ on earth today; extension is a matter of space, and continuation is a matter of time. In time and space, the Body of Christ is the extension and continuation of Christ on the earth.
Everything of Christ should be manifested and expressed through His Body, His fullness. Today Christ reveals Himself not merely directly as the Head but through the church, which is His Body, His expression, His continuation, and His fullness.
In Acts 9:4 we see how Paul was persecuting the disciples of Jesus and he was met by the Lord, the risen Head of the Body; he then realised that he wasn’t persecuting merely some people on earth but the continuation of Jesus, the Body of Christ.
How could he persecute people on earth and yet the Lord Jesus in heaven would be persecuted? Paul realised that there’s a great universal man with Christ as the Head and the Body on earth composed with the believers in Christ.
The Body of Christ is the continuation of Christ on the earth, His extension on earth today.
In 1 Cor. 12:12 we see that even as the Body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the Body being many are one Body, so also is the Christ.
Just as Christ was on earth, so is His Body on earth today. When people saw Christ, they saw a great light; wherever He went, God was shining through Him – through His speaking, His attitude, His works, and His being. Today the believers in Christ are the light of the world, and the meetings of the church are full of light.
When someone comes among us, as seen in 1 Cor. 14, and we all prophesy and function, the Lord shines on them, He exposes their heart, and they fall to the ground, worship God, and declare that God is truly among us.
Outwardly we may dress poorly and speak poorly, we may not be that well-educated or well-spoken, but when we come together and prophesy, we are the continuation and the extension of Christ! Wow!
The glorious Christ – the One who fills all and in all – needs a group of people who would express Him and be His extension on the earth. Even as the Lord was on earth, so we as His Body are; as He lived, so we live, and as He walked, so we walk.
We need to enjoy the riches of Christ, be constituted with His riches, and allow these riches to be assimilated into our being, so that we become the fullness of Christ, the Body of Christ who expresses Him richly.
Hallelujah, we as the Body of Christ are the extension and continuation of Christ on earth today! Christ today lives on earth through us, His believers, His extension and His continuation! Amen, Lord, we want to enjoy You with all Your riches, have You assimilated into our being, and be constituted with the riches of Christ so that we may be the fullness of Christ, His corporate expression on earth today! Lord, be expressed through us. Be the One living in us. Be the One shining through us. May we be Jesus living again in a corporate way for God’s expression in humanity!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by the brothers for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 3, “One Body, One Spirit, and One New Man,” ch. 2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 2, The Oneness of the Body and the Function of the Body.
- Hymns on this topic:
# O the riches, O the riches, / Christ my Savior has for me! / How unsearchable their measure, / Yet my full reality! / May I know these boundless riches, / Christ experience in full; / And with others may I share them / In their content bountiful. (Hymns #542)
# Riches of Christ we should enjoy / And then His fulness we will be; / Partaking of His very self, / His testimony men will see. / Riches of Christ are what He is / To us who are His members true; / His fulness is what we become / As body doth to man accrue. (Hymns #820)
# As the body is the fulness / To express our life, / So to Christ the Church, His Body, / Doth express His life. / So the Church’s many members / Christ’s enlargement are, / One with Him in life and living, / Spreading Him afar. (Hymns #819)
About aGodMan
