Build up the Church as the Temple of the Living God through our Experience of Christ

The Gospel of John is the gospel of Christ as life for the building up of the church as the temple of the living God; this building work is carried out through our experience and enjoyment of the crucified and resurrected Christ as the tree of life for the church. Amen!

We have seen that there’s a difference between the tabernacle church life and the temple church life, and that the Lord wants to gain a more solid, stable, glorious, and enlarged church life today.

We may even say that, at the end of this age, the Lord has a final recovery, which is to recover the function of all the members of the Body.

When we look around us in Christianity, we see mainly great preachers and teachers, great leaders of the church with leaders of praise and worship; where is the functioning of all the members?

The Body of Christ is composed of all the living believers in Christ, those who enjoy and experience Christ and who take in His word in a living way.

The believers in Christ are perfected by the gifted members so that they may function for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

Where is this functioning of the one-talented members of the Body?

The Lord wants to recover this among us.

He wants us all to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and learn to function in our measure in the Body.

Our meetings, especially our home meetings, group meetings, and prophesying meetings, should be like a round table meeting, where everyone can enjoy something and share something.

We all bring our portion of Christ to the meeting. It may seem like this will be quite chaotic, for who knows what will happen when you “give the power to the people”, that is, when you allow everyone to speak.

It is in such meetings, however, that the Lord has a way to speak through the members of His Body.

May we not despise our function or portion, and may we not covet other’s function and portion.

May we not look at others and think that, since we’re not like them, since we don’t have the same function and portion, we should never function.

Rather, may we exercise our spirit much more to enjoy Christ, partake of His riches, and prepare a portion of the surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church.

The testimony of the reality of the Body of Christ is God’s final recovery. He is recovering this among us.

He is recovering the function of all the members of the Body of Christ.

May we cooperate with Him in His work of recovering us so that we may participate in the building up of the church as the temple of the living God by experiencing the crucified and resurrected Christ as the tree of life for the church.

Through Christ’s Death and Resurrection, His Physical Body has been Increased to be His Corporate and Mystical Body, the Universal Temple of God!

In John 2:1-11 we see the first of the signs that the Lord did in His earthly ministry, the changing of water into wine; this signifies the changing of death into life.

The principle of life is to change death into life, and the purpose of life is, as seen in vv. 12-22, to build the church as the house of God, the temple of God.

The Lord Jesus was invited to a wedding in Cana with His disciples and, at one point, the wine ran out; He then changed the water into wine in His time and in His way, and this wine was even better than the first wine.

This signifies the changing of death into life; even after a long time of enjoyment and entertainment in the world, the “wine runs out”, and the Lord comes in to change death into life.

After changing death into life, the Lord declared, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (v. 19).

Of course, He was referring to the temple of His body, His physical body; through death, His body was put to death, but in His resurrection Christ raised His body.

Through His death, the destruction of His physical body on the cross, Christ bore our transgressions and iniquities to redeem and justify us, and His death was for the healing of our diseases (Isa. 53:4-6; Rom. 3:23-26; 1 Pet. 2:24).

The Jews put Him to death, but His death was not just murder; He bore our transgression, He redeemed us, He justified us, and He healed our diseases.

He went to the cross willingly, without asking the Father to come and deliver Him from this; He willingly went to die for us, and His physical body was put to death.

On the cross, He bore our sicknesses, carried our sorrows, and was wounded because of our transgressions.

He was crushed because of our iniquities, and by His stripes, we are healed.

Jehovah caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him, and He died an all-inclusive death to both destroy anything negative and to redeem us and reconcile us to God.

Death is the penalty for breaking God’s law, and God is righteous; however, the Righteous One died on behalf of the unrighteous, and now we can believe into Him and live. Hallelujah!

The destruction of the Lord’s physical body was also the destruction of the devil, who has the power of death, for when the Lord died on the cross, the old creation, the old man, the flesh, Satan, sin, sins, and the world were crucified on the cross (Heb. 2:14; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20; 5:24; John 1:29; 3:14; 6:70-71; 12:31; Matt. 16:23; 1 Cor. 15:3). Wow!

In God’s eyes, after Christ’s crucifixion, the entire universe has been cleared up. What a marvellous death!

The destruction of the Lord’s physical body and His being raised up in three days were also His dying as a grain of wheat (John 12:24) and resurrecting to release and dispense the divine life of God as the divine fire of God into us, His many believers, to make us the reproduction of Himself (Luke 12:49-51).

He likened Himself to the grain of wheat that died and bore much fruit in resurrection, and He said He wants to cast fire on earth, and how He wishes it were rekindled. Wow!

We are those who received this divine fire and the divine life has been dispensed into us! Hallelujah!

Through Christ’s death and resurrection, His physical body has been increased to be His corporate and mystical Body, which is the universal temple of God, the church as the house of the living God (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:5; Eph. 2:21-22). This is amazing!

The Jews put to death the small, weak, mortal physical body of Jesus, and Christ raised His mystical, enlarged, temple of God, the Body of Christ. Hallelujah!

The Lord’s physical body was put to death by the conspiring Roman politicians and Jewish religionists, and His flesh rested in the tomb for three days.

Then, after three days, Christ raised and enlarged His body to make it the Body of Christ, the universal temple of the living God, the church!

And we as the many believers in Christ are the many members of the Body of Christ, the many abodes in the house of the Father, which is the temple of God (John 14:2, 23; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 3:16-17).

God abides in us and we abide in God; we live in God and God lives in us. By faith in Jesus Christ, we are organically joined to Him, and He is joined to us; in this organic union, we live a crucified life for Him to be expressed through us.

It is so amazing to see that, through His death and resurrection, Christ raised His Body and enlarged it to include and contain all the believers in Christ throughout the ages, making it His mystical and spiritual Body as the temple of God.

Praise the Lord for Christ’s death and resurrection! Thank You, dear Lord Jesus, for dying for us to bear our transgressions and iniquities. Thank You for redeeming us and justifying us through your death. Hallelujah, through His death Christ destroyed the devil, who has the power of death! Praise the Lord, the old creation, the old man, the flesh, Satan, sin, sins, and the world were all crucified on the cross in Christ’s death! Amen, Lord, we praise You for Your wonderful, all-terminating death. We praise You for Your resurrection, in which You raised Your Body and enlarged it to make it the corporate and mystical Body of Christ! Hallelujah, we were raised with Christ to be the many members of the Body of Christ, part of the universal temple of God, the church as the house of the living God! We praise You, Lord Jesus, for Your death and resurrection!

Build up the Church as the Temple of the Living God through our Experience and Enjoyment of the Crucified and Resurrected Christ as the Tree of Life

The tree of life is Christ Himself to be our life and life supply; more accurately, the tree of life is the crucified and resurrected Christ to be our life and life supply for us to live because of Him and become part of Him as the tree of life.

The Gospel of John is the gospel of Christ as life for the building up of the church as the temple of the living God.

In this gospel we see how Christ came to be our life; He came to be the tree of life for us to partake of, enjoy, experience, and take in again and again in many situations, circumstances, and things.

Our death is changed into life, our sicknesses are healed, our hunger is quenched, and resurrection life operates in us to raise us up and make us those who live the church life.

We need to enjoy the crucified and resurrected Christ as the tree of life for the building up of the church as the temple of the living God.

The building work of the church as the temple of the living God is carried out through our experience and enjoyment of the crucified and resurrected Christ as the tree of life (Rev. 2:4-7; 1 Pet. 2:24; John 11:25; 6:57, 63; 2 Cor. 6:16).

Christ went through death and resurrection and, in resurrection, He reproduced Himself and was enlarged and increased to be the Body of Christ, the mystical and spiritual Body of Christ including all the believers in Christ.

We are the many grains produced by Christ’s life-releasing death and the many abodes of Christ’s mystical Body produced by Christ’s life-dispensing resurrection. Hallelujah!

Now we need to just love Him to the uttermost in our living a crucified life for the manifestation of the resurrection life by the power of the treasure in our earthen vessels (John 14:21, 23; Rom. 8:28-29; 2 Cor. 4:7-18; 12:7-9).

Just give yourself to love the Lord and experience Him. As sufferings come, as trials come our way, we simply need to ask the Lord to cause us to love Him more; we to allow Him to constrain us with His love.

We shouldn’t think that God needs to do a miracle for us to save us from a particularly hard or unpleasant situation.

We should not be terrified by Satan’s activity; instead, we should realize that it is such a situation that will allow the Lord to manifest His resurrection life.

When the Lord Jesus was about to be taken and brought to the cross, He didn’t pray that the Father would rescue Him and destroy His opponents.

Rather, He allowed Satan to do his best to destroy His physical body, knowing that this afforded the Lord the opportunity to do much more.

Oftentimes we may sense death in the church life or in our situation, and we may ask God to make a miracle and remove this thing or change that person.

But the Lord’s unique sign is death and resurrection; we need to follow the Lord Jesus and allow ourselves to be put to death.

The sign needed in the building up of the church as the temple of the living God is our experience of the crucified and resurrected Christ.

Today we are still in the “three days” before the Lord’s Body is fully resurrected; we are still in the process of resurrection and transformation.

Death may operate, Satan may do his best to damage the church and bring in division, but we just love the Lord and let ourselves be put to death for His sake, realizing that life will operate in us and in others also (2 Cor. 4:12).

The Lord Jesus is always more prevailing than the enemy; we shouldn’t desperately pray to be rescued from a situation or from the problems and trials; rather, we need to experience the crucified and resurrected Christ and just love Him, so that we may build up the church as the temple of the living God.

As members of the Body, we are still in the process of resurrection; we are still being transformed, and the Lord will continue to work on us until we will fully be conformed to the image of Christ to become in full the temple of the living God.

Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy You and experience You as the crucified and resurrected Christ for the building up of the church. Come in, dear Lord, and change all our death into life. Work Yourself into us for the building up of the church as the temple of the living God. Constrain us with Your love and never let us win. Make us willing to go to death and be conformed to Your death by the power of Your resurrection. We love You, Lord Jesus, and we are willing to allow You to do what You need to do in us for the manifestation of the resurrection life so that our vessel may be conformed to the treasure it contains. Hallelujah, we are in the process of enjoying and experiencing the crucified and resurrected Christ as the tree of life for the building up of the church as the temple of the living God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message, and portions from, Life-study of John, pp. 84-87, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of 1 and 2 Kings (2022 summer training), week 6, entitled, Going on with the Lord from the Tabernacle Church Life to the Temple Church Life for the Building up of the Body of Christ as the Temple of the Living God.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – When we receive Thee as our life, / Thy nature we thru grace possess; / Mingled together, we with Thee / One Body glorious will express. / When flows Thy life thru all our souls, / Filling, renewing every part, / We will be pearls and precious stones, / Changed to Thine image, as Thou art. (Hymns #837, stanzas 3 and 4)
  – All the gifted persons given / To the Body by the Head / Are to aid the Church’s building, / That to fulness she be led. / All the gifts and all the functions, / All the spirit’s power shown, / All the ministries are given / For the Church and that alone. (Hymns #914, stanzas 2 and 3)
  – As from out the buried kernel / Many grains are formed, / As the grains together blended / To a loaf are formed; / So the Church, of many Christians, / Christ doth multiply, / Him expressing as one Body, / God to glorify. (Hymns #819, stanzas 3 and 4)