Christ Laid Down His Soul Life so that We may Enjoy His Divine Life for the Church

The entire Bible is a book of life, and the gospel of John in particular is a book focusing on God as life for God’s building. What is life? Life is the Triune God Himself.

The Lord Jesus came that we may have life and may have it abundantly (John 10:10). He came that we may have the abundant life who is the Triune God. Christ laid down His soul life (psuche) for us so that we may enjoy His divine life abundantly (John 10:10-11). Through His death and resurrection, Christ released the divine life from Him and He imparted it into His chosen people.

This life has a result and a purpose – the divine life is not aimless. The operation, the grace, and the action of the divine life that has been mercifully given to us by God is intended to produce the church as the goal of God’s life. Christ desires to have a church, and the purpose of the Triune God in His dispensing of His life is to gain the church. The goal of the shepherding of Christ as the Good Shepherd is for the church.

In the Gospel of John we don’t have even one mention of “the church”, but there are many verses which allude to it. We need to see that Christ as the good shepherd laid down His human life to accomplish redemption for His sheep (that is, for us) so that they may share in His divine life and become the church, His flock, the Father’s house.

Our view of the church needs to be uplifted that we may see what the church is in God’s eyes as revealed in the many types in the gospel of John. The church is not a work – the church is an organism, the Body of Christ.

The church is the “one flock under one Shepherd”, the Father’s house, the vine with the branches, the bride, the house of God, the blending of the many grains of wheat, and the oneness.

The Triune God as Life Brings forth the Church

If we read the Gospel of John carefully under the divine light and with the help of the ministry which opens up the word of God we will realize that the Triune God as life brings forth the church. The purpose of God being life is so that He may produce the church as a Body for Christ, a vine tree with the branches which express Him, the Father’s house, and so many other wonderful aspects.

Even though the word “church” is not mentioned in the gospel of John, many verses allude to the church. There are at least eight specific aspects of the church revealed in the Gospel of John:

1. The church is the house of God (John 2:16-22). The Lord told the Jews, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again. This He spoke not merely of His physical body but of the church – His mystical body in resurrection. The church as the house of God was produced in Christ’s resurrection to be Christ’s mystical Body.
2. The church is the Bride (John 3:26-30). John the Baptist recognized Christ as the Lamb-Bridegroom – He came as the Lamb of God to redeem us and to betroth us to Himself as His bride. We were sons of disobedience and children of Satan, but through regeneration the divine life was put into us and we as the many sons of God became the bride of Christ!
3. The church is the flock (John 10:16). The many believers in Christ are the many sheep, and Christ is the good Shepherd. He leads some out of the fold, while He brings other along the way – and there will be one flock, one Shepherd.
4. The church is the gathering of the children into one (John 11:52). The children are scattered but Christ brings them together and makes them one in the church. This bringing together of the scattered children is a sign of the church.
5. The church is the loaf made of the blended grains of wheat (John 12:24). Christ as the one grain went through death and resurrection to produce many grains, His many believers, who are being ground and blended to produce the one loaf. The bread which we break at the Table Meeting is a type of the church as the Body of Christ, which loaf of bread we are.
6. The church is the Father’s house (John 14:2-3). The church is composed of many abodes as the many members of the Body of Christ. These abodes are mutual: we dwell in the Triune God and He dwells in us. The Father’s house is not a “heavenly mansion” or a “golden palace” but a mutual abode of God and man.
7. The church is the vine tree (John 15:5). All the believers are the branches of the vine, the extension and expansion of the vine (which is Christ), and the branches with the vine form the church. God is gaining a universal organism, the corporate Christ as the vine tree, to be expressed in this universe.
8. The church is the oneness (John 17:11, 21-23). The church is the oneness of the Triune God expressed. We are being perfected into this oneness today by being included in the oneness of the Triune God to become the church, the oneness.

Christ as the Good Shepherd Laid Down His Soul Life for the Sheep so that We May Enjoy His Divine Life

In John 10 we see that Christ is the good Shepherd who came that we may have life (the divine life) and may have it abundantly (John 10:10-11). For this, He laid down His life (His soul life) so that we may have life (the divine life).

Christ as a man had a soul life, which He laid down on behalf of His sheep so that they may have His divine life. His divine life could never be slain; He died in His human life to accomplish redemption for us so that we may receive His zoe life. It is in this zoe life (the divine, uncreated, indestructible, and eternal life of God) that we as the many sheep are one.

As the believers as the sheep are living by the divine life, they become one flock under Christ as the good Shepherd. We cannot live in oneness in our natural human psuche (soulish) life, but when we live by the divine life we are being flocked together as the one flock of Christ, the church.

There were many obstacles between us and God, but Christ died by lying down His soul life to accomplish redemption for us, thus removing all the obstacles and opening a way for us all to enter into God and receive His divine life!

What a mystery: Christ laid down His human life and He imparted His divine life into us to make us one flock under Him as the good Shepherd! Now He is our Shepherd and He is reproducing Himself into us to make us also shepherding ones. Our work today in the church life is to shepherd the sheep by feeding them for the one flock under one Shepherd.

“We are nothing and nobodies, but we are feeders of the sheep for God….Nothing is more wonderful than the work of feeding the sheep for God.” (Witness Lee, Life-study of Genesis, p. 292)

Regarding this parable of the Shepherd with the sheep there are five things to remember:

1. The sheepfold – the law given by God and the religion that was formed around the law became a sheepfold to retain and preserve God’s people for the coming of Christ. It became a ward, a confinement place where special care was given to the sheep until Christ came! In the Old Testament the people of God were held under the custody of the law with a view to being conducted to Christ.
2. The sheep – all God’s chosen people are His sheep, His flock. Those in the fold were the Jewish believers preserved by God under the law until the Lord as the good Shepherd came and called them out. The other sheep are the Gentile believers – all of us – whom the Lord called, we heard His voice, and we followed Him.
3. The door – the door of the sheep is Christ, and the sheep can both go in and go out. In the Old Testament, Christ was the door for His people to go in and be kept, and in the New Testament He is the door for the believing Jews to go out and into Christ as the pasture to be fed! David, Moses, Abraham, etc were led into the fold, while Peter, James, John, etc were led out through Christ as the door.
4. The shepherd – the Shepherd is Christ, and He knows His sheep by name. He calls them and leads them out of the fold and into the pasture. He is the good shepherd who doesn’t jump over the fence but comes in through the door, and the sheep listen to His voice. How we love our Shepherd!
5. The pasture – Christ is our pasture, our food and our feeding place. The sheepfold is something temporary, transitory, and only for a little while, but the pasture is permanent. When Christ as the good Shepherd comes and calls us out, we should leave the religion and the law and follow Him into the pasture, which is Himself as our all-inclusive land!

Lord Jesus, our good Shepherd, we love You! Thank You for laying down Your soul life so that we may receive and enjoy Your divine life abundantly! We open our whole being to You today to be shepherded by You within in an organic way! Shepherd us in Your life for the church, Your house, Your flock! Keep us enjoying Your life so that we may be built up as the church and we would be those building up the church!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chen’s speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John (chs. 27-28),  as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Mending Ministry of John, week 3 / msg 3, The Shepherding of Christ for the Church as the One Flock and the Father’s House.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Jesus, our wonderful Shepherd / Brought us right out of the fold / Into His pasture so plenteous, / Into His riches untold. / Glorious church life, / Feasting from such a rich store! / Here where we’re dwelling in oneness / God commands life evermore.
  # Three aspects of incorporation: / Father’s house for His satisfaction, / The true vine for His multiplication, / Child of the Spirit, for His move on earth. / Incorporation! Incorporation— / The issue of Christ’s glorification. / In our daily walk, we must join to Him / And must live in Him, and work as one with Him.
  # My Savior the good Shepherd is, / He’ll never leave the flock. / The One Who truly loves the sheep, / Became the Lamb of God. / Despised, afflicted in my stead, / He spent His soul for me. / And to the slaughter He was led, / That I not thirsty be.