Because of the degradation of the church, Christ as the life-giving Spirit has been intensified sevenfold to become the seven Spirits of God (Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6); Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit intensifies His organic salvation to save the believers from any degradation. Amen!
The full ministry of Christ has three stages – incarnation (from His birth to His death on the cross), inclusion (from His resurrection to the degradation of the church), and intensification (from the degradation of the church to the New Jerusalem).
First, Christ became a man and lived a perfect human life on earth, expressing God in every possible way.
He expressed and manifested the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic human virtues.
His ministry in the stage of incarnation was so aromatic and wonderful!
Then, He went to the cross to die and accomplish redemption for us.
After His death, He entered into resurrection, and in resurrection, He accomplished three wonderful things.
First, He was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God in His humanity.
Then, He became the life-giving Spirit, and finally, He regenerated us, the believers in Christ, for His Body.
In the stage of His inclusion, Christ produces and builds up the church.
He is now in His heavenly ministry ministering the heavenly things into us, and He is interceding for us according to God.
Furthermore, He is the Chief Shepherd, taking care of our soul. Christ as the life-giving Spirit is in our spirit, seeking to spread from our spirit into every part of our being.
He is spreading into our mind as we set our mind upon the spirit; He spreads into our mind to renew our mind and transform us in our soul.
He is also spreading into our emotions and will to saturate our inner being with Himself as life.
He is even spreading into our mortal body to impart life into our body, and one day He will transfigure the body of our humiliation to be like the body of His glory!
What a wonderful salvation we have!
The more we turn to the Lord and contact Him, the more we enjoy Him, the more the Lord has a way to spread from our spirit into all the inward parts of our being to saturate us with Himself.
As He fills our inner being with His divine life, we become persons of life, men filled with the zoe life of God, and we are built up with the saints into the one organic Body of Christ. Hallelujah!
But there is more to this process, for the church became degraded, so God had to do something to counteract the degradation of the church.
Because of the Degradation of the Church, Christ as the Life-giving Spirit has been Intensified Sevenfold to become the Sevenfold Intensified Spirit, the Seven Spirits of God
Soon after the Lord Jesus produced the church, even in the first century, the church became degraded; many things came into the church, and the Lord’s epistles to the seven churches reveal many aspects of the degradation of the church.
Therefore, the Lord entered into a third stage of His ministry, the stage of intensification.
In the stage of His intensification, from the degradation of the church to the consummation of the New Jerusalem, Christ intensifies His organic salvation, produces the overcomers, and consummates the New Jerusalem.
For His ministry in the stage of His inclusion, Christ became the life-giving Spirit in order to carry out His organic salvation for the producing of the church and the building up of His Body to consummate the New Jerusalem.
He has done everything, He went through all the processes, and He is available for us to enjoy, partake of, and experience in order to build up the church as the Body of Christ.
However, there is one problem: degradation came in; the church became degraded.
On the way of the Lord’s ministry in the stage of His inclusion, before He can attain His purpose of building up the church to consummate the New Jerusalem, the church became degraded.
The degradation of the church can be seen all around us, and in the first century, this degradation was exposed by the Lord in His seven epistles to the seven churches in Rev. 2-3.
The degradation of the church frustrates the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy.
Therefore, Christ as the one life-giving Spirit became the seven Spirits of God (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6; 3:1).
These seven Spirits are not seven individual Spirits apart from the life-giving Spirit; rather, they are the same one Spirit that has been intensified sevenfold in order to carry out God’s eternal economy.
In the book of Revelation we see the seven Spirits of God; these are not seven individual Spirits but the one Spirit who is intensified sevenfold.
Why did Christ become the seven Spirits of God? Why does this seem to be so complicated?
Why can’t the one life-giving Spirit do the job of God’s organic salvation?
Christ became the sevenfold intensified Spirit in order to intensify the organic salvation of God sevenfold for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate God’s eternal goal, which is the New Jerusalem.
Today we are not only in the stage of inclusion but even more in the stage of intensification, for the degradation of the church has been intensified.
Today God in Christ as the life-giving Spirit is intensified sevenfold to intensify His organic salvation in each one of us, the believers in Christ, so that we may be produced as the overcomers who build up the church as the Body of Christ and consummate the New Jerusalem.
We all can testify that, in order for us not only to face the evil in the world today but even more the degradation in the church, we need to have God’s organic salvation being intensified sevenfold.
It is good to open to the Lord concerning this matter and ask Him to intensify His organic salvation in us so that we may be saved from any degradation and be produced to be the overcomers the Lord needs today to build up the Body of Christ and consummate the New Jerusalem.
Lord Jesus, we open to You as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit. Intensify Your organic salvation in us. Save us from any degradation. Save us from anything of the world with its evil and from any degradation in the church. Amen, Lord, thank You for coming into us to be the sevenfold intensified Spirit to produce us as the overcomers and consummate the New Jerusalem. We open to You today. We cannot live the Christian life without the sevenfold intensified Spirit operating in us. Come, oh seven Spirits, come, and burn in us, purge us, refine us, fill us, and work in us! Recover us fully from any degradation back to Your original intention! Intensify Your organic salvation sevenfold for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate God’s eternal goal, the New Jerusalem! Amen, Lord Jesus, do this in us and do this in all the saints for the fulfilment of Your purpose!
Christ as the Sevenfold Intensified Spirit Intensifies His Organic Salvation to Save us from the Degradation of the Church
The first thing that the Lord as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit does is to intensify His organic salvation in order to save us, His believers, from the degradation of the church.
There are many aspects of the degradation of the church.
In Rev. 2:17 we see that the sevenfold intensified Spirit saves the believers from the formal church life, the loss of their first love toward the Lord, the loss of the shining capacity of the lampstand, and the loss of the enjoyment of Christ as life, as seen in the Lord’s epistle to the church in Ephesus.
We should never think that others may have these problems but we are fine; rather, we need to have an ear to hear what the Spirit is speaking to the churches, and we need to let the Lord shine in us to expose our real situation.
We need to be saved by the Lord as the sevenfold intensified Spirit from living a formal church life.
We may still meet with the saints, and we may go to the meetings, but it has become a formality; we may not live a real and genuine church life but rather, everything is a formality.
Everything that we do without the exercise of our spirit in the church life is a formality.
We need to exercise our spirit, otherwise, we just live a formal church life.
Oh Lord, how much we need to be saved from having a formal church life!
We need to be saved from the loss of our first love to the Lord; we may still love the Lord, but we may not love Him with the first love.
We need to repent and return to the Lord, do the first works, and recover the first love for Him!
If we do not repent, the Lord will come and remove the lampstand from our midst, and even though we may still be a genuine local church, the shining is gone.
May we learn to enjoy the Lord in a rich way and be filled with the joy of the Lord.
We need to be saved from living a formal church life and serve the Lord with a burning spirit (Rom. 12:11).
The sevenfold intensified Spirit saves the believers from having a taste of the second death, as seen with the church in Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11).
The degradation of the church leads to the taste of the second death; we need to be intensified in our experience of God’s organic salvation to be saved from this.
The sevenfold intensified Spirit saves us, the believers in Christ, from having the worldliness in union with the world as a marriage and the teaching of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans, as seen in the church in Pergamos (vv. 12-17).
We need to be saved from living in union with the world; the only way this is possible is by the sevenfold intensified Spirit intensifying God’s organic salvation in us.
The sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit intensifies God’s organic salvation to save us from fornication, idolatry, demonic teaching, and satanic depths in Catholicism, as signified by the church in Thyatira (vv. 18-29).
He also saves us from the spiritual death – being dead and dying – in Protestantism, as signified by the church in Sardis (3:1-6).
May the Lord save us from having a name that we are living but actually we are dead.
![I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spew you out of My mouth. Because you say, I am wealthy and have become rich and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire that you may be rich, and white garments that you may be clothed and [that] the shame of your nakedness may not be manifested, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Rev. 3:15-18](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/I-know-your-works-that-you-are-neither-cold-nor-hot-I-wish-that-you-were-cold-or-hot-683x1024.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spew you out of My mouth. Because you say, I am wealthy and have become rich and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire that you may be rich, and white garments that you may be clothed and [that] the shame of your nakedness may not be manifested, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Rev. 3:15-18")
We want to be living, not only have a name that we’re living.
For this, we need to have a rich experience of the sevenfold intensified Spirit operating in us to intensify God’s organic salvation and save us from the degradation of the church.
The seven Spirits save us from losing the crown, which has been already gained in Brethrenism, as signified by the church in Philadelphia (vv. 7-13).
He saves us from the lukewarmness and Christlessness in degraded Brethrenism, signified by the church in Laodicea (vv. 14-22).
We need to be saved from being lukewarm and from having Christ outside of the church.
The church in Laodicea was Christless – this is seen in the fact that Christ was outside the church, standing at the door and knocking (v. 20).
May we be before the Lord lest this is our situation today.
May we be saved from having Christ only in name but not in reality.
What the Lord desires is not a lukewarm person but someone who fervently loves Him and who is cold toward the world.
May we open to the inner operation of the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit so that He may intensify His organic salvation in us and save us from the degradation of the church!
Lord Jesus, intensify Your organic salvation in us as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit to save us from the degradation of the church! Amen, Lord, save us from living a formal church life, a church life without the exercise of our spirit. Save us from losing our first love for the Lord; we repent and come to You to do the first works which come out of our first love. Save us from losing the shining capacity of the lampstand, and bring us into the full enjoyment of Christ as life! Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to be saved from a formal Christian life and church life and serve the Lord with a burning spirit! Intensify Your organic salvation in us and save us from worldliness, living in union with the world, fornication, satanic depths, and spiritual death. Oh Lord, save us from being lukewarm; cause us to be burning for You. Save us from being Christless and from losing our crown. Intensify Your organic salvation in us to save us from any degradation of the church and produce us as Your overcomers to build up the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “The Secret of God’s Organic Salvation—’the Spirit Himself with Our Spirit,’” pp. 290-291, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 9, entitled, The Full Ministry of Christ in Three Stages.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– What are the Seven Spirits of God in Revelation? Article via, Holding to Truth in love.
– To open the additional section of the sevenfold intensified organic salvation of God, a portion from, The Divine and Mystical Realm, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee.
– The seven Spirits of God in the operation of the Divine Trinity, article by James Fite via, Affirmation and Critique.
– Being Intensified in Order to Become the Overcomers who Meet God’s Need in this Age, outline via, Lord’s move in Canada.
– The Lord’s Recovery of the Corporate Christ ― the Body-Christ, outline via, Mid-Atlantic Churches.
– The ministry of Christ in the stage of intensification, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
– Incarnation, Inclusion and Intensification (3), outline via, The church in Regina.
– High Peak of the Divine Revelation, outline via, Church in Hong Kong.
– The Life-giving, Indwelling Spirit; The Sevenfold Intensified Spirit, a portion via, Church in New York City. - Hymns on this topic:
– Now the Spirit of our God / Has become intensified: / ’Tis not one but sevenfold / That the church may be supplied! / Now the seven Spirits are / Seven lamps of burning fire, / Not to teach us, but to burn, / Satisfying God’s desire. (Hymns #1122 stanzas 3-4)
– To Ephesus, the word is clear: / “To your first love you’re not so near; / You’ve left to work so far away; / Repent, return to Him today.” / Thus, we must all turn back to Him, / Leave other loves, for these are sin. / Oh, let us hearken to His call— / If we miss this, we’ve missed it all! (Hymns #1274 stanzas 3-4)
– Thus will the Church be purified / To be the lampstand of pure gold, / To match the testimony pure, / The life of Jesus fit to hold. / The local churches here on earth / The lampstands in this age should be; / The glorious new Jerusalem / The lampstand in eternity. (Hymns #822 stanzas 8-9)
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Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “The Secret of God’s Organic Salvation—’the Spirit Himself with Our Spirit,’” pp. 290-291
Dear brother, I was impressed to see that, because of the degradation of the church, Christ as the life-giving Spirit has been intensified sevenfold to counteract this degradation, produce us as His overcomers, and consummate the New Jerusalem.
In particular, He is intensifying His organic salvation in us to save us from any degradation, from the loss of our first love, from being lukewarm, from losing our shining, and from having a formal church life.
Thank the Lord that He became the sevenfold intensified Spirit! Lord intensify your life in us today! Make us those who build up the church!
Yes, Lord! We need your intensification for our organic salvation seven fold so that we can finish our earthly race as an overcomers.
Oh Lord we need you to grow in us fully not only for the expression of you, but to magnify you boldly.
We praise you for your intensification ministry.
Hallelujah! 😃🙋🏽 🙏 Amen!
Hallelujah!😃
Today, the Lord-Spirit is intensified seven times for our cleansing from all the negative things that can rob us of our crown of life.
We should welcome the searching & judging of our beings by the seven eyes of the Lamb.
The negative things that are in the seven letters are things that the Lord detests — and we should also detest these things in ourselves.
We need to be steadfast in being in the spirit and in doing everything in the spirit.
May we allow the Lord to come in and dine with us so that our hearts would be swept clean for Him to feel at home in us.
Brother, we need to see that Christ as the Life-giving Spirit in the stage of inclusion became the sevenfold intensified Spirit, the Seven Spirits before the throne of God in the stage of intensification, in response to the degradation of the church.
To be saved from the loss of the first love, not giving the Lord the preeminence in all things, the formal church life, the lack of shining of the lampstands and the loss of the enjoyment of Christ we need the intensified organic salvation!
O Lord Spirit!
Only through the Sevenfold intensified Spirit can we be saved from a degraded situation to consummate the New Jerusalem!
Listen to the audio version on this topic,
Rev. 1:4, footnote 5 on “seven”, Recovery Version Bible
Brother, I was convicted and enlightened thar losing the first love for the Lord spontaneously issues in being lukewarm, losing our shining, and having a formal church life!
AMEN👑
Fn. Rev.2:4
*As the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:23), the church is a matter of life; as the new man (Eph. 2:15), it is a matter of the person of Christ; and as the bride of Christ (John 3:29), it is a matter of love. The first Epistle to the Ephesians tells us that for the church life we need to be strengthened into our inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:16-19); and it is for the church life that grace is with all those who love the Lord Jesus (Eph. 6:24). Now this second epistle to the Ephesians reveals that the degradation of the church begins with our leaving the first love toward the Lord. Nothing but love can keep us in a proper relationship with the Lord. The church in Ephesus had good works, labored for the Lord, endured suffering, and tried the false apostles (vv. 2-3), but she left her first love toward the Lord. The leaving of the first love is the source of all the degradation in the succeeding stages of the church. (Cf. Jer. 2:2; Matt. 24:12; cf. Eph. 3:17; 6:24)
Amen Lord do save us from formality into reality