The Church Life is Fellowship, and it is the Continuation of the Divine Glorification

The church life as seen in God’s word is so wonderful, and in a practical way, the church life is fellowship – it is the mutual flowing of the divine life in the Body of Christ.

The reality of the church life is fellowship; if we want to see whether we’re in the church life in reality, we need to check whether we are in the fellowship with God and in fellowship with the saints the Lord put us with (see 1 Cor. 1:9; 10:16-17; Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3, 7).

Once we were saved, regenerated, we are automatically in the church, the Body of Christ, and the Christ who lives in us requires the church life. If we genuinely enjoy Christ during the day and take Him as the Head, we will desire to meet with the saints and be in the proper church life.

All believers in Christ are members of the Body, and as members, we have Christ living in us; this Christ wants us to live in the reality of the Body of Christ.

Once we live in the reality of the Body, we automatically have a particular kind of feeling, a feeling that nothing can teach us to have, for it comes by our living in the reality of the Body of Christ.

Just as the members of our physical body have a certain feeling, so in the Body we as members have a feeling, which can be described in at least six ways:

1. We have brotherly love – we love the saints, without discrimination! No one has to teach us to love the brothers – as long as we live in the reality of the Body as members of the Body, we automatically love all the saints.
2. We do not tolerate division, and we don’t want to do anything with this. When we live as members of the Body, we treasure the oneness of the Body, and we do not tolerate or want to do anything with division.
3. We cannot do and we will not do an individualistic work, a work apart from the Body. As members of the Body, we have an inner feeling of Christ being our Head and the other members being the Lord’s arrangement, and we can’t be individualistic or do things in an individualistic way.
4. We need fellowship! When we live the Body, we realize that the church life is fellowship, and we don’t need to be reminded to fellowship – rather, fellowship is our lifeline, our daily living! We need to pray to be in the reality of the Body, for when we live in this reality, we will fellowship automatically!
5. We have a feeling that we are just a member – nothing more and nothing less. Just as in our human body, no member is exalted above the others – so in the Body of Christ, we spontaneously not think too highly or too lowly of ourselves, but we have a clear feeling that we are members.
6. We spontaneously submit to authority, to the universal headship of Christ, and we keep the order in the Body. If someone has to tell us to keep the order in the Body, we have a problem with the Body. It is ugly when someone asserts authority!

Today we want to see how the fellowship is the reality of the church life, and how the church life is fellowship. Furthermore, we want to see how the church life is the continuation of the divine glorification.

The Church Life is Fellowship: the Flowing between us and the Lord and us and one another

As believers in Christ, we have been called into the fellowship of the Son of God (1 Cor. 1:9); our God is faithful – He calls us into the co-participation, the mutual enjoyment, the partaking of the Son of God. We need to seek the experience and enjoyment of the fellowship of God’s son, for the church life is fellowship.

We need to enjoy this fellowship both at home and with the saints in the meetings; if we enjoy the fellowship with the Lord and with the saints, we will not have any opinions, gossip, or different teachings, for we will care only for the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ who is in us as the Spirit!

The reality of the church is fellowship, and the church life is fellowship in reality. What is this fellowship, the fellowship of the Son of God? This fellowship involves the oneness between us and the Triune God, and it also involves the oneness among all the believers.

This fellowship implies enjoyment: we enjoy the Triune God, the Triune God enjoys us, and we enjoy the Triune God with the saints, the Triune God enjoys us, and we enjoy one another in the presence of God. This is wonderful, universal, mutual enjoyment – called the fellowship, the reality of the church life!

We have been called in this universal and mutual fellowship, where we enjoy God, God enjoys us, and we enjoy one another; there’s a flow between God and man and among men, and this flow is the fellowship.

The word fellowship is first used in Acts 2:42; here the believers continued steadfastly in the teaching and the fellowship of the apostles. First the apostles preached the gospel to them, then this gospel preaching brought them into the fellowship.

This is similar to what we see in 1 John 1:3, where John testified that what the apostles saw and heard from the Triune God, they also reported to the saints, so that the saints would have fellowship with the apostles, and this fellowship is with the Father and with the Son.

Just as in the physical body there’s a flow of blood that brings in all the nutrients to the members of the Body, and eliminates the toxins and negative elements, so in the Body of Christ there’s a flow, the fellowship.

The church life is fellowship, and for us to live in the church life we need to learn to fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with the saints, allowing the Lord to flow in us and flow through us to all the other saints.

There’s a flow, a current, both vertically between us and the Father and the Son, and horizontally between us and the other believers. Since the day of Pentecost a “current” has been flowing horizontally among the believers, and vertically between the believers and the Triune God.

This flow, this fellowship, crosses space and time; as far as time is concerned, this fellowship has been flowing from generation to generation, and as far as space is concerned, this fellowship is worldwide, flowing among the believers throughout the globe.

Nothing can separate us from this fellowship, and nothing should insulate us from one another. For us to know what the church life is and to be in the proper church life, we need to realize that the church life is fellowship, and for us to be in the church life in reality, we need to be in the flow of the divine life.

Thank You Lord for bringing us into the church life, into the fellowship with God and with the saints. Hallelujah, God is faithful – He has called us into the fellowship of His Son that we may enjoy and partake of His Son. Keep us enjoying You, Lord, both personally and together in the church life. We want to be in the flow of the divine life, and we want to be in the fellowship with the Triune God and with the saints. Amen, Lord, flow in us and flow among us as fellowship so that You may gain Your built-up organic Body!

The Church Life is the Continuation of the Divine Glorification

The essence of the gospel of John is that God has glorified Christ, and He wants to continue the divine glorification through all the believers in Christ who are regenerated with His life to be the members of His Body.

Chapters 14-17 are the heart of the Gospel of John, and they mainly speak of glorification; the Lord’s prayer in John 17 was not merely for the oneness of the saints but for glorification.

What is glorification? In the eyes of the disciples, glorification was for the Lord to be exalted by men, and even to be on the throne in Jerusalem. But in the eyes of God, as seen in John 12:23, glorification is death and resurrection for multiplication and reproduction.

The one grain of wheat becomes the many grains; when the Lord died and resurrected, He was multiplied and reproduced – this is glorification.

The Lord was glorified when He was resurrected (see Luke 24:26; Acts 3:13), and He as the one grain became many grains – His divine life was released, and we all were simultaneously regenerated at the same time, to become a corporate Body, the Body of Christ.

In John 14-17 we see the Father’s house, the Son’s vine, and the Spirit’s child – this is one corporate entity produced in Christ’s resurrection.

The church is the continuation of the divine glorification; Christ was glorified by the Father, and in His resurrection He was further glorified by being increased, duplicated, and multiplied, to be the church!

In John 17 the Lord prayed that there would be a corporate reproduction of Himself; this was produced in His resurrection, and today in the church life we are the continuation of the divine glorification. Glory is nothing else but the expression of the divine life and the divine nature (Acts 4:2; Eph. 1:17).

When the divine life was released from Christ, the divine glory was released simultaneously; the Lord prayed that the glory God gave to Him, He would also give to us, and when He resurrected, this divine glory was given to us, His believers.

If today we live by the divine life and nature, we will express the divine glory (Eph. 2:18; 2 Pet. 1:4). The more we live by the divine life and the divine nature, the more divine glory there will be in the church (Eph. 3:21).

The expression of this glory is the glorification of the Lord Jesus. The divine glorification began with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, continued throughout the ages, and it is still continuing today in the church life (see Luke 24:26; Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:21).

The church has been produced in the glorification of Christ, and the church continues to grow in the divine glorification (John 14:2; 15:1, 4-5; 16:21). Whatever the church does in the matter of fruit bearing is a continuation of the divine glorification.

Hallelujah, Jesus Christ has been glorified through His resurrection when He was multiplied and increased to be the church, and today the church life is the continuation of the divine glorification! Amen! Lord, we want to live by the divine life and according to the divine nature so that there will be much glory to God in the church. Gain Your expression in the church, Lord, and may the church life be in reality the continuing of the divine glorification, the place where the Lord Jesus is glorified and expressed!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Corinthians, msg. 11, and The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, chs. 2-5 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Church (2017 fall ITERO), week 5, The Recovery of the Church Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # God has called us into the fellowship of His Son, / That we may partake of Christ and enjoy Him / As our unique center and as our God-given portion. / God has called us into the fellowship of His Son. (Scripture song)
  # I long for fellowship in spirit, / That mingled with the saints I’ll be, / Long to be saved from independence / And to be built with saints in Thee. (Hymns #847)
  # We in faith were regenerated; / God and man thus incorporated. / This took place through Christ’s resurrection. / For His divine, glorious multiplication. / 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. (Song on the Issue of Christ being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory)