The church as the Body of Christ is a pure product out of Christ, and only what comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ.
This week we come to the last part of our deeper study of the matter of Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by keeping the principles of the Body, and the title for this week is simply, Living Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ.
The highest peak in God’s economy is that God became man to make man God in life and nature so that God may gain on earth the reality of the Body of Christ, a corporate God-man living. In order for us to have such a living, however, we need to keep some organic principles, the spiritual laws in the Body of Christ.
When such a living is corporately manifested on the earth, the Lord can have a reality that would manifest His testimony, and He can return.
Such a reality of the Body is the readiness of the Bride; without this reality, the bride of Christ cannot be manifested, and without the manifestation of the bride, Christ the Bridegroom cannot return. This is not a small matter.
It is only when the reality of the Body of Christ is manifested in the local churches all around the earth that there would be a one new man, and when God gains this one new man, He can gain His warrior who would stand with Him, fight with Him, defeat the enemy, and bring in His kingdom.
When we touch the reality of the Body of Christ we need to have a clear perception that this is not just some kind of doctrine, not even the highest doctrine; it is indeed the high peak, but we it is a reality, a living, that has to be manifested and lived out in the Body of Christ.
We need to be desperate to pray for the manifestation of this reality among us in the Lord’s recovery.
We need to open our whole being to the Lord so that He may gain in us what He desires to gain, with the result that there would be a corporate God-man living, the living of Christ for the Body of Christ.
May our heart be the good earth, cleared of any hidden desire or ambition, free from sins and the anxieties of life, so that we may receive God’s word, and so that His hand would follow His word for Him to accomplish this in us.
May we be delivered from all the negative factors that hinder the growth and manifestation of the Lord’s word in us. May we have a proper response to the Lord’s burden and His word, and may He gain in us and among us the reality of His Body in the local churches.
The Reality of the Body of Christ: Vision, Constitution, Condition, Incorporation, Conformation, Duplication, and Expression
When we speak of the reality of the Body of Christ need to understand it properly and we need to be able to enter into it in a proper way.
Reality does not refer merely to truth; it is not the “truth” of the Body of Christ that God is merely after. Reality doesn’t refer either merely to practicality or practical-ness; practicality is the working out of something. When we speak of the reality of the Body of Christ, it is not just a practice; reality is not practicality, a practice, or a working out.
There are seven words that can help us to understand what we speak of the reality of the Body of Christ: vision, constitution, condition, incorporation, conformation, duplication, and expression.
First, the reality of the Body of Christ is a vision; it all starts with a vision. This vision is not just some ordinary or low vision but a high peak vision, a climax vision, even a vision of the high peak in God’s economy. We must start with the seeing, the vision.
It is not enough merely to hear it, read about it, write it down, and know it; we need to see a vision, so that this vision would control us and calibrate us. Our daily life needs to be controlled by this vision; for this, we need to ask the Lord for a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
Second, the reality of the Body of Christ is a constitution of the Spirit of reality; He must be constituted into our being. The Spirit of reality must be constituted in the innermost part of our inner being so that we may have a constitution which is the reality of the Body of Christ.
This is the intrinsic content; it is not just some outward show, but an inward constitution. This reality needs to be constituted into us; if we have this constitution, we have the reality, but if we don’t have it, we don’t.
Third, the reality of the Body is a condition, it is the reality in Jesus, the man Jesus. The reality in Jesus is the entire life of Jesus – not just His activities and words, but the condition of the entire life of Jesus; this condition is reality.
We must go back to the Gospels not just to pick up some words that He spoke or things that He did, but see an actual condition, which is the reality of the Body. Such a reality is different from our natural concept.
Fourth, the reality of the Body is an incorporation; it is the God-man incorporation, the incorporation of divinity with humanity. When we say incorporation we mean two entities being united and mingled together to form an indistinguishable indivisible entity.
To incorporate is to unite, work, blend, and mingle two entities together in order to form an indistinguishable whole. The Body is God yet man; in divinity there is humanity, and in humanity there’s the expression of divinity. It is God yet man, man yet God; the divine attributes and the human virtues are mingled to the point that it seems it is God and yet it is also man, it is man yet there’s the flavor of God.
Fifth, the reality of the Body is a conformation – the conformity to the death of Christ. Without the work of the cross this reality cannot be brought forth. In His entire life the Lord lived under the shadow of the cross, being under the cross not only in the last six hours of his life but throughout His living.
Today for us to have the reality of the Body of Christ we need to be conformed to the death of Christ.
Sixth, the reality of the Body is a duplication; it is not merely an imitation but a duplication of the God-man Jesus Christ. Today on earth there’s one Jesus, the corporate Jesus, Jesus the Head being duplicated and lived out in all His members. The testimony of Jesus is the reality of the Body of Christ, Jesus being duplicated in a corporate people who live a corporate God-man life.
Seventh, this reality is an expression, which is to live Christ; the living out of Christ, the magnification of Christ, is actually the reality of the Body.
Lord Jesus, grant us to have a vision of the reality of the Body of Christ, a vision which will control and govern our living. May the Spirit of reality be constituted into our being so that we may have reality constituted into us. Amen, Lord, may we have the reality in Jesus, the actual condition in the human life of Jesus. May we live in the divine-human incorporation so that divine attributes would be expressed through our human virtues. May we have a living conformed to the death of Christ through the cross. Amen, Lord, may we become the duplication of Christ, the testimony of Jesus, those who live Christ for the magnification of Christ on earth!
The Church is a Pure Product out of Christ: Nothing Natural can be Added to it!
We need to realise that, according to the pure revelation in the word of God, the church as the Body of Christ is a pure product out of Christ. Only that which comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ.
In Gen. 2:22-23 we see how God built Eve out of the rib He took from Adam; this is a type of the church being built with the resurrection life released from Christ through His death of the cross and imparted into His believers in His resurrection (John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3).
The church is the reality of Eve, the totality of Christ in all His believers. Only that which comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 5:28-30).
We need to realise that the church is nothing more than Christ – the church is a pure product out of Christ, having no other element but the element of Christ. Just as Eve had no other element but Adam’s element, so the church has no other element but Christ’s.
When we see such a vision, we will mourn over the situation in today’s Christianity, for there is very little element of Christ there but rather, many other elements and persons can be seen.
May the Lord grant us a vision to see that the church comes out of Christ, and may such a vision paralyze us from living in our natural man or doing anything in the natural man.
Whatever is not of Christ, whether it be high or low, spiritual, moral, good, etc – is not a product out of Christ, so doesn’t belong to the Body.
The Head of the Body is Christ, and the Body of the Head is Christ, so the Body of Christ with Christ as the Head is “the Christ,” the corporate Christ (Col. 1:18; 1 Cor. 12:12; Col. 3:10-11).
What is the church? The church is Christ – not just the Jesus on earth but the enlarged Christ, the corporate Christ, the Body-Christ. Therefore, anything than Christ is not the Body of Christ, and anything other than Christ is a foreign element in the Body of Christ.
Nothing but Christ is the Body of Christ, and only what comes from Christ can be the church; thus, we must be desperate as Paul was to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ (Phil. 1:19-21; 3:8-14).
We should not be so naive to think that, as long as we love the Lord and have a good heart for Him, whatever we do will be accepted by Him; our work will be judged by fire, and only gold, silver, and precious stones can be accepted by Him.
All things other than the pure element of Christ are ruled out by the vision of the church being purely out of Christ; such a vision paralyses us from exercising anything of our natural man.
We need to have this vision. We need to see that the church is in resurrection, in Christ, and in the heavenlies; this means that only what is of Christ, of the heavens, and of resurrection, can be the church.
Such a vision will rule out everything other than Christ and will cause us to be desperate to live Christ for the Body of Christ.
How can the church as the Body of Christ be Christ, and how can all the members of the Body be the one new man, where Christ is all and in all? It all depends on who lives. If we live by ourselves, if we still live in our natural man, we are not Christ; if we live Christ, letting Christ live in us, we are Christ.
If the church lives Christ, the church is Christ; if we all live Christ, we are Christ. This is how our Christian life should be – we all should live Christ for the church, the body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, grant us to see the vision of the church as the Body of Christ, the church coming out of Christ and being purely out of the element of Christ. May such a vision rule out and remove our natural man and our living in the natural man. May we realise that only that which comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ. May such a vision paralyze us from exercising anything of our natural man. Amen, Lord, make us desperate to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1984, vol. 2, “Elders’ Training, Book 2: The Vision of the Lord’s Recovery,” ch. 3, 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 5, Living Christ for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# As Eve to Adam fulness was, / So is the Church to Christ her Head; / As Eve from Adam’s being came, / The Church by Christ’s own life is bred. (Hymns #820)
# New man of new creation, / Born through her risen Lord, / Baptized in God the Spirit, / Made holy by His Word; / Christ is her life and content, / Himself her glorious Head; / She has ascended with Him / O’er all her foes to tread. (Hymns #824)
# More and more our Person He must be; / That our natural personality / Be eliminated thoroughly / Till Christ is all. / Only Christ, our Person, must remain; / From our aims, our goals we must refrain, / Till the church be only Christ Himself / Built up as the one new man. (Hymns #1180)
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