The Cross Leads to the Body; the Work of the Cross Consummates in the Body of Christ

For us to live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to experience the work of the cross for the Body and in the Body; the cross leads to the Body and operates in the sphere of the Body.

We have seen the highest peak in God’s economy is the reality of the Body of Christ; what God wants in His economy, His plan, is the reality of the Body of Christ to be manifested on the earth.

For this, the Triune God Himself became a man and passed through all the processes to produce an enlargement of Himself. God passed through incarnation, death, and resurrection so that He may have a way to dispense Himself into us and constitute us to be His organic Body, His universal corporate expression.

When He gains His corporate expression, that is the reality of the Body of Christ, His heart’s desire and longing. For us to live in the reality of the Body of Christ we need to keep the principles of the Body.

A principle is a spiritual law; for example, when God created the physical universe, He made it with certain principles and laws. In the spiritual realm it is the same; for instance, in Rom. 8:2 we are told of the law of the Spirit of life.

For us to keep the laws in the Body of Christ means that we have a normal and healthy going on in the Body, but if we violate these laws, we will not reach God’s goal but we are abnormal and unhealthy.

The first law or principle of the Body is oneness; the Body of Christ is one, and the oneness of the Body comes not from man but from God, for it is the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity.

Through regeneration we have been made part of the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity; we are members of the Body, one with the Head and one with the other members, and we need to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.

The second principle of the Body is the function of the Body, which is to express Christ. The main function of the Body of Christ is not merely to do things or work, but to be the fullness of the One who fills all and in all, that is, to express Christ.

As a universally vast and great being, Christ with all His riches needs a Body to contain Him and express Him; the Body of Christ needs to be constituted with the riches of Christ and express Him in His fullness.

This week we come to two more principles of the Body, that is, Experiencing the Work of the Cross for the Body and Living in the Unique Fellowship of the Body.

The Cross Leads to the Body; the Knowledge of the Cross brings us to the Knowledge of the Body

If we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ, if we would live a corporate God-man living, we need to experience the work of the cross for the Body and in the Body (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2; 12:12-13, 27; Col. 1:20; 3:15).

Do we want to live in the reality of the Body of Christ? If we want to, we need to experience the work of the cross for the Body and in the Body. For us to reach the goal of God’s economy, for us to attain to the highest peak in His economy, we have a way, a road, and a means – the cross.

The goal is the Body, the means is the cross. The cross leads us to the Body, and the knowledge of the cross brings us to the knowledge of the Body of Christ.

Why do we need to experience the work of the cross for the Body and in the Body? It is because the cross leads to the Body; the work of the cross is to lead us to the Body and to bring us to enter into the reality of the Body.

Without the cross, there is no Body of Christ; if we don’t know the cross, we don’t know the Body.

We see this in the book of Romans, where we begin as sinners, individual persons, proud, those who don’t cooperate with others, and we end in Rom. 12 with the Body of Christ (many members, one Body).

To reach the goal of the Body, however, we need to go through Rom. 6 and realise that our old man has been crucified with Christ that the body of sin may be of no effect. The way the problem of sin is solved is through the cross of Christ; the old man, the sinful self, needs to be crucified with Christ.

Based upon what He has accomplished on the cross, we now can apply this to our old man, our self, and our flesh. In His death, Christ accomplished judicial redemption, and in His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit to accomplish His organic salvation.

Through the process of death and resurrection Christ became the Spirit to be dispensed into us and begin the work of regeneration, renewing, transformation, and glorification, so that the law of the Spirit of life would free us in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2).

It is in this continual dispensing of the Spirit that we are constituted to be members of the Body of Christ, and it is in this dispensing that we can live in spirit.

In Romans we see there’s a process we pass through for us sinners to become members of the Body of Christ, and this process is the work of the cross which involves, on one hand, Christ’s judicial redemption, and on the other, His organic salvation.

With the cross there’s the killing of the self, and this constitutes us to be members of the Body of Christ.

It is similar in 1 Corinthians where we see a normal and typical church, and Paul said that he preached Christ and this One crucified, and he wanted to know only this Christ among the saints.

Then in 1 Cor. 12 Paul speaks of the Body of Christ, for in one Spirit we were all baptised into one Body; through the baptism – the work of the cross to terminate the old man – we can enter into the Body and become the one Body of Christ.

We need to know the cross, for the knowledge of the cross brings us to the knowledge of the Body of Christ.

This cross is the cross of Christ, and this cross is not mainly for suffering but for the fulfilling of God’s purpose. The cross is for God’s eternal economy; the Lord was crucified not because He was unholy or sinful but for the fulfillment of God’s will and the terminating of the old creation.

We need to know the cross of Christ; the goal of the cross is to bring us into the Body and produce the Body.

When we know the cross, we know the Body; if we don’t know the cross, we can’t reach God’s goal.

Yes, the cross does cause us to be more holy and to deal with the flesh, but the real dealing of the cross is to abolish all the ordinances and hatreds so that all the saints from different races and cultures can be joined in the Body of Christ.

In the Body of Christ there cannot be anything natural – only Christ can be in the Body of Christ, and anything that is not Christ needs to be terminated by the cross. Christ is the Body, and only the element of Christ can constitute the Body.

Lord Jesus, we want to be in the reality of the Body of Christ, so we want to know the cross for us to know the Body! May the cross operate in us in spirit so that the Body would become a reality. Thank You Lord for terminating every negative thing on the cross; You terminated our self, our flesh, our old man, the world, sin, and Satan, and now we can experience the application of the work of the cross so that we may know the Body and be in the reality of the Body of Christ! Lord, grant us to see the work of the cross so that we may allow the cross to operate in us and bring us into the Body of Christ.

The Cross Leads to the Body, for the Work of the Cross Consummates in the Body of Christ

The cross leads to the Body and the cross operates in the sphere of the Body; the work of the cross goes as far as the Body of Christ and consummates with the Body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 1:18, 23; 2:1-2; 12:12-27).

The cross brings us to a state of inability and weakness, and it brings us into the new creation; when we reach this point, the things of the old creation are terminated, and we are the Body of Christ, a new creation.

The Body of Christ is a new creation, and it has nothing to do with the old creation; if we still resort to human methods, tactics, and skills (which we may have used in the past), the result is not the building up of the Body.

Everything of the old creation has to pass through the cross and remain on the cross, so that the new creation may be manifested.

The cause of the fall of man is man’s own concepts, choices, and judgments; therefore, God doesn’t allow anything of the old creation to gain the upper hand. For the Body of Christ to come into being and be lived out in reality, the “backbone” of our natural man must be broken, and the hollow of our thigh must be touched.

For God to gain the new creation out of the old creation, He is smashing everything of the old creation, and He is constituting us with everything that issues of Christ so that we can become the Body of Christ in practicality.

We need to be saved from living according to doctrines, teachings, or outward practices, all of which belong to man’s natural life and are part of man’s oldness; we need to be willing to be dealt with and leave the natural things and the old creation behind so that we may live in the reality of the Body of Christ.

The ultimate goal of the cross is to produce the Body of Christ. In God’s eyes besides Christ nothing takes a greater place but the cross; Christ and the cross are the center of God’s purpose.

Christ is the goal of God’s purpose and the cross is the means to achieve His purpose. Christ is the center of God’s plan and the cross is the center of the procedure of God’s plan.

For us to have Christ wrought into us and lived out of us for the reality of the Body of Christ we need to experience the work of the cross; the cross leads to the Body, the knowledge of the cross brings us the knowledge of the Body, and the work of the cross consummates in the Body of Christ.

God gives us one Person – Christ, and one way – the cross. We have this glorious vision of the reality of the Body of Christ, and we have one way – the way of the cross.

For us to attain to God’s heart’s desire and Christ’s longing, there’s only one way – the way of the cross. And the cross is in the Spirit; when we exercise our spirit, the Spirit applies the cross to our being to cross us out and bring us fully into the new creation.

Lord Jesus, we want to know the Body and be in the reality of the Body by experiencing the Work of the Cross. Have mercy on us, Lord, and don’t let us remain the same, living in our natural man, expressing the self, and walking according to the flesh. We turn to You, Lord, and we exercise our spirit to contact You and receive the application of the work of the cross so that we may enter into the reality of the Body of Christ and know the Body. Do it in us, Lord, do it for the sake of the Body. May we be willing to accept the work of the cross for the reality of the Body of Christ to come into being!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by the brothers for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 44, pp. 790-793, 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 3, Experiencing the Work of the Cross for the Body and Living in the Unique Fellowship of the Body.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The Christ we know is crucified — experience of the cross / Allows us to enjoy His life and count ourselves but loss; / The sense of life and death within us functions as a gauge, / Equipping us to live Christ in the Body in this age. / The cross is our deliverance, / Our entrance into grace, / To deepen and increase our joy / In Christ, His way to trace. (Song on, The Cross is Not a Suffering)
  # Deeper, deeper, in the cross of Jesus; / Deeper let me go; / Death and life, they always go together; / Deepen, Lord, the flow. / Oh, deeper yet we pray, / Do work in us each day; / Go deeper, through and through, / Till in Thee we’re wholly new. (Hymns #1240)
  # Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. (Hymns #279)