The church as the Body of Christ is the fullness of Christ, His expression; Christ is great and without any limitation, and He needs a universal Body to express Him – this is the church, the fullness of Christ, for His expression.
For the church to become such an entity, all the believers in Christ as the members of the Body need to grow in life with the growth of God.
How does God grow in us? First of all, in Himself God doesn’t grow, for He is perfect and complete eternally; however, in us, the believers in Christ, He needs to grow and wants to grow, so that we become His fullness, His corporate expression.
How does Christ grow in us? In Eph. 3:17 we see that He wants to make His home in our heart; He is in our spirit, but He wants to grow and spread from our spirit into all the parts of our heart.
Through regeneration, we have received the divine life in our spirit, and our spirit has become life; as soon as we turn to our spirit, we touch life, for the divine Spirit, who is life, is mingled with our spirit.
However, our mind, emotion, and will are still in need to be renewed and transformed; therefore, we need to cooperate with the Lord by contacting Him and enjoying Him in His Word, and He will spread outwardly from our spirit into our soul.
We need to give the Lord more room in us; our heart is like a great house with many rooms, and so many of these rooms we do not open to anyone, much less to the Lord.
But He is there, knocking at the door of our heart, waiting for us to let Him in; when we come to Him in His word, pray and pray-read His word, we can simply tell Him, Lord, I allow You in this aspect of my being; I give You permission to enter this room of my heart.
This doesn’t mean that He comes and destroys this and that, or that He condemns and judges; when He enters into the rooms of our heart, He brings in life.
He is the life-dispensing Spirit in our spirit seeking to spread into all the parts of our heart to impart life to our soul; when we allow Him into the inner rooms and chambers of our mind, emotion, and will, He dispenses life into us.
As He spreads in us, He grows in us, and we grow with the growth of God. This growth of God in us is actually the growth of the church as the Body of Christ.
The corporate aspect of the church as the Body of Christ depends on the personal aspect of our enjoying the Lord and allowing Him to grow in us.
God wants to grow in the church and He wants to increase and spread through the church; as we preach the gospel by being one with the Lord, and some receive the Lord as their Savior and life, the Body of Christ increases.
Then, we need to shepherd the new ones to open to the Lord, pray, read the word of God prayerfully, and allow Him to spread in their heart and make His home in them for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
The more we grow in the divine life by allowing Him to grow in us, the more the Body of Christ grows and is built up.
Living by Christ and According to the Spirit to be the Church as the Fullness of Christ, the Body of Christ
Based on Eph. 4:13, we all need to grow in life until we arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
The church grows until it reaches maturity – the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Christ has a fullness – He is universally vast and immense, filling all and in all; this fullness has a stature, and the stature has a measure.
The church as the Body of Christ is the fullness of Christ, His expression (Eph. 1:23).
The Body of Christ is not merely a composition of the believers in Christ who were called out of the world; the Body is the fullness of Christ.
When Christ was on the earth, He was limited in time and space; He was the embodiment of the fullness of God, but He could not be in two places at the same time but rather, He was very limited.
When He was in Galilee, He could not be in Judea, and when He was in Jerusalem, He could not be in Bethany or any other place.
However, through death and resurrection, He was released and imparted into His many believers, and He is now no longer a limited or small Jesus but the unlimited, universal Christ. He fills all and in all.
Through His universal travelling – from eternity into time, from heaven to earth, from earth to Hades, from Hades to the earth, and then from earth to heavens – He fills all things!
Now Christ can be in one place in the heavens and also in millions of places on earth.
He can be both in heavens and in you and me; He is the One who fills all things, and we as the church are His Body to be His fullness.
The great, universal Christ needs a universal, great Body as the fullness of Christ to be His expression on the earth.
On one hand, He fills all and in all by Himself, by being the Spirit; on the other hand, He is on earth in all the places where His believers are, for He is right there within them, living in and through them.
The Body of Christ is everywhere – it is His universal fullness. This is wonderful!
However, we as believers in Christ may still just know the doctrine of the Body yet not live in the reality of the Body, for we still live in and by ourselves.
When we do not live by Christ and according to the Spirit, we are not the Body of Christ in reality, and we are not part of the fullness of Christ.
We may live only five to ten per cent of our day in the spirit – and the rest we may live in ourselves; this means that we are not so much part of the Body in reality.
The Lord doesn’t need just a lot of local churches, a church in each city; He needs the Body of Christ in reality, HIs fullness, by having His believers live by Christ and according to the Spirit.
The church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all and in all; in reality, we may be in the church yet not live in the Body because we may not live by Christ. Oh, Lord!
Only those who are in the Body in reality, those who are part of the fullness of Christ by living Christ, only they can fulfill God’s purpose.
May we really bring this to the Lord and repent for not living in the spirit, not living by Christ, and still living so much in the self and in the natural man.
May we turn to the Lord and enjoy Him, contact Him, and live by Christ so that we may be in reality living in the Body to be part of the fullness of Christ.
Christ, who is the infinite God without any limitation, is so great that He fills all things in all things; such a great Christ needs the church to be His fullness for His corporate expression.
May we live in spirit more and more so that we may be part of the corporate expression of Christ, the fullness of Christ!
Lord Jesus, we want to live by Christ so that we may be the Body of Christ in reality! Amen, Lord, may our daily living with all its activities be in Christ and according to the Spirit so that we may be part of the fullness of Christ, the church as the Body of Christ! Save us from living in ourselves and by ourselves; save us from not living Christ! May the universally vast and unlimited Christ become our enjoyment and experience day by day so that we may be the Body of Christ in reality and practicality! Amen, Lord, gain the reality of the Body of Christ. Gain the church as the fullness of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all and in all! Keep growing in us unto maturity until we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ!
We become the Fullness of Christ through the Enjoyment of the Riches of Christ to Live and Express Christ
When we speak of the fullness of Christ, we need to realize that He is so rich, so vast, so immense, and so unlimited, that He needs the universal Body of Christ to contain Him and express Him.
Christ is the embodiment of God, and in Him, all the fullness was pleased to dwell; this One now is the Spirit to fill all things.
He fills all and in all, and He wants to become all and in all in the new man (Col. 3:10).
When Paul preached the gospel, he said that to him, less than the least of all saints, grace was given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel (Eph. 3:8).
Paul didn’t just preach the gospel for people to repent and have their sins forgiven; rather, he enjoyed the riches of Christ, he was constituted with the riches of Christ, and he preached the riches of Christ as the gospel.
What others received was not just the good news but something of the riches of Christ as the gospel.
When we hear the word of God, when we receive the gospel, we are saved, and we start a lifelong process of enjoying the riches of Christ.
The way for us to become the fullness of Christ is by enjoying the riches of Christ and being constituted with these riches.
For example, we can see the fullness of America by looking at one of the American people who enjoy the riches of America and express them as his fullness.
When we enjoy the riches of Christ and are constituted with these riches, when we are filled with the riches of Christ, we become the fullness of Christ to live Christ and express Him to others.
Day by day, in the human realm, we eat food, and this food becomes part of us to become our fullness; day by day in the spiritual realm we need to enjoy Christ and partake of His riches until we become His fullness, part of His corporate expression.
Many times, however, we need to admit that are undernourished – we don’t eat, digest, and assimilate an adequate amount of the riches of Christ.
The way that we become part of the fullness of Christ is by eating, enjoying, digesting, and assimilating the riches of Christ.
The more we eat the Lord, partake of Him, and allow Him to work Himself into the inner parts of our being, the more we become part of His fullness, His corporate expression.
The desire of God’s heart, His will and purpose, is to have a corporate expression of Christ in millions of His believers.
He calls people out of every part of the earth, every race, every nation, every skin colour, and every tribe and tongue; outwardly, we are different, but inwardly, we have Christ as our constitution and essence, so we just express Christ to be the fullness of Christ.
God created each one of us personally, and each one of us has a portion that no one else has; each one of us has a measure of grace that no one else has.
When each one of us partakes of Christ as grace and enjoys the riches of Christ, we become His fullness, His Body, to express Him on earth in a corporate way.
Hallelujah, through the enjoyment of the riches of Christ we become His fullness for His complete expression!
Lord, save us from being spiritually undernourished; keep us enjoying You and partaking of Your riches until we become Your fullness, part of Your corporate expression! Amen, Lord, may all the members of Your body partake of and enjoy the riches of Christ until You gain the Body of Christ as the fullness of Christ for Your complete expression! We open to You, dear Lord, and we come hungry and thirsty for Your riches, for what You are! Fill us today! Constitute us with Yourself. We allow You to work Yourself into us and make Your home in all our heart. Give us today’s portion of grace so that we may grow in life with the growth of God for the building up of the church. Amen, Lord, may You have a way to fill Your saints, the members of Your Body, until You gain the church as the fullness of Christ for Your complete expression!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by the brothers for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 3, “One Body, One Spirit, and One New Man,” chs. 3-4, 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Intrinsic and Organic Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ (2021 International Chinese-Speaking Conference), week 2, The Intrinsic Growth of the Church for Its Organic Increase.
- Hymns on this topic:
– We have the church! All saints are needed to possess / The fullness of this vast reality; / Together we will gain this all-inclusive Christ, / And He to us our everything will be. (Hymns #1287)
– In the spirit we can taste / All the riches of Thy grace; / All Thy fullness, blessed Lord / Is for those in one accord! (Hymns #1239)
– Jesus is getting us together, / Come and see the saints in one accord. / His love is knitting us together, / To the stature of the fullness of the Lord. / Thus with all saints we can apprehend / All the vast dimensions of God. / Knowing Christ’s love passes all we know, / We’re together filled to fullness with our God. (Hymns #1232)
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