Living the Church Life by the spirit of the mind to be the Corporate Expression of Christ

Before the Lord Jesus comes back, He will fully recover the proper church life, for the church life is what fulfills His heart’s desire; the church life is the corporate expression of Christ, and this is what the Lord is after today.

This week we have been looking at five major aspects of the church life – and today we want to dive deeper into the sixth one, which is that the church life is the corporate expression of Christ.

First, we have seen that the church life is Christ lived out through us in a corporate way. This means that we today need to take Christ as our life and our person, so that we may allow Christ to live out in us and through us the church life.

The Christian life is Christ Himself lived out through us, and the church life is Christ living in us in a corporate way for the corporate expression of Christ.

Therefore, we need to put ourselves on the cross and take Christ as life; then, we will slowly be permeated with Christ and saturated with Him, until He lives in us and our living is simply Christ living in us; this is the church life. We need to daily be transformed for the practice of the church life; we need to learn to be inward Christians who are in the process of being transformed for the practice of the church life.

The second aspect of the church life is that the genuine experience of Christ always issues in and requires the church life. This means that, if we experience Christ in a genuine way, the result is that we live the church life.

The Christ who lives in us not only puts us to death and fills us with Himself, but He wants to live the church life. When we as believers in Christ experience Him in a genuine and living way, He will require us to get into the church life, because the dispensing of Christ into us is for the producing and building up of the church.

When we take Christ as our life and person, and we enjoy Him as our everything, this Christ within us will require the proper church life, and He Himself in us will become the church life.

Third, the church life is a life of being headed up under the unique headship of Christ. All things and persons in this universe are in a “heap of collapse”, being affected by the rebellion of Satan and the rebellion of man.

Even those who want to do good cannot do it continually, for we are subject to the law of sin and of death, and the element of rebellion is in our very being. But God is heading up His chosen ones to be the Body of Christ, where Christ is the Head and we, the many believers in Christ, are the many members of the Body of Christ.

In the church life today we are taking the lead to be under the headship of Christ, taking Christ as the Head and growing into Him in all things, so that through the church God would have a way to head up all things in Christ.

When the church is headed up in Christ by each member taking Christ as the Head and being under the headship of Christ, God has a way to head up all things in Christ through the church (Eph. 1:10). The way for us to be headed up in Christ is simple: we need to grow up into Him in all things.

Fourth, the reality of the church life is fellowship, that is, the church life is fellowship. The way we can realize the church life is by having fellowship with the Lord vertically and with the saints horizontally.

When we were regenerated we were “plugged into” the divine fellowship which originates from God and flows in and among men; this is both a vertical and a horizontal fellowship.

When we exercise our spirit and pray over the word of God, we fellowship with the Lord and we receive the divine flow into our being; when we fellowship with the saints by the exercise of our spirit, we have horizontal fellowship in the Body of Christ.

When we have this mutual flowing between us and God and us and one another, we have the reality of the church life.

The fifth aspect of the church life is that the church life is the continuation of the divine glorification, that is, the church life is the continuation of Christ being glorified by the Father with the divine glory.

God the Father has glorified Christ by raising Him from the dead so that He may be multiplied and reproduced in resurrection into the many brothers of Christ, the many sons of God, the many believers in Christ.

Now Christ is glorified in His saints, who compose the church. For Christ to be glorified means that the divine nature and the divine life are expressed.

Whenever we as believers in Christ live by the divine life and nature, we express the divine glory; the more we live by God’s life and nature, the more glory will be to God in the church!

The church has been produced in the divine glorification, and the church life continues to grow in the divine glorification, until we all become the corporate expression of Christ!

Praise the Lord for the church life! Thank You Lord for bringing us in the church life where Christ is lived out through us in a corporate way for the corporate expression of Christ. Lord, we want to experience You in a genuine way so that we may live out the church life. May we all be headed up under the unique headship of Christ in the church life, so that God would head up all things in Christ through the church. Lord, keep us in the flow of the divine fellowship that we may realize the church life. May the church life be the continuation of the divine glorification, so that the church life would become the corporate expression of Christ!

Living the Church Life as the Corporate Expression of Christ by the spirit of the mind

The church life is the corporate expression of Christ (see Eph. 3:16-21; 4:16; 5:27), and the key to be such an expression is the spirit of the mind (Eph. 4:23).

When we are willing to be renewed in our mind so that we may be transformed, we become the corporate expression of Christ (Rom. 12:2). The organ in our being for expression is our soul, and the leading part of our soul is our mind; if our mind is renewed, our whole soul is transformed, and Christ is being expressed through us.

The key to the church life being the corporate expression of Christ is the renewing of our mind by the spirit of the mind. If we are not going to express this age of anarchy and we would not be conformed to this age, we need our mind to be renewed.

We need to be filled in spirit unto all the fullness of God, and out of this infilling, there will be an overflow and a spontaneous living – we will spontaneously overcome sin and the world, and we will submit to others, honor our parents, love our wife, and be meek and gentle.

However, this will not be a mere behavior, something we achieve by perfecting ourselves through our own efforts; this will be the expression of God through our human virtue, and it will bear the flavor of Christ.

Many times people are meek, ethical, good, and kind, yet the flavor is still themselves, not Christ; even in the church life, it is possible to perfect a character that is nice, gentle, humble, and good, yet the flavor is not Christ.

The expression of God is absolutely different from mere ethical behavior; the expression of Christ is simply the divine attributes filling and being expressed through our human virtues, and the flavor of such an expression is Christ.

In our honesty, generosity, meekness, and kindness, there needs to be the expression of the divine character.If we live according to the spirit of the mind, there will be in the church life an expression of the divine character (Eph. 5:24; Col. 3:10), and we will be a corporate people with the flavor of Christ and the expression of God.

When others touch us, they will see a human being living, but the flavor will be of Christ. In all our virtues of lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, love, kindness, patience, forbearance, etc, there should be the expression of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God.

The church life is simply the corporate expression of Christ, and the key to being such an expression is for us to be renewed in our mind and to live according to the spirit of the mind, the mingled spirit which has saturated our mind to make us one with God and make God real to us.

The church life must be filled with the aroma and flavor of Christ and with the character of God; such a living is the living of the Triune God through our humanity (Phil. 1:20-21).

The corporate expression of Christ is not merely a good humanity with proper human virtues being lived out in the believers; rather, it is the aroma and flavor of Christ being expressed in the character of God which is lived out in the saints.

For centuries the Lord has been longing for such a church life (Eph. 1:5, 9), and we pray that, before long, this kind of church life will be fully practiced among us in the Lord’s recovery (Col. 1:9; 4:12; Matt. 6:10).

May the Lord be satisfied by seeing such an expression of Himself on earth through the recovery of the genuine church life – all throughout the earth!

Lord Jesus, may You gain a church life that is filled with the aroma and flavor of Christ and with the character of God! May the church life be filled with the living of the Triune God through our humanity, and may such a church life be fully practiced among us in the Lord’s recovery! Amen! Oh Lord, we want to live according to the mingled spirit which is spreading in our mind, so that there will be in the church life an expression of the divine character. Amen, Lord, may You be satisfied by seeing an expression of Yourself through the recovery of the genuine church life throughout the earth!

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 Ephesians, pp. 791-793, (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:
  # I would cease completely / From my efforts vain, / Let Thy life transform me, / Full release to gain; / Build me up with others / Till in us Thou see / Thy complete expression / Glorifying Thee. (Hymns #841)
  # In the church life we can see / We are God’s own family. / As we blend with the saints / We are built up in love, / His expression thus to be. / In the church we are home; / Here our joy has begun. / In this sweet fellowship / We are built up in love / As the many, yet as one. (Song on the church life)
  # By all the hymns and prayers we offer here, / Christ the reality we would express; / All the activities in fellowship – / Christ thus in operation manifest. (Hymns #863)