Living by the Divine Life, with an Uplifted Humanity, by the Cross in the Church life

It is so amazing to realize that the church is not only the gathering of God’s called out ones but also an organism with two lives and two natures – the human nature and the divine nature, and therefore we should be those living by the divine life in the church life today.

The epistle to the Hebrews presents some really advanced truths, encouraging the Hebrew believers to be brought on to maturity and leave the old things of the old dispensation behind.

This book contains many sombre words of warning together with an amazing and marvelous unveiling of Christ in His heavenly ministry.

Our Christ today is not on earth physically with us – He is in the heavens, and in His heavenly ministry He is doing many wonderful things such as interceding for us, being a High Priest ministering to God and to us, being a Minister of the holy places to minister God into our being, and administrating the universe for God’s purpose to be carried out.

At the same time, Christ is in our spirit as the Spirit – the Lord is now the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and we are joined to Him as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). He as the Spirit with our spirit transmits to us all that Christ is doing in the heavens.

Whenever we exercise our spirit and set our mind on the things above, we are connected to the heavens, and Christ as the Spirit transmits and dispenses all that He is and He’s doing in the heavens into us.

He has gone before us, He is now in the heavenly Holy of Holies, He is interceding for us, He’s shepherding us, and He’s the Pioneer and Forerunner encouraging us to go on with Him and cooperate with Him in His heavenly ministry.

Christ is also the Mediator of the new covenant and its Executor; He makes real to us all the bequests of the new covenant to us. Everything that He does is related to the church life and can be applied in our practical church life today.

The first thing concerning the church that we need to realize is that it is a living composition of the many sons of God, who are the many brothers of Christ brought forth in His resurrection.

Our Father is God Himself, and we are His sons born of His life with His divine nature; we are brothers of Christ – who is the firstborn Son of God – and we are becoming like Him, even being conformed to His image. Hallelujah!

The Church is an Organism with the Divine Life and Nature and the Human Life and Nature

As typified by the meal offering in Lev. 2:1-16 and as shown in Heb. 2:11, 14, the church is an organism with two lives (the divine life and the human life) and two natures (the divine nature and the human nature) combined and mingled together.

The church is not an organisation or a business; the church is not a physical building where Christians go to worship; the church is not a social gathering of Christians. The church is altogether a matter of life – the divine life and the uplifted, resurrected human life (see Rom. 1:3-4).

The church is composed of the many sons of God, the many believers in Christ, and the many members of the Body of Christ; all the components of the church have the human nature (they are men) and the divine nature (they have been born of God).

Christ, the first God-man, became the Author of our salvation perfected through sufferings; He became a man, lived a perfect life on earth, died on the cross, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit to dispense and impart Himself into all those who believe into Him to make them God-men and components of the church.

God’s eternal purpose is to have a group of sons as His corporate expression; for this, His only begotten Son passed through a process and then entered into glory, having been fully perfected to be the standard model for God’s expression.

Christ as the firstborn Son of God is the model to which all the other sons of God are being conformed to become part of the mass reproduction of Christ, the Body of Christ, to express God in a corporate way.

Throughout the centuries God has been working to gain a mass reproduction of Christ, His firstborn Son; however, because not many have seen God’s purpose, they have been hindered in their growth in life and conformation to Christ.

Today the Lord desires to reproduce Christ in the church life so that we may be the same as Christ, the firstborn Son of God, to be part of God’s corporate expression, the church.

The church therefore is not a matter of organization or social gathering; the church is a matter of life; we need to have more of the divine life wrought into us, and our human life needs to be resurrected and uplifted.

There’s no greater mistake than trying to live the church life by our human life; this contradicts the nature of the church. The church is a realm of life, the divine life and the human life being mingled together, and if we live by our natural life, we damage the church.

We shouldn’t live in the church life in a soulish or natural way, but according to the divine life and the divine nature in our spirit.

The Lord wants us to have an uplifted, resurrected human life; this will make us contactable and approachable, and we will have fellowship in life with the saints under Christ as the Head.

Lord Jesus, cause us to realize that the church is an organism with two lives and two natures combined together. Save us from living in the natural life or soulish life in the church life. Work Yourself into us and grow in our being as life so that we may live by another life, the divine life. Save us from delaying You in fulfilling Your purpose of obtaining a corporate expression in Your many sons, the church. Perfect us, Lord, until we become the same as Christ to express God in our daily living!

Living by the Divine Life, with an Uplifted Humanity, by the Cross in the Church life

The nature of the church is both human and divine, for the church is a composition of the many sons of God; therefore, we need to be those living by the divine life in the church life today.

Many years ago people thought that the church is the building where believers gather to worship God; then the light in the word of God shone to reveal that the church is not a cathedral, a chapel, or a sanctuary, but the gathering of God’s called out ones, the ekklesia.

Furthermore, the Lord’s light shined more to reveal that the church is a composition of the many sons of God, the many brothers of Christ. The church is not only a gathering of real believers; it is a body, the Body of Christ, an organism with the divine life and the divine nature.

The church has two lives and two natures, just as the Head of the church, Christ – the firstborn Son of God – has two lives and two natures. We need to realize what the church is, so that we may live a proper church life under the heavenly ministry of Christ today.

We need to be perfected to live the God-man life, a life that is not merely by our human natural life but by the divine life, a life that is under the cross, and with a proper humanity.

The Lord Jesus as the Author of our salvation is perfecting us daily to live under the termination of the cross of Christ, so that we may allow His all-inclusive death to put to death all the negative, natural, and selfish things in our being.

On the positive side, the Lord perfects us by working Himself into us so that we may have an uplifted humanity, a resurrected humanity, a humanity like that of Jesus. Our humanity is full of holes, lacks, shortcomings, and failures, but the humanity of Jesus is uplifted and resurrected.

Through our pray-reading the word of God, we drink the humanity of Jesus and have it constituted into our being; then, in our daily life we will live out not our natural humanity but the humanity of Jesus, being Jesusly human for the building up of the church.

On the negative side, the Lord perfects us to be sons of God in reality by giving us the experiences we need that will apply the cross to our being; on the positive side, He saturates us and permeates us with Himself so that we may have an increase of the divine life in us.

In His heavenly ministry Christ ministers to us all that we need; His grace is sufficient for us, and whenever we come forward to Him, He dispenses Himself with all His riches into our being to meet our every need.

The result is that we will be living by the divine life, with the uplifted and resurrected humanity of Jesus, and under the cross, for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, the living composition of the sons of God.

Lord Jesus, we open to Your perfecting. Perfect us to be sons of God in reality, those living by the divine life, with the uplifted humanity of Jesus, and under the cross. Give us the experiences we need for us to be conformed to Your image and become the reproduction, the reprint, of the Firstborn Son of God. Keep us open to Your heavenly ministry so that we may live daily under Your divine dispensing, have the humanity of Jesus wrought into us, and experience the cross. Amen, Lord, gain Your corporate expression in the church today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Hebrews, msgs. 14, 36, 38, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 7 (week 7), Practicing the Church Life under the Ministry of Christ as the Minister of the True, the Heavenly, Tabernacle. 
• Hymns on this topic:
  # God ordained us unto sonship, / Ere creation’s work was done, / To conform us by His Spirit / To the image of His Son; / That His only dear Begotten / Might become the firstborn One, / And by Him with many brethren / His expression full be won. (Hymns #741)
  # But in th’ economy of God / There is not one, but many sons. / One is the firstborn Son of God / With many other living ones. (Hymns #1322)
  # In our Brother’s resurrection / Resurrected we must meet, / Never in our natural standing— / This will make His joy complete! / Every day we must see Jesus / As we’re eating of the Word; / Then we’ll run to all the meetings / Burning, bubbling with the Lord! (Hymns #1280)