The Lord Desires to Recover the Organic Building up of the Body of Christ

May the Lord recovery us back to practicing the scriptural way to meet and serve, which is able to develop the organic ability and function of the members of Christ for the organic building up of the Body of Christ.

The church is the Body of Christ; the Body of Christ is not merely an allegory or a type of what the church is, but rather, the church is the organism of the Triune God!

When we take Christ as our Head, we are members of His Body, and we grow and function for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. The church is not an organisation or a social club; the church is the organic Body of Christ constituted of all the believers who have been regenerated and have God’s life, for the expression of Christ the Head.

The church is the fullness of the Head – we as members of the Body enjoy Christ with all His riches, and the result is that we become the fullness of Christ, the corporate expression of Christ.

The church as the Body of Christ is universally vast – it includes all the believers in Christ in all time and space, for this Christ who fills all in all has a Body that is His fullness to match Him.

Christ is the Head of the church – Christ and the church are one Body, the mysterious universal great man having the same life and nature.

As the Body of Christ, the church receives everything from Christ; therefore, everything of Christ is expressed through the church. The reality of the Body of Christ is the Spirit of the reality of the Triune God.

All the reality of the church is the Spirit of reality – everything of the processed Triune God, what God is and has and can do, the death and resurrection of Christ, and all God’s attributes – everything is in the Spirit of reality, and this Spirit is with our spirit.

For us to participate in the work of building up of the Body of Christ, we need to practice the scriptural way to meet and serve. We need to forsake any traditional Christian way to meet and serve, and come back to the Word of God, so that the Lord’s words concerning the building up of the church would be fulfilled.

May the Lord have mercy on us that, in our life time and among us, the reality of 1 Cor. 14:26 and Heb. 10:24-25 would be fulfilled among us!

May we take the scriptural way to meet and to serve – which is versus the traditional way, the natural way to meet and serve; may we not choke or bind the organic function of the living members of Christ but rather, develop the organic ability and function of the members of Christ for the building up of the organic Body of Christ.

The Scriptural way is able to Develop the Organic Ability and Function of the Members of Christ to Build up the Body of Christ

The scriptural way to meet and to serve does not choke or annul the function of the believers in Christ but rather is able to develop the organic function and ability of the members of Christ, and it is able to build up the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12, 16).

The clergy-laity system will never build up the Body of Christ, for when this superior class of people are gone, everything collapses.

We need to take the way of everyone functioning in the Body of Christ, for everyone’s portion counts, and no one’s portion is too small. In the traditional way we may make excuses such as, I’m not good at this, I can’t speak that well, I don’t know that much… – but in the scriptural way we realize that we have at least one talent, and we do not bury it but rather, we all contribute to the building up of the Body of Christ.

The scriptural way to meet and serve is seen Eph. 4:12 and 16 – first in v. 12 the gifted persons do their work to perfect the saints so that the saints may carry out the work of the ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ.  Then in v. 16 we see that the perfected saints function to build up the Body of Christ directly.

“Every joint of the rich supply” refers to the specially gifted persons, who are not over-functioning to replace others but rather are able to develop the organic function and ability of the members of Christ. “Each one part” refers to every member of the Body of Christ.

After we, as members of the Body, are perfected by the gifted persons, we have to function. The gifts, the joints in the Body, function to render the supply of life to the Body. Then we, as members of the Body, are supplied richly to function in our measure in the Body.

Each member of the Body has an organic function in the Body, and the scriptural way to meet and serve is to develop the organic ability and function of all the members of Christ, so that each member would function in their measure for the building up of the Body of Christ.

We need to be the members in the Body who allow the gifted ones to perfect us, and we need to learn to function in the Body for the organic building up of the Body of Christ.

Lord Jesus, we want to take the scriptural way to meet and to serve to be able to develop the organic ability and function of the members of Christ to build up the Body of Christ! Lord, may all the saints be perfected by the gifted members so that they would be inwardly supplied and equipped to function in their measure for the building up of the Body of Christ. May all the gifted ones not over-function but rather learn to perfect the saints to develop the organic ability and function of the members of Christ to build up the Body of Christ.

The Lord Jesus Desires to Recover the Organic Building up of the Body of Christ

What the Lord desires to recover today is the organic building up of the Body of Christ through the increase of the Triune God in the believers and by meeting in mutuality for the building up of the church.

The Body of Christ is an organic entity, and the building up of the Body is a matter in life; without growth in the divine life in the saints, the Body cannot be built up. What we see built up in Christianity is mostly something inorganic; according to the New Testament, the building up of the church should be altogether in life.

What is the building up of the Body? First, the organic building up of the Body of Christ is the increase of the Triune God in the believers for their growth in Christ. The Body of Christ grows with the growth of God, that is, with the increase of God in all the members of the Body of Christ.

It is essential that we as members of the Body would allow Christ to increase in us, for the growth of God in us is the growth of the Body for the organic building up of the Body of Christ.

The element by which the Body of Christ grows is the element of God growing in all the members of the Body of Christ.

Furthermore, we need to not only grow in life by allowing God to grow in us, but we also need to function in mutuality for the building up of the Body of Christ.

The Lord desires to recover the church meetings in mutuality with all the saints speaking for the organic building up of the Body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 14:23, 26, 31).

Our God is very rich – He owns great and vast riches, and He has a very large household; all His rich provision are embodied in Christ, and this Christ today is the all-inclusive, life-giving, compound Spirit.

Since God is so rich and His family – composed of all the believers in Christ – is so great, He has a family plan, a family administration, to distribute and dispense all the divine riches in Christ into His saved ones for their nourishment and feeding, resulting in the organic building up of the Body of Christ.

How can the riches of God in Christ be distributed to all of God’s people for the building up of the Body? It is by all saints prophesying. The Lord desires to recover the church meetings in mutuality with all saints prophesying (that is, speaking for the Lord) for the building up of the church.

The excelling way to dispense the riches of Christ into God’s people for the organic building up of the Body of Christ is prophesying (see 1 Cor. 14:4, 12, 31; Matt. 16:18). The dispensing of the riches of Christ is by all saints prophesying to minister the riches of Christ to the saints who listen.

To prophesy is to distribute, to dispense, the Triune God as the rich food, the nourishing element, into others. When we experience Christ and let Him grow into us, we are filled with His riches; then, as we meet together, we speak for the Lord and we speak the Lord forth for the organic building up of the Body of Christ.

We praise the Lord for the revelation of the Body of Christ and for the God-ordained way for us to practice to build up the Body of Christ.

May the Lord burden us that we need to cooperate with the Lord by preaching the gospel to beget sons of God, nourishing the ones who are begotten, teaching them and perfecting them to build them up, and prophesy for the building up of the church.

May we be part of the fulfilment of God’s desire to recover the organic building up of the Body of Christ!

Lord Jesus, recover the organic building up of the Body of Christ! May there be a constant increase of the Triune God in all the believers in Christ for their growth in life, and may we be recovered to function in mutuality in the church meetings. Lord, grow in us for the Body, and recover us to prophesy in the church meetings for the building up of the church. May we take the way of prophesying – the excelling way to dispense the riches of Christ into God’s people for the organic building up of the Body of Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1987, vol. 3, “The Scriptural Way to Meet and to Serve for the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” chs. 6-8, 16-17, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Church (2017 fall ITERO), week 7, The Status of the Church – the Body of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The Church of God—we are the church, / So important to God’s great plan; / Organic, full of God’s rich life, / We’re born into the living church. (Song on, the church of God)
  # No longer I alone that live, / But God together lives with me. / Built with the saints in the Triune God, / His universal house we’ll be, / And His organic Body we / For His expression corp’rately. (Song on, What miracle! What mystery!)
  # Lord, I would offer myself, / Build Your organic Body; / Open homes, / Gain the young, / Shepherd men, / Perfect them, / Bring in the glorious church, / Hasten, Lord, Your return. (Song on Building God’s House)