Being Mingled with God and Sinking Deeply into God to Build up the Church in Oneness

It is so enlightening to see the intrinsic significance of the materials of the temple and to realize that God desires a building – the church as the temple of God, and for this we need to have certain experiences of Christ in the Body and for the Body, so that God would gain what He is after.

The fact that the size and number of the furnishings and the utensils in the temple were greatly enlarged than the ones in the tabernacle is very significant, showing us that, although Christ Himself (signified by the Ark) cannot be enlarged, our experience of Christ day by day in all His riches should be greatly enlarged and increased to match His enlarged expression!

We need to enjoy Christ, pursue Christ, and gain Christ more and more until He increases in us, grows in us, and is expanded in us for His building.

Furthermore, our experiences of Christ and our functions and gifts in the Body need to be properly proportioned and balanced.

We all experience Christ, we all go through certain situations sovereignly arranged by God, and we all have a certain function; when we come together in the church life, we need to learn to be coordinated, tempered, and balanced, so that we all would function, we all would build up the Body, and we all would be balanced and properly proportioned.

It is God who placed us as members in the Body even as He willed, and we need to cooperate with Him by exercising our spirit to function in our measure and build up the Body of Christ!

And when we build up the Body we need to be careful what materials we build with: if we mar the building of God, we will suffer God’s judgement, but if we build with gold, silver, and precious stones, we are God’s co-workers for the building up of the church.

God doesn’t want a large work, a large quantity of work which is of wood, grass, and stubble; He would rather have a small amount of gold, silver, and precious stones than a large quantity of worthless materials.

Oh Lord Jesus, how much we need to enjoy the Triune God as gold (God the Father in His divine nature), silver (God the Son in His redeeming work), and precious stones (God the Spirit in His transforming work) so that we may build up the church with the proper materials!

Taking Heed that we Build the Church as the Temple of God with the Proper Materials

In 1 Cor. 3:12-15 we see that we need to take heed how we build; the foundation, Christ, has been laid, but we need to be careful what materials we use when we build up the church as the building of God.

In God’s eyes quality is more important than quantity: gold, silver, and precious stones may be small in quantity but they are high in quality, while wood, hay, and stubble are high in quantity but low in quality. Our work of building will have to pass the test of the fire of God’s judgement to see of what sort it is; we need to take heed that we build the church as the temple of God with proper materials.

At Christ’s judgement seat, each one’s work will be proved according to “what sort it is”; we will be judged at the judgement seat of Christ not according to the quantity but according to the quality of our work (see 1 Cor. 3:12-17; 2 Cor. 5:9-11).

The Lord wants us to see the vision of His economy and cooperate with Him for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, and as we build, we should care for our work of building, of what sort it is.

We may have a little power, but we simply need to do the best we can according to the grace of God, keeping the Lord’s word (His Person) and not denying His name (His expression), as in Rev. 3:8. We want to be those who are filled with nothing but Christ’s person and express nothing but Christ Himself!

Some believers function a lot, but they just express themselves because there’s no constitution of Christ. We need to be filled with Christ and constituted with Christ as the quality building material, so that when we open our mouth in the church life we would build up with gold, silver, and precious stones.

Christ Himself is the most precious One, and it is worth it to waste ourselves on Him (Mark 14:7-8); He is quality itself, and we need to experience Him, enjoy Him, and be filled with Him in many ways so that we may build up the church as the temple of God with the proper materials.

Lord Jesus, we want to take heed that we build the church as the temple of God with the proper materials. We want to cooperate with You for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, caring for the way we build so that we may use the proper means and the proper materials. Lord, work Yourself into us, fill us, and constitute us with Your precious element so that we would build up the church with gold, silver, and precious stones!

Being Mingled with God and Sinking Deeply into God to Build up the Church in Oneness

Both in the tabernacle and in the temple we see that the major parts are made of wood overlaid with gold; these two signify the two natures – the human nature and the divine nature.

In Genesis, when God gave Jacob the dream of the heavenly ladder with angels ascending and descending on it, Jacob poured oil on the stone he used as pillar – there was the oil signifying the Spirit, being poured on the stone, signifying humanity, to become Bethel, the house of God. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples as the oil on the stone, and they were mingled with God to become the house of God, the church.

Now in the tabernacle and in the temple what we see everywhere is gold overlaying acacia wood; in the church what we should see is the mingling of God with man: men living out God, divine nature overlaying the human nature.

The fact that the major parts of the temple were made of wood overlaid with gold signifies that many is being overlaid – united, mingled, and incorporated – with God (see 2 Chron. 3:7; 1 Kings 6:20-21, 30, 32, 35; 7:48-51). Amen!

Today in the church life in the Lord’s recovery what God is doing is overlaying His recovered people with Himself, and we all are learning to cooperate with God to be overlaid with God, having God’s element being added to our being to be mingled with God and express God.

Oneness is not a superficial matter. It is a matter of sinking deeply into the Triune God until we are fully overlaid with gold. We all need a great deal more of God. It is not sufficient simply to be coated with a thin layer of Him. If we truly have light on our need to be overlaid with gold, we will repent and say, “Lord, I repent that I am only gilded with gold. I have not yet been overlaid. What I have experienced of You is merely gilding. It is good for causing others to praise me, but it is not good for the real oneness, for holding me together with others. When even a small problem arises, my layer of gold is not sufficient, and the oneness is damaged. Lord, for the oneness, overlay me with an adequate amount of gold.” The more we are overlaid with gold, the more oneness we have. Nothing can damage the oneness that comes from our being overlaid with an ample quantity of gold. The more we have of God, the stronger is our oneness. (Witness Lee, Truth Messages, p. 84)

The oneness among us in the church life is not a matter of outward unity, and keeping the oneness is not a striving to keep some sort of unity that is hard to obtain….We have the oneness – oneness is in our spirit, it is the Triune God being added to us and wrought into us to make us one for His building, His corporate expression.

Oneness is actually a matter of sinking deeply into the Triune God until we are fully overlaid with gold, that is, until we are fully mingled with God; the only way for us to keep the oneness and be kept in the real oneness is to have an adequate amount of the experienced God (see Eph. 4:3; Col. 2:19).

Jesus Christ is the God-man, the man overlaid with God, the man mingled with God; He now is the life-giving Spirit with our spirit, and He wants to overlay us with God to mingle us with God so that we may sink into God and be one in God.

As we touch Christ as the Spirit, we enjoy Him as the God-man, the “gold-man”, and we are mingled with God; as a result, all His virtues – which are saturated with His divine attributes – become ours!

We need to be rooted and grounded in God as love, be overlaid with God, allow Christ to make His home in our heart, be lost in the Triune God, and be found in Christ as our everything so that we may be more mingled with God and sink deeply in God to build up the church in oneness!

Lord Jesus, we want to sink deeply into the Triune God until we are fully mingled with God and are kept in the real oneness of the Body. Lord, mingle Yourself more with us today by making Your home in our heart, by rooting us and grounding us into You, and by overlaying us with more God. We want to keep the oneness of the Spirit by experiencing the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit with our spirit. Save us Lord from merely being gilded with God. Save us from not having an adequate amount of God in our being. Add Yourself to us more for the Body!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, bro. Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message for this week, and Truth Messages, chs. 9-11 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Church as the Temple of God – The Goal of God’s Eternal Economy (2015 Thanksgiving Conference), week 3 / msg. 3, The Intrinsic Significance of the Materials of the Temple (2).
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # But Christ as life would so transform the saints / That they may be as pearl and precious stone, / As the materials suitable to build / Into His Church to make His Kingdom known. (Hymns #829)
  # The unity of Church is but / The saints in oneness living; / The Spirit which indwelleth them / This oneness ever giving. / Thus it is realized and called / The unity of Spirit; / ’Tis based upon the common faith / Which all the saints inherit. (Hymns #831)
  # I have learned the wondrous secret / Of abiding in the Lord; / I have tasted life’s pure fountain, / I am drinking of His word; / I have found the strength and sweetness / Of abiding ’neath the blood; / I have lost myself in Jesus, / I am sinking into God. (Hymns #564)