The reality of the Body of Christ is the reality in Jesus (Eph. 4:21); the way that the Lord Jesus lived on earth is the way that the members of the Body of Christ should live today – a life according to the reality in Jesus.
What is reality? How can we have reality? We know that the things we can see, touch, feel, or sense with our physical senses are not reality, and we also know that our feelings, thoughts, opinions, or decisions – all these matters of the soul are not reality.
Only spiritual things are real, and in particular only God Himself is real. The Triune God is reality – God is reality, Christ is reality, and the Spirit is of reality.
How can we, human beings who are here today and in a few years are gone, touch reality, live in reality, and be in reality? How can we enter into the reality of the Body of Christ? It is all by means of our mingled spirit, the divine Spirit mingled with our spirit.
First, reality is God and God is reality; then, this reality has come – Jesus came as the embodiment of God to be the way, the reality, and the life.
And just before the Lord Jesus died, He promised that He will not leave His disciples orphans but He will return to them, and He will send the Spirit of reality, who will not speak of Himself but of what He hears from God and of Christ.
In other words, the Lord Jesus promised us that He will return as the Spirit of reality, and He will guide us into all the reality of the Triune God. Hallelujah! Now there is one Body and one Spirit, even as we were called in one hope of our calling (Eph. 4:4).
Through regeneration and baptism we are baptised in one Spirit into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13), and we are given to drink of the one Spirit.
Now as the believers in Christ, we have Christ as the Spirit in our spirit – we are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), and we can turn to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and live in the spirit, walking according to the Spirit in all things.
When we live in the mingled spirit, we will spontaneously fulfill the requirements of the law, and we will live a life of reality, a repetition and continuation of the life of Jesus.
The reality in Jesus should be duplicated in His many members – which is us, the many believers in Christ – so that they may live corporately in the reality of the Body of Christ. Amen, may the Lord gain such a reality in us and among us today!
May the reality which is in Jesus be duplicated and lived out in all the believers in Christ as the members of Christ, so that the Lord may gain a corporate reality of the Body of Christ!
The Human Living of Jesus was according to Reality – Reality is in Jesus, who today is the Spirit of Reality
The reality of Christ has become the Spirit of reality imparted into the believers essentially. In Eph. 4:20-21 Paul says that we have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus.
This “reality in Jesus” refers to the actual condition of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels.
When we were unbelievers, our walk was ungodly like the Gentiles, the fallen people; in the ungodly walk of the Gentiles there’s vanity (v. 17), but in the godly life of Jesus there’s reality.
What kind of life did Jesus live? He lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God; He came from the Father, He spoke the Father’s words, He sought the Father’s glory, and He did the Father’s work.
God was in the Lord’s living, and He did everything in God, with God, and for God, being one with God in everything.
This is what it means “the reality is in Jesus”. We as believers in Christ are regenerated with Him as our life, and the Spirit of reality is in us; now we can live out the same kind of life as Jesus did by the Spirit of reality with our spirit.
The Spirit of reality imparts the reality of Jesus into us, and He teaches us subjectively what the reality is in Jesus.
The essence of the life of Jesus is reality (see John 1:14, 17; 14:6); He came full of grace and reality, and He Himself is reality – reality is the essence within Christ’s life.
“The reality” in Eph. 4:24 is actually the personification of God; this reality was exhibited in the life of Jesus.
The Gentiles walked and lived a life of vanity, but we did not so learn Christ, if indeed we have been taught in Him (by the Spirit of reality) as the reality is in Jesus.
Reality is personified in the person of Jesus Christ, and this One is in us as the Spirit of reality.
The human living of Jesus was according to the reality, that is, according to God Himself; Jesus was one with God, God was with Him, and He was one with God to express God – this is the meaning of the reality is in Jesus.
Jesus lived because of the Father; the Father sent Him, and He spoke what the Father said, He came to do the Father’s work, He lived the Father, and He expressed the Father.
Everyone on this earth lives for Himself – this is a life of vanity; Jesus lived for God, He expressed God, and He did the work of God and spoke the word of God, so His life was a life of reality.
The life of reality that the Lord Jesus lived was not for Himself or in Himself but in God, for God, and by God; this is what it means that the reality is in Jesus, and such a reality needs to be lived out in us.
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming as God becoming man and living a life of reality. We want to know You, Lord, and have reality imparted into our being by the Spirit of reality who is with our spirit. Amen, Lord, we want to learn Christ, hear Christ, and be taught in Christ as the reality is in Jesus, so that we may have the same kind of life today on earth. May the reality in Jesus be wrought into us, the believers in Christ, so that our living today would be a continuation and a duplication of the life of Jesus on the earth!
The Reality of the Body of Christ is the Reality in Jesus lived out Corporately
What is the reality of the Body? It is the reality in Jesus being lived out corporately in all the members of the Body of Christ. The way that the Lord Jesus lived on earth is the way that we, the members of the Body of Christ, should live today (Eph. 4:17, 20-21; 5:1-2, 8).
The life of Jesus as seen in the Gospels is the shining of light – it is reality, the expression of God; in the life of Jesus there is reality. We as believers in Christ are not mere individual Christians but we’re members of the Body of Christ and components of the one new man.
The new man was created by Christ on the cross in righteousness and holiness of the reality (Eph. 4:24). Righteousness is to be right with God and with man according to God’s righteous way, and holiness is godliness and devoutness before God.
Outwardly, everything that is related to the new man is righteous, and inwardly, everything related to the new man is holy; righteousness is mainly toward men, while holiness is mainly toward God.
And this righteousness and holiness of the new man are of the reality. The new man is related to “the deceit” (v. 22), which is the personification of Satan; the new man is related to “the reality”, which is the personification of God.
In the life of Jesus righteousness and holiness of the reality were continuously manifested, and the new man was created in righteousness and holiness of the reality.
Today we need to put on this new man – first we need to put off the old man with its old, vain, empty, dead manner of life, and then put on the new man, which is in reality.
Our standard of living should not be according to the law, morality, ethics, or the standards of society; our standard must be the reality in Jesus.
The life that Jesus lived should be our life today in the church, and the living of the new man should be exactly the same as the living of Jesus.
Our living today shouldn’t be merely according to right or wrong, good or bad, or morality; our living today should be in the reality of the Body of Christ, which is the reality in Jesus lived out in us.
When we are about to go shopping, we shouldn’t merely think whether we should or shouldn’t go – we should simply ask the Lord if He is going shopping.
If we are about to go somewhere or do something, we need to not merely consider whether that place or that thing is good or positive as opposed to wrong or negative, but we should check with the Lord Jesus in our spirit whether He would go there or do that thing.
The life of the one new man must be that of the reality of Jesus; if we all live in a way that is heavenly, divine, righteous, holy, and glorious, we shall have a wonderful community life in the church.
We need to learn Christ and taught in Him to live a life of reality (Eph. 4:20-21; 2 John 1; John 4:23-24).
The reality of Christ is now being transmitted into us by the Spirit of reality; the Spirit of reality is being partaken of by us and is constituting us to cause us the same kind of life that Jesus lived.
In this way we are made a duplication of the divine reality, which was once only in Christ, in the Triune God, but today it is being duplicated into His believers to become the reality of the Body of Christ.
The reality of the Body of Christ is simply the reality in Jesus lived out corporately in all the saints.
Paul testified in 2 Cor. 11:10 that the truthfulness of Christ is in him; here is a person who was so filled and constituted with reality that it become his genuineness and virtues of sincerity and reality, thus living and exhibiting a life as Jesus did when He was on earth.
In 2 John 1 John greeted a sister, whom he loved in truthfulness; reality has been constituted and transmitted into him to become his reality.
We need to learn Christ and be taught in Him; we were put into Christ as mould, and the reality lived out by Christ as a man on earth became a mold into which we were put – now we’re being conformed to how Jesus was not by imitation but by the Spirit of reality.
As members of the Body of Christ, we should live a life of reality, as the reality is in Jesus — a life of expressing God (Eph. 5:30; 4:20-21).
The reality in Jesus should be duplicated in His many members so that they may live corporately in the reality of the Body of Christ (John 14:19). Amen, Lord Jesus!
Lord Jesus, gain the reality of the Body of Christ today – gain the reality of Jesus being lived out corporately in all the saints. We want to learn Christ and be taught in Him to live a life of reality, a life of expressing God. Amen, Lord Jesus, may the reality in Jesus be duplicated in us, His many members, so that we may live corporately in the reality of the Body of Christ! Constitute us with Yourself through the Spirit of reality, and be the One who lives in us the same kind of life that You lived on earth two thousand years ago, a life for the expression of the Father, a life of reality!
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, Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 49 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Reality of the Body of Christ (2018 Thanksgiving Conference), week 1, The Spirit of Reality Being the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Lord, teach me how to exercise / My spirit now to contact Thee, / That in Thy Spirit I may walk / And live by Thy reality. (Hymns #493)
# He’s the Spirit of Reality. / He’s the secret. He is one with me; / He’s in my spirit. God dispensed in me / From my spirit, soul and then, body, / Producing reality. (Song on, He’s the Spirit of reality)
# With Thy divine reality, / Lord, fill us by Thy Spirit now, / That we may all be full of Thee, / And all Thy riches thus avow. (Hymns #243)
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