The highest peak in God’s economy is the reality of the Body of Christ, which is the corporate living of a group of God-men who have been perfected and matured; we need to live a crucified life by the divine life following the Lord’s pattern to be in the reality of the Body of Christ.
The blending that the Lord does and that we enter into today is for the Lord to gain the Body of Christ in reality on earth.
The many local churches on earth today are the Body of Christ, but where is the reality of the Body of Christ?
Where do we see a group of God-men who just live Christ, express Christ, and are built and blended together to be in the reality of the Body of Christ?
Today in the large realm of Christianity there are so many genuine believers, but where can the Lord find the reality of the Body of Christ which produces His bride for Him to return?
Even among us in the church life today, as we live the church life in the local churches in the Lord’s recovery, we still lack the reality of the Body of Christ.
This reality is something that the Lord is longing for.
He doesn’t want to merely gain many local churches all over the earth, neither is He after merely saving many souls.
What the Lord desires, especially at the end of this age, is to gain a group of people all over the earth who live the same kind of life that Jesus lived.
These are the many God-men who are not only regenerated with the divine life but are also matured, built up, perfected, and blended together to live a kind of a corporate living – the reality of the Body of Christ.
When such a reality is gained in a substantial way on earth, the Lord can return, for the bride of Christ is prepared and He can come back to rapture her.
We thank the Lord that He has brought us into the local churches, our home; here we are home and home indeed.
We love to enjoy the Lord with the saints, and we open to the Lord and His perfecting and building work as we live the church life with the saints.
However, we realize that the local churches are not the goal but the procedure for the Lord to gain the Body of Christ in reality.
So we give ourselves to the Lord not only to build up the local church, which we do, but even more to have a certain kind of living that matches the living of Jesus when He was on earth, so that the Lord would gain the reality of the Body of Christ among us today.
We realize that the Lord is not merely after many local churches but for a group of people who arrive at the highest peak in God’s economy, the reality of the Body of Christ.
He is building up His church, which is His Body, and we are here for this, for the building up of the organic Body of Christ and the practical expression of this Body on the earth.
Living a Crucified Life by the Divine Life to be in the Reality of the Body of Christ
The significance of our blending is the reality of the Body of Christ; we are blended together and God is blending the body together so that He may gain the Body of Christ in reality (1 Cor. 12:24).
The reality of the Body of Christ is a matter of our blending, of us being blended together.
It is not socializing in an outward way but having the experience of going through the cross, being by the Spirit, and dispensing Christ to one another for the building up of the Body of Christ.
This reality is a group of God’s redeemed people who have been made God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead (John 1:12-13; Rom. 8:16; 2 Pet. 1:4).
God’s economy has a goal, which is that man may become God in life and in nature, but not in the Godhead.
We believers in Christ are God-men born of God with His life and nature, and we need to live a crucified life by the divine life so that we may be in the reality of the Body of Christ.
We need to live a life not by ourselves but by another life, the divine life in our spirit.
The life of the processed and consummated Triune God entered into us and took us as His abode, His dwelling place, and now we live by the divine life (2 Cor. 13:14; John 14:23; Eph. 2:21-22).
![And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue; and many hearing were astounded, saying, Where [did] this man [get] these things? And what is this wisdom given to this man, and [how is it that] such works of power take place through His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us? And they were stumbled because of Him. Mark 6:2-3](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/And-when-the-Sabbath-had-come-He-began-to-teach-in-the-synagogue-jpg.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue; and many hearing were astounded, saying, Where [did] this man [get] these things? And what is this wisdom given to this man, and [how is it that] such works of power take place through His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us? And they were stumbled because of Him. Mark 6:2-3")
We are not merely men who are saved by grace and redeemed by the blood of Christ; we are men born of God, regenerated by God, having God’s life in us.
God’s life has come into us, and we are indwelt by God.
Now we need to live by this life, no longer living by our natural life or in the self but living a crucified life by the divine life so that we may be in the reality of the Body of Christ.
He is indwelling us, and we should not use our natural zeal, our natural energy, or our natural strength to do something for God.
This will be disapproved, for it will be burned by fire.
We need to enjoy the Lord, experience Christ, and let Him make His home in our heart.
We need to ask the Father to strengthen us through His Spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith.
As we allow Him to make His home in our heart, we become His expression and fullness; this is the reality of the Body of Christ.
This reality is not a living by an individual but a kind of corporate living.
It is the aggregate of many saints who have been redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, and transformed to live Christ, express Christ, and manifest Christ.
Because they have God indwelling them, they have been made actual God-men.
They grow in life and are mature, and they are being perfected to live a life that is the same as the living of Jesus when He was on earth.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was a God-man, but no one could realize this.
He lived not only a life of man but also a life of God; He lived the life of a God-man.
Those around Him marveled at Him, for they did not understand where did He get these things, how come He had this wisdom, and how can such works of power take place through His hands (Mark 6:2-3).
He was a perfect God-man, having a perfect humanity, but He denied Himself and lived by the life of the Father.
He did not speak His own words but what He heard from the Father, and He did not do His own work but did the work the Father gave Him to do.
Christ lived a crucified life by the divine life of the Father, and His living was approved by God.
Even before His physical crucifixion, Christ was being crucified every day for thirty-three and a half years.
He was a human being, a genuine man, even a perfect man, but He didn’t live by that genuine man.
Instead, He kept that genuine man with the perfect humanity on the cross, and He lived a life in resurrection by living by the life of God.
Such a One now lives in us, and His life needs to be repeated in us.
We need to live a crucified life by the divine life so that we may be in the reality of the Body of Christ.
As the God-men of today, the continuation and duplication of Jesus as the first God-man, we need to live by the life of God and not by our own life.
When there’s a group of people on earth who live a crucified life by the divine life, denying themselves and living by the life of God for the expression of God, the Lord can gain the reality of the Body of Christ.
Such ones are not merely individual Christians but a corporate group, the Body of Christ in reality, and this is the bride of Christ for whom the Lord will return.
Lord Jesus, we want to live a crucified life by the divine life today so that we may be the reality of the Body of Christ. Save us, dear Lord, from living in ourselves, by ourselves, and for ourselves. We want to learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus to live the same kind of life even as He lived on the earth. We put ourselves aside and we exercise our spirit to live one spirit with You. Amen, Lord, teach us how to live a life not by ourselves but by another life, the divine life indwelling us. Praise You for coming in us as the life of the processed and consummated Triune God to dwell in us and make us Your abode. Grow in us. Bring us on to maturity. Perfect us. Live in us. Be manifested through us. We want to live a crucified life by the divine life so that You may gain the reality of the Body of Christ among us today. Amen, Lord, gain a group of God-men who live by the divine life so that God may be expressed through them. Gain the reality of the Body of Christ among us today!
The Corporate Living by the Perfected God-men who Live by God’s Life to express God’s Attributes through their Virtues
![When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory. Col. 3:4 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12 In this has love been perfected with us, that we may have boldness in the day of the judgment because even as He is, [so] also are we in this world. 1 John 4:17](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/When-Christ-our-life-is-manifested-then-you-also-will-be-manifested-with-Him-in-glory-jpg.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory. Col. 3:4 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12 In this has love been perfected with us, that we may have boldness in the day of the judgment because even as He is, [so] also are we in this world. 1 John 4:17")
The reality of the Body of Christ is something mysterious yet so precious and so real.
It is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, that is, us; we are genuine men but we are also born of God, and we live not by our life but by God’s life (2 Cor. 13:9, 11; Eph. 4:12; 1 Pet. 5:10; 1 John 4:12, 17-18).
The reality of the Body of Christ is a collective living by the God-men who have been perfected to live by the divine life in their spirit so that the divine attributes are expressed through their human virtues.
Who are the perfected God-men? What does it mean to be perfected?
We may understand that to be perfected is to be corrected and disciplined, adjusted, but it is much more than this.
To be perfected means that we no longer live by our natural human life, no matter how good it may be, but we live a crucified life by the divine life so that God may be expressed through us.
To be perfected doesn’t mean that we no longer make mistakes, we are error-free, and we’re flawless in our behaviour.
It is to have another life that lives in us. It is for Christ to live in us.
Matt. 5:48 says that we shall be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect.
God desires us to be perfect – not to be flawless in our conduct or behavior but to be like Him, and live in the same way that He lived when He was on earth.
Sadly to say, many of us have the concept that Christian perfection, as James said, is to be proper, religious, good, pious, and not make mistakes but rather, fulfil all the law.
But according to the context in Matt. 5, we need to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, so that we may be children of our Father who is in heaven, for He causes the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and He sends the rain on the just and the unjust.
God simply loves. And we need to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.
This is not the perfection in our character or behaviour but being perfect in the Father’s love, the inner substance of God.
For us to become perfect, we need to allow God’s being, His love, to be worked into us.
We are not here as many religious disciples of Jesus learning to behave ourselves as Jesus did; we are being perfected by the Lord to live a crucified life by the divine life, a life full of love toward God and man.
In 2 Cor. 13:9 Paul said that he rejoiced whenever the saints were powerful, though the apostles were weak, and he prayed for their perfecting.
Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ lives in us, we are being perfected by God to live the same kind of life that He lived, and the reality of the Body of Christ is being worked out among us today!
The Lord Jesus was perfected through the things which He suffered, and He perfected a certain kind of living – the God-man living.
Now this living is being reproduced and lived out in us, the many believers in Christ.
The more we live by the divine life, the more we live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ to be manifested among us.
God’s life with all its attributes was lived within the God-man Jesus and expressed as this God-man’s virtues (Eph. 4:20-21), and today we are learning Christ as the reality is in Jesus.
We need to learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus by living the same kind of life as He did, living a crucified life by the divine life to express God.
Originally, this life was only in Jesus, but now this life has been reproduced in us, the believers in Christ who have been redeemed and regenerated and possess the divine life within us (1:7; John 3:6; Col. 3:4).
The perfected God-men are those who have been matured by continually exercising to reject the self and live by another life – the resurrection life of Christ (John 11:25).
We need to be those who are perfected not to be sinless or flawless but to live by the life of God; we reject the self and live a crucified life by the divine life so that God may be expressed through us.
When this happens, the divine attributes are expressed through our human virtues.
Lord Jesus, thank You for setting up a pattern, a model, of the God-man living when You were on the earth. How we praise You for living not by Your perfect human life but by the life of the Father to express the Father in all Your words, acts, deeds, and work. Hallelujah, God’s life with all its attributes was lived within the God-man Jesus and expressed as His virtues! Praise the Lord, this life is now being reproduced in us, the believers in Christ. Amen, Lord, we exercise today to continually reject the self and live by the life of God in us. We want to be perfected to live by the divine life so that Christ may live in us. May we express You in our living. Keep us one spirit with You today. May we live a crucified life by the divine life so that the reality of the Body of Christ may come into being among us today.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” pp. 127-129, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 4, entitled, Blending and the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– The reality of the Body of Christ – the God-man living, a portion from, A General Outline of God’s Economy and the Proper Living of a God-Man, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
– The Sweetness of Taking Christ as our Person for the One New Man, via, Living to Him.
– The high peak of the vision and the reality of the Body of Christ, article in, Affirmation and Critique.
– How Can Christ’s Crucified Life Become Our Pattern? Read more via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– The corporate living by the perfected God-men, a portion from, Practical Points Concerning Blending, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
– Divine Life and Nature for New Jerusalem, article via, New Jerusalem blog.
– Crucified with Christ – a personal experience with a corporate goal and result, article by James Fite in, Affirmation and Critique. - Hymns on this topic:
– O glorious Christ, Savior mine, / Thou art truly radiance divine; / God infinite, in eternity, / Yet man in time, finite to be. / Oh! Christ, expression of God, the Great, / Inexhaustible, rich, and sweet! / God mingled with humanity / Lives in me my all to be. (Hymns #501 stanza 1 and chorus)
– O Lord, Thou art the Spirit now / Who in my spirit makes His home; / He mingles with my spirit too, / And both one spirit thus become. / 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 stanzas 4-5)
– Minding just the spirit, we the cross will know, / And His resurrection pow’r thru us will flow; / Minding just the spirit, Christ will live thru me, / And His life within will reach maturity. / In the spirit Christ is life and all to me, / Strengthening and blessing all-inclusively; / Living in the spirit, holiness I prove, / And the triune God within my heart doth move. (Hymns #593 stanzas 6-7)
About aGodMan
Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” pp. 127-128
The Lord Jesus had a perfect human life but denied Himself and lived by the life of the Father.
Now His life is reproduced in us, and we are being perfected to live a crucified life by the divine life for the reality of the Body of Christ.
We need to be perfected unto the work of the ministry to build up the church as the Body of Christ.
We have been regenerated with the life and nature of the processed and consummated Triune God – but we need to be matured through the growth of this divine life within us.
Then, as we grow as perfected God-men, genuine men, with the divine attributes of the Triune God, the aggregate of the living of such ones is the building together in the local churches as the procedure for the reality of the Body of Christ.
Amen Lord!
Perfect us to live as genuine men, but not by our natural life, but by the life of God within us.
Thank You for repeating, reproducing Your life in many men who have been redeemed and regenerated and who now possess the divine life within them!!
Amen 🙏 Live in Us today Lord Jesus
We are seeing that the reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living, not a living by any individual.
God wants as many saints as possible to be redeemed, regenerated, sanctified & transformed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ within them.
We should not remain as babes but should aspire to become mature God-men. We need to live as men but by another life, by the life of God.
Jesus was crucified every day for 33.5 years!
Like Him, we must deny ourselves and keep our natural man on the cross.
God’s life with all its attributes can be expressed as our virtues when we deny our old man and keep him crossed out.
When many saints exercise to reject the self and live by the life of Jesus, then God is able to obtain His corporate bride.
Keep perfecting us, Lord, for the reality of Your Body. Amen!
Hallelujah! 😃🙋🏽🙏. Amen!
Amen brother!
The Lord Jesus lived a crucified life for thirty three and half years by the Divine life of His Father!
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Eph. 4:21, footnote 1 on “reality”, Recovery Version Bible
I’m really impressed to realise that the reality of the Body of Christ is the reality in Jesus.
The reality in Jesus refers to the actual condition of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels.
The Body of Christ is altogether a matter of the divine life.
Jesus lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God. God was in His living, and He was one with God. We, the believers, who are regenerated with Christ as our life and are taught in Him, learn from Him as the reality is in Jesus.
The procedure in the church work is to beget, nourish, teach, and perfect the believers so that we may mature in the divine life, to be the duplication and reproduction of Christ so that on this earth there is a repetition of the living of Christ in a corporate way.
This corporate living of the perfected God men is the reality of the Body of Christ.
Wonderful! We are so bless to have a ministry that is for the enlargement of the body of Christ not in numbers, but for growth and maturity. I am so much more mindful of my walk and seeing myself and the world, everything is vanity of vanities and the enjoyment of the Lord to us is a life that of glory, what a sweet tingling it give us inwardly. Aaaaamen!