What is the reality of the Body of Christ? It is the corporate living of the perfected God-men who are united, joined, and constituted together with God by the mingling of humanity with divinity, and who live not by their life but by the divine life.
We believers in Christ are very special persons; we do not only have the bios – the human, biological life in our body; we do not have only psuche – the psychological life in our soul; but we also have another life, the divine life, the zoe life of God, which is in our spirit.
When we believed into the Lord Jesus, we were not only cleansed of our sins and forgiven of all our trespasses, but we also received another life – we received the divine life of God in our spirit.
We were cut off from the old source, the old man, the old way of living, and the self with the flesh and Satan and sin, and we were joined to Christ in spirit, receiving His life in our spirit.
In other words, in our being right now as believers we have two lives: our human life and the divine life. This is both wonderful and complicating, for many times we want to do something or say something in our human life, but the divine life within us doesn’t agree.
The real and genuine Christian life is a life lived by the divine life in our spirit; whenever we exercise to reject the natural human life and live by the divine life in our spirit, we are genuine Christians, members of the Body of Christ, repeating the same kind of life that the Lord Jesus lived on earth.
The Lord Jesus is our pattern; when He was on earth He constantly rejected Himself and lived by the life of the Father; He didn’t live for Himself, He didn’t do His own work, He didn’t carry out His own will, He didn’t speak His own words, and He didn’t seek His own glory.
The Lord Jesus was the first God-man – a man with the divine life within Him, a man who lived not by the human life (not even by the uplifted, perfect human life and nature which was within Him) but by the divine life of the Father.
Such a Man was unique throughout history, for never has it been another person who fully lived by God, in God, for God, and unto God like the Lord Jesus did; no one has ever lived his whole life by the divine life of God like He did.
This One, Jesus Christ, is God’s beloved, and He is now the Head of the Body – of which we are members; we as the members of Christ need to live the same kind of life as He did. How do we do this? How do we live in the reality of the Body of Christ?
The Reality of the Body is a Living by the God-men in the Mingling of Divinity with Humanity
The reality of the Body of Christ is a living by the God-men who are united, joined, and constituted together by God by the mingling of divinity with humanity and humanity with divinity (John 14:20; 15:4; Eph. 4:4-6, 16, 24; Phil. 1:21a).
The best illustration we can consider when coming to the matter of mingling is grafting; by grafting, a branch from a tree with a poorer life is cut off and put into a tree that has a richer life, and the branch with the tree grow together, bear fruit together, and become one.
God is the “tree with a richer life”, and we as branches from the uncultivated tree – the old man, the flesh, sin, and the world – have been cut off through repentance from the old source, and through believing into Christ we have been joined to Him in spirit, grafted into Him.
He is the vine, and we are the branches; as long as we abide in Him, we receive the rich supply from Him and we spontaneously bear fruit (John 15:4).
By being joined to Christ, we partake of the riches of Christ in spirit. Grafting is something mysterious in the natural realm, and it illustrates our mysterious relationship with God.
We have been joined to Christ; we are being mingled with Him, and His attributes become our virtues, His riches are being transmitted into us, and His life is mingled with our life so that we may live the life of a God-man.
We are no longer merely men – we are God-men; just as the branch becomes part of the tree into which it is grafted, so we become part of Christ, one with Christ, even become the same as Christ in life, nature, and expression.
The elements of God are being transmitted into man, the elements of man are being constituted into God, and we are united, joined, and constituted together with God by the mingling of humanity with divinity and divinity with humanity. Wow, Hallelujah!
The Body of Christ is not merely a term or an illustration of a spiritual reality – the Body of Christ is a reality, and the reality of the Body is the union and mingling of God with man to live out a corporate God-man living.
The Body of Christ is composed of a group of God-men who have been redeemed by God and made God in life and nature by God; they live a life not by themselves but by another life, the divine life which is within them.
The Triune God processed and consummated entered into the believers in Christ and made them His dwelling place, and they live no longer by their human life but by the divine life, living in the mingling of the divinity with humanity and humanity with divinity.
Lord Jesus, we want to live in the reality of the Body of Christ by living in the mingling of divinity with humanity and humanity with divinity. Keep us in the mingled spirit, Lord, living no longer by our human life but by the divine life. Thank You for joining us with You in spirit; now we are one spirit with the Lord, and we can live a life in the mingled spirit to live in the reality of the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord Jesus, gain a corporate God-man living by the many God-men who are united, joined, and constituted together with God by the mingling of humanity with divinity and divinity with humanity!
The Reality of the Body is the Corporate Living of the Perfected God-men living by the Divine Life
Gal. 2:20 is a wonderful yet mysterious verse; Paul here claims that he was crucified with Christ and it was no longer him who lives but Christ lived in him, and the life which he lived in the flesh he lived in faith, the faith of the Son of God who loved him and gave Himself up for him.
Here we see what a God-man living is; it is a living of no longer I but Christ, yet the life which we now live we live in the organic union with the Lord.
In Eph. 3:17 we are told that Christ is now making His home in our heart, and in John 14:23 the Lord said that the Father and the Son will come to the ones who love Him and will make an abode with them.
This building is not physical but by the spiritual element and spiritual essence of the Divine Trinity; this building is a kind of an organic constitution.
For us to live in the reality of the Body of Christ we need to live in the mingling of God with man, and we need to be the perfected God-men living by the divine life.
We must remember every day that we are God-men; we have God living in us, making His home in us, and constituting us with Himself.
Now God and us, we and God, are mingled together as one, and we should not live a life by our natural life (our natural man) but realise that our natural man has been terminated and we should therefore live by the divine life in our spirit.
We must leave our natural man on the cross, where Christ terminated it two thousand years ago, so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10).
To be conformed to the death of Christ is to live the same kind of life as Jesus did when He was on earth, a life of rejecting Himself and living nothing by Himself but by the Father (see John 6:57; 5:19; 4:34; 17:4; 14:10, 24; 5:30; 7:18).
The Lord Jesus had a perfect, pure, and holy human life, but He didn’t live by His human life; rather, He denied Himself, He took the Father as His source, and He lived by the life of the Father.
He is our model, and we are the mass production of this model; we are the many God-men who have both the human life uplifted in Christ’s resurrection, and we also have the divine life. We need to continually reject ourselves, our natural life, and our human life, and live by the divine life in our spirit.
We don’t have an “exchanged life”; rather, we still live, yet Christ lives in us.
There’s another Person living in us; there’s another life in our spirit, and we as God-men need to live a corporate God-man living, being the perfected God-men living by the divine life.
When we reject our natural life and live by the divine life within us, we are in resurrection, experiencing Christ’s death and resurrection; the issue of such a life is the Body of Christ.
The reality of the divine life within us is the resurrection, which is the all-inclusive Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, and the processed and consummated Triune God.
The reality of the Body of Christ is the corporate living of the perfected God-men living by the divine life. To be perfected doesn’t mean that we are being made perfect in ourselves but rather, it is to be matured by continually exercising to reject the self and live by the divine life in our spirit.
Like the apostle Paul, we live by dying to live; we need to practice dying to our natural man and living by the new man with the divine life in our spirit.
We can be the perfected God-men living by the divine life when we do not call ourselves back off the cross but remain on the cross, bear the cross, and are under the cross, and realise that we are finished; then, the divine life in us can live and be expressed, and we will spontaneously be in the reality of the Body of Christ.
Hallelujah, there’s a new man in us – the resurrected, God-created man uplifted with God’s divinity in him, and this man is actually God Himself; now God lives in us, and we practice to reject ourselves and live by the divine life within our spirit!
Lord Jesus, gain the corporate living of the perfected God-men who are not living by their life but by the life of the processed and consummated Triune God! Amen, Lord Jesus, gain the reality of the Body of Christ, the corporate living of the perfected God-men who live by the divine life in their spirit. May we daily practice to reject ourselves, not live by our natural life, and turn to the Lord so that He may live in us. Amen, Lord Jesus, may it be no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us, and the life we live in the flesh we live in faith, in the organic union with Christ so that Christ may live in us as we live 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, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” chs. 3-4, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 1, The Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Further reading, Practical Points Concerning Blending, The Corporate Living by the perfected God-men (here).
- Hymns on this topic:
# He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. / Our life is a life that’s in organic union. / As a branch is in the vine, / Grafted, His life and mine intertwine. / Lord, I am joined to You! (Song on, He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit)
# I am crucified with Jesus, / And He lives and dwells with me; / I have ceased from all my struggling, / ’Tis no longer I, but He. (Hymns #564)
# 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)
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