God’s desire is to obtain a dwelling place; the heavens are His throne, the earth is His footstool, but where is the man in which He is pleased to dwell? God dwells in man – His dwelling place is in our mingled spirit today (Eph. 1:21-22).
The thornbush in Exo. 3 and the tabernacle later in Exodus are just symbols of God’s dwelling place; God dwells not in a thornbush or in a physical tabernacle but within and among His people.
In order for God to dwell in His people He needs to take them through a long process of transformation and dealing so that they would become the proper “acacia wood” (the uplifted and enriched humanity, the perfect humanity of Christ being reproduced in us) to be overlaid with gold (the divine nature) and the fine linen (the fine humanity of Jesus Christ) to be embroidered with gold thread (God’s fine divine dispensing).
Today we are still a thornbush, but we are in the process of being transformed into gold, pearl, and precious stones for God’s building! The thornbush will become precious materials for God’s building, the New Jerusalem! Hallelujah!
In the Old Testament Moses saw the burning bush and realized that he is just a thornbush having the Triune God burning within him and upon him; in the New Testament Paul saw the same vision in principle when he was called by God.
Paul was persecuting the believers in Christ, thinking that they are the troublesome ones who call on the name of Jesus; when God appeared to him, Paul realized that the Divine Fire, the Triune God Himself, was one with these “thornbushes” – He was burning within them and upon them.
The Lord Jesus came to cast fire on earth, at Pentecost the believers received the divine fire, and today we are all mere thornbushes having the divine fire burning within us and upon us! We have been captured by the holy fire, and this divine burning is now in us.
As the church we are part of the corporate thornbush having the Triune God burning within and upon it; the church is the Triune God burning within humanity, and this is the divine economy. What a vision!
God’s Dwelling Place is His People – the Divine Fire Dwells in the Thornbush!
The picture of the burning thornbush in Exo. 3 is both amazing and very significant. You could say that God desires to find a dwelling place that He is willing to dwell even in a thornbush so that He may gain man to be His dwelling place.
Later in Exodus the people of Israel built the tabernacle, and God came to dwell there. Both the thornbush and the tabernacle are symbols – God’s actual dwelling place is nothing physical made by man but His people.
God wants to dwell in man and among man, and for this He delivered His people out of Egypt and took them through a process of transformation and dealings so that they would become the reality of the “acacia wood overlaid with gold” and the “fine linen embroidered with the golden thread” (as seen in the tabernacle).
Today if we look at ourselves we may think we’re just a thornbush – but we need to realize that we’re in the process of being transformed and sanctified to become gold, pearls, and precious stones for God’s building! Hallelujah, the thornbush will one day become gold, pearl, and precious stone in the New Jerusalem!
The overlaying with the divine nature and the embroidering of the divine nature into our humanity is taking place day by day. We just need to cooperate with the Lord to let this happen; we shouldn’t stall or delay the Lord but cooperate with Him by allowing Him to do a quicker work in us by our obedience to His word and our Amen to His hand.
At present, the church may be a redeemed thornbush, but one day is coming when we all shall be gold, pearl, and precious stones built into God’s dwelling place (Rev. 21:18-21). Praise the Lord for this marvelous vision of God’s dwelling place from the initial stage (the thornbush) to the consummate stage (the New Jerusalem)!
Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with You by allowing You to overlay us with gold and embroider us with the divine nature until we become gold, pearls, and precious stones for Your building. Lord, do a quicker work in us as we say Amen to Your word! It is Your heart’s desire to have a dwelling place in man: mingle Yourself more with us and work Yourself into us until we are inwrought and overlaid with God to be the dwelling place of God!
The Church is the Triune God Burning within a Redeemed Humanity – this is the Divine Economy!
When Paul was called by God, he saw the same vision in principle as Moses when he was called by God – he saw that the Triune God as the divine fire dwells in these troublemaker “Christians”, the redeemed thornbushes. Paul saw that Triune God burning within His redeemed ones; the divine fire was one with the thornbush and the thornbush was one with the divine fire!
The believers are not merely the disciples of Jesus or the followers of a Nazarene; they are men joined, united, mingled, and incorporated with God, even one with God!
The Lord Jesus came to cast fire on the earth (Luke 12:49-50), and on the day of Pentecost the Spirit came in the form of tongues of fire (Acts 2:2-4). We have “caught the divine fire” by listening to and receiving the preaching of the gospel.
A good gospel preacher must speak in a way to cast fire into the spirit of the listeners to ignite their spirit, causing the spirit to respond and come alive! Hallelujah, the all-inclusive Spirit of the processed and consummated Triune God was given by the Lord to us, His people, as the blessing of the gospel, and this divine fire is burning in us today!
We need to be burned by God in this way so that any impurities would be burned away and God Himself would be burned into us with all His riches. When the divine fire fills us and burns in us, we are filled with the Spirit within and without – this is the mingling of the Spirit with humanity to produce the church.
The church is something far different from any human religious organization; the church is the Triune God (the divine fire) burning within a redeemed humanity (the thornbush) – this is the divine economy. Today the Lord is still casting fire on earth; we have been captured by the divine burning, and we are now part of the thornbush that burns with the Triune God.
God is a burning, a fire in action; He has captured us, and we are burning with the Triune God today! Just like Paul, we have been captured by the heavenly vision of God’s economy, which is God as the divine fire coming to dwell and burn within the redeemed humanity.
In His divine economy God is dispensing Himself into His redeemed people so that they may become His expression; the divine fire burns in man and through man to be expressed in a corporate way. Today all believers in Christ are part of the corporate burning thornbush having the Triune God burning in them!
It is this treasure in the earthen vessels, the divine fire burning in the thornbush, that qualifies us and strengthens us to carry out the New Testament ministry. How we praise the Lord that His economy has been unveiled to us! Glory to God, every local church is a thornbush burning with the Triune God as the divine fire!
The more we allow God to burn in us and dispense Himself into us, the more we become His corporate expression and the more the church is the corporate thornbush burning with the Triune God!
Lord, praise You for unveiling us Your divine economy! Thank You for coming as the divine fire to dwell and burn within the redeemed humanity so that You might have a corporate expression in the church! Lord, we have seen the vision of the burning bush – just as Moses and Paul saw it, and we have been wrecked by this vision! Now we cannot turn away from the vision of the church as the burning thornbush! Hallelujah for the vision of the Triune God burning within the redeemed humanity, the church!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 10, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 4 / msg 4, The Corporate Thornbush (you can buy this morning revival book here via LSM and here via Amazon).
- Hymns on this topic:
# Every day we must see Jesus / As we’re eating of the Word; / Then we’ll run to all the meetings / Burning, bubbling with the Lord! (Hymns #1280)
# Now my eyes begin to see / I’m living as I ought to be, / As this turning, burning God / moves in my heart… / I don’t care now how I feel; / I just know that this is real, / And I know, oh Jesus, You’re alive! (Song on God burning in us)
# The seven golden lampstands in / The seven cities see, / So burning, shining with this Christ, / It’s God’s economy! / We’re absolute that this become / Our full reality / Upon the earth, within the church / In each locality. (Hymns #1262)
About aGodMan
Every aspect of God’s calling of Moses can be found in the writings of Paul. In Paul’s Epistles we see the vision of the burning thornbush. In Ephesians 1 and 3 we have the divine economy, the dispensing of the Triune God into His redeemed people so that they may become His expression. This dispensation brings into being the church as the burning thornbush today. How glad I am to be part of this burning bush! Because we have seen this vision, we could never go back to religion. Rather, the vision causes us to press on. Even many of the young people can bear witness that they have seen the vision of the burning thornbush, the vision of God’s economy in today’s church. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, p. 113)