The highest peak in God’s economy is the reality of the Body of Christ, and this reality is absolutely organic; we can be in the Body in reality by being in Christ, that is, by abiding in the organic union with the Lord.
This week in our deeper and more profound study of the vital factors for the recovery of the church life we come to two major factors: The factor of Blending for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
First, we need to see what is the reality of the Body of Christ, and then we need to realize that blending is absolutely necessary, even vitally important, for the reality of the Body of Christ.
God began to reveal the matter of the church as the Body of Christ for the past two thousand years, since the apostles; for example, the apostle Paul wrote concerning the Body of Christ in his epistles.
If we read the epistles of Paul we see that the church is the Body of Christ, and there’s a clear revelation and unveiling of the church as the Body of Christ.
However, throughout the ages, this matter of the church as the Body of Christ has been lost and covered, and it was not until brother Watchman Nee was raised by the Lord that this matter has been again uncovered.
Brother Nee had a lot to say concerning the Body, but his burden was still not discharged, for he realized that the Lord has to recover so much of His truth and the practice of the church.
Brother Nee’s co-worker, Witness Lee, followed him to minister concerning Christ and the church, and in the last 10 years or so of his ministry, he stressed the matter of the organic Body of Christ.
In 1994, after recovering from his illness, brother Lee asked the Lord what would He like to emphasize in his ministry, and the Lord showed him the matters of the Body of Christ and the life of the Body and the reality of the life of the Body; these were the emphasis in the latter part of his ministry.
We today are now 100 years since brother Nee was raised up, and this burden is still with us; the reality of the Body of Christ still needs to be recovered in the church life in the Lord’s recovery.
The reality of the Body of Christ is the top point not only in revelation but also in our practice; it must be the top point in our Christian life and church life.
We need to preach the gospel, do good works, expound the word to feed God’s children, but the ultimate burden, which is not completed, is seeing the Body, building up the Body, and consummating the Body in reality.
This is the most valuable work, the most blessed work, which God is yet to accomplish through us before this age ends.
What God is after today is gaining the Reality of the Body of Christ – He’s Recovering the Church as the Body of Christ!
When we speak of the reality of the Body of Christ, we’re not using a figure of speech; rather, we are talking about the Body of Christ. What we are addressing is not generally the Body of Christ, but the Body of Christ in reality.
Many Chrisitan workers try to organize the church and put it together; we must realize that the Body of Christ is an organic matter – it is of life, in life, and with life.
We should be organic people, not rigid or flexible, but being of life and full of life.
The reality of the Body of Christ is not a system of man, a religious organization, but an organism, an organic entity; this life is not our human life or psychological life but the eternal, divine, uncreated life of God.
The completing ministry of the apostle Paul is altogether focused on the Body of Christ; in particular, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians speak about the church as the Body of Christ.
The Body is the ultimate item of God’s continual working, so the Body is the top point of God’s entire revelation (see Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-13, 18-22; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:4, 12, 15-16; 5:23, 30; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:19; 3:15).
If we were to take these four books from the Bible, there would be a void in the New Testament.
Paul was given to complete the word of God, and his focus was not merely salvation, being spiritual, or other good things, but to reveal to God’s children the matter of the Body of Christ.
God has been working from the beginning – both through creation, redemption, and building work, to gain the Body of Christ.
In His creation, after creating the heavens and the earth and all things, on the sixth day He created a man in His image and according to His likeness, and then He rested, for He gained a body with a head as the highest item of His creating work.
When He gained man, God could be at rest, for this man is a building, a figure of the Body of Christ. In His redemptive work, Christ came to be crucified on the cross and accomplish the work of redemption.
His work, however, didn’t stop at redeeming man from sin, for His purpose in redemption was to produce the church, which is His Body.
In His building work, after redeeming people, at the end of the Bible we see the finality of God’s building work in and among His people – the New Jerusalem, the building of God with man.
This is what God is after, and even though the matter of the church as the Body of Christ has been lost throughout the ages, the Lord is recovering this among us today.
Ever since Martin Luther, the Lord has had His recovery; He has been recovering many truths and practices according to the divine revelation in the Bible, and the top revelation is the reality of the Body of Christ.
This is what God is after: He wants to gain the church as the Body of Christ in reality, an organic entity that expresses Christ the Head for the glorious expression of God.
Step by step, year by year, and little by little, the Lord has been working tirelessly for His people to see, realize, and enter into the revelation concerning the church as the Body of Christ so that He may gain the reality of the Body of Christ among us.
Lord Jesus, gain what You are after in us and among us. Gain the reality of the Body of Christ, the highest peak in God’s economy! May we see and enter into the reality of what the Body of Christ is, so that we may be the corporate expression of the Triune God on earth, with Christ as our Head and all the believers as the co-members in the Body. Amen, Lord, may we see that God’s continual working throughout the ages is to gain the church as the Body of Christ. Grant us to see the top point in God’s entire revelation – the church as the Body of Christ, an organic entity for the expression of the Triune God!
The Actuality of the Body of Christ is in our Remaining in the Organic Union with Christ – IN CHRIST!
Romans 12 speaks of the Body of Christ from the angle of the organic union, for v. 5 says that we who are many are one Body in Christ.
The first time the Body was revealed in the New Testament is Rom. 12, and the stress is on the organic union needed for the constitution and living out of the living Body of Christ.
We who are many are one Body in Christ. After Paul spoke of justification, sanctification, and transformation, he says that we ho are many, those who are justified, sanctified, and being transformed by Him, we are one Body in Christ.
These two words, “in Christ” are emphatic and vital; they show that there’s no other way for us to be one Body except in Christ.
We are not one Body in any other ways or by any other means; we’re not one Body by joining the same church, signing up in a religious organization, or by association – but in Christ!
These two words, in Christ, indicate organic union; when we are in Christ, we are organically joined to the Lord to be one spirit with Him, and we can be the one Body in Christ (see John 3:16; Rom. 6:3-6; 11:17, 19; 16:7-10; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 2:17; 5:17; 12:2; Gal. 3:27).
Without this fact that we are in Christ, whatever we are doing means nothing; without being in Christ, we are just a group of redeemed sinners, benefitting from Christ’s work.
Without being in Christ, we are reconciled to God but are scattered, separated, and redeemed sinners.
But now God has put us in Christ Jesus, and we are in the organic union with Him!
It is easy for us to understand that we are in the house, in the car, or in the water; but how can we be in a living being, in a living person?
We can understand what it is to be with someone and by someone, but how can we be in someone? Yet the Bible tells us that we are in Christ.
This is similar to the grafting of two trees; through grafting, one tree got into another tree by being joined to it, and there is an organic union with something intrinsic and organic going on.
We were wild olive branches, but Christ came and grafted us into Him; He didn’t just bring us close to Him, He didn’t just come to be with us, but He joined us to Himself organically.
We are not just bound together or tied together but joined together in an organic way, and there is an organic union between us and the Lord.
In this organic union what He is we receive, and we absorb His riches, we receive His dispensing, and we are becoming what He is.
We are one Body in Christ, having an organic union with Him; this union makes us one in life with Him and also with all the other members of His Body.
We are not the unique member of the Body – we are one of the many members who are joined to Him organically, and when we remain in this organic union, we are actually living in the Body of Christ (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:4-6).
We are members of the Body of Christ and members one of another; our union is not only with Christ but also with the fellow members of the Body, the fellow branches in the vine.
Our organic union is not only with Christ but also with all the members in the Body, for we are members of Christ and members one of another.
In this organic union with Christ and with all the saints we are one Body and we are members one of another.
The actuality of the Body of Christ is our remaining in the organic union with Christ.
When we remain in the organic union with Christ, we are in reality the Body of Christ; but when we are not in this organic union, we may say we’re in the Body but in reality, but we are not.
Since our being one Body is a matter of the organic union, which is a matter of life, practically speaking, if we are not connected and receiving the divine dispensing, in practicality we are not the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is something in the organic union; the Body is absolutely organic, and for us to be in the Body in reality and actuality, we need to remain in the organic union with Christ.
He is the vine, we are the branches; when we abide in Him, we are the Body in reality, but when we don’t abide in the organic union with the Lord, we are not the Body in reality.
We may theoretically know that we are the Body, but the requirement is that constantly abide in Him, remain in this organic union, to enjoy the life-giving Spirit in our spirit.
Hallelujah, we are in Christ, and we need to remain in this organic union!
Hallelujah, it is of God that we are in Christ, for we have been grafted into Him to be one spirit with the Lord! Amen, Lord, keep us abiding in You even as You abide in us. We want to be in the Body in reality and actuality by remaining in the organic union with the Lord. May we realize that, when we’re apart from the organic union with Christ, we are not the Body of Christ. Oh Lord, keep us in the organic union with You. Keep us constantly abiding in You. Apart from You, Lord, we are nothing and we can do nothing. Keep us one spirit with You! May we never leave the Body by leaving our organic union with the Lord!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of 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, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” chs. 23-24, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Vital Factors for the Lord’s Recovery of the Church Life (2021 ITERO), week 7, The Factor of Blending for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
– He’s the vine and we’re the branches, / We should e’er abide in Him, And let Him abide within us / As the flow of life within. / In the vine, in the vine, / In the vine, in the vine, / We would know Thee, Lord, / more deeply, / E’er abiding in the vine. (Hymns #1163)
– We’ve found the secret of living, / We’ve seen the vision divine: / We are of God in Christ Jesus, / We’re abiding, abiding in the vine. / Abiding in the vine, / Abiding in the vine, / All the riches of God’s life are mine! / Praise God, He put us here, / Never to leave; oh, we’re— / Abiding, abiding in the vine. (Hymns #1162)
– 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)
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