AN OVERVIEW OF THE CENTRAL BURDEN AND PRESENT TRUTH OF THE LORD'S RECOVERY BEFORE HIS APPEARING
Message Four
Blending and the Reality of the Body of Christ
Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 1:2; 10:17a; 12:12-13, 24, 27; John 12:24; Phil. 3:10; Eph. 4:20-21
I. "God has blended the body together"—1 Cor. 12:24:
A. Blending is not only high and deep but also very mysterious— v. 24.
B. The word blended means "adjusted," "harmonized," "tempered," and "mingled," implying the losing of distinctions.
C. Blending means that we should always stop in order to have fellowship with others—Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 1:9; 1 John 1:3, 7.
D. We should not do anything without fellowshipping with the other saints who are coordinating with us, because fellowship adjusts us, harmonizes us, tempers us, and mingles us—v. 7.
E. To be blended means that we are touched by others and that we are touching others by going through the cross, doing things by the Spirit, and doing everything to dispense Christ for His Body's sake—Matt. 10:38; 16:24; Gal. 3:2, 5; Eph. 4:12.
F. Blending is not social but the blending of the Christ whom the individual members, the district churches, the co-workers, and the elders experience, enjoy, and partake of—cf. Rom. 16:1-16.
G. In order to keep the unique oneness of the universal Body of Christ, we need to be blended together—1 Cor. 12:24.
H. Blending is needed for the building up of the Body of Christ— Rom. 16:1-16; 1 Cor. 12:20-21, 24; Col. 4:16.
II. John 12:24 and 1 Corinthians 10:17a portray and reveal the necessity and the significance of blending:
A. John 12:24 speaks of a grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died and bore many grains:
1. Grain of wheat refers to Christ as the divine seed to produce many grains (the people who receive Him) to become His many members who constitute His organic Body—Eph. 1:22-23; 5:30.
2. Christ as the grain of wheat died and brought forth many grains in resurrection— John 12:24:
a. The grains are to be ground and blended into flour to make a loaf, which signifies the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 10:17a.
b. We should not remain as whole grains; we have to be broken and ground into fine flour so that we can be blended with others for making a loaf; this loaf is the Body of Christ—12:12-13, 27; Eph. 2:16; 1:22-23.
B. Paul's thought of the church being blended into one bread, one Body (1 Cor. 10:17a), was taken from the type of the meal offering in Leviticus 2:1-16:
1. Every part of the fine flour of the meal offering was mingled with oil; this is the blending—vv. 4-5.
2. Christ's life and our individual Christian life issue in a totality—the church life as a corporate meal offering composed of believers who have been broken, ground, and blended— vv. 1-2, 4; 1 Cor. 12:12.
III. The purpose of the blending is to usher us all into the reality of the Body of Christ—Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 2:16; 4:12; Col. 2:19:
A. We need to be in the local churches as the procedure to be brought into the reality of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:27.
B. The highest peak of the Lord's recovery that can really, practically, and actually carry out God's economy is for God to produce not many local churches in a physical way but an organic Body to be His organism—Eph. 1:10, 22-23.
C. The local churches are not the goal of God's eternal economy; they are the procedure God takes to reach the goal of His economy—the building up of the Body of Christ—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:12, 16:
1. The churches are the procedure to bring us into the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12-13, 27.
2. The churches are the Body, but they may not have the reality of the Body of Christ.
D. The Lord urgently needs the reality of the Body of Christ to be expressed in the local churches; unless there is a substantial expression of the reality of the Body, the Lord Jesus will not return—Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; 5:27; Rev. 19:7.
IV. The highest peak in God's economy is the reality of the Body of Christ—Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16:
A. The significance of our blending is the reality of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 12:24:
1. This reality is a group of God's redeemed people who have been made God in life and nature but not in the Godhead— John 1:12-13; Rom. 8:16; 2 Pet. 1:4.
2. They live a life not by themselves but by another life—the life of the processed and consummated Triune God, who enters into them and takes them as His abode, His dwelling place— 2 Cor. 13:14; John 14:23; Eph. 2:21-22.
B. The reality of the Body of Christ is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but are not living by their life but by the life of the processed and consummated Triune God, whose attributes have been expressed through their virtues—2 Cor. 13:9, 11; Eph. 4:12; 1 Pet. 5:10; 1 John 4:12, 17-18:
1. 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.
2. Originally, this life was only in Jesus; now this life is being reproduced in believers who have been redeemed and regenerated and possess the divine life within them—1:7; John 3:6; Col. 3:4.
3. 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.
C. The reality of the Body of Christ is the mingling living in the eternal union of the regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite God-men with the Triune God in the resurrection of Christ—cf. Judg. 9:9; Psa. 92:10:
1. This mingling is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ in the power of the resurrection of Christ— Phil. 3:10.
2. Such a mingling living is in the resurrection of Christ, and the reality of the resurrection is the Spirit; this resurrection imparts the consummated Triune God and releases the death- overcoming life into the believers— John 11:25.
3. This corporate and mingling living by the perfected God-men consummates ultimately in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God's increase and expression for eternity—Rev. 21:1-2, 9-11.
4. The corporate living of the perfected God-men as the reality of the Body of Christ will close this age, the age of the church, and bring Christ back to take, possess, and rule over the earth with these God-men in the kingdom age—Psa. 24:1-2, 7-10; 72:1-8, 11; Rev. 1:7; 14:14; 20:4.