«　WEEK 6　DAY 2　»

　　Eph. 4:15-16 But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ, out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.

　　To be no longer little children (Eph. 4:14), we need to grow up into Christ. This is to have Christ increase in us in all things until we attain to a full-grown man (v. 13). (Eph. 4:15, footnote 3) Head here indicates that our growth in life by the increase of Christ should be the growth of the members in the Body under the Head. (Eph. 4:15, footnote 4) To grow in life is to grow into the Head, Christ, but to operate in the Body of Christ is to operate out from Him. First, we grow up into the Head; then we have something that is out from the Head for the building up of the Body. (Eph. 4:16, footnote 1)

　　The Lord's concern is to gain the New Jerusalem through the precursor of the organic Body of Christ produced in the churches and composed of all the believers, not physically but spiritually. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, "Crystallization-study of Song of Songs," pp. 282-283)

　　In [the consummation of the book of Revelation] all the seven lampstands disappear. In the first chapter we see the seven lampstands. But in the last two chapters we see only one city. Eventually, the local churches will be over. Only the Body will remain and remain forever, and this Body of Christ is the unique tabernacle as God's dwelling place on this earth, the unique bride of the Lamb (21:2-3).... Therefore, we must pay much more attention to the Body of Christ than to the local churches.... As a person, we have a physical frame. That is our body. But a body by itself is a carcass. A physical body needs an inner life. Today the church is the same. On the one hand, it does have a frame, a body, but this frame is not the nature, the essence, or the element of the church. Ephesians 4 tells us the church is the Body, and within this church is the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father (vv. 4-6). The Father is the source, the Lord is the element, and the Spirit is the essence of the Body. These four entities are built together.

　　We need to see that there is something on this earth structured as a kind of organic constitution, which is called the Body of Christ, and this Body of Christ is the organism of the unseen God.... At the end of the Bible, there is only one consummation, and this consummation is the New Jerusalem. In this consummation we can see God (the Father, the Son, and the Spirit) and God's redeemed humanity. We can see Israel...(Rev. 21:12). We can see the believers... (v. 14). The New Jerusalem is the consummation of God and man. God has constituted Himself into our humanity, and our humanity also has been constructed into His divinity. Now divinity and humanity are joined, united, mingled, and blended together.

　　The reality of the Body of Christ is a living by all the God-men united, joined, and constituted together with God by mingling humanity with divinity and divinity with humanity. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, "The Practical Points concerning Blending," pp. 117-118, 120)

　　The holy city, the New Jerusalem, is not a material city but a person, ...a corporate person, and this corporate person is a couple—the processed Triune God married to the transformed, tripartite man. This is the Spirit and the bride becoming one (Rev. 22:17a). Divinity and humanity are married together, mingled together, to be one entity.... The holy city as the tabernacle of God is for God to dwell in (21:2-3), and God and the Lamb as the temple are for us to dwell in. God is our temple, and we are His tabernacle. In the new heaven and new earth the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for both God and man for eternity. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, "Living in and with the Divine Trinity," p. 388)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1988, vol. 4, "The Perfecting of the Saints and the Building Up of the Body of Christ," ch. 3