«　WEEK 6　DAY 3　»

　　Heb. 14:1 But you have come forward to Mount Zion and 14:1 to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem;...to the universal gathering.

　　Psa. 48:1 Great is Jehovah, and much to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain.

　　Jerusalem was built on a mountain range. Mount Zion was one of the mountains on which Jerusalem was built. Zion is the center, and Jerusalem is the circumference. The church life is today’s Jerusalem; within the church life there must be a group of overcomers, and these overcomers are today’s Zion. According to Revelation 14, the overcomers are standing on Mount Zion with the Lord (vv. 1-5). Actually, in typology, the overcomers are today’s Zion….Without Zion (the overcomers), Jerusalem (the church life) cannot be kept and maintained. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups,” p. 274)

　　The reality of the Body of Christ is a kind of corporate living, not a living by any individual. This corporate living is the aggregate of many saints who have been redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, and transformed by the processed and consummated God within them. By this indwelling consummated God, these redeemed saints have been made actual God-men.

　　For thirty-three and a half years, this God-man, Jesus, was a genuine man, but He lived not by man’s life but by God’s life. To live such a life He had to be crucified. The crucifixion mentioned in the New Testament transpired on the wooden cross on Mount Calvary. But you have to realize that before Christ was there in the physical crucifixion, He was being crucified every day for thirty-three and a half years. Was not Jesus a human being, a genuine man? Yes. But He did not live by that genuine man. Instead, He kept that genuine man on the cross. Then, in the sense of resurrection, He lived God’s life. God’s life with all its attributes was lived within this God-man Jesus and expressed as this God-man’s virtues.

　　Such a life was there originally just in an individual man, Jesus Christ. But this life has now been repeated, reproduced, in many men who have been redeemed and regenerated and who now possess the divine life within them. All of them have been nourished, sanctified, transformed, and perfected not just to be matured Christians but to be God-men. 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 God, whose attributes have been expressed through their virtues.

　　The death of Christ is a mold, and Paul put himself into that death-mold to be conformed there [cf. Phil 3:10]. On this man, Paul, all men could see the mark and the image of the cross (Gal. 6:14, 17...). His old life was conformed to the image of the death of Christ by the power of Christ’s resurrection. The power of resurrection strengthened him to live the life of a God-man. The Lord expects that many of us would be such ones.

　　I do believe that among us there should be some like this, maybe not constantly but at least instantly like this…. Many times when I was trying to talk to my wife, something within said, “This is not from your spirit. This is from your old man.” Right away I stopped. Sometimes I would go to her, and then right away I returned. This is because my going was by my natural man. While I was doing that, something within turned me. That was the very life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. The processed Triune God turned me, and that was in resurrection. Such a corporate living is the reality of the Body of Christ, dear saints. This is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ through the power of the resurrection of Christ. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” pp. 127-130)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” ch. 4; CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups,” ch. 1