Scripture Reading: Neh. 8:1-3, 5-6, 8, 13-18
Ⅰ
God's eternal purpose is to work Himself into us as our life and our everything so that we may take Him as our person, live Him, and express Him; this is the desire of God's heart and the focal point of the Bible— Eph. 1:9; 3:11; Phil. 1:20-21a:
A
God's central work is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen and redeemed people—Eph. 3:16-17a:
１
All our problems are due to one thing—our shortage of having God in Christ wrought into our being—Gal. 4:19.
２
We need to cooperate with this work by allowing God to work Christ as the Spirit into every part of our being—Eph. 3:17a.
B
God's intention in His salvation is to work Himself into us and change our constitution by changing our diet and feeding us with Christ—Exo. 16:14-15; John 6:27, 32, 35:
１
Food is anything that we take into us for our satisfaction—Job 23:12b; Jer. 15:16:
ａ
The food that we eat enters into us organically and becomes our constitution.
ｂ
Whatever we desire and hunger and thirst after is the diet according to which our being has been constituted—Num. 11:4-6.
２
God will change our diet in order to change our constitution—Deut. 8:3:
ａ
God wants to be digested and assimilated by us so that He can become the constituent of our inward being.
ｂ
We are what we eat; therefore, if we eat God as our food, we will be one with God and even become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
C
God's desire is to work Himself into us and to be everything to us so that we can be built up as His dwelling place—Eph. 3:16-17a; 2:21-22:
１
Only those who have been reconstituted with Christ are qualified to be built up as the church, God's dwelling place today—vv. 21-22.
２
For the building of the church, we all need to be reconstituted with Christ—3:16-21.
D
For the fulfillment of God's economy, we need to deal with the natural constitution—the aggregate of our physical and mental powers—1 Cor. 2:14:
１
The natural constitution is the expression of the living out of the old man that is related to human ability, capability, wisdom, cleverness, schemes, and skills—2 Cor. 1:12; James 3:15; Phil. 3:3-7.
２
We must be delivered from being natural and be brought into resurrection in order to be useful to God—2 Cor. 1:9; 4:14; Phil. 3:10-11.
Ⅱ
Ezra reconstituted the people of Israel by educating them with the heavenly truths so that Israel could become God's testimony—Neh. 8:1-3, 5-6, 8, 13-18:
A
God's intention with Israel was to have on earth a divinely constituted people to be His testimony; in order for God's people to be His testimony, they had to be reconstituted with the word of God—Isa. 49:6; 60:1-3.
B
After the return from captivity, the people were still unruly, for they had been born and raised in Babylon and had become Babylonian in their constitution:
１
The Babylonian element had been wrought into them and constituted into their being—Zech. 3:3-5.
２
After they returned to the land of their fathers to be citizens of the nation of Israel, they needed a reconstitution.
C
There was the need of teaching and reconstitution to bring the people of God into a culture that was according to God, a culture that expressed God; this kind of culture requires a great deal of education—Neh. 8:8.
D
For the reconstituting of God's people, Ezra was very useful, for he bore the totality of the heavenly and divine constitution and culture, and he was one through whom the people could be reconstituted with the word of God—vv. 1-2.
E
Ezra brought the people back to the Word of God so that they might be reeducated and reconstituted with the heavenly truths in the divine Word.
F
In order to reconstitute the people of God, there was the need to educate them with the word which comes out of the mouth of God and which expresses God—Psa. 119:2, 9, 105, 130, 140:
１
To reconstitute the people of God is to educate them by putting them into the word of God so that they may be saturated with the word—Col. 3:16.
２
As the word of God works within us, the Spirit of God, who is God Himself, through the word spontaneously dispenses God's nature with God's element into our being; in this way we are reconstituted—2 Tim. 3:16-17.
G
As a result of being reconstituted through the ministry of Ezra, Israel (in type) became a particular nation, a nation sanctified and separated unto God, expressing God—Isa. 49:6; 60:1-3; Zech. 4:2:
１
The returned captives were reconstituted personally and corporately to become God's testimony.
２
They were transfused with the thought of God, with the considerations of God, and with all that God is; this made them God's reproduction.
３
By this kind of divine constitution, everyone became God in life and in nature; as a result, they became a divine nation expressing the divine character—1 Pet. 2:9.