Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:9; Eph. 4:18; 1 John 1:2; 5:11-12; Rom. 8:2; Rev. 22:1-2
Ⅰ
We need to know what life is—Eph. 4:18; Rev. 22:1-2; John 14:6a; 1 John 1:2; 5:12a; Col. 3:4a; Rom. 8:2a; 2 Cor. 3:6b:
A
Life is not devotion; devotion is our exercise of piety, but life is Christ living in us—Gal. 2:20a.
B
Life is not good behavior; good behavior is our doing, but life is Christ lived out from us—Phil. 1:21a.
C
Life is not power; power is for work, but life is for living—Acts 1:8; John 6:57b.
D
Life is not gift; gift is the ability for function, but life is the divine Being in our being—Rom. 12:6; John 1:13.
E
Life is not the growth in knowledge; the growth in knowledge is the increase of knowledge, but life is the increase of God—Col. 2:19b.
F
Life is not our human life; our human life (bios and psuche) is mortal, but life (zoe) is eternal—Luke 8:43b; 21:4b; Matt. 16:25-26; 1 John 1:2; Psa. 90:2b.
G
Life is God's content and God's flowing out; God's content is God's being, and God's flowing out is the impartation of Himself as life to us—Eph. 4:18a; Rev. 22:1.
H
Life is Christ; Christ is the embodiment of God, who is life, and Christ is the expression of God—John 14:6a; Col. 3:4a; 1 John 5:12a; Col. 2:9; John 1:18; Heb. 1:3a.
I
Life is the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is the reality of Christ and is the Spirit of life who gives life to us—John 14:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2a; 2 Cor. 3:6b.
Ⅱ
Life is the first and basic attribute of God—Eph. 4:18:
A
In the sight of God, only the life of God is life, and only His life can be counted as life; therefore, when the life of God is mentioned in the New Testament, it is treated as if it is the unique life—John 1:4; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6a; 1 John 5:20b.
B
The life of God is eternal; that is, it is uncreated, without beginning or ending, self-existing, ever-existing, and unchanging—John 3:15; 1 John 1:2; 2:25; 5:11.
C
God's intention in His creation of man was that man would partake of the fruit of the tree of life and thereby receive the eternal life of God—Gen. 2:7, 9.
Ⅲ
Life is the Triune God dispensed into us and living in us—Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11:
A
God the Father is the source of life—John 5:26.
B
God the Son is the embodiment of life—1:4; 1 John 5:11-12.
C
God the Spirit is the flow of life—Rev. 22:1.
D
The Body is the fullness of life—Eph. 1:22b-23.
E
The building up of the Body is the growth of life—4:16; Col. 2:19.
F
The New Jerusalem is the city of life—Rev. 22:1-2, 5.
Ⅳ
Life is the way to fulfill God's purpose; God's desire for man to express Him in His image and rule in Him with His dominion can be realized only by God's life—Gen. 1:26; 2:9:
A
Life conforms the believers to the image of the firstborn Son of God and brings us into glory—Rom. 8:2, 6, 29-30; Col. 3:4.
B
Resurrection life gives authority—Num. 17:8; Rev. 20:4.
Ⅴ
The central recovery of the Lord is to recover the divine life within us that God may have His corporate expression—Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11; 12:4-5:
A
In the degradation of Christianity, the matter of life has been lost—Eph. 4:18:
１
Without the divine life there cannot be the expression of God—Gen. 1:26; 2:9.
２
We are here for the recovery of the divine life for the corporate expression of the Triune God—John 1:4; 10:10b; 11:25; 14:6; 17:22.
B
The Lord is recovering Christ as life and everything to us and the church as His Body, His fullness—Col. 3:4a; 2:19.
C
The Lord's recovery is not a movement; the recovery is Christ Himself as the seed of life sown into our being—Matt. 13:3-4, 19:
１
The kingdom of God is the Triune God in His incarnation sown into His chosen people to grow and develop in them into a kingdom—Mark 4:26-29.
２
The kingdom is the enlargement of Christ, the multiplication of Christ as the seed of life sown into us—Luke 17:20-21; 8:5-8.
D
The Lord wants to recover the church back to the beginning—back to the eating of the tree of life—Gen. 2:9; Rev. 2:7; 22:14.