Scripture Reading: Ezek. 14:14, 20; Heb. 11:7; Gen. 6:13-14; Dan. 1:8; 4:26, 32, 34-35; 2:19; 7:1, 13-14; 8:15a; Job 1:1, 8; 19:9-10; 42:5-6
Ⅰ
"By faith Noah, having been divinely instructed concerning things not yet seen and being moved by pious fear, prepared an ark for the salvation of his house"—Heb. 11:7a:
A
The ark is a type of Christ, not only the individual Christ but also the corporate Christ, the church, which is the Body of Christ and the new man— Gen. 6:13-14; 1 Pet. 3:20-21; Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 2:15-16; Col. 3:10-11.
B
The building of the ark typifies the building of the corporate Christ, the church as the Body of Christ, with the element of Christ's riches as the building material—Gen. 7:1; 1 Cor. 3:12a; Eph. 3:8-10; 4:12.
C
Noah built the ark by faith absolutely according to God's revelation, not according to his own concept—Heb. 11:7; Gen. 6:22.
D
The building of the ark was against the tide of Noah's generation—v. 13:
１
He stood against the trend of that age, and he "condemned the world"— Heb. 11:7.
２
In our work today, we are not in the tide of this generation—we are in the flow from the throne according to the divine revelation—Rev. 22:1.
E
Our work in the Lord's recovery is the work of God's economy, the work of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 15:58; 16:10; Col. 4:11:
１
In the Lord's recovery there is only one work—the work of the Body—2:19; Eph. 4:12.
２
The Body of Christ is organic and does not allow anything of human work; the Body is not built up by natural methods or the organization of human work—v. 16.
３
What we are doing today is not our personal work but the work of the economy of God, which is the work of the Body—Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:12, 16.
４
"Whenever God's children see the oneness of the Body, they will also see the oneness of the work" (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 37, p. 244).
５
We should not be "workers of lawlessness"—Matt. 7:21-23; cf. 13:41; Rom. 6:19; 2 Thes. 2:3, 7-8; 1 John 3:4.
Ⅱ
"Daniel set his heart not to defile himself with the king's choice provision"; "the heavens do rule"; "the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision"—Dan. 1:8; 4:26; 2:19:
A
Daniel was one with God because he took God in as his food—1:8-16:
１
To eat is to contact things outside of us and receive them into us, with the result that they become our constitution—Gen. 2:16-17.
２
To Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar's choice food was actually the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—Dan. 1:8; Gen. 2:16-17.
３
If we eat godly food—that is, God-food, God as our food—we will be one with God—Matt. 4:4; John 6:57.
４
As the heavenly King, Christ rules over us by feeding us with Himself as bread—Matt. 15:26-27, 32-37:
ａ
The Lord Jesus is the kingdom of obedience (Phil. 2:8); we need to take Him in by eating Him as our bread so that He may be wrought into us.
ｂ
The more we eat Christ, the more the royal ingredients are constituted into us to become the ruling element within us and to cause us to become the increase of Christ as the kingdom—Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45.
B
The central thought of the book of Daniel is that the ruling of the heavens by the God of the heavens over all the human government on earth matches God's eternal economy for Christ to terminate the old creation for the germination of the new creation and to smash and crush the aggregate of human government and establish the eternal kingdom of God—4:26, 32, 34-35; 2:34-35, 44-45:
１
As those who have been chosen by God to be His people for Christ's preeminence (Col. 1:18), we are under God's heavenly rule.
２
God wants a group of people who will return to His dominion and live directly under His rule and His authority—Matt. 3:17; 6:33; 8:5-12.
３
Because the heavens rule, Christ is with us in all our situations—28:20.
C
Daniel's faithfulness and victory gave him the position and the right angle to receive visions from God—Dan. 2:19; 7:1, 13-14; 8:15a.
Ⅲ
"He has stripped my glory from me / And taken away the crown on my head. / He has broken me all around, and I am gone; / And my hope is plucked up like a tree"; "I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, / But now my eye has seen You; / Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent / In dust and ashes"—Job 19:9-10; 42:5-6:
A
What Job had attained in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity was altogether vanity; it neither fulfilled God's purpose nor satisfied His desire— 1:6-8; 2:1-3; 27:5; 31:6; 32:1.
B
God's intention with Job was to consume him and to strip him of his attainments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness—19:9-10:
１
God's intention was to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness that He might build up a renewed Job in God's nature and attributes—1:6-8; 2:3-6.
２
God's stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear him down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself so that he might become a God-man, the same as God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, in order to express God—Eph. 3:16-21.
３
How much of Christ we have gained is according to how much stripping and consuming we have suffered—2 Cor. 4:16.
４
It is through His stripping and consuming that God dispenses Himself into those who love Him and seek after Him—1:8-9; 13:14.
５
God's purpose in dealing with those who love Him, even in the way of loss, is that they may gain Him and that He may be expressed through them for the fulfillment of His purpose in His creation of man—Gen. 1:26.
C
After we have been stripped and consumed by God, we will see God—Job 42:5; 2 Cor. 3:18; Heb. 12:14; Rev. 22:4:
１
We see God that we may be constituted with God to be the same as God in life and nature, yet we do not have any share in the Godhead—John 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4.
２
When we see God, we receive God and have His nature, life, element, essence, and being—Matt. 5:8.
３
To see God is to be transformed into the glorious image of God; this makes us not only one with God but also a part of God that we may express God in His life and represent Him in His authority—2 Cor. 3:18.
４
Eventually, Job saw God; however, the God whom Job saw was the "raw" God, not the processed God, the God who has passed through the steps of His process—incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—Job. 42:5.
５
In contrast to Job, we have the "cooked" God, the God who has been processed so that we may eat Him, drink Him, and breathe Him—John 6:57; 4:14; 20:22.
６
Our God is the processed and consummated Triune God, who is the consummated life-giving Spirit—7:39; 1 Cor. 15:45b.
７
The Triune God as the all-inclusive Spirit dwells in our regenerated spirit to be our life, our nature, our essence, and our everything so that we may be constituted with Him for His expression—6:17; 12:12.
D
We need to see the eternal economy of God, which is God's intention with His heart's desire to dispense Himself in His Divine Trinity—as the Father in the Son by the Spirit—into His chosen and redeemed people so that they may be the same as He is in life and nature for His corporate expression—the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 4:4-6, 16; Rev. 21:2, 10-11.