Scripture Reading: Isa. 7:14-15; Jer. 2:13; 15:16; John 6:57, 63, 68; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; 12:7-9

Ⅰ　

The kernel of the book of Jeremiah, which is also the kernel and complete teaching of the entire Bible, reveals what God wants from us, what we are in our fallen condition, and what Christ is to us so that we may enjoy Him for the reality of the Body of Christ as God's masterpiece:

A　

God wants us to take Him as our source and to drink of Him so that He may become our enjoyment installed in our spirit as the fountain of living waters gushing up into eternal life—Jer. 2:13; John 4:10, 14; 7:37-39a; Psa. 46:4; Rev. 22:1; cf. Zech. 13:1; Rev. 4:5; Isa. 4:4.

B　

Because we forsook the Lord as our unique enjoyment, we became hopeless, utterly corrupt, incurable, and unchangeable in our fallen condition; in the sight of God, nothing is more evil than our not enjoying Him as our life supply—Jer. 13:23; 17:9; Isa. 57:20; Heb. 3:12-13; cf. Gen. 21:9; Gal. 4:29; 5:15-16.

C　

Christ has come to be the reality of the new covenant as our righteousness for our judicial redemption and as our inner life-law for our organic salvation, caus-ing us to be a corporate Body, the organism of the Triune God in the oneness of the Triune God, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem—Jer. 23:5-6; 31:31-34; Isa. 42:6; Zech. 13:1; Psa. 36:8-9; Rom. 5:10; Rev. 22:1-2.

D　

Jeremiah reveals that we can enjoy Christ to live Christ by contacting Him as the compassionate One every morning (Lam. 3:22-24; Psa. 43:4; 110:3), by calling upon His name (Lam. 3:55-56), by eating His words (Jer. 15:16; 23:28-29; John 6:57, 63, 68), and by prophesying to dispense Him into His people (Jer. 1:4-10; 15:19) so that we can be transformed (48:11) to have one heart and one way to practice the one accord in the oneness of the Triune God for the reality of the Body of Christ (32:39; 31:34; Eph. 4:3-4; 2:10).

Ⅱ　

The reality of the Body of Christ is the highest peak in God's economy and the top revelation of the Bible—1:22-23; 2:10; 3:9-11; 4:1-6, 15-16:

A　

The reality of the Body of Christ is the reality in Jesus, the actual condition of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels, duplicated in His many members as the corporate living of the perfected God-men—vv. 20-21; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:19-21a; 4:11-13.

B　

The reality of the Body of Christ is the Spirit of reality, the Spirit of the glori-fied Jesus, mingled with our spirit to make everything of the processed Triune God a reality in the Body of Christ, guiding us into the reality of living a God-man life by the divine life—Eph. 4:3-4; John 14:17; 16:13-15; 1 Cor. 2:9-15; 6:17; Rom. 8:4, 6; Gal. 5:25-26; cf. Matt. 12:33-37; Psa. 38:13-14; Isa. 42:19.

C　

The divine fellowship is the reality of living in the Body of Christ; this fellow-ship is the flow, the circulation, the current, of the Spirit of reality within all the believers, making everything of the processed Triune God a reality in the Body of Christ—2 Cor. 13:14; Phil. 2:1; 1 John 1:3; cf. Rev. 22:1.

Ⅲ　

We need to live because of Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ— "As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me"—John 6:57:

A　

The Lord Jesus lived because of the Father, enjoying the Father continually as the "heavenly butter," typifying the richest grace, and as the "heavenly honey," typifying the sweetest love, to be the supplying factor of His living the Father and the empowering factor of His obeying the Father to choose the Father's perfect will by living the life of a God-man from the manger to the cross; He took the way of smallness in lowliness and the way of humbling Himself, becom-ing obedient even unto death, the death of a cross—Isa. 7:14-15; Exo. 3:8; Eph. 5:25; Luke 2:12; Phil. 2:8; Matt. 11:25-30; John 1:14-17; 17:26.

B　

We do not live by Christ, taking Christ as our instrument; we live because of Christ, taking Christ as the supplying factor of our living; Christ as the spiritual food that we eat is not an instrument but a supplying factor; in using a cane as an instrument to walk, there is no need to eat the cane, but to live because of Christ as our food, we must eat Him so that He can be the supply-ing and energizing factor to live in us and through us for the building up of His Body—John 6:57, 63, 68; Jer. 15:16; Col. 2:19; cf. Rom. 8:2.

C　

We must contact the Lord as our living pattern in our spirit in order to enjoy Him daily as the "heavenly butter," typifying the richest grace, and as the "heavenly honey," typifying the sweetest love, so that He may supply us with Himself as the resurrection power for us to choose the perfect will of God and sacrifice our lives for the church—5:1-5, 17; Titus 3:15; 1 John 3:16:

１　

Peter enjoyed Christ as his preciousness (1 Pet. 2:7), as the richest grace (1:13; 4:10; 5:5, 10) and the sweetest love (1:8), so that, as a leading witness of the sufferings of Christ, he enjoyed Christ as his rich supply to be a martyr who was willing to sacrifice his life to testify of the sufferings of Christ (5:1-4; John 21:15-19; 1 Pet. 4:19; Acts 5:20, 40-42).

２　

Paul enjoyed Christ as the richest grace (1 Tim. 1:14; 1 Cor. 15:10, 58; 2 Cor. 12:7-9) and the sweetest love (Rom. 5:5; 8:35, 37) to constrain him to live to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:14-15) and to fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ (Col. 1:24):

ａ　

The goal of Paul's Epistle to the church in Ephesus was to bring the saints into the divine love as God's inner substance so that they would enjoy God as love (1 John 4:8, 16), enjoy His presence in the sweetness of the divine love, and thereby love others as Christ did (Eph. 5:25; 6:24; cf. 1:4; 3:17; 4:2, 15-16; 5:2).

ｂ　

Paul experienced the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the wine-producing vine, the One who sacrificed Himself so that He could become the new wine to cheer God and man—Phil. 2:17-18; Deut. 8:7-8; Judg. 9:13; Matt. 9:17; cf. S. S. 1:2.

ｃ　

Paul enjoyed and was filled with Christ as the heavenly wine to such an extent that he became wine to God, poured out as a drink offering in living and dying to the Lord as a martyr, spending and being spent for the church as the building of God in order to finish his course with joy—Phil. 2:17; 3:12-14; 2 Tim. 4:6-8; 2 Cor. 12:15; Acts 20:24.