Scripture Reading: John 12:24; 17:22-23; Acts 1:8; Rom. 8:3, 29; 12:4-5
Ⅰ
God's goal in His economy is to produce many sons for His corporate expression—Rom. 8:14; Gal. 3:26; 4:5-7; Heb. 2:10; Rev. 21:7.
Ⅱ
God's original intention is that man would receive His divine life and divine nature and thereby become His expression—Gen. 1:26; 2:7-9:
A
Man was created according to God's kind; in creating man, God made a duplicate, a copy, of Himself for His corporate expression—1:26.
B
God created man in His image, and Christ is the image of the invisible God; therefore, man was created in the image of Christ to contain Christ and express Him—v. 26; Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:4.
C
The highest aspect of the believers' oneness is the oneness in the divine glory for the corporate expression of the Triune God; as we behold and reflect like a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory for the corporate expression of God—John 17:22-23; 2 Cor. 3:18.
D
Through His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus produced the church as His reproduction and continuation—Heb. 2:11-12.
E
The basic function of the church is to be the corporate expression of the Triune God in Christ—Eph. 3:14-21.
Ⅲ
According to the Gospel of John, Christ has a reproduction, and in His reproduction He is a grain of wheat, reproducing Himself for the church as the corporate expression of the Triune God—12:24:
A
As a grain of wheat, the Lord Jesus fell into the ground and died in order to produce many grains as His reproduction—v. 24.
B
In Christ's resurrection we are His reproduction—1 Pet. 1:3:
１
When Christ was resurrected, we, His believers, were all included in Him; we were resurrected with Him—Eph. 2:6.
２
In His resurrection Christ imparted the divine life into us and made us, the many grains, the same as He is in life and nature to be His reproduction and His multiplication—John 12:24.
C
The first grain—the first God-man—was the prototype, and the many grains— the many God-men—are the mass reproduction; this is the reproduction of God—Gen. 1:26; John 20:17; Rom. 8:29.
D
The many grains need to be broken and ground into fine flour in order to be blended to make a loaf—the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem—1 Cor. 10:17.
Ⅳ
In the book of Acts there is a group of believers who are the corporate reproduction and continuation of Christ; as such, they know the meaning of resurrection and ascension, live by Christ as their life, act by Christ as their power and authority, and realize that they are the Body and act in the Body and for the Body in the one divine stream—John 20:22; Acts 1:8-11, 14; 2:1-4, 24, 32-33; 4:33:
A
The disciples became the reproduction of Christ by having the resurrected Christ within them as their life—John 14:19-20; 20:22:
１
The Lord Jesus had brought them through His death and into His resurrection, and He had wrought Himself into them—Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:6.
２
By passing through the processes through which the Lord Jesus had passed, the disciples were replaced by Him and were made the same as He is in life and nature—Rom. 6:4-6; Gal. 2:20; 1 John 2:6; 4:17.
３
By experiencing Christ in His death and resurrection, His disciples became His reproduction, enlargement, and continuation—John 12:24.
B
The Lord Jesus is the faithful and true Witness; as His reproduction and continuation, the apostles and disciples in Acts were His witnesses—living witnesses of the resurrected Christ—Rev. 1:5a; 3:14b; Acts 1:8, 22; 4:33.
Ⅴ
The deep thought in Romans is that God became man so that, in God's complete salvation, sinners may be redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified to become the sons of God, who are the same as God in life and nature, to be the members of the Body of Christ—8:3; 1:3-4; 3:24; 5:10; 8:14, 29-30; 12:2, 4-5:
A
God sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and condemned sin in the flesh so that sinners could be reconciled to God and justified by Him in order to receive eternal life and thus become children of God—8:3, 16.
B
Jesus Christ our Lord, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, was designated the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead, becoming God's firstborn Son—1:3-4.
C
The firstborn Son of God, the first God-man, is the prototype for the production of many God who, as the reproduction of Christ and the members of the Body of Christ, are exactly the same as the firstborn Son—8:14, 29.
D
The function of the law of the Spirit of life is to shape us, to conform us to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God; the shaping by the law of the Spirit of life is the meaning of conformed in Romans 8:29.
E
The purpose of God's salvation is to have Christ reproduced in millions of believers so that they may become the sons of God, the many brothers of Christ as the firstborn Son of God, and thereby be the members of the Body of Christ for His corporate expression—12:4-5.