Scripture Reading: John 2:19-22; 12:24; 2 Cor. 4:16-18; John 1:16; Eph. 1:19-23; 3:16-21
Ⅰ
The mutual dwelling of God in man and man in God—God's building—is God's ultimate goal; the principle of God's building is that He tears man down in order to build Himself into man and to build man into Him:
A
Whatever frustrates, rejects, and denies God's tearing down is the work of Satan; denying the self and taking up the cross are God's tearing down work— Matt. 16:18, 21-24.
B
The Lord Jesus is the prototype of God's building; God's building is a God-man:
１
Even the humanity that the Lord Jesus put on in His incarnation was something of the old creation that needed to be torn down through the death of the cross—John 1:14; 2:19-22; 5:19, 30; cf. Matt. 3:15-17.
２
In His humanity Christ was a human seed belonging to the old creation, so Christ in His flesh was an "old man"; Christ had the flesh without sin in it, but He was still in the likeness of the flesh of sin—Rom. 6:6; Col. 1:15; John 1:14; Rom. 8:3.
３
The Lord's resurrection brought everything into God that was torn down by death, thus building His humanity into divinity to make Him the prototype of God's building—John 12:24; Rom. 1:3-4; 8:28-29.
C
Through Christ's death and resurrection, the physical body of Christ as the individual temple of God has increased to be the mystical Body of Christ as the corporate temple of God— John 2:19-22; 14:2, 23; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 3:16-17.
Ⅱ
Job reveals how God builds Himself into us and builds us into Him for the building up of the Body of Christ as His corporate expression:
A
God's intention with Job was to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness so that He might build up a renewed Job in God's nature and attributes—Job 1:1; Titus 3:5; 2 Cor. 4:16-18; Psa. 68:19; cf. Rom. 8:28-29.
B
God's stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear him down so that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself so that Job might become a God-man, the same as God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, in order to express God—Job 10:13; cf. Eph. 3:9:
１
Job's glory was his perfection and uprightness, and his crown was his integrity; Job was right in saying that God had stripped his glory from him and had taken away the crown from his head—Job 1:1; 27:5; 19:9.
２
Job's hope had been to build up the "tree" of his integrity, but God would not allow such a tree to grow within Job; rather, God had plucked up this tree, this hope—v. 10; cf. Isa. 64:6-8.
３
Although God was stripping Job, He surely was not angry with him; neither did God consider Job His adversary but His intimate friend—Job 10:12-13; cf. Ezek. 14:14, 20.
C
God's purpose in dealing with His holy people is that they would be emptied of everything and receive only God as their gain—Phil. 3:8; Psa. 73:23-26.
D
God's intention was to usher Job into a deeper seeking after God so that Job might realize that what he was short of in his human life was God Himself and that he might pursue God, gain God, and express God—Col. 2:19.
E
God's intention was to make Job a man of God, filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ— 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17; Eph. 3:14-21.
F
Job reveals that the Bible of sixty-six books is for only one thing: for God in Christ by the Spirit to dispense and work Himself into us to be our life, our nature, and our everything so that we may live Christ and express Christ; this should be the principle that governs our life—Job 10:13; Eph. 2:10; 3:9; Phil. 3:8-9; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:15; Gal. 6:15; Rev. 21:2.
Ⅲ
We need to live and work in the principle of God's building so that we may become the church as the fullness of Christ and of God—Eph. 1:22-23; 4:13; 3:19:
A
The church as the Body of Christ is the fullness of Christ, the expression of Christ, the overflow of Christ; and the immeasurable and overflowing riches of Christ are the content of the church as the fullness of the all-filling Christ— 1:22-23; 4:8-10; John 3:34:
１
Just as Christ is the overflow of God, the expression and fullness of God, so the church is the overflow of Christ, the expression and fullness of Christ— 1:16; 4:10, 14; 7:38-39; cf. Eph. 5:18-20.
２
Christ is the One who descended, ascended, traveled into our spirit, and comes to us in gracious visitations by descending and ascending within us; in our experience when we are down, Christ comes down to where we are and brings us up to God to constitute us the gifts to His Body and to make us His fullness—4:7-11.
３
We need to be constituted with the riches of Christ by enjoying these riches until we become the fullness of Christ, the expression and overflow of the riches of Christ; the contents of the fullness of Christ revealed in the writings of John are grace, reality, life, resurrection, light, the way, food, drink, satisfaction, freedom, glory, and love—John 1:16, 14; 11:25; 8:12; 14:6; 6:48, 57; 4:13-14; 7:37-39a; 8:32, 36; 17:22; 21:15-17; 1 John 4:8.
４
The transmitting of the power of the transcending Christ to the church includes the dispensing of the Triune God with all His riches; the surpassing greatness of God's power—His resurrecting power, ascending (transcending) power, subjecting (subduing) power, and heading up (overruling) power—is operating "in us," is "toward us who believe," and is "to the church"—Eph. 3:20; 1:19-23:
ａ
The church is the depository of this surpassingly great fourfold power of the Triune God.
ｂ
When this power operated in Christ, it made Him the Head; when this power operates in us, it makes us the Body.
ｃ
To experience the divine transmission of this power, we need to realize that this power is in us already—3:16, 20; Phil. 3:21b; 4:13; Col. 1:29.
ｄ
To experience the divine transmission of this power, we need to have a strong desire to get completely out of death—Rev. 3:1; 2 Cor. 3:6; 5:4.
B
The church as the Body of Christ is the fullness of God, the overflow of God— the highest definition of the church is that the church is the fullness of God:
１
The fullness of God is the issue of our enjoyment of the unsearchably rich Christ as the embodiment of God dispensed into our being; through His indwelling, Christ imparts the riches of all that God is into our being to make us the fullness of God, the corporate expression of God; actually, the fullness of Christ in Ephesians 1:23 is the very fullness of God in 3:19.
２
In Ephesians 3:16-19 the word that is used four times in the apostle's prayer: the apostle prayed that the Father would grant us to be strengthened; the result of such a strengthening is that Christ makes His home in our hearts; the result of Christ's making His home in our hearts is that we are full of strength to apprehend the dimensions of Christ—the breadth, length, height, and depth—and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ; and the result of this apprehending and knowing is that we are filled unto all the fullness of God; these steps make up a metabolic process by which the Body of Christ is constituted with the riches of the immeasurable Christ through our enjoyment of those riches.
３
Therefore, being filled unto the fullness of God is the outcome of the deeper, higher, and richer experiences of Christ described in Ephesians 3.
４
In Ephesians 1 our spirit is revealed as an organ for us to receive revelation concerning the church; in Ephesians 3 our spirit is a person, the inner man, for us to experience Christ for the church; in order to experience Christ unto the fullness of God, we need to be strengthened with the fourfold power of the Triune God into our spirit through the Holy Spirit.
５
Since our heart is the totality of our inward parts (our mind, emotion, will, and conscience) and the center of our inward being, when Christ makes His home in our heart, He controls our entire inward being and supplies and strengthens every inward part with Himself.
６
God superabundantly fulfills above what we ask or think concerning the church, according to the power that operates in us—v. 20.
７
We are being strengthened into our inner man according to the riches of God's glory, and then unto Him is glory in the church; the glory of God is wrought into us and then returns to God for His glorification—vv. 16, 21.