Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:1-4, 15-16, 20-24, 31-32; 5:2, 8-9, 18
Ⅰ
God's desire in His up-to-date recovery is for us to have a walk worthy of His calling for the reality of the Body of Christ—Eph. 4:1-4:
A
An overcomer is one who has been called by God to enjoy Christ as everything by loving Him to the uttermost for the fulfillment of God's purpose to build up the Body of Christ as a reality in order to express Himself and to defeat His enemy—1 Cor. 1:9; 2:9-10; 12:12-13; Matt. 16:18-19; Gen. 1:26; 2:9; Rev. 2:7.
B
In beseeching the saints to walk worthily of God's calling, Paul spoke from his status as a prisoner of Christ Jesus and a prisoner in the Lord—Eph. 3:1; 4:1:
１
Sooner or later, every steward of God, every minister of God's riches, every faithful lover of Christ, will be imprisoned not only by Christ but also in Christ; the more we love Him, the more we will be in Him to such an extent that He will become our prison for us to enjoy Him to the uttermost so that we may have a walk that is worthy of God's calling.
２
The more freedom we have, the more blind we are, but if Christ is our prison, our eyes will be opened to see the heavenly vision, and we shall receive the highest revelation of God's economy—3:9; Acts 26:19.
Ⅱ
The first item of a walk worthy of God's calling is for us to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit as the reality of the Body of Christ, with the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes—Eph. 4:2-4:
A
The uniting bars, which held the forty-eight boards of the tabernacle together and brought them into oneness, signify the uniting Spirit, the one Spirit, who joins all the members of Christ into one Body—Exo. 26:26-29; Eph. 4:3:
１
The uniting bars were made of acacia wood for connecting strength and were overlaid with gold for uniting; that the bars were made of acacia wood indicates that the oneness of the Spirit involves not only Christ's divinity but also His humanity—v. 2.
２
In actuality, the uniting bars signify not the Holy Spirit alone, but the Holy Spirit mingled with our human spirit (Rom. 8:16)—the mingled spirit, which includes both divinity and humanity.
B
In the uniting Spirit of the glorified Jesus, there is the transformed humanity of Jesus; to drink of and flow out the one Spirit for the one Body is to drink of and flow out the Spirit of the man Jesus, to drink of and flow out the humanity of Jesus with His divinely enriched human virtues of lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering for bearing one another in love—John 7:37-39a; 1 Cor. 12:13; Acts 16:7; Eph. 4:2-3:
１
In order to live in the reality of the Body of Christ in the church life, we need to experience Christ in His humanity as our lowliness and meekness; to be lowly is to remain in a low estate and to be meek is to not fight for oneself—Phil. 2:5-7; Matt. 11:29; 5:40; Mark 10:45; John 13:12-17.
２
In order to live in the reality of the Body of Christ in the church life, we need to experience Christ in His humanity as our long-suffering with joy; to be long-suffering is to endure mistreatment for the sake of the Body—Col. 1:11, 24.
３
In order to live in the reality of the Body of Christ in the church life, we need to experience Christ in His humanity for bearing one another in love; although at times we cause the Lord Jesus a great deal of trouble, He always bears us; in the church life we should not forsake the troublesome ones but bear them in love as the expression of our enjoyment of Christ as life—Eph. 4:31-32; Rom. 2:3-4; 1 Thes. 5:12-18; cf. Psa. 73:21-26.
４
If we call on the name of the Lord and feed upon Him, we will enjoy Jesus as a man, and all the virtues of His uplifted humanity will be ours in the Spirit of Jesus for the practice of the recovered church life in the Spirit of reality as the reality of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 1:2; 10:3-4, 17; 12:3b, 13; 16:13; Eph. 4:3-4a.
Ⅲ
The second item of a walk worthy of God's calling is for us to grow up into Christ, the Head, in all things—v. 15:
A
In order to grow up into Christ in all things for the building up of His Body, we need to enjoy Christ as our all-inclusive, universal replacement for the producing of the one new man, so we must "hear Him" and see "Jesus only"—vv. 15-16; Mark 9:7-8:
１
Whatever or whoever is not Christ, God "fires"; God has replaced everything in His Old Testament economy with Christ—Mark 1:1-8; Matt. 17:3-5; Col. 2:16-17; Heb. 10:5-10; 11:5-6; cf. Isa. 22:20-25.
２
When God created us, He "hired" us; when He put us on the cross, crucifying us with Christ, He "fired" us; when He resurrected us together with Christ, He "re-hired" us by making us a new species of God-men, a new invention of God as His corporate masterpiece, bringing us back to His original intention of creating us for His glory, His corporate expression—Gen. 1:26; 1 Cor. 11:7a; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:6, 10, 15; Isa. 43:7.
３
The real church life is a life in which all the saints are fired and replaced with Christ, making Christ everything in the church as the reality of the one new man for the glory of the Triune God—Col. 3:10-11; 1 Cor. 10:31.
B
In the New Testament Christ's replacing us is altogether a matter of a grafted life— Rom. 11:17, 24:
１
We are united with Christ, and in this union Christ replaces us; replacing demands union, whereas exchanging annuls union with Christ (John 15:4-5); because Christ joined Himself to us, uniting Himself with us, when He died on the cross, we died with Him and were terminated (Rom. 6:6).
２
Now in our organic union with Christ through our faith in Him, He replaces us by living in us, with us, by us, and through us; we live, yet not we but Christ lives in us, and we live by the faith of the Son of God; this indicates an organic union with Christ—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:19-21a.
Ⅳ
The third item of a walk worthy of God's calling is for us to learn Christ as the reality that is in Jesus—Eph. 4:20-24:
A
John 6:57 reveals how the reality that is in Jesus, the God-man living of Jesus, can become the reality of the Body of Christ, the corporate God-man living of the new man as the duplication of the God-man living of Jesus; the purpose of God in sending the Lord Jesus to be a man was for Him to live a God-man life by the divine life (17:4); this kind of living issues in a universal great corporate man that is exactly the same as He is—a man living a God-man life by the divine life.
B
John 6:57a says, "As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father"— this is the reality that is in Jesus, the God-man living of Jesus:
１
The Lord Jesus lived because of the Father, enjoying the Father continually as the heavenly "butter" (ASV 1901, Darby's New Translation, KJV), 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—Isa. 7:14-15; Exo. 3:8; John 1:14-17; 5:19-20; 8:29; 16:32; 17:26; Luke 2:12; Phil. 2:8.
２
The power of the Lord's obedience to the Father was His being a man of prayer to enjoy the Father as His richest grace and sweetest love for Him to be absolutely submissive to the Father for the carrying out of the Father's perfect will—Matt. 11:25-30; 14:22-23; Mark 1:35; 10:45; 14:36.
C
John 6:57b says, "…so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me"—this is the reality of the Body of Christ, the corporate God-man living of the many members of the Body of Christ, who are learning Christ, living because of Christ, as the reality that is in Jesus:
１
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; to live because of Christ as our food, we must eat Him so that He can be the supplying and energizing factor to live in us and through us for the building up of His Body as the perfect will of God—v. 63; Jer. 15:16; Rom. 8:2; 12:1-2.
２
We must contact the Lord as our living pattern in our spirit in order to eat Him daily as the heavenly butter, the richest grace, and as the heavenly honey, the sweetest love; this is to enjoy Christ as the good land flowing with milk and honey for the building up of the church, the Body of Christ, as the house of God and the kingdom of God—Exo. 3:8; 1 Pet. 2:2; Psa. 119:103.
Ⅴ
The fourth item of a walk worthy of God's calling is for us to live in love and light—Eph. 5:2, 8-9:
A
We need to be partakers, enjoyers, of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4); the divine nature is what God is—God is Spirit (John 4:24), God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and God is light (1:5); Spirit is the nature of God's person, love is the nature of God's essence, and light is the nature of God's expression.
B
We all need to spend an adequate amount of personal time with the Lord to privately fellowship with Him in our spirit so that we can be filled with His loving essence for Him to shepherd others through us and be filled with His shining element for others to see Him in us—John 4:24; Luke 15:20; Matt. 5:15-16.
Ⅵ
The fifth item of a walk worthy of God's calling is for us to live by being filled in spirit to overflow with Christ—Eph. 5:18:
A
Speaking, singing, psalming, giving thanks to God, and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ are not only the outflow of being filled in spirit but also the way to be filled in spirit—vv. 19-21.
B
To be filled in spirit is to be filled with the riches of Christ to become the fullness of Christ, the overflow of Christ; by calling on the Lord and pray-reading His word, we can continually receive Him as grace upon grace to become His fullness, His overflow—3:8; 1:23; 3:19b; Rom. 10:12-13; Eph. 6:17-18; John 1:16.