Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Rev. 22:16; Eph. 2:21-22; 3:16-21; 1 Cor. 1:9
Ⅰ
Before the Lord Jesus comes back, He will fully recover the proper church life—Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Rev. 1:11; 22:16, 20:
A
Nothing touches the Lord's heart as much as the recovery of the church life.
B
In this present age, before His coming back, the Lord must have the church life to shame His enemy.
C
No matter what Satan does to damage the church, the Lord Jesus will return, and His church will be waiting for Him.
Ⅱ
The church life is Christ lived out through us in a corporate way—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a; 3:9-10:
A
The church life is a life in which we take Christ as our life and our person— Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:11-12; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:16-17.
B
The Christian life is not a religious life; it is a life that is Christ Himself lived out through us—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a.
C
When we live Christ, He joins us together in oneness, and Christ will be lived out through us in a corporate way—Rom. 12:4-5.
D
Christ Himself is our life, and He is the Spirit within us; the church life is Christ Himself realized as life and as the life-giving Spirit dwelling in us—Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:11-12; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17.
E
The way to practice the church life is to put ourselves and everything on the cross and take Christ as life; then we will be permeated and saturated by Christ and with Christ—Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:4.
F
We need to learn to be inward Christians who are being transformed for the practice of the church life—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2-21:
１
The church life is Christ Himself as the Spirit permeating, saturating, and transforming us—1 Cor. 15:45b; Eph. 3:16-17.
２
The church life is a transformed life, not a natural life; it is Christ Himself as the subjective Spirit living within us—Rom. 12:2.
３
The more we are transformed and filled with Christ, the more we will be living, real, and practical members of Christ and realize the genuine church life—Eph. 3:17; 2 Cor. 3:18.
４
If we are transformed, it will be easy for us to be joined, knit, and built up together with others; this is to be built up in the church life—Eph. 2:21-22.
Ⅲ
The genuine experience of Christ always issues in and requires the church life—1 Cor. 1:2, 9, 30; 2:2, 10; 5:7-8; 10:3-4; 12:12-13, 27:
A
ThemoreweexperienceChrist, themoresomething within requires that we live in the proper church life.
B
When we experience Christ in a genuine and living way, He will require us to get into the church life because the dispensing of Christ into us is for the pro-ducing of the church—Rom. 8:11; 12:2-21.
C
God dispenses Himself into us as everything for the purpose of gaining His corporate expression, which is the church—Eph. 3:16-21.
D
When we take Christ as our life, our person, and our everything, this Christ within us will require the proper church life; in fact, the Christ in us will be-come the church life.
Ⅳ
The church life is a life of being headed up under the unique headship of Christ—1:10, 22-23; 4:15-16:
A
God is heading up His chosen ones to be the Body of Christ, with Christ as the Head—1:4, 22-23:
１
The first step in the heading up of all things in Christ is for God to place His sons under the unique headship of Christ—vv. 5, 10.
２
When the church takes the lead to be headed up under the headship of Christ, God has a way to head up all other things—vv. 22-23, 10.
B
In the proper church life we are being headed up in Christ—1 Cor. 11:3:
１
If we do not know what it is to be headed up in Christ, we cannot know the church—Eph. 1:10, 22-23.
２
In thechurch lifeweare taking theleadtobeheadedupinChrist; forthis we need to grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things—4:15-16.
Ⅴ
Fellowship is the reality of the church life—1 Cor. 1:9; 10:16-17; Acts 2:42; 1John1:3, 7:
A
This fellowship involves not only the oneness between us and the Triune God but also the oneness among all the believers—John 17:21-23; Eph. 4:3.
B
The church is the fellowship, the communion, the co-participation, the mutual enjoyment of Christ—1 Cor. 1:9.
C
Fellowship also implies a mutual f lowing among the believers—1 John 1:3, 7:
１
In the New Testament, fellowship describes the f lowing both between us and the Lord and between us and one another—Phil. 2:1.
２
The flow, the current, that we have in our spiritual fellowship involves both oneness and life; our fellowship is a f low of oneness.
３
This fellowship, this mutual flowing, is the reality of the church life—1 Cor. 1:9, 2.
Ⅵ
The church life is the continuation of the divine glorification—the con-tinuation of Christ being glorified by the Father with the divine glory— John 12:23-24; 13:31-32; 17:1, 5, 22; Acts 3:13:
A
Glory is the expression of the divine life and the divine nature—7:2; Eph. 1:17:
１
If we live by the divine life and nature, we will express the divine glory— 4:18; 2 Pet. 1:4.
２
Themorewelivebythe divine lifeand thedivinenature, themoredivine glory there will be in the church—Eph. 3:21.
３
The expression of this glory is the glorification of the Lord Jesus.
B
The divine glorification began with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and it is continuing today—Luke 24:26; Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:21.
C
The church has been produced in this glorification, and it continues to grow in the divine glorification—John 14:2; 15:1, 4-5; 16:21.
D
Whatever the church does in the matter of fruit-bearing is a continuation of the divine glorification—15:8.
Ⅶ
The church life is the corporate expression of Christ—Eph. 3:16-21; 4:16; 5:27:
A
The key to the church life as the expression of Christ is the spirit of the mind— 4:23:
１
If we live according to the spirit of the mind, there will be in the church life an expression of the divine character—v. 24; Col. 3:10.
２
We will be a corporate people with the flavor of Christ and the expression of God.
B
In our virtues of lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, and love, there should be the expression of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God—Eph. 4:2-6.
C
The church life must be filled with the aroma and flavor of Christ and with the character of God; such a living is the living of the Triune God through our humanity—Phil. 1:20-21a.
D
For centuries the Lord has been longing for such a church life—Eph. 1:5, 9:
１
We pray that before long this kind of church life will be fully practiced among us in the Lord's recovery—Col. 1:9; 4:12; Matt. 6:10.
２
May the Lord be satisfied by seeing such an expression of Himself through the recovery of the genuine church life throughout the earth.