Let us turn to several portions of Scripture: Ephesians 4:15-16; Colossians 2:19; Romans 12:3-5; and 1 Corinthians 12:12-14.
Speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ;
from whom all the body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the working in due measure of each several part,
maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
Holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God.
For through the grace that was given me, I say to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;
but so to think as to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.
For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office:
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free;
and were all made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but many.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we come with hearts full of thanksgiving and praise unto You, because You are the Lord full of grace and mercy. We thank and praise You for giving us another opportunity that we may gather before You to listen to Your own words.
We praise You because You are a God of hope. You desire to express Your abundant grace. We long for You to do something in us that we cannot do ourselves.
We thank and praise You because Your purpose must be established. This morning, we look to You. We look to Your Holy Spirit to move among us, that You may plant Your precious word in the depths of our hearts and lead us to enter into Your truth.
May Your name be praised. We pray this way in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
God’s mystery is Christ. Christ’s mystery is the church. Thank and praise God.
This mystery has been opened to us through the prophets and apostles. Today, we who have received faith and have been saved can enter into God’s mystery and Christ’s mystery. Of course, we need revelation.
God not only gave revelation to Paul. If we read Ephesians 3, we see that Paul deeply knew the mystery of Christ. He shared with us what God had revealed to him, so that we also may understand and enter into this mystery.
The mystery of Christ is the church. The church is the body of Christ. This is a great mystery, but thank and praise God: He wants us to know and enter into such a mystery.
This morning, we would like to share concerning the laws of the body. You know that our physical bodies are very mysterious. If you read Psalm 139:14-16, David says:
I will give thanks unto Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
Wonderful are Thy works;
And that my soul knoweth right well.
My frame was not hidden from Thee,
When I was made in secret,
And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance;
And in Thy book they were all written,
Even the days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was none of them.
Even though David is writing about our physical body, he says, “I will give thanks to God.” Why? Because we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
If we look at our created body, the more we examine it, the more we realize that it is fearfully and wonderfully made. Even though science is so advanced, scientists are still unable completely to understand the mystery of the body.
The body is not merely mysterious or wonderful; it is also fearful. I do not know whether you have ever thought about it this way: if you look at the physical body God has created for you, is there anything in this creation that can compare with this body?
It is indeed wonderful. It is beyond what we can comprehend. Man can create many things, but if you compare them with God’s creation, you have nothing to say.
The more you examine this body, the more you think how wonderful it is. It is so amazing, beyond your imagination, and even something fearful.
When David contemplated his body, he said, “Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knoweth right well.” I wonder whether our souls really understand this. Oftentimes we waste away our bodies, and there are teachings and philosophies in this world that despise or even seek to destroy the body.
We truly do not understand how precious this body is. This body will live only approximately one hundred years, yet God made it so fearfully and wonderfully.
Can you also imagine that the body of Christ is so fearfully and wonderfully made? The body of Christ has been formed and created for two thousand years, and it is not finished yet.
This body will be preserved unto eternity. When this body is completed, it will become the bride for the Lamb. It will correspond completely and be completely fitted for our Lord, eternally united with Him as one.
Brothers and sisters, think about it. When we say that the church is the body of Christ, this is indeed a fearful and wonderful thing.
David said that when he was made in secret, his frame was not hidden from God. In his mother’s womb, in secret, he was already being formed. Even while he was still being formed, God had already seen him.
God had already established the number of his days. While he was still being formed in his mother’s womb, his whole life had already been ordained and written in God’s book.
This shows us how wonderful is the body God has created. Then, brothers and sisters, when we think about the body of Christ, is it not also secretly being formed, though our physical eyes cannot see it and the world does not know it?
In secret, God is forming and creating this body. In the depths of our spirits, the Lord is forming us together. Though we cannot yet see the body of Christ clearly because we are still being built, God has already seen it.
Even though on this earth the church is still being formed, the body of Christ was already established before the foundation of the world.
Before the foundation of the world, before God created all things, He already had a thought in His heart. His desire was that His Son would be Lord over all, that everything would be summed up in Him, and that all things would shine forth in glory.
This is what God established in Himself before the foundation of the world, according to the desire of His heart. He wants His Son to be Lord over all.
When we come to Ephesians 3, we see that in His Son God also established another purpose: He wanted to prepare a body for His Son. When this body becomes mature, it will become the bride of His Son. This purpose was established before the foundation of the world, but now in time it is slowly being revealed.
Brothers and sisters, when we speak about the body of Christ, the church is the body of Christ. This is indeed a great mystery. It is an amazing and fearful thing. We need revelation before God so that we may understand these things from the depths of our hearts.
The Bible tells us that the church is the body of Christ. It does not say that the church is like the body of Christ. The reality of the body is not a parable. The church is not merely like a body; the church is the body of Christ.
When we look at our own bodies, this is not an example; it is a reality. Brothers and sisters, the church is the body of Christ, and that reality is even truer than the reality of our physical bodies.
Our physical body is fleshly and temporary. It cannot last unto eternity. It will waste away and become blemished. But the body of Christ is spiritual, eternal, holy, and unblemished.
The church is the body of Christ. This is not an illustration or a parable. It is a reality much truer than the reality of our physical body. I do not know whether you understand this and know it from the depths of your heart.
Perhaps many brothers and sisters think of the church as the body of Christ merely as an illustration and not as a reality. But we need, in our spirits, to understand what the church is. If you have revelation in your spirit that the church is the body of Christ, this is indeed a tremendous thing. Its fearfulness and wonderfulness are indescribable.
First, I would like brothers and sisters to have this revelation in the depths of their hearts. We do not know how much God has expended for this body. For this body, God gave up His only begotten Son. God paid the utmost price.
When God created our physical body, He took dust from the earth and breathed into its nostrils. Then man became a living soul.
But for the sake of producing the body of Christ, God had to give up the Son whom He loved. In order to establish and form this body, the Son of God—the Word—had to become flesh.
When He was in heaven, He was praised and worshiped by all the angels. Yet He emptied Himself and took the form of human flesh. He suffered the utmost suffering and, lastly, went upon the cross.
He shed His blood to wash away our sins. His body had to be broken so that a new and living way to God could be established. He rose from the dead and gave forth His life, just like a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies and bears much fruit.
Our Lord paid the utmost price for this body.
Not only that, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended and, in one Spirit, baptized the one hundred and twenty into one body.
As our brothers shared last night, in the upper room there were one hundred and twenty individual believers. They gathered together and prayed in one accord for ten days. Yet they were only one hundred and twenty individual believers, gathered externally—a congregation—but they were not yet the body.
Not until the Holy Spirit was given forth and they were baptized in one Spirit into one body did there become one body with one hundred and twenty members. Their relationship was completely different. Before, the relationship was external; now, it was a relationship of life from within.
Then three thousand were saved, and these three thousand also became members of the body of Christ. For these two thousand years, the Holy Spirit has been working throughout the earth. In every generation and in every locality, He has moved people so that they may repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is continually in travail to bring forth this body. Brothers and sisters, oftentimes I am amazed at the work the Holy Spirit does in our lives. He is so patient.
We sin against Him. We quench His moving. He is misunderstood and rejected, yet He does not leave us. He continues to work. What for? In order to complete the body of Christ.
The church is the body of Christ; this is not merely a slogan. It is what our God has gained after He paid the greatest price.
Today, our understanding that the church is the body of Christ is often very shallow, as though it were something common or small. Brothers and sisters, we must see that the body of Christ is something God paid the greatest price to gain for Himself.
Because He loves His Son, He wants His Son to have a helpmeet for eternity. Therefore, the body of Christ is something tremendous.
The Bible says that the church is the body of Christ. When we speak about a body, immediately we have the thought of life. The church is not the corpse of Christ; the church is the body of Christ.
The main thought of the body is life. The church was formed through our Lord’s own blood and life. The birth of the church was a process of creation—a new creation.
When our Lord Jesus was crucified, before He died He cried, “It is finished.” He bowed His head and committed His spirit into the hands of the Father.
Because the next day was a great Sabbath, according to Jewish custom the bodies could not remain on the cross. The soldiers came and broke the legs of the two robbers crucified with the Lord, so that they might die.
But when they came to our Lord, they saw that He had already died. One soldier pierced His side with a spear to see whether He had truly died.
John saw it. He testified, “I saw it. When the spear was withdrawn, there came forth blood and water.” John emphasized that his testimony was true and that we must believe it.
From His broken heart came forth water and blood. This became the material used to form the church. The blood washes away our sins, and the water speaks of His life. His life was poured forth like water.
His life and His blood are the materials used to form the church. When the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, He took those saved by the water and blood and baptized them into one body. This is the body of Christ.
We see that the church is not an organization. The church is an organism. The church is something of life.
The church is not something organized externally. If the church were an organization, it could be sustained through laws, rules, and regulations. Every organization has its laws; without them, it cannot continue to exist.
But the church is not this way. The church is a body, an organism. It is a matter of life. It is not governed by external rules and laws, but by the Spirit of life controlling it from within.
Perhaps we may think that if the church is not an organization established by laws and rules, then it must be unrestricted and unrestrained. Everyone could do whatever he desired, and the church would become a great mess.
But our physical body is not an external organization. It is a manifestation of life. You do not put the arm on the body externally, place the eye in its socket, and determine the body’s movements by rules and laws. The body has life.
The organization of life is stricter and more wonderful than any external organization. The body of Christ lives by the law of the Spirit of life. Without the law of the Spirit of life, the body cannot move.
Some brothers and sisters misunderstand freedom in the church. They say, “The Lord has set us free, so everyone can live according to his own thought.” This is a wrong concept.
In an earthly organization, you must obey rules and regulations. But in the body of Christ, we must be under the law of the Spirit of life.
The body of Christ is a new creation. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, we read:
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature:
the old things are passed away;
behold, they are become new.
But all things are of God.
Dear brothers and sisters, the body of Christ is a new creation. The old things have passed away, and all things have become new. Remember this phrase, because it is very important for our understanding of the body of Christ.
In the body of Christ there is no old creation. In the body of Christ there is no old creation, because the body of Christ is a completely new creation.
Remember Romans 12. We are familiar with this portion:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service.
Then Romans 12:5 says:
So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. “Bodies” is plural, because you have your body and I have mine. Each body represents a saved person.
Everyone who has been saved and touched by the love of God has a redeemed body. We can no longer live for ourselves. Our bodies need to be offered up, because they are redeemed bodies. They are no longer our original bodies; they belong to the Lord.
What is the result of offering these bodies up? Romans 12:5 tells us that there is one body. All these redeemed bodies, when offered up, produce one body, and that body is the body of Christ.
Our dear brother Watchman Nee said that Romans 12 tells us about the body of Christ, but it does not tell us how we are formed into the body of Christ. If we want to understand how we become the body of Christ, we must look at Romans 5 through 8.
If you go through Romans 5 through 8, then you arrive at the body in Romans 12. Brothers and sisters, this is very important, because our incomplete understanding of the body of Christ creates many problems.
Romans 5 tells us that we were formerly in Adam. Because Adam sinned, we all became sinners. Adam was the old man, and in that old man we all became old.
Romans 6 tells us that this old man needs to be crucified. Do you not know that our old man has been crucified with Christ? When the Lord Jesus was crucified, all those who were in Adam were crucified in Him, for our Lord is the last Adam. In Him, the whole race of Adam was concluded.
Then, in Romans 7, because our old man has been crucified with Christ, we should no longer live in the flesh. If we live in the flesh, we are turning back.
What is the relationship between the flesh and the old man? The old man is an objective matter. In Adam, we are all old men. The flesh is a subjective matter. All of us have the flesh.
Since our old man has been crucified with Christ, can we still live according to the flesh? We cannot. In our flesh there is no good thing. Who can deliver us from this body of death? Thank and praise God: in Christ Jesus!
Romans 8 shows us that once the flesh has been dealt with, we live in life by living in the Spirit. If you go through Romans 5 through 8, then you enter into Romans 12. You offer up your redeemed body, and you are formed into one body.
In that body there is no old creation and no flesh. Everything is new creation. Everything is from God, from the Lord’s life, and in the Spirit of life. This is the body of Christ.
We have so downplayed the body of Christ. We put our flesh and ourselves into the body of Christ, thinking that what we think is best should be brought into it, not realizing that we are doing a work of destruction.
Today, the body of Christ cannot be displayed because we are still in the flesh, living in the natural realm and living in ourselves. These are foreign objects, and they cannot be allowed in the body of Christ.
If we want truly to enter into the living of the body of Christ, we need the strict working of the cross.
This body is a matter of life, and life has its law. The Spirit of life moves within us, and as He moves, He has His law.
The Bible shows us the laws of the body. The first law is that the body holds fast to the Head.
God established our Lord Jesus as Lord of all. He is not only Lord of all; He is also the Head of the church. The church is the extension of Christ.
All the fullness of the Head dwells bodily in the body, and the body is the expression of the Head. What the Head wants to do, He does through His body. The Head and the body are one.
If the body is to move, it must hold fast to the Head. Just as in our physical bodies, our members move according to the direction of the head, so the members of Christ’s body must move according to Christ.
My hand does not independently decide to grasp something while my foot refuses to cooperate. There is no such thing in a healthy body. Everything is directed by the head, and all the members hold fast to the head.
If a member does not hold fast to the head, the body is paralyzed. It has lost its function and becomes a burden. The spiritual body of Christ is the same way.
How can the members live and move? Every member must hold fast to the Head, lay hold of Him, listen to Him, and do according to His order. There must be no rebellion, but complete submission.
Our physical body has a nervous system that controls the whole body, and this system begins from the head. The Holy Spirit is like that nervous system. He takes what is in the Head and transmits it to the body.
The Holy Spirit will not lead one member one way and another member another way, because there is only one Spirit. This Spirit represents Christ.
Christ as the Head has absolute authority. The Holy Spirit, representing the authority of the Head, also has absolute authority. Therefore, the first law in the church, in the body of Christ, is to hold fast to the Head.
If we do not hold fast to the Head, or if someone replaces the Head, it is a fatal wound.
Today men do not like to hear the word authority, especially in the United States. When you speak about authority, people immediately want to rebel. “We are free people,” they say.
But in the universe, the first principle is authority. God is authority; man is not authority. God’s authority is absolute. Grace is the second principle, and grace helps us submit to authority.
Authority and grace work together. God is authority, and we are rebellious people. We are not willing to submit, and we cannot submit in ourselves. But the Holy Spirit has granted us grace. Through grace, we can submit.
None of us can boast, “I submit.” According to our natural man, we are all rebels. When we hear the word authority, we want to rebel immediately. It is the Lord’s grace that allows us to submit.
Our brother Nee said that when you come into the church, the first thing to learn is submission—not to look for where you can exercise authority, saying, “I am the authority.” Rather, we must submit.
This is the first principle we need in order to have body living.
The second law is the unity of the body. The Bible says that though there are many members, there is one body. There is one body, yet many members. So also is Christ.
Our members are all different. Even your left and right hands, though they may look the same, are not completely identical. Every member is different, and every member has a different function.
In the world, if you are different, then you cannot be one. To make different people one, the world uses a work of forced unification. This is what a dictator does: “You are all different, but you must become like me. You must do everything according to what I say.”
This is the world’s method. But God’s ways are mysterious. He does not use that method of uniting people.
Some say, “I want to become like so-and-so.” But God does not want you to become another person, because God wants you to be the member He made you to be. Every one of us is different, but thank God, all these different members form one united body.
This is the mystery of unity. Is it not amazing? This is God’s work.
Let us not think that because we are different, we cannot be one. We must see that our differences actually make us one.
How can this be? Ephesians 4 tells us that what we do and say must be worthy of our calling. We are called to be the body of Christ.
How can we walk worthy of this calling? The first thing is that we diligently preserve the unity of the Spirit.
What is the unity the Spirit provides? It is the unity found in the Godhead: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all.
Everyone who believes in the Lord has the unity of the Spirit. In the Father we are one, because God is our Father. In Christ Jesus we are united, because He is our Lord. In the Holy Spirit we are one body.
All who are saved already possess this unity. This is the foundation of the unity of the body. But this does not mean that we are already uniform in everything.
We may have different understandings concerning truth. We have one Bible, yet our understanding of the Bible differs. Some have a more extensive understanding, while others have only a general understanding.
Some believe that baptism should be by sprinkling; others say that one must be immersed. Our understanding of the Bible may differ. We all believe in the Bible, but our understandings may differ.
Our experience in the Lord is also different. Some have experienced Christ deeply, while others experience Him as infants. Our experience of the Holy Spirit differs. So the differences remain. How then can we become one?
Thank the Lord, the unity of life remains. You are a child of God. The Lord Jesus is your Lord and my Lord. The same Spirit is in you and in me. In Christ, we are one body, though we still have many differences.
Therefore, we need fellowship. Though we are different, we have commonality. Do not think that because you have your own perspective or your own method of doing things, you cannot have fellowship with others.
Our fellowship is the fellowship of the whole body. Think about our Lord. When He was on earth, He had fellowship with His disciples. Was that fellowship easy? Sometimes communication did not get through. He spoke about spiritual things, but they understood physical things.
The Lord did not say, “If I cannot get through to them, I have no fellowship with them.” There was no such thing. He continued to speak, and through fellowship He brought them on.
The disciples also had to open their hearts. If we have preconceived ideas, we cannot have proper fellowship. Though we have differences, our foundation is the same. We must open our hearts.
Do not remain only with those who hold the same views as you. We must have fellowship with all the saints, learn from one another, and have a humble spirit.
Ephesians 4:13 says:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a full-grown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
When the law of the Spirit of life is moving, though we are many members, we are still one body.
The third principle is that we are connected together to minister to one another. This is the principle of the body.
God gives to each of us individual gifts. He does not want all of us to become the same. If you were only a mouth, all you could do would be to eat.
The hand cannot say to the foot, “I do not need you. I can go by myself.” If something is farther away, however, the hand cannot reach it. It needs the foot to help it.
I often say that when we eat, we do not think about it. If we thought about it, we might not know how to eat. Which member do you use to eat?
The teeth help you, and the tongue does the work of transporting the food. Whatever needs to be moved to the back for chewing is moved there. If you had no tongue, you would have to use your finger to move the food, and then you might bite your finger. You cannot do that.
Every member has a different function. You cannot look down upon any member. Even the smallest member cannot be omitted.
Neither should a small member become discouraged and say, “Because I am not the eye but the ear, I do not belong to the body.” No. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?
For every member, God has granted a portion of grace and a gift. God wants us jointly to supply one another and minister to one another.
No one can be selfish. If we are selfish, we will die. No one can go out alone. We need the body, and we need the supply of the body.
Many brothers and sisters today are merely churchgoers. They have no function in the church, and the body of Christ suffers loss.
Those who have only one talent must bring forth what they have received. Do not say, “Because I have only one talent, I will bury it in the ground. Let those with two talents and five talents do the work.”
The difficulty in the church today is often with those who have five talents and also with those who have only one talent. The two-talent ones are doing all right.
Brother Moody said that when he invited famous preachers to his meetings, he would introduce them by saying, “I am only one with two talents; these have five talents.” He was a seller of shoes, but he was greatly used by the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, may we all rise up and exercise what the Lord has given us.
The last principle is the restraint and protection of the body. When we look at our physical bodies, we see that there are things that restrain the body. Every member cannot do according to its own will.
If my eyes see something at a distance, my eyes cannot go and grab it. I am restrained by the rest of the members of the body. If I fall, I am protected by the other members of the body.
This is the beauty of the body. Do not think that to be restrained means to be completely bound. We need restraint so that we will not become loose and lawless.
Otherwise, whenever we want to do something and brothers and sisters do not agree, we may say, “I will leave the brothers and sisters and do it myself.” Some say, “I only need the Lord and myself. That is the most spiritual way.”
Brothers and sisters, that spirituality is false. We need the Lord, but we also need brothers and sisters. We need restraint; otherwise, we become lawless.
Even though restraint brings challenges, this is the Lord’s training, so that we may stand where we need to stand—not fulfilling our own desires, but fulfilling God’s purpose.
At the same time, the body is a protection. Do not think that the church is unnecessary, even when the church is in such desolation and you feel greatly misunderstood.
You may say, “Why not stay at home?” But, brothers and sisters, if a man leaves the church, he leaves protection.
It is like the people of Israel in the wilderness. If they left the camp, they would fall in the wilderness. The camp was their protection.
We need the protection of the church, especially in this day and age. Spiritual warfare is so intense. We cannot fight it by ourselves. We need brothers and sisters together to fight against the enemy.
Ephesians 6 says that the church is to put on the whole armor of God—not individuals merely, but the church. The church must put on the whole armor of God so that, in the evil day, it may stand for the Lord and allow the will of the Lord to be fulfilled.
Thank and praise God. The body of Christ is precious. May we cherish such a body.