Our Work, Behavior, and Person must Match the Church as the House of God

This week we shift our focus from the crystallization study of Exodus to The Church as the Temple of God – The Goal of God’s Eternal Economy, and more specifically we want to see our need to go on with the Lord from the “tabernacle church life” to the “temple church life”. We need the Lord’s mercy that we be poor in spirit to see new lights and receive revelation from the Lord concerning how He wants us to go on with Him.

The goal of God’s eternal economy is the church as the temple of God, and we need to go on from the tabernacle church life to the temple church life. The tabernacle and the temple are the center of the Old Testament and the consummation of the New Testament. In John 1:14 we see that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and at the end of John 2 the Lord said, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up (He spoke of the temple of His Body).

In His resurrection Christ’s Body has been enlarged to become the divine and mystical Body of Christ, which is actually the corporate temple of God. At the end of the New Testament, in Rev. 21:3 we see that the New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God for God’s dwelling, and in v.22 the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple for God’s people to dwell in.

In between these two book ends of the New Testament we see the temple church life, and when the New Testament mentions the church it is not in the aspect of the tabernacle but the temple. The church is the house of the living God, the temple of God (1 Tim. 3:16). We as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, the temple of God (1 Pet. 2:5). We are God’s fellow workers, and the saints are God’s cultivated land, God’s building (1 Cor. 3:9).

We are the temple of God, if the Spirit of God dwells in us; the temple of God is holy, and so are we (1 Cor. 3:15-16). We are the temple of the living God (Eph. 6:16). God is making us pillars, and He is building us into the temple of God (Rev. 3:12), which is the Triune God Himself (Rev. 21:21); we are being built into the Triune God to be a corporate temple. This is what the Lord desires to gain in this age: the temple church life. May the Lord put in us an aspiration to go in Him from the tabernacle church life to a temple church life!

Christ has Gained us that we might Gain Him to be Built up into Him to be a Corporate God-man

The meaning of the name “Habakkuk” is “embracing” or “clinging to”, revealing to us that in Christ God became a man to embrace us and gain us so that we might cling to Him and gain Him (Hab. 1:1). Paul testified in Phil. 4:12-13 that he didn’t obtain or was he already perfected, but he pursued that he may lay hold of that for which he has been laid hod of by Christ Jesus. Christ laid hold of Paul and seized him, and now Paul wanted to lay hold, seize, grasp, and take possession of Christ so that he may gain Christ.

This is a mutual seizing and grasping. Christ has laid hold of us; He has seized us, grasped us, and took possession of us, so that we may lay hold of Him, seize Him, grasp Him, gain Him, and take possession of Him, so that Christ may be built into us and we may be built into Him for the church life as the temple of God to come into being.

Therefore we today need to do one thing: we need to forget the things which are behind (both the good and the bad, both the success and the failure) and stretch forward to the things which are before, so that we may pursue Christ toward the goal – the fullest enjoyment of Christ, the fullest gaining of Christ!

We need to forget what’s behind us and stretch forward to the vast, unexplored territory of Christ in our spirit for the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ! Amen!

Christ has gained us that we may gain Him so that He can be built into us and we can be built into Him to be a corporate God-man, the new man, the church as the temple, the house, of the living God, the mutual abode of God and man (see Phil. 3:12-14 cf. Gen. 41:51-52).

Lord Jesus, thank You for becoming a man to embrace us and gain us so that we may cling to You and gain You! Thank You Lord for gaining us that we may gain You so that You can be built into us and we may be built into You to be the church as the temple of God! Lord, we want to forget the things behind and stretch forward to the things which are before that we may gain the vast all-inclusive Christ and be gained by Him for the building up of the church as the temple of God!

Our Work, Behavior, and Person must Match the Church as the House of God

In Ezekiel 43:10-12 God tells Ezekiel to show the pattern of God’s house to His people so that they may be exposed, shamed, and convicted, and so that their person, work, and behavior may be measured by God’s house.

As believers in Christ, all that we are and all that we do must match the church as the house of God, being according to God’s design and pattern. God’s intention is that His people’s work, behavior, and person would match the temple of God according to its design, pattern, laws, and statuses.

What does it mean in our daily living? There at least three main aspects to this:

1. Since God’s building is the processed Triune God building Himself into us, we need to be perfected in the church life by the perfected saints, who cooperate with the transforming Spirit to perfect others with the attributes of the Triune God for their transformation (1 Cor. 3:9, 12, 16-17; S.S. 1:10-11; Eph. 4:11-12; John 14:23).

We need to be open to the Lord and to the saints who are perfecting us so that we may have the Triune God wrought into us in the church life.

As we see in Song of Songs 1:10-11, there are some saints in the church life who cooperate with the transforming Spirit to perfect us and make “plaits of gold” (signifying God’s divine nature) and “studs of silver” (signifying the redemption of Christ) and put them in our hair to fasten it (signifying our submission to God), and they put strings of jewels around our neck (signifying our submission to God by the transforming of the Spirit).

We need to be open to the Lord’s perfecting through the saints so that the Triune God would be wrought into us in our daily living.

2. Since God’s house is spiritual, we must be people who are filled with the Spirit, live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, serve by the Spirit, walk according to the spirit, worship in our spirit, serve in our spirit, and overflow with the Spirit to minister the Spirit (1 Pet. 2:5; Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:16, 25; Phil. 3:3; Rom. 8:4; John 4:24; Rom. 1:9; John 7:37-39; 2 Cor. 3:6; John 6:63; Isa. 66:1-2; 57:15).

God’s house is spiritual, so we need to ask the Lord to fill us with His Spirit moment by moment, and we need to learn to live by the Spirit in our spirit, walk by the Spirit, and serve by the Spirit. In our daily life we need to worship God in Spirit, serve God in spirit in the gospel of His Son, live and walk by the Spirit, and minister not the letter but the Spirit to give life to others.

At the same time we need to be poor in spirit, having a contrite spirit and a humble heart, so that God would love to dwell with us and that He would revive our spirit and our heart for the building up of the church as the temple of God.

3. Since God’s house is His heart’s desire, we must be not only His friends but also His companions, who have the most personal and intimate contact with Him, to be used by Him to carry out His enterprise on earth (John 2:17-22; James 2:23; Exo. 33:11).

The church is God’s heart’s desire, and we need to aspire not only to be “friends of God” but companions of God, those who, like Moses, are very near to God’s heart, being according to His heart by living in God’s presence and having God’s presence to the fullest extent.

Only a person who is a companion of God can share a common interest with God and can be used by God to carry out His enterprise on earth.

Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with Your perfecting through the saints in the church life so that the Triune God may be wrought into our being more and more! Lord, fill us with the Spirit and keep us in the spirit so that we may walk by the Spirit, serve by the Spirit, walk according to the spirit, worship in our spirit, serve in our spirit, and overflow with the Spirit to minister the Spirit to others! Lord, we want to be not only Your friends but also Your companions, those who have the most intimate and personal contact with You to be used by You to carry out Your enterprise on earth!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, Ed Marks sharing in the message for this week, and Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1979, vol. 1 “Life Messages,” ch. 57 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Church as the Temple of God – The Goal of God’s Eternal Economy (2015 Thanksgiving Conference), week 1 / msg. 1, Going On with the Lord from the Tabernacle Church Life to the Temple Church Life.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lord, Your purpose and Your heart’s desire / Is to build Your church, Your temple. / For this purpose You created man / As a vessel to contain You. / You were processed as the Spirit / Now You’re working in our being. / To Your image You’re conforming us. / Lord, Your work is glorious. (Song on God’s purpose)
  # And now I’m walking by the Spirit / Step by step, day by day, / O Lord, I love You. / You’re the precious One to me. / As I do this and that / Lord, remind me where You’re at; / You’re in my spirit, / Dispensing grace to me. (Song on walking by the Spirit)
  # Now the Lord is the Spirit—that’s how / He can get inside of you right now. / It’s so easy to be filled with Him. / He’s made it really simple. / One, two, three— / That’s how easy it can be. / O Lord! Amen! / That’s the way to let Him in. / Hallelujah! I love to hear it. / He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. (Song on being filled in spirit)