It is God’s mercy for us to see HOW does Christ build up the church as the temple of God, and to realize that He doesn’t need our “help” to build the church but He only needs that we LET Him build Himself into us to mingle Himself with us for the building up of the church.
However, it is much easier and more common for Christians to do all kinds of “works for God” and even to “give money to God” so that the church may be built up, and it is very tempting for believers to either do nothing or do a lot of things for “the building up of the Body”.
But we need to realize that, just as God stopped David – a man after His heart – from building a house for God until God would build Himself into him, so God does not need our help for the building up of the church: He simply needs us to LET Him mingle Himself with us by our willing cooperation to open to Him, enjoy Him, experience Him, call on Him, and pray His word back to Him.
God’s unique purpose is really to just mingle Himself with us so that He becomes our life, our nature, and our content, and we become His corporate expression. May we be saved from the snare of the enemy, that is, from the snare of doing many outward things for the Lord OR doing nothing for the Lord, and may we be those who daily cooperate with the Lord’s building work by allowing Him to mingle Himself with us more.
How does the Lord build Himself into us? How does God mingle Himself with us? This is not a mere teaching: it is our Christian experience, and so we need to tell the Lord,
Lord, mingle Yourself with me more today for the building up of the church as the temple of God. Lord, I want to give You my cooperation for the building up of the church. I want to stop my outward doing and simply allow You to mingle Yourself with me. Lord, even though I may not know HOW You mingle Yourself with me, I just want to cooperate with Your mingling daily. Even though I may not see this mingling, Lord, mingle Yourself with me more! I just want to be open to You so that You may build Yourself into me and build me into You so that together with the saints we would express You corporately as Your building!
The Body of Christ is the Enlargement of Christ, who is the Mingling of God with Man
What we see in the first four books of the New Testament is the biography of a wonderful God-man, Jesus Christ, who is the mingling of God and man. In the Gospels, we see that God came to earth to mingle Himself with man in Jesus Christ, and in Acts we see that this One was reproduced, enlarged, and increased to produce many men who are mingled with God.
In the Gospels we see the Head, Christ, who is the mingling of God and man, and in Acts we see the enlargement of Christ, the enlargement of the mingling of God with man. The disciples were the continuation of Jesus Christ, and even though they were men, they were mingled with God to the point that it was difficult to distinguish whether it is God or man living and acting.
In Acts we see the speaking and moving and working of Christ through all His believers, who are His reproduction and continuation. We need the Lord’s mercy and light to realize that the first five books of the New Testament show us a clear picture of a great corporate person: the Gospels show us Christ, the Head, and Acts show us the enlargement of Christ and His continuation on earth.
I was very much helped by brother Lee’s expounding on this matter here,
The book of Acts is a record not merely of the activities of the apostles, but it is a record of the activities of the Body of Christ on earth. We need to connect Acts with the Gospels to see a complete man, the Head and the Body. This man is a mysterious, universal man, who is God yet man and man yet God. He is also the mingling of divinity and humanity. There are many instances in these five books that show the mingling of God with man and man with God. The Gospels speak of Christ on earth; however, His Body was not yet produced. In Acts Christ as the Head is in the heavens, but the Body He produced is on earth. We need spiritual eyes to see that this great person as the Head is in the heavens and that His Body is on earth. However, the Head is not separate from the Body; rather, in this universe they are connected from the heavens to the earth and from the earth to the heavens.The book of Acts is a record of the enlargement and continuation of the mingling of God and man. Christ is not a person with a group of associates; He is the Head with a Body. (Witness Lee, The Church as the Body of Christ, pp. 59-60)
Today we are the Body of Christ, the enlargement and continuation of Christ, and we need to hold Him as the Head so that we may be further mingled with Him and express Him. We live in the continuation of the book of Acts: today Jesus Christ, the Head of the Body, lives and moves in us, the Body of Christ. All the believers in Christ are the enlargement of Christ, the One who is the mingling of God with man.
Hallelujah, we are not merely Christ’s followers, His disciples, His friends, or His associates: we are the Body of Christ, the enlargement and continuation of the One who is the mingling of God and man, and we are daily in the process of being mingled with God for the producing and building up of the church as the temple of God!
Lord Jesus, cause us to realize that today we are the enlargement of the mingling of God with man. Mingle Yourself with us today for the producing of the Body of Christ to express You corporately. Lord, mingle Yourself with us to the point that You live in us, You are expressed through us, and we speak Your words, do Your works, and express You in everything! Bring us fully into the reality of the Body of Christ as we take You as the Head, grow into You in all things, and are daily mingled with You more and more!
Being in the Reality of the Body is Being in the Spirit and Living in the Spirit
The Body of Christ is a matter in the mingled spirit; through regeneration, we received the life of God in our spirit, and now our spirit is a “mingled spirit”, a spirit in which the divine Spirit has mingled Himself with our spirit.
Where is the building up of the church? It is in the mingled spirit. Where is the God-man living? It is in the mingled spirit. Where does the mingling take place for the building up of the church? It is in the mingled spirit.
The temple church life requires only one thing, that is, that we all spend more time living in the mingled spirit. For us to be in the reality of the Body of Christ is not to have rules and regulations but simply to care for being in the Spirit.
Being in the reality of the Body of Christ is not related to doing outward things in the church such as ushering, arranging chairs, visiting the saints, having a head covering, giving hospitality, etc. We may do these things which are very necessary, but what we need to do most of all is be in spirit and live in the mingled spirit.
Anything that we just do without being in spirit can become an ordinance, a rule, and a lifeless law; what we need is not rules and regulations but living in the mingled spirit.
God cares only for the divine Spirit in our human spirit, and so we need to make sure we are in the mingled spirit, we live in the mingled spirit, and we do everything in the mingled spirit, since we are one spirit with the Lord (Rom. 8:4-5; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 6:17; 12:12-13, 27).
All such necessary things in the church as forgiving one another, caring for one another, praying for one another, visiting one another, or preaching the gospel, arranging things in the church life, feeding the saints, coordinating for home meetings, visiting new ones in their homes, shepherding the students, caring for the young people, visiting the older saints, etc – all these need to be done in the mingled spirit.
The church as the Body of Christ is not an organization or a religion but a group of people who allow Christ to be mingled with them and who are mingled with God (see Eph. 3:16-21; 4:16).
We simply need to pay attention to our spirit, live in the mingled spirit, and seek to be mingled with the Lord in everything we do and say.
Lord, thank You for our mingled spirit. Keep us in our spirit today. We want to live in spirit, walk in spirit, speak in spirit, and do everything in the mingled spirit. Lord, we want to be in the reality of the Body of Christ by being in the mingled spirit and by living in the mingled spirit! We want to spend more time living in the mingled spirit. Remind us to turn to our spirit, live in the spirit, and do everything in the spirit for the building up of the church as the temple of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, bro. Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and The Church as the Body of Christ, chs. 3, 5 (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 5 / msg. 5, The Way Christ Builds the Church as the Temple of God.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Jesus lived the God-man pattern, / Set the way for us to follow, / He denied His natural man and / Was obedient unto death, / Once He was the only God-man; / Now we are His duplication. / As the many grains we’re blended / As His corporate reproduction. (Song on being Christ’s continuation)
# In resurrection and through death, / You mingled God with man— / Produced Your Body, consummating / The New Jerusalem. / For You Lord, open my heart wide. / With others build me up. / In You we would together blend, / Enjoy Salvation’s cup. (Song on being mingled with God)
# It’s by our mingled spirit, Lord, / That we can shine with Thee, / And be a golden lampstand now / For all the world to see. / It’s not by forms or rituals, / Mere Christianity; / It’s by our Christ enjoyed as life / We all can shine with Thee. (Hymns #1262)
About aGodMan
