God is a mystery, Christ is the mystery of God, and the church is the mystery of Christ; Christ and the church as one spirit are the great mystery.
Today we live in an age of mystery; the age of grace, the age of the church, is not the age of outward manifestation of what God is and what He does, but it is an age of mystery, an age in which all that God does is hidden, mysterious, and inward.
And when this age will end, the age of the millennium kingdom will come in, and everything will be made clear.
We are living at the end of this age, and the consummation of the age is close; the Lord is with us, and we need to live in a sensation of His return.
His return is imminent; yes, there are some outward things in the world situation that need to take place, but such great events can be easily arranged by God.
What He is waiting for is His believers to live in the reality of the mystery and to consummate the mystery of God, so that He can end the age of mystery and bring in the age of the kingdom. We need to live our Chrisitan life and church life with the consummation of the age in view, with the coming of the Lord in view.
Without a doubt, we are very close to the end of the age of grace, the age of the church, the age of mystery. We are not the kind of people who over-analyze and speculate what is the year of the Lord’s coming and when exactly will He return, but we want to live in the sensation of His return.
As we live the church life, as we live our Christian life and church life, we need to do this with the coming of the Lord in view.
We need to be aware that the world situation, before too long, will drastically change; we will soon be in the first part of the last seven years of this age, that is, in the last seven weeks.
May we be enlightened and open to the Lord in a fresh way so that He may minister to us, train us, operate in us, and live in us, so that we may continue living our normal Christian life – at whatever age we’re humanly speaking – and do this with the sensation of the Lord’s return.
We may be women grinding at the mill or men working in the field, going about our daily chores and taking care of our responsibilities, but inwardly we want to be in the reality of the kingdom, in the reality of the Body of Christ, in the reality of the great mystery – Christ and the church.
God is a mystery – He is the mystery of the universe. Christ is a mystery – He as the embodiment of God is the mystery of God. The church is a mystery – the church is the mystery of Christ, the continuation and duplication of Christ.
May we live in the church as the mystery of Christ by being one spirit with the Lord today!
The Church is the Mystery of Christ, and Christ and the Church as one Spirit are the Great Mystery
According to Eph. 3:4-5, the church is the mystery of Christ. Christ Himself is a mystery, and the church as the Body of Christ to express Him is the mystery of Christ.
Therefore, Christ and the church as one spirit are the great mystery (Eph. 5:32; 1 Cor. 6:17).
The mystery of God is Christ; the most wonderful person in the whole universe and in the history of mankind is Jesus Christ.
Whether people are for Him or not, all nations on earth use the calendar of Jesus, and every year is the year of the chronicle of Jesus!
His name is the highest name on earth, and no name is bigger than the name of Jesus. And Christ today is not merely in the heavens but also on earth, for He is in the church.
The mystery of the universe is God, the mystery of God is Christ, and the mystery of Christ is the church.
The church is not merely the gathering of God’s called people; the church is not an organization but an organism, the organism of Christ.
The church is the mystery of Christ; the church is just Christ in a mysterious way – the church is the Christ (1 Cor. 12:12).
The believers in Christ are part of the church, the Body of Christ; the church is the Christ, the Body of Christ.
This is quite mysterious, for when people look at us and we tell them that we have Christ living in us, they can’t quite understand that.
The church is the mystery of Christ; God is a mystery – He’s real, living, and almighty, but He is invisible, and no one has ever seen God (John 1:18).
This mysterious God is embodied in Christ, and Christ is the mystery of God (Col. 2:2).
Furthermore, the church is the mystery of Christ, for the church is the continuation and duplication of Christ.
A believer in Christ is one who has Christ – the mystery of God – dwelling in him (Col. 1:27); this cannot be seen with our human eyes, but once we receive the Lord’s life in us through repenting and calling on the name of the Lord, we become sons of God and members of the mystical Body of Christ, the church as the mystery of Christ.
Christ is the mystery of God, and this all-inclusive One has come into us, the believers in Christ, to produce us as the mysterious Body of Christ, the church (Eph. 1:22-23).
We are the continuation of the mystery of Christ; we are the church, the mystery of the mystery, and Christ and the church as one spirit are the great mystery.
Such a mystery – the mystery of Christ, the church – has been hidden throughout generations, and it was not made known to the sons of men (Eph. 3:5), but it has been revealed to us in spirit.
In the Old Testament, we see many genuine seekers of God, but they didn’t see Christ as the mystery of God or the church as the mystery of Christ.
Abel saw something concerning the need for sacrifices to come forward to God, but he didn’t see the church.
Noah built the ark according to God’s revelation but he didn’t know of the building up of the church. Moses received the revelation to build the tabernacle, but he didn’t know the mystery of the church, so he could not build the church.
David prepared all the materials for the temple and Solomon built the temple of God, but they didn’t know how to build the Body of Christ.
But praise the Lord, Christ came and revealed that He will build His church (Matt. 16:18) and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it!
Furthermore, this mystery was revealed by the Holy Spirit in the Epistles to the apostles and prophets in spirit. And today we can see the great mystery, Christ and the church as one spirit!
And we can live in this great mystery, doing everything in our Christian life and church life with this mystery in view, having a sense of mystery.
We are in the church life not merely outwardly but intrinsically, essentially, when we have the sense of the great mystery, Christ and the church as one spirit.
Lord, unveil us to see the church as the mystery of Christ. May we have a revelation in spirit of the great mystery – Christ and the church as one spirit. Hallelujah, God is a mystery, Christ is the mystery of God, and the church is the mystery of Christ! Amen, Lord, may our Christian life and church life be in this mystery, God in man and man in God. May we live in the church life intrinsically by having a sense of the mystery of Christ, the church. We hunger for inner reality, Lord; we don’t just want to know the doctrine of the church but live in the church as the mystery of Christ and become the Christ, the corporate Christ, the organic Body of Christ.
Living in the Great Mystery of Christ and the Church until All the Mysteries will be Completed!
During this age, the age of the church, the age of the grace, the age of mystery, Christ is doing one work: He is building up the church, the Body of Christ, to be His bride (see Matt. 16:18; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12, 27; Eph. 4:16; Col. 1:18; Rev. 19:7-9).
He is working Himself into man, He is building Himself into man, and He is building His believers together in a hidden, mysterious, and spiritual way, so that He may gain a built-up church, the Body of Christ, to be the bride of Christ for whom He can return.
He is building up His Body to be the bride of Christ.
The more we give ourselves to the Lord to live in the great mystery – Christ and the church as one spirit – and we learn to blend, the more we live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
We live in an age of mystery, and the kingdom of the heavens, the gospel, the indwelling of Christ, and the coming resurrection and transfiguration of the saints are all mysteries which were hidden in the times of the ages (see Matt. 13:11; Eph. 6:19; Col. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 15:51-53).
The kingdom of the heavens is a mystery; the gospel is a mystery; the indwelling of Christ in the believers is a mystery; the coming resurrection and transfiguration of the saints is a mystery.
We live in the age of mystery, living in the intrinsic great mystery of Christ and the church as one spirit, until all the mysteries will be completed, finished, and be over; this completion will be at the trumpeting voice of the seventh trumpet (Rev. 10:7).
We do not know how the Lord will perfect and mature the majority of His children who, during their lifetime on earth did not reach maturity, were not transformed, were not built up, and did not become part of the bride but are part of the wife.
But He will do it: He will perfect each and every one of the believers in Christ. We want to have a living that is intrinsically in the great mystery – Christ and the church as one spirit, so that this mystery would be finished in us, with us, and through us.
When the Lord sees that the mystery is finished. the trumpet will sound, the bride will be raptured, the great tribulation will start, the Lord’s parousia (His presence) will begin, and soon the wedding feast will take place! Hallelujah!
Once the bride is raptured, there will be a wedding feast, the bride will be the army coming with her husband as the Commander-in-chief, to war at Armageddon, and together they become the corporate stone to strike the great image at its toes, and the stone will become a great mountain filling the whole earth!
This will take place in three and a half years plus a little time.
Today and now, we need to be the Body built up and be in various aspects of the preparation of the bride, be trained in warfare, be constituted as living stones, and be in the reality of the kingdom more and more, so that we may be part of the manifestation of the kingdom, which will fill the whole earth! Amen!
And then, the overcomers will be the co-kings together with Christ; He will have His throne in Jerusalem (Psa. 2 and 72) and will inherit all the nations and people, and the overcomers will be the co-kings with Him. At the same time, we will be His newly married wife. Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to live in the great mystery – Christ and the church as one spirit. Amen, Lord, grow in us, transform us, renew us, and perfect us to be the Body of Christ and the bride of Christ. Prepare us as the bride of Christ. Train us in spiritual warfare. Constitute us and build us up as living stones. We want to be in the reality of the kingdom more and more so that we may be part of the manifestation of the kingdom. Amen, Lord, make us Your overcomers, those who live in the great mystery – Christ and the church – in an intrinsic way. Our yearning is to be part of the fulfillment of Your purpose in this age, the age of mystery!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Truth Lessons—Level Four, vol. 2, lsns. 31, 36-37 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life, the Church Life, the Consummation of the Age, and the Coming of the Lord (2020 fall ITERO), week 1, The Consummation of the Age – the Age of Mystery.
- Hymns on this topic:
– As Christ is God’s true mystery, / God to explain and God express; / So is the Church Christ’s mystery, / Christ to explain and manifest. / The members of the Church of Christ / Are all primarily of clay; / They need to be transformed and made / Transparent, precious day by day. (Hymns #821)
– The Church the myst’ry is of Christ, / For He is now to man unshown; / No man on earth may see Him now, / But thru the Church He is made known. / The Church is Christ’s expression full, / In her Christ dwelleth bodily; / She is His duplication true, / And man in her Himself may see. (Hymns #818)
– Thus the Church and Christ together, / God’s great mystery, / Is the mingling of the Godhead / With humanity. (Hymns #819)
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