Message One

The Vision of the Building of God

Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22; 4:16; Rev. 21:2-3
1. The entire Bible is a book of building; the main subject of the
Bible is the building of God—Gen. 28:10-22; Matt. 16:18; Rev.
21:2-3.
2. The central and divine thought of the Scriptures is that God is
seeking a divine building as the mingling of Himself with humanity
—a living composition of persons redeemed by and mingled with
Himself—Exo. 25:8:
1. God’s intention is to have a group of people built up as a
spiritual building to express God and to represent God by
dealing with His enemy and recovering the lost earth—Gen.
1:26; Eph. 2:21-22.
2. Whatever God is doing today—in preaching the gospel,
edifying the saints, or establishing churches—is part of His
building work; these activities are part of God’s main work,
the work of building—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:16.
3. We need to be enlightened by and fully saturated with the
thought that in this universe God is doing only one thing—
building His eternal habitation—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22;
Rev. 21:2-3.
4. For the sake of His coming back, the Lord needs the church
to be built up; only the church built up according to the
Lord’s desire can be the stepping stone into the age of the
kingdom—Matt. 16:18, 27-28.
5. To be built up with fellow believers is the Lord’s supreme
and highest requirement of His faithful seekers according to
the divine oneness of the Divine Trinity—John 17.
 6. Being built up with fellow partakers of the divine life is the
highest virtue of one who pursues after Christ according to
God’s eternal economy—Phil. 3:7-12.
3. The building of God is the Triune God as life wrought into us
continually so that under His transfusion and infusion we become
His corporate expression—Eph. 3:17a, 19b, 21:
1. God’s building is the mingling of God with man, that is, God
mingling Himself with us; thus, the church is God’s building
composed of Himself as the divine material mingled with
man as the human material—John 14:20; 15:4a; 1 John
4:15; Eph. 3:17; 1 Cor. 3:9, 11.
2. God’s building is the corporate expression of the Triune
God—1 Tim. 3:15-16; John 17:22; Eph. 3:19b, 21.
3. God’s building is the enlargement, the expansion, of God to
express God in a corporate way—John 3:29a, 30a; Col. 2:19.
4. Because the building is what God desires, the entire Old
Testament is on the subject of God’s building:
1. The account of Jacob’s dream at Bethel is the most crucial
word in the revelation of God, including the whole Bible in
its scope and requiring the rest of the Bible to explain it—
Gen. 28:10-22; Matt. 16:18; 1 Tim. 3:15:
1. Genesis 28:10-22 is the first place in the Scriptures
where God reveals that His intention is to build
Himself together with man and to have a dwelling
place, a Bethel, on earth.
2. In Genesis 35 the vision of Bethel came again, not as a
dream but as a reality; in Genesis 35 there is a crucial
and radical turn from the individual experience of
God to the corporate experience of God—the
experience of God as the God of Bethel (v. 7)—Eph.
3:17-21; 4:4.
2. According to the book of Exodus, God’s building is the
desire of God’s heart and the goal of God’s salvation—25:8-
9; 40:1-38:
1. The purpose of Exodus is to show that the goal of
God’s full salvation is the building up of His dwelling
place—1 Pet. 2:2, 4-5; Eph. 2:1-22.
2. God’s chosen people are to be built up together into
one entity, the tabernacle, where God and man may
mutually meet, communicate, and dwell.
3. In Christ we and God, and God and we, are built
together, meet together, and dwell together; this is
the central thought of the book of Exodus.
4. God’s dwelling place must be built according to the
pattern revealed on the mountain—Exo. 25:8-9; Heb.
8:5.
3. The tabernacle and the temple typify two aspects of the
church:
1. The tabernacle was designed for the wilderness and
was transitory in nature; the temple was designed for
the kingdom and was eternal in nature—Exo. 40:2; 1
Kings 6:2.
2. The tabernacle typifies God’s church on earth,
whereas the temple typifies the church as Christ’s
unique Body; the church appears in different
localities, yet the spiritual reality of the church is still
one Body, which is unique and eternal—Rev. 1:11;
Eph. 1:22-23.
3. The temple is a type of Christ and also of the Body of
Christ:
1. The temple first typifies Christ and then the
church, as the unique building of God in the
 universe—Matt. 12:6; 1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21-22.
2. These two—Christ and His Body, the church—
are the center, the reality, and the goal of God’s
eternal economy—5:32.
4. The temple replaced the tabernacle as God’s dwelling
on earth; thus, the tabernacle was mingled with the
temple—1 Kings 6:2; 8:1-11.
4. God charged Ezekiel to show the people of Israel the
pattern of His house, because He intended to examine their
living and conduct according to His house as a rule and
pattern—Ezek. 43:10:
1. The building of God is a pattern, and we need to
examine ourselves in light of this pattern—Matt.
16:18; Eph. 2:21-22.
2. Our behavior and conduct should be examined not
only according to moral regulations and spiritual
principles but also according to the house of God—1
Cor. 14:26.
3. The Lord’s requirement is according to His house, and
we must all be measured and checked according to
the building of God—Eph. 2:21-22.
4. The Body life is the greatest test of our spirituality; if
we cannot pass the test of the Body life, our
spirituality is not genuine—1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 4:16;
Col. 2:19.

Message Two
The Three Tabernacles
Scripture Reading: Exo. 25:8-9; 40:34;
John 1:14; 2:19-21; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; Rev. 21:3, 22
1. The three tabernacles in the Holy Scriptures—the type of the
tabernacle, the reality of the tabernacle, and the consummation
of the tabernacle—reveal the goal of God’s economy to have a
corporate people to be His dwelling place for His expression and
representation in eternity—Gen. 1:26; Exo. 40:34; Rev. 21:2-3,
10-11; 22:1, 5:
1. The type of the tabernacle in the Old Testament is a full and
complete revelation of the individual Christ as the Head and
the corporate Christ as the Body, the church, including
many details of the experience of Christ for the church life
(as God’s dwelling place, the tabernacle and the temple
were one)—Exo. 25:8-9; 1 Kings 8:1-11; Heb. 9:4.
2. The reality of the tabernacle in the New Testament is the
incarnated Christ, the individual Christ, and the corporate
Christ, the Body of Christ; through His death and
resurrection the individual Christ was enlarged to be the
corporate Christ, the church, composed of the New
Testament believers as the temple, the house of God, the
Body of Christ—John 1:14; 2:19-21; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Tim.
3:15; Heb. 3:6; 1 Cor. 12:12.
3. The consummation of the tabernacle as the conclusion of
the complete Bible is the New Jerusalem, a great corporate
God-man as the eternal, enlarged, universal, divine-human
incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune
God with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified
tripartite people—Rev. 21:3, 22; 22:17a.
2. Psalm 84 is the secret revelation of the enjoyment of Christ as the
fulfillment of the type of the tabernacle so that we may be
incorporated into Him to become the reality and consummation
of the tabernacle:
1. “At Your two altars even the sparrow has found a home; /
And the swallow, a nest for herself, / Where she may lay
her young, / O Jehovah of hosts, my King and my God”—v.
3:
1. The two altars—the bronze altar for the sacrifices and
the golden altar of incense—are the leading
consummations of the work of the incarnated Triune
God, who is Christ as the embodiment of God for His
increase—Exo. 40:5-6:
1. The first altar is the bronze altar for the offering
of all the sacrifices (Christ in His crucifixion) to
solve all the problems of man before God.
2. The second altar is the golden altar of incense
(the resurrected Christ in His ascension) for
God’s acceptance of the redeemed sinners.
2. Through our prayer at the incense altar we enter into
the Holy of Holies—our spirit (Heb. 10:19)—where we
experience Christ as the Ark of the Testimony with its
contents (Exo. 25:22; 26:33-34; Heb. 9:3-4; Rev. 2:17).
3. Through such an experience of Christ we are
incorporated into the tabernacle, the incarnated
Triune God, to become a part of the corporate Christ
as His testimony for His manifestation—Exo. 38:21; 1
Cor. 12:12.
4. Through these two altars God’s redeemed, the
“sparrows” and “swallows,” can find a nest as their
refuge and a home with God in rest:
1. The cross of Christ, typified by the bronze altar,
is our “nest,” our refuge, where we are saved
from our troubles and where we “lay” our
young, that is, where we produce new believers
through the preaching of the gospel.
 2. When we experience the resurrected Christ in
His ascension, typified by the golden altar of
incense, we are accepted by God in such a
Christ and find a home, a place of rest, in the
house of God.
5. This house is the processed and consummated Triune
God united, mingled, and incorporated with all His
redeemed, regenerated, and transformed elect to be
the Body of Christ in the present age and the New
Jerusalem as the mutual dwelling place of God and
His redeemed in eternity—John 14:1-23; Rev. 21:3,
22.
2. “Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; / They will yet
be praising You. Selah... / O Jehovah of hosts, blessed is the
man / Who trusts in You”—Psa. 84:4, 12:
1. Praising the Lord should be our living, and our church
life should be a life of praising—22:3; 50:23; 1 Thes.
5:16-19; Phil. 4:4, 11-13.
2. In the church life we trust in God, not in ourselves or
in our natural human ability to work out a solution to
our difficult situations—2 Cor. 1:8-9, 12.
3. “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, / In whose
heart are the highways to Zion”—Psa. 84:5:
1. The highways to Zion are the blessed highways for
seeking the incarnated Triune God in His
consummations, typified by the furniture in the
tabernacle—Heb. 9:2-5; 10:19-22.
2. The highways to Zion in our heart mean that we must
take the way of the church internally, not merely
externally; when we are deeply in the inner life, we
will certainly be in the way of the church—Psa. 42:7;
Matt. 6:6.
 3. Zion is the very spot where God is, the Holy of Holies;
the overcomers become Zion, and the Lord’s recovery
is to build up Zion—Rev. 21:16; cf. Exo. 26:2-8; 1 Kings
6:20; Psa. 48:2.
4. “Passing through the valley of Baca, / They make it a spring;
/ Indeed the early rain covers it with blessings”—84:6:
1. The highways to Zion are not external, superficial, or
cheap; we must pay a price to take the way of the
church; while we are weeping on the highways to
Zion, we are being filled with the Spirit, and the Spirit
becomes our spring—Matt. 25:9; Rev. 3:18; Acts
20:19, 31; Psa. 56:8.
2. As we pass through the valley of weeping, our tears
become a spring (John 4:14), and this spring becomes
the early rain that covers the valley with blessings;
this blessing is the Spirit (Zech. 10:1; Gal. 3:14; Eph.
1:3).
5. “They go from strength to strength; / Each appears before
God in Zion... / For a day in Your courts is better than a
thousand... / For Jehovah God is a sun and a shield; /
Jehovah gives grace and glory”—Psa. 84:7, 10a, 11a:
1. The more we go on in the church life, the more
strength we will gain—Prov. 4:18; 2 Cor. 3:18; cf. S. S.
8:6.
2. If our service is intrinsically according to God’s will in
the church life, each day will be worth many days in
God’s eyes—Joel 2:25a.
3. The blessings of dwelling in the house of God are our
enjoyment of the incarnated and consummated
Triune God as our sun to supply us with life (John 1:4;
8:12), as our shield to protect us from God’s enemy
(Gen. 15:1; Eph. 6:11-17), as grace for our inward
 enjoyment (John 1:14, 17), and as glory for the
manifestation of God in splendor (Rev. 21:11, 23).
Message Three
Life and Building
Scripture Reading: John 11:25; 14:2;
Rom. 8:2; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 3:6, 9
1. Life and building are the basic and central revelation of the Bible:
1. Life is for building, and the building is of life—John 11:25;
14:2; 1 Cor. 3:6, 9:
1. Life is the content, and building is the corporate
expression of the content.
2. God’s goal is the building; life is the procedure by
which God obtains the building, and life maintains the
building—Rev. 21:2-3, 9-10; 22:1-2.
3. Life is God Himself, and building is the expression of
the Triune God as life in a corporate Body—Rom. 8:2,
6, 10-11; 12:4-5.
2. The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of life and building for
us to be built up as the Body—8:2; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 15:45b;
12:12, 27; Col. 3:4, 15; 2:19.
3. The kernel of the divine revelation in the Scriptures is that
God created us and redeemed us for the purpose of
working Himself into us to be our life for His corporate
expression—Eph. 1:7; 2:5, 8, 21-22; 3:16-21.
2. We need to see life and building as portrayed in Song of Songs:
1. Through her living in Christ’s ascension as the new creation
in resurrection, the lover of Christ becomes mature in the
riches of the life of Christ so that she becomes the building
of God and its safeguard, the holy city—6:4a; cf. Gen. 2:8-
 12, 18-24.
2. We become God’s dwelling place, His sanctuary, the Holy of
Holies, by participating in the four stages of the divine
romance revealed in Song of Songs—1:2-3; 2:14; 4:8; 6:4;
Rev. 21:9-10, 16.
3. To become the sanctuary of God is to be built up (related to
the building up of the Body of Christ) in the growth in the
life of Christ with its unsearchable riches unto maturity—
Eph. 4:12-16:
1. In the Old Testament the building of God is typified by
Tirzah and Jerusalem; in the New Testament this
building is the organic Body of Christ—v. 16.
2. Ultimately, the building up of the organic Body of
Christ, which is also Christ’s wife (5:25-32), will
consummate the New Jerusalem, the holy city as the
consummation of the Holy of Holies, the mutual
dwelling of God and His redeemed in eternity—Rev.
21:2-3, 16, 22.
4. Through the dealing of the cross, we become the sanctuary
of God; this sanctuary is the Holy of Holies, which is God
Himself—S. S. 6:4a:
1. When we enter into the Holy of Holies, we enter into
God and become the sanctuary; that is, we become
God in life and nature—Heb. 10:19-20.
2. John 14:23 and Ephesians 3:17 prove that the God
whom we are pursuing is making us His duplication;
for God to make us His duplication means that He
makes us His dwelling place, His Holy of Holies—Rev.
21:16.
3. The lovers of Christ eventually become duplications of
God in life and nature but not in the Godhead; this is
 the fulfillment of God becoming man that man might
become God—the high peak of the divine revelation.
3. We need to see life and building as revealed in the Gospel of
John:
1. The Gospel of John reveals that the Triune God is
dispensing Himself as life into His believers and that the
believers, as the result of this dispensing, become the
building of God, His expansion, enlargement, and corporate
expression—1:4; 10:10b; 11:25; 14:2-3, 6.
2. The significance of the stone is that it denotes a work of
transformation to bring forth material for God’s building—
Bethel, the house of God—1:42, 51:
1. The believers in Christ, after being regenerated, are
being transformed into living stones for the building
of the church—Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:5.
2. The house of God signifies Christ increased through
the church built up with the believers as precious
stones and with the life-giving Spirit as the oil to be
the enlarged house of God (Bethel) for the fulfillment
of Jacob’s dream and of God’s eternal purpose—Gen.
28:10-22; Eph. 1:9, 11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9.
3. In His resurrection the Lord Jesus rebuilt God’s temple in a
larger way, making it a corporate one, the mystical Body of
Christ—John 2:19-22:
1. The body of Jesus, the temple, that was destroyed on
the cross was small and weak, but the Body of Christ
in resurrection is vast and powerful—1 Cor. 3:16-17;
Eph. 1:22-23.
2. Since the day of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus has
been enlarging His Body in resurrection life; He is still
working for the building of His Body under the
 process of resurrection—John 2:19-22.
3. Christ, who is resurrection and life (11:25), changes
death into life for the building of the house of God;
our living as Christians is a life of changing death into
life for the building up of the mystical Body of Christ
—2:1-21.
4. The Father’s house is a matter of the Triune God, through
incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, working Himself
into the believers in order to be fully mingled with them so
that He may build them up as an organism for His dwelling
and expression—14:2-3, 23:
1. The Father’s house is a divine and human
incorporation of the processed and consummated
God constituted with His redeemed, regenerated, and
transformed elect—v. 20.
2. The Lord’s coming brought God into man, and His
going brought man into God; by this coming and
going, He builds up the house of God by building God
into man and man into God—1:14; 10:10b; 14:2-3.
3. By the Spirit and through His death and resurrection,
the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is building an
organism, the church, which is His Body and the
Father’s house, produced by the mingling of the
Triune God with His chosen and redeemed people—
vv. 7-24.
4. The Father’s house is built up by the constant
visitation to the redeemed elect of the Father and the
Son with the Spirit—v. 23.
5. The Father’s house is in three stages: the stage of God
incarnate, the stage of Christ resurrected with His
believers to be built up as the church, and the
consummate stage—the New Jerusalem—2:19-21;
 Rev. 21:2-3, 9-10.
6. We all need to be nourished by the truth concerning
the mingling of God with us to produce a mutual
dwelling place—John 15:4-5.

Message Four
The Prerequisites of the Believers’ Building Up
in the Church, the Body of Christ
(1)
Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18; 18:19; 12:28;
John 17:21-23; Psa. 133:1-3
1. We must realize that the Lord loves and wants to have a built-up
church, not scattered individuals—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 5:25; Acts
13:22; cf. 1 Kings 8:17:
1. The principle of Babylon, apostate Christendom, is that of
division, confusion, and scattering; God’s people are
scattered, with each one going his own way and direction—
Gen. 11:1-9; Judg. 21:25.
2. The principle of the Lord’s building of His church is that of
gathering; we are gathered by the Lord out of all kinds of
occupations and frustrations into Himself on the genuine
ground of oneness—Matt. 18:20; Deut. 12:5, 8; 16:16.
2. We must acknowledge that all the believers have been baptized
in one Spirit into one Body and that God has placed the members
in the Body and blended all the Body together—1 Cor. 12:13a, 18,
24:
1. As the Spirit is the sphere and element of our spiritual
baptism, and as in such a Spirit we were all baptized into
one organic entity, the Body of Christ, so we should all,
regardless of our race, nationality, and social rank, be this
 one Body—vv. 12-13; Col. 3:10-11.
2. Every believer is an indispensable member of the Body, and
“God has placed the members, each one of them, in the
body, even as He willed”—1 Cor. 12:18:
1. We should not despise ourselves and covet the work
of others—v. 15.
2. We should not be proud and despise others, thinking
that we are all-inclusive and that we are better and
more useful than others—v. 21.
3. God has blended all the different members of Christ
together into one Body; to be blended means to be
tempered and crossed out, learning how to follow the Spirit
to dispense Christ for His Body’s sake—v. 24; cf. 2 Chron.
1:10.
3. We must be in harmony with the fellow believers and be in one
accord with the Body in prayer, which issues in the establishment
of the church—Matt. 18:19; Acts 1:14:
1. The two most important matters in the Scriptures are being
mingled with God and being one with all the saints; the
oneness is like a thermometer—it can tell us how much we
are in the mingling—Lev. 2:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:17.
2. The one accord is the practice, the application, of the
oneness—Acts 1:14:
1. In Matthew 18:19 the Lord spoke of two praying
together on earth in harmony, in one accord; to say
Amen in response to others’ prayer is an indication of
our one accord—1 Cor. 14:16; 1 Chron. 16:36; cf. Rev.
3:14.
2. The way for us to be blended with others is through
prayer with the exercise and release of our spirit so
that others can hear, understand, agree with, and
 thus say Amen to our prayer—Hymns, #846.
4. We must practice the oneness of the Divine Trinity in the Divine
Trinity as the Divine Trinity does—John 17:21-23; cf. Gen. 1:26a:
1. The three of the Divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit—are continually practicing the divine oneness;
the beauty and excellency in the Divine Trinity is the
oneness, harmony, and coordination in the Divine Trinity:
1. Matthew 12:28 reveals that the Son as the center of
the Divine Trinity was altogether not by Himself, for
Himself, or to Himself; whatever He did was by the
Spirit of God and for the kingdom of God the Father.
2. If we want to be coordinated with all the members of
the Body in the oneness and harmony of the Divine
Trinity, we should follow the pattern of our Head by
not doing anything by ourselves or for ourselves;
what we do should be by the indwelling, pneumatic
Christ as our humility and selflessness for our Father’s
heavenly kingdom, perfect will, and eternal glory—
6:8-13.
2. John 17 reveals the believers’ oneness incorporated with
the oneness of the Divine Trinity—vv. 11, 21, 23:
1. We practice the oneness of the Divine Trinity by the
divine life with its source, the divine name of the
Father; the Father’s name is the source of our
oneness, and His life is the element of our oneness,
delivering us from the natural realm—vv. 2-3, 6, 11-
12, 26.
2. We practice the oneness of the Divine Trinity by the
divine word as the truth that sanctifies the believers
from the world; the Father’s sanctifying word is the
means of our oneness, delivering us from the world—
vv. 14-19.
 3. We practice the oneness of the Divine Trinity by the
divine glory—the divine sonship with the Father’s life
and nature as the divine right to express the Father;
the Father’s glory is the expression of our oneness,
delivering us from ourselves—vv. 22, 24.
3. Psalm 133 reveals the commanded blessing of God the
Father on the believers’ living in the oneness of the Divine
Trinity under the spreading ointment of God the Spirit and
the descending dew of Christ the Son—cf. 2 Cor. 13:14:
1. The anointing oil as the compound ointment is a type
of the processed Triune God, the all-inclusive
compound Spirit—Psa. 133:2; Exo. 30:23-25:
1. We are in the oneness which is the processed
Triune God anointed, or “painted,” into our
being—2 Cor. 1:21-22; 1 John 2:20, 27.
2. Day by day in the church life, all the ingredients
of the divine and mystical compound ointment
are being wrought into us; through the
application of these ingredients to our inward
being, we are spontaneously in the oneness—
Eph. 4:3-4.
2. The dew signifies the descending, refreshing,
watering, and saturating grace of life (1 Pet. 3:7);
grace is the pneumatic Christ experienced, received,
enjoyed, and gained by us—Psa. 133:3; John 1:16-17;
1 Cor. 15:10; Gal. 2:20:
1. By remaining in the church life, we are
preserved in the Lord’s grace—Acts 4:33; 11:23.
2. By the grace we receive on the mountains of
Zion, we can live a life that is impossible for
people in the world to live—20:32; 2 Cor. 12:7-
9.
 3. The more we experience Christ as the life-giving
Spirit, the more our natural constitution and
disposition are reduced; as they are reduced through
our experience of the Triune God with His divine
attributes, we are perfected into one for the Father’s
glory—John 17:23; Eph. 4:1-3.

Message Five
The Prerequisites of the Believers’ Building Up
in the Church, the Body of Christ
(2)
Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:3-6;
1 Cor. 1:2, 9-13; Phil. 2:1-2; Rom. 8:6
1. We must keep the oneness of the Spirit diligently—Eph. 4:3:
1. We keep the oneness of the Spirit in the constitution of the
Body with the Divine Trinity as the source, the element, and
the essence—vv. 4-6:
1. The oneness of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself; to keep
the oneness of the Spirit is to stay in the life-giving
Spirit—v. 3; cf. Exo. 26:26-28.
2. The Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is realized
as the Spirit, and the Spirit is mingled with the
believers; this mingling is the constitution of the Body
of Christ—Eph. 4:4-6.
2. We keep the oneness of the Spirit through the perfecting by
the gifted members for the building up of the Body of Christ
—vv. 11-12:
1. In John 17 the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father that
we would be perfected into one in the Triune God—
vv. 21, 23.
 2. In Ephesians 4 the apostle Paul tells us that the Head
gave the gifts to perfect the saints until we all arrive
at the oneness—vv. 11-13.
3. We keep the oneness of the Spirit by the growth in the
divine life, growing up into the Head in all things—vv. 13,
15; Col. 2:19.
2. We must be in the common fellowship of the enjoyment of Christ
as the believers’ common portion for the keeping of the oneness
of the Body to witness that Christ is neither divisible nor divided
—1 Cor. 1:2, 9-13:
1. Christ as the all-inclusive One belongs to all the believers as
their allotted portion for their enjoyment (Col. 1:12); all the
believers should be focused on the unique and undivided
Christ as their unique center appointed by God.
2. We should concentrate and focus on Him, not on any
persons, things, or matters other than Him, that all
problems among the believers may be solved.
3. We must have the common fellowship in the spirit and have the
common thinking and common love in one spirit, with one soul,
and on one common standing for the testimony of the oneness of
the Body of Christ—Phil. 2:1-2; 1:27:
1. Dissension among us is due to our not being joined in soul,
to our not thinking the one thing in our mind, the leading
part of our soul—2:2.
2. The one thing refers to the subjective knowledge and
experience of Christ; focusing on anything else causes us to
think differently, thus creating dissensions among us—1:20-
21; 2:5; 3:7-9; 4:13.
4. We must live and walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and walk
according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4), setting our mind on
the mingled spirit (v. 6) and being indwelt by the pneumatic
 Christ as the Spirit who imparts life within us for us to put to
death the practices of the body (vv. 9, 13):
1. When our mind is set on the spirit, our outward actions are
in agreement with our inner man, and there is no
discrepancy between us and God; the result is that we feel
living and peaceful within.
2. When our mind is set on the flesh and the things of the
flesh, the result is death, which causes us to feel uneasy,
deadened, and separated from the enjoyment of God; the
sense of death should serve as a warning to us, urging us to
be delivered from the flesh and to live in the spirit—v. 6.
5. We must be conformed to the death of Christ to have the self,
natural man, flesh, distorted disposition, peculiarities, personal
preferences and tastes, etc., all crucified with Christ by the power
of the resurrection of Christ—Phil. 3:10:
1. To be conformed to Christ’s death is to take Christ’s death
as the mold of one’s life; the mold of Christ’s death refers
to Christ’s experience of continually putting to death His
human life that He might live by the life of God—John 6:57;
12:24.
2. Our life should be conformed to such a mold by our dying
to our human life to live the divine life—vv. 25-26; 1 Cor.
15:31, 36; 2 Cor. 5:14-15.
6. We must magnify Christ through living Him by the bountiful
supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ—Phil. 1:19-21:
1. We live Christ for His magnification by the supply of the
Body, the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
typified by the compound ointment, the holy anointing oil
—v. 19; Exo. 30:23-25.
2. The compound Spirit is in and for the Body and for the
priestly service that builds up the Body—vv. 26-31; Rom.
 15:16; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9.
7. We must minister Christ, dispensing Him to all whom we contact
—2 Cor. 3:6:
1. We must live a life of contacting Christ to be infused with
Christ and contacting people to infuse them with Christ—
Acts 6:4.
2. We must be good stewards of the varied grace of God,
ministering Christ as the rich supply of life into others for
their growth in life and enjoyment of Christ—1 Pet. 4:10;
Eph. 3:2; 4:29; Phil. 1:25.
8. We must discern the spirit, which is of power, love, and
sobermindedness, from the soul—Heb. 4:12; 2 Tim. 1:7:
1. We must fan our God-given spirit into flame, exercising our
spirit so that all the parts of our soul (our mind, emotion,
and will) come under the control of our spirit; we should
always be on the alert to discern anything that is not of the
spirit but of the soul—vv. 6-7; Heb. 4:12; cf. Col. 4:2; 2 Cor.
2:12-13.
2. All family, social, and national problems are due to the fact
that people use their mind, emotion, and will but not their
spirit; the divine oneness of the Spirit is in our regenerated
spirit—Eph. 4:3; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17:
1. Those who make divisions are soulish; they are
devoid of spirit, not caring for their spirit or using it,
behaving as if they do not have a spirit—Jude 19-21; 1
Cor. 2:14-15.
2. In our spirit there is no dissenting, division, or
confusion; our spirit is today’s Jerusalem, the place of
oneness—John 4:24.
Message Six
The Builders of the Divine Building
Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:18;
John 3:34; 14:23; Eph. 3:17a; 4:12, 16
1. Christ is the Builder of the church—Matt. 16:18:
1. The Lord’s word concerning the building up of the church is
the greatest prophecy in the Bible—vv. 16-19.
2. In His humanity Christ is the material for God’s building,
and in His divinity He is the Builder—John 3:13-16.
3. After the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption, resurrected
from the dead, and ascended to the heavens, the building
of the church began—Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 4:16.
4. As the ascended One in the heavens, Christ is directing,
managing, the building up of His church on earth—Rev. 5:6;
Eph. 1:19-23.
5. Christ, the Head, speaks the words of God, imparts the
divine life, and gives the Spirit not by measure—John 3:29-
36:
1. The Lord Jesus ministers the instant and present
spoken words of God and gives the Spirit not by
measure to God’s people; He gives the Spirit by
speaking the words of God—v. 34.
2. “It is blasphemy to keep a following under our
control...The more we let go of our following, the
more the Bible will be open to us, and the more the
anointing will be on the Body” (Life-study of John, p.
128).
3. If we would have a part in the divine building, we
must be those who are listening to the Lord’s word,
 partaking of His divine life, and sharing His Spirit
immeasurably—vv. 15-16, 34, 36.
2. The gifted persons, especially the apostles and the prophets,
perfect the saints for the building up of the Body of Christ—Eph.
4:11-12:
1. Christ does not build the church by Himself directly but
through His gifted members—v. 11.
2. The gifted persons have only one ministry—to minister
Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ; this is the
unique ministry in the New Testament economy—2 Cor.
4:1; 1 Tim. 1:12.
3. Whatever the gifted persons do as the work of the ministry
must be for the building up of the Body of Christ—Eph.
4:16.
4. In the Lord’s recovery all the gifted persons should do the
work of perfecting, which is for the direct building up of the
organic Body of Christ by all the members of the Body—v.
12.
3. The perfected saints share the burden of the perfecting, gifted
persons and build up the church directly—v. 12:
1. All the saints who have been perfected by the gifted
persons become the able members of the Body; such
members can do the work of the New Testament ministry,
which is to build up the Body of Christ—v. 12.
2. The church in the Lord’s recovery is built up by every
perfected saint.
3. In order to build up the Body of Christ, we need to hold to
truth in love and to grow up into Christ the Head in all
things—v. 15.
4. The entire Body is a builder, building through every joint of the
 rich supply, through the operation in the measure of each one
part, and by the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself
in love—v. 16:
1. Ephesians 4:12-16 occupies a special place in the New
Testament because it shows the mystery concerning the
building up of the Body of Christ.
2. The growth of the Body of Christ is the increase of Christ in
the church, which results in the building up of the Body by
the Body itself—3:17a:
1. When Christ enters into the saints and lives within
them, the Christ within the saints becomes the church
—Col. 3:10-11.
2. The Body of Christ grows by the growth of Christ
within us and is built up this way—1:18; 2:19.
3. The love in which the Body builds itself up is not our own
love but the love of God in Christ, which becomes the love
of Christ in us, by which we love Christ and the fellow
members of His Body—1 John 4:7-8, 11, 16, 19; Rom. 5:5;
8:39:
1. Love is the inner substance of God; when we enter
into God’s inner substance, we enjoy God as love and
enjoy His presence in the sweetness of the divine
love, and thereby love others as Christ did—Eph.
5:25.
2. It is in such a love that we hold to truth, that is, to
Christ with His Body, and are kept from being
influenced by the winds of teaching and from bringing
in elements that are foreign to the Body—4:14-15.
5. Christ makes His home in the hearts of the saints by
strengthening them with power through the Spirit into their inner
man unto the fullness of the Triune God for His expression—3:14-
 19:
1. The church is the Divine Being wrought into human beings
—vv. 17a, 21.
2. The key to the building up of the church as the Body of
Christ is the inner experience of Christ as our life—v. 17a;
4:16; Col. 1:27; 3:4, 15.
3. Christ makes His home in our hearts through the operation
of the Triune God; the Father is the source, the Spirit is the
means, the Son is the object and goal, and the fullness of
the Triune God is the issue—Eph. 3:14, 16-17a, 19.
4. When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we are filled
with the dispensing of the unsearchable riches of Christ
unto all the fullness of God for the corporate expression of
the Triune God—vv. 8, 17a, 19.
6. The Triune God builds the abodes in the Father’s house through
the Spirit remaining within the lovers of Christ, and the Father
and the Son visit the lovers of Christ to make the mutual abode—
John 14:23:
1. The Father’s house is built up by the constant visitation to
the lovers of Christ of the Father and the Son with the
Spirit, who indwells them, to be the mutual dwelling place
of the consummated Triune God and the believers—v. 23.
2. The Father and the Son often come to visit us to do a
building work in us, making an abode which will be a
mutual dwelling place for the Triune God and us; this is the
building up of the Father’s house through the constant
visitation of the Triune God.

Message Seven
The Foundation and Ground
of the Divine Building
Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:16-18; 1 Cor. 3:10-11; Rev. 1:11
1. The foundation of the church—the divine building—is the
redeeming and saving Christ, revealed and ministered through
the apostles and prophets—1 Cor. 3:10-11; Eph. 2:20:
1. As the Christ and the Son of the living God, the Lord Jesus is
the unique foundation laid by God for the building of the
church; no one can lay another foundation—Matt. 16:16-
18; 1 Cor. 3:10-11:
1. Christ is the all-inclusive One, and nothing and no one
can compare with Him—Col. 1:15-19; 2:9, 16-17; 3:4,
10-11.
2. Only Christ is qualified to be the foundation of the
divine building according to God’s eternal economy—
1 Cor. 1:24, 30; 2:2; 3:10-11.
2. The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets with their revelation received of Christ as the rock
and with their teaching—Eph. 2:20; Matt. 16:18; Acts 2:42:
1. Because the mystery of Christ was revealed to the
apostles and prophets, the revelation they received is
considered the foundation on which the church is
built—Eph. 3:4-5; 2:20.
2. In eternity there will be the unique New Jerusalem,
built upon the foundation of many ministries laid one
on top of the other, leading to the unique testimony
in the unique expression—Rev. 21:14, 18-20.
3. In building the church, God works according to a
prescribed and revealed plan—Matt. 16:18; Eph.
2:20; cf. Exo. 25:8-9:
1. The most important thing in our spiritual work
is a knowledge of the pattern shown in the
mountain—Heb. 8:5.
 2. The pattern shown in the mountain is God’s
plan; if we do not understand God’s plan, it will
be impossible for us to do God’s work—Eph.
3:4.
2. The word ground that we use in reference to the church does not
carry the denotation of a foundation; rather, it bears the
denotation of a site, like the site on which the foundation of a
building is laid:
1. According to the divine revelation in the New Testament,
the church ground is constituted of three crucial elements:
1. The first element of the constitution of the church
ground is the unique oneness of the universal Body of
Christ—4:4:
1. This oneness is called “the oneness of the
Spirit”—v. 3.
2. This oneness is the oneness that the Lord
prayed for in John 17—a oneness in the
mingling of the processed Triune God with all
the believers in Christ—vv. 6, 11, 14-24.
3. This oneness was imparted into the spirit of all
the believers in Christ, in their regeneration by
the Spirit of life with Christ as the divine life.
2. The second element of the constitution of the church
ground is the unique ground of the locality in which a
local church is established and exists—Acts 14:23;
Titus 1:5; Rev. 1:11.
3. The third element of the constitution of the church
ground is the reality of the Spirit of oneness,
expressing the unique oneness of the universal Body
of Christ on the unique ground of locality as a local
church—1 John 5:6; John 16:13:
 1. By the Spirit of reality, who is the living reality
of the Divine Trinity, the oneness of the Body of
Christ becomes real and living.
2. Through this Spirit the ground of the church is
applied in life and not in legality.
3. By this Spirit the genuine ground of the church
is linked with the Triune God—Eph. 4:3-6.
2. Regarding the ground of the church, Deuteronomy 12
corresponds in at least four ways to the revelation in the
New Testament:
1. In Deuteronomy 12 and in the New Testament, we
see that the people of God should always be one:
1. In His wisdom God did not allow His people to
have their own choice or preference but
required them to come to the unique worship
center.
2. Regardless of their number, God’s children, the
believers in Christ, must be one and have the
same center for the worship of God.
2. Both in Deuteronomy 12 and in the New Testament,
God’s way to keep the oneness of His people is to
have a place with His name, the unique name—Deut.
12:5, 11, 21:
1. To be gathered into different names is to be
divided, because these names are the base of
divisions.
2. Not designating ourselves by any title or name,
we should be gathered together into the name
of the Lord Jesus—Matt. 18:20.
3. Both Deuteronomy 12 and the New Testament reveal
 that the place chosen by God for our worship of Him
is the place of His habitation—Deut. 12:5:
1. The fulfillment of the type in Deuteronomy 12 is
not a matter of a geographic place—it is a
matter of our spirit—Eph. 2:22; John 4:21-24.
2. In gathering together for the worship of God by
enjoying Christ, we must gather into the name
of Christ, and we must be in the spirit;
otherwise, we will lose the proper ground of
the church.
4. In Deuteronomy 12 and in the New Testament, we
have the altar, the cross—Matt. 10:38:
1. At the entrance of the church is the cross, and
everyone who would come into the church
must experience the cross and be crucified—
Gal. 6:14.
2. To experience the cross is to be set aside, to be
annulled, to be reduced to nothing—1 Cor.
1:18, 23; 2:2.
5. Jeroboam’s apostasy broke God’s ordination of
having one unique worship center in the Holy Land
for keeping the oneness of the children of Israel; this
apostasy can be considered a type of the apostasy in
today’s Christendom—1 Kings 12:25-33.
Message Eight
The Materials of the Divine Building
Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:10-12; Exo. 28:29;
S. S. 1:10-11; 3:9-10; 1 Cor. 3:12; Rev. 21:18-21
1. The materials of the divine building are the processed and
consummated Triune God and His transformed believers, who
 have been united, mingled, and incorporated with Him to be a
miraculous structure of treasure for the universal display of the
surpassing riches of His grace with His infinite wisdom and divine
design—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:7; 3:8-11.
2. Genesis 2 reveals God’s architectural plan to build Himself into us
as precious materials for the building of the New Jerusalem—
Heb. 11:10:
1. God created man as a vessel with a human spirit to contain
Him as life—Gen. 2:7; Rom. 9:21, 23; 2 Cor. 4:7; 2 Tim. 2:21.
2. God placed man in front of the tree of life, which signifies
the Triune God embodied in Christ as life to man in the
form of food—Gen. 2:9.
3. The river going forth from Eden signifies the river of water
of life flowing forth from God as the source of the living
water for man to drink—v. 10; Rev. 22:1.
4. The flow of the river issues in three precious materials,
which typify the Triune God as the basic elements of the
structure of God’s eternal building—Gen. 2:12; Rev. 21:11,
18-21:
1. Gold typifies God the Father with His divine nature as
the base of God’s eternal building—2 Pet. 1:4.
2. Bdellium, a pearl-like material produced from the
resin of a tree, typifies the produce of God the Son in
His redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-
dispensing resurrection as the entry into God’s
eternal building—John 19:34; 12:24; cf. Rev. 21:21.
3. Onyx, a precious stone, typifies the produce of God
the Spirit with His transforming work for the building
up of God’s eternal building—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2.
5. The flowing of the divine life in man brings the divine
nature into man, regenerates man, and transforms man
 into precious materials for God’s building, which will
consummate in the New Jerusalem as the ultimate and
eternal Eve, the corporate bride, the wife of the Lamb—
Gen. 2:22; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:3; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 21:9;
22:17.
3. The twelve precious stones on the breastplate of the high priest
signify all the redeemed and transformed people of God built
together to become one entity—Exo. 28:15-30:
1. The twelve precious stones set in gold symbolize the saints
as transformed precious stones built together in the divine
nature of Christ to become one entity, the church as
Christ’s Body—vv. 17-20.
2. As components of the church, we must be transformed in
our human nature to become precious stones for God’s
eternal building through the burning and pressure in our
environment and the flowing of the divine life in our being.
3. The breastplate being borne upon Aaron’s heart for a
memorial before Jehovah signifies the entire church as one
built-up entity being borne upon Christ’s loving heart for a
memorial, a pleasing remembrance, before God—v. 29.
4. Song of Songs 1:10-11 reveals that Christ’s lover is transformed
with the Triune God’s attributes by the remaking Spirit in
coordination with the lover’s companions, the gifted members in
the Body of Christ:
1. The seeker’s hair being bound into plaits of gold indicates
her submission to God through the transformation of the
Spirit with God the Father in His divine nature.
2. The plaits of gold are fastened with studs of silver,
signifying Christ the Son in His all-inclusive judicial
redemption.
3. The strings of jewels on the seeker’s neck signify God the
 Spirit in His transforming work to become her obedience to
God’s will.
5. Song of Songs 3:9-10 reveals that we are rebuilt with the Triune
God by the Spirit’s transforming work in us to become a
palanquin of Christ for the move of Christ in and for the Body of
Christ:
1. We are rebuilt with the Triune God so that our external
structure is the resurrected and ascended humanity of
Jesus (wood of Lebanon), and our interior decoration is our
love for the Lord (inlaid with love)—2 Cor. 5:14.
2. Through our loving the Lord in a personal, affectionate,
private, and spiritual way, our natural being is torn down,
and we are remodeled with Christ in His redeeming death
(its posts, made of silver), with God in His divine nature (its
base, of gold), and with Christ as the life-giving Spirit ruling
within us in His kingship (its seat, of purple)—Rom. 8:28-29;
2 Cor. 4:16-18.
6. The church in the New Testament is “God’s cultivated land, God’s
building” (1 Cor. 3:9) and is built with gold, silver, and precious
stones (v. 12a):
1. The believers, who have been regenerated in Christ with
God’s life, are God’s cultivated land, a farm in God’s new
creation to grow Christ so that precious materials may be
produced for God’s building.
2. Gold, silver, and precious stones signify the various
experiences of Christ in the virtues and attributes of the
Triune God; silver, signifying Christ’s redemption, is listed
instead of bdellium or pearl because of man’s need of
redemption after the fall.
3. Wood, in contrast to gold, signifies the nature of the natural
man; grass, in contrast to silver, signifies the fallen man, the
man of the flesh (1 Pet. 1:24); and stubble, in contrast to
 precious stones, signifies the work and living that issue
from an earthen source; all these are not worthy to be used
as materials for the divine building (1 Cor. 3:12b).
7. The New Jerusalem as the greatest and ultimate sign in the
Scriptures is an organic constitution of the processed Triune God
mingled with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified
tripartite elect—Rev. 21:2, 9-10:
1. Its base is pure gold, signifying the divine nature of God; it
is the solid foundation of its throne for the divine
administration, which is the glorious center from which
proceeds the divine and human communication, signified
by its street, to reach all its twelve gates—vv. 18b, 21b;
22:1-2.
2. Its gates are pearls, signifying the issue of the secretion of
Christ’s redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-
dispensing resurrection—21:12b-13, 21a.
3. Its wall and its foundations are precious stones,
consummated by the Spirit through His transforming and
building work—vv. 18a, 19-20.

Message Nine
The Work of the Divine Building
Scripture Reading: Eph. 2:21-22; 3:17a; 1 Cor. 3:6-17
1. The work of the divine building is carried out through renewing
and transformation—Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:16; Eph. 4:23;
Titus 3:5:
1. We need to be renewed and transformed, and then we can
do the work of building—Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23, 12, 16:
1. To be renewed is to have God’s element added into
our being to replace and discharge our old element—
 2 Cor. 4:16; Titus 3:5.
2. The renewing Spirit is mingled with our regenerated
spirit as one mingled spirit to spread into our mind to
renew our entire being—Eph. 4:23.
3. In renewing, we are transferred from the realm of the
old creation to the realm of the new creation to be
the new man to fulfill God’s eternal purpose—2 Cor.
5:17; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10.
4. Transformation is the metabolic function of the life of
God in us, by the addition of the element of the
divine life into our being, so that we may express the
image of Christ outwardly—2 Cor. 3:18.
5. Transformation is for the mass reproduction of the
firstborn Son of God as the prototype of a God-man
so that we may be shaped in the divine image to be
exactly like the firstborn Son of God—Rom. 8:29; Heb.
2:10.
2. Renewing issues in transformation, and transformation
issues in building up; the building up of the jasper wall of
the New Jerusalem goes along with transformation—Rom.
12:2; Rev. 21:18a.
2. The work of the divine building is the believers’ growth in the
divine life and their being joined together in the divine life—Eph.
4:15-16; 2:21:
1. When we grow in the divine life and when we are joined
together in the divine life, we are in the building—v. 21.
2. The building of the church as the house of God is by the
believers’ growth in life; the growth in life is the building—1
Cor. 3:6-9, 16-17; Eph. 4:15-16.
3. The boards of the tabernacle typify the believers joined
together to be the dwelling place of God; the bars signify
 the initial Spirit becoming the uniting Spirit, who joins all
the members of Christ into one Body—Exo. 26:15, 26-29;
Eph. 2:21-22; 4:3-4:
1. In the uniting Spirit there is not only the divine
element but also the human element; here we have
both divinity (the oneness of the Spirit) and humanity
(the keeping of the oneness)—Exo. 26:26a, 29b; Eph.
4:2-3.
2. The uniting bars signify not the Holy Spirit alone but
the Holy Spirit mingled with the human spirit—1 Cor.
6:17; Rom. 8:4.
3. The uniting bars are the mingled spirit, the divine
Spirit mingled with the human spirit to become the
uniting bond of peace—Eph. 4:3.
4. The members of the Body are fitted together by holding the
Head; there are no direct relationships among the members
in the Body, for all relationships are indirect, that is,
through the Head and under the Head—Col. 1:18; 2:19.
3. The work of the divine building is the believers’ being built
together in Christ into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit in
their spirit possessed by Christ, both of which are mingled as one
spirit—Eph. 2:22; 1 Cor. 6:17:
1. Ephesians is a book on the Body, and every chapter
contains a verse concerning the human spirit; this indicates
that the Body is absolutely a matter in our regenerated
spirit—1:22-23, 17; 2:22; 3:5, 16; 4:23; 5:18; 6:18.
2. Our spirit, as today’s Jerusalem—the place where the God
of our spirit dwells—is universally spacious, including not
only our individual spirit but the spirits of all the saints—
Rom. 8:16; Num. 16:22; Heb. 12:9; Eph. 2:22.
4. The building is by the Spirit’s operation, distributing to each
 member different gifts for the building up of the Body—1 Cor.
12:4, 7-11:
1. The Triune God moves in the believers for the
accomplishing of His eternal purpose to build up the
church, the Body of Christ, for the expression of God—vv.
4-6.
2. The manifestation of the Spirit is “for what is profitable,”
that is, for the growth in life of the members of the Body of
Christ and for the building up of the Body—v. 7.
5. The building work with gold, silver, and precious stones will be
rewarded by Christ at His coming back—3:12-17:
1. The central work of God is to work Himself in Christ into our
being, making Himself one with us and making us one with
Him—Gal. 1:15-16a; 2:20; 4:19; Eph. 3:16-17a:
1. The intrinsic element of the work of the divine
building is to minister the building and builded God
into others for the building up of the Body of Christ—
Matt. 16:18; Eph. 3:17a; 4:4, 12, 16.
2. The unique work of the ministry is to carry out God’s
economy to build Himself into man for the building
up of the Body of Christ, consummating in the New
Jerusalem—3:9-11; 4:11-12; Rev. 21:2.
2. A work to which God can fully commit Himself has four
essential features—1 Cor. 15:58; 16:10:
1. There must be a revelation of the eternal purpose of
God—Eph. 3:11.
2. The source and initiation of the work must be of God
and not of ourselves—Matt. 15:13; 1 Cor. 8:6:
1. God is the Father, and everything proceeds
from Him—Rom. 11:36.
 2. In our work we must avoid the sin of
presumption—the sin of acting outside of God
to do what He has not commanded and to
begin a work that He has not instructed us to do
—Psa. 19:13; Num. 18:1-7.
3. The continuance and advance of God’s work must be
by God’s power and not our power—2 Cor. 3:5; Phil.
3:10.
4. The result of God’s work is for God’s glory and not for
our glory—John 7:17-18; 8:50; 12:43; Eph. 3:21.
3. If our work in building up the church is by our natural man
(wood), by our fallen, fleshly man (grass), or by anything
that issues from an earthen source (stubble), our work will
be burned—vv. 12-13, 15.
4. We all need to consider how we are building the church; we
should be those who are building with the Divine Trinity as
the precious and transformed materials—vv. 8, 10, 12-13.

Message Ten
The Accomplishment of the Divine Building
Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 3:16-17;
Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 4:12, 16
1. The accomplishment of the divine building is the church in many
localities as the house of God to be God’s dwelling place, the holy
temple in the Lord—1 Tim. 3:15; Eph. 2:21-22; 1 Cor. 1:2; 3:16-17:
1. The divine building has both a universal aspect and a local
aspect—Eph. 2:21-22:
1. The phrase all the building in Ephesians 2:21 denotes
the universal building, the building of the church
throughout the universe:
 1. In Christ all the building is fitted together and is
growing into a holy temple in the Lord.
2. Since the building is living (1 Pet. 2:5), it is
growing; the actual building of the church as
the house of God is by the believers’ growth in
life—Eph. 4:15-16.
3. In speaking of the universal building, we must
distinguish such building from organization; the
churches will be built together universally, but
they will not be universally organized—2:21.
2. The words you also in Ephesians 2:22 indicate that
the building in verse 21 is universal, but the building
in verse 22 is local:
1. Universally, the church is uniquely one and is
growing into a holy temple; locally, the church
in a particular locality also is one, and the local
saints are being built together into a dwelling
place of God in their particular locality.
2. Universal building can be accomplished only
through local building—1 Cor. 14:4-5, 12.
2. The building of God is not an ordinary building; it is the
sanctuary of the holy God, the temple in which the Spirit of
God dwells—3:16-17:
1. The unique spiritual temple of God in the universe
has its expression in many localities on earth; each
expression is the temple of God in that locality—1:2;
3:16.
2. The temple of God in verse 16 refers to the believers
collectively in a certain locality—1:2.
3. The temple of God in 3:17 refers to all the believers
universally—Eph. 2:21.
 3. How much building we have universally and locally depends
on how much we realize that Christ is everything in God’s
economy—Col. 3:10-11:
1. Christ is the all-inclusive One, and we should not hold
on to anything in place of Him—1:18; 2:19; 1 Cor.
1:30; 3:11.
2. If we hold to Christ as everything to us, we will
experience the genuine building, first locally and then
universally—Eph. 3:8; 1:22-23; 2:21-22.
2. The accomplishment of the divine building is the Body of Christ in
the whole universe as the expression of Christ—1:23:
1. The Lord’s recovery is for the building up of the Body of
Christ—4:16:
1. All the churches are one Body, and the co-workers
should be doing not a regional work but a universal
work for the universal Body—vv. 11-12.
2. Whatever the co-workers and elders do locally or
universally should be done with a full realization that
they are building up the Body of Christ; thus, they
should always keep a view of the Body—v. 16:
1. All the problems of the church today are due to
the ignorance concerning the Body of Christ—
1:17-23; 1 Cor. 12:24b-27.
2. Whenever we do something, we should have a
proper consideration for the Body—Rom. 12:4-
5, 15.
3. In fact, all the believers in Christ have been baptized
into one Body by the Spirit; in practicality, all the
believers must be built together into the Body of
Christ by the builders of the divine building
throughout the age of the New Testament—1 Cor.
 12:13; Eph. 4:11-12.
2. Our work is the work of the Lord’s recovery for the building
up of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 15:58; 16:10; Eph. 4:12:
1. The Body of Christ is organic, and it is not built up
through natural methods or human work—vv. 15-16.
2. “Whenever God’s children see the oneness of the
Body, they will also see the oneness of the work, and
they will be delivered out of individualistic work into
the work of the Body” (The Collected Works of
Watchman Nee, vol. 37, p. 244).
3. The Body is universally one; for this reason the local
churches should not be isolated from one another—Col.
4:14-16; Rev. 1:11; 2:1, 7a; 22:16a:
1. Isolation is contrary to the truth concerning the
oneness of the Body; because each local church is
part of the Body universally, no church should be
isolated from others—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12-13, 27; Eph.
4:4.
2. Because the Body is receiving a continual transfusion,
to be isolated is to be cut off both from the
transfusion and from the circulation of life in the
Body; such a thing violates the law of the Body—1:22-
23; 1 Cor. 10:16-17.
4. The Body of Christ is the goal of God’s economy, and the
local churches are the procedure that God takes to
accomplish the building up of the Body of Christ—Matt.
16:18; 18:17; 1 Cor. 12:12-13; 1:2; Rom. 12:4-5; 16:1, 3-5,
16b:
1. We need to be in the local churches so that we can be
ushered into the reality of the Body of Christ—1 Cor.
1:2; 12:12-13, 27.
 2. We should pay more attention to the Body of Christ
than to the local churches—Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22;
4:4, 12, 16.
3. In the Lord’s recovery we are building up the local
churches for the building up of the Body of Christ,
which will consummate in the New Jerusalem—1 Cor.
14:4-5, 12; 12:27; Eph. 2:21-22; 4:16; Rev. 21:2.
4. For the building up of the Body of Christ, there should
be as much blending of all the local churches as
practicality allows, without boundaries of states or
nations—1 Cor. 12:27.
5. The Lord Jesus has an urgent need for the Body to be
expressed in the local churches; unless there is a substantial
expression of the Body of Christ on earth, the Lord Jesus
will not return—Matt. 16:18, 27; Eph. 5:23, 27; Rev. 19:7.
Message Eleven
Discerning the Destroyers of the Divine Building
to Remain in the Lord’s Recovery
of the Divine Building
Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 3:12-17
1. We need to see God’s intention, Satan’s strategy, and the Lord’s
recovery:
1. God’s intention in His economy is to dispense Christ with all
His riches into His believers chosen by God for the
constitution and building up of the Body of Christ, the
church, to consummate the New Jerusalem as God’s
ultimate building for the full expression of the processed
Triune God—Eph. 3:8-10.
2. Satan’s strategy to destroy the divine building is versus the
Lord’s recovery of the divine building:
 1. Satan’s strategy is to produce many substitutes for
Christ; the Lord’s recovery is the recovery of Christ as
our center, reality, life, and everything—1 Cor. 1:22-
23; Col. 1:18b; Rev. 2:4, 7, 17; 3:20.
2. Satan’s strategy is to divide the Body of Christ; the
Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the oneness of the
Body of Christ—1 Cor. 1:10-13; John 17:11b, 21; Eph.
4:3-4a; Rev. 1:11.
3. Satan’s strategy is to kill the function of all the
members of Christ’s Body by the clergy-laity system;
the Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the function of
all the members of the Body of Christ—2:6; Eph. 4:15-
16; 1 Cor. 14:4b, 26, 31.
2. We must discern the destroyers of the divine building, the
workers of lawlessness, who are usurped by Satan in his strategy
against the Lord’s recovery of Christ as everything for the building
up of His Body through the functioning of all His members—Phil.
1:9; 2 Cor. 11:14-15; Matt. 7:23:
1. To destroy God’s building is to ruin, corrupt, defile, and mar
the temple of God; it is to build with the worthless
materials of wood (the natural man), grass (the flesh), and
stubble (lifelessness)—1 Cor. 3:17, 12b.
2. Using any doctrine that differs from the fundamental
teachings of the apostles (Acts 2:42) or any ways and
efforts that contradict God’s nature, Christ’s redemptive
work, and the Spirit’s transforming work is to corrupt, ruin,
defile, and mar the temple of God, that is, to destroy it.
3. When the Lord Jesus comes back, our building work will be
tested by His holy fire; if our work is done in Christ, with
Christ, for Christ, and is even Christ Himself, it will pass the
test of fire—1 Cor. 3:12-15.
3. The destroyers of the divine building are those who blow the
 wind of divisive teachings by stressing things other than the
central teaching concerning God’s economy—Eph. 4:14; 1 Tim.
1:3-4:
1. Teaching different things rather than the unique ministry of
God’s economy tears down God’s building and annuls God’s
economy—vv. 3-4.
2. There is only one ministry that ever builds up and never
destroys—this is God’s economy; the only way that we can
be preserved in the eternal oneness is to teach the same
thing in God’s economy—Eph. 4:11-12; 2 Cor. 4:1.
4. The destroyers of the divine building are those who preach and
teach heresies—2 Pet. 2:1; 2 John 7-11:
1. Those who teach heresies concerning the person of Christ
are antichrists, denying both the person of the Lord as the
Master and His redemption, by which the Lord purchased
the believers; to deny that the man Jesus is God is a great
heresy—v. 7; 1 John 2:18, 22-23; 4:2-3.
2. The apostle warned the believers to watch for themselves
lest they be influenced by the heresies and lose the things
of the truth; we must reject those who deny the conception
and deity of Christ, not receiving them into our house nor
greeting them—2 John 8-11.
3. If we would not be led astray by the heresies but would
abide faithfully in the truth concerning the wonderful and
all-inclusive Christ, who is both God and man, both our
Creator and our Redeemer, we will enjoy in Him the Triune
God to the fullest extent as our full reward, even today on
earth—v. 8.
5. The destroyers of the divine building are those who are factious,
sectarian—Titus 3:10:
1. A factious man is a heretical, sectarian man who causes
 divisions by forming parties in the church according to his
own opinions; in order to maintain good order in the
church, a factious, divisive person should be refused,
rejected, after a first and second admonition.
2. Because such divisiveness is contagious, this rejection is for
the church’s profit that contact with the divisive one may
be stopped—cf. Num. 6:6-7.
6. The destroyers of the divine building are those who make
divisions—Rom. 16:17:
1. In Romans 14 Paul was liberal and gracious regarding the
receiving of those who differ in doctrine or practice;
however, in Romans 16:17 he was unyielding and resolute
in saying that we must “mark those who make divisions and
causes of stumbling contrary to the teaching which you
have learned, and turn away from them.”
2. The Lord hates “one who injects discord among brothers”—
Prov. 6:16, 19.
7. The destroyers of the divine building are those who are ambitious
for position—3 John 9:
1. The self-exalting and domineering Diotrophes is an evil
pattern of someone who is ambitious for position and
“loves to be first” among the saints—v. 9.
2. We should never hunt to be the first in any work for the
Lord; this is the insidious work of hidden ambition to
compete with others to be the first.
8. The destroyers of the divine building are those who are wolves,
not sparing the flock, and those who speak perverted things to
draw away the believers after them—Acts 20:29-30:
1. The intrinsic need in the Lord’s recovery is for a remnant of
His people to build up the church as the kingdom of God, to
“build up the wall,” to protect the church from the
 destroyers of God’s building—Neh. 2:4, 10, 17-20.
2. We must shepherd the flock of God by declaring to them all
the counsel of God, all of God’s economy; under the Lord’s
shepherding, all the evil persons who disturb God’s people
are kept away from them so that they can dwell in peace
and safety to be mingled with God and bound together in
oneness—Acts 20:26-35; Ezek. 33:1-11; 34:25; cf. Zech. 2:8;
11:7.

Message Twelve
The New Jerusalem—
the Ultimate Consummation
of the Building of God
Scripture Reading: John 1:14; 2:19-21; Rev. 21:3, 22;
2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Rom. 1:3-4; 8:28-29
1. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the building
of God into man and of man into God, the building of a great
corporate God-man as the mutual abode of God and man, the
universal incorporation of the processed and consummated
Triune God with the processed and consummated tripartite man
—John 1:14; 2:19-21; Rev. 21:3, 22.
2. Second Samuel 7:12-14a is a prophecy in typology revealing that
the desire of God’s heart is the building of God into man (God
becoming man) and the building of man into God (man becoming
God) for the building of a great corporate God-man, the New
Jerusalem:
1. The seed of David (v. 12) becoming the Son of God (v. 14a)
is the building of God into man and the building of man into
God for the building of God’s house, the mutual abode of
God and man (v. 13); this is the fulfillment of the greatest
prophecy in the Bible—Rom. 1:3-4; Matt. 16:18.
 2. Christ “came out of the seed of David according to the
flesh” (building God into man in incarnation), and He “was
designated the Son of God” (building man into God) in
resurrection—Rom. 1:3-4:
1. By His incarnation Christ, the only begotten Son of
God in His divinity (John 1:18), built God into man,
into David’s lineage, to become the seed of David, the
son of David.
2. In resurrection Christ’s humanity was deified, sonized,
meaning that He became the Son of God not only in
His divinity but also in His humanity; in resurrection
He was designated the Son of God, made the
firstborn Son of God, possessing both divinity and
humanity—Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29.
3. If a seed dies by being buried in the soil, it will
eventually sprout, grow, and blossom in resurrection,
because the operation of the seed’s life is activated
simultaneously with its death; in resurrection Christ
“blossomed” as the firstborn Son of God, and He
became the life-giving Spirit to dispense, to build,
Himself as life into our being to be our inner
constitution—John 12:23-24; Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 3:18.
3. As seeds of humanity, we are becoming sons of God with divinity,
being “divinized” in our humanity through the metabolic process
of transformation; this metabolic process is the building up of the
church as the Body of Christ and the house of God by the building
of God into man and of man into God, consummating in the New
Jerusalem as a great corporate God-man, the aggregate, the
totality, of all the sons of God—Heb. 2:10; Rev. 21:7; Rom. 8:28-
29:
1. The life of the Son of God has been implanted into our
spirit; now we, like the seed that is sown into the earth,
must pass through the process of death and resurrection—
 v. 10; John 12:24-26:
1. Losing our soul-life through death causes the outer
man to be consumed, but it enables the inner life to
grow, to develop, and ultimately, to blossom; this is
resurrection—1 Cor. 15:31, 36; 2 Cor. 4:10-12, 16.
2. The more we grow in life for our transformation in
life, the more we are designated the sons of God to
be deified for God’s building—1 Cor. 3:9:
1. In order to grow, we need to feed on the
guileless milk and the solid food of the word—1
Pet. 2:2; Heb. 5:12-14.
2. In order to grow, we need the watering of the
gifted members—1 Cor. 3:6b; John 7:37-39;
Prov. 11:25.
3. Through all the things in our environment and
by our failures, our ugly self is torn down, and
the Lord has a greater opportunity to work
within us—Rom. 8:28-29.
4. One day this process will be completed, and for
eternity we will be the same as Christ, God’s
firstborn Son, in our spirit, soul, and body—1
John 3:2; Rom. 8:19, 23; Hymns, #948, stanza 2.
2. In resurrection Christ in His humanity was designated the
Son of God, and by means of such a resurrection we also
are in the process of being designated sons of God—Rom.
8:11; cf. Hosea 6:1-3:
1. The process of our being designated, sonized, deified,
is the process of resurrection with four main aspects
—sanctification, transformation, conformation, and
glorification—Rom. 6:22; 12:2; 8:29-30.
2. The key to the process of designation is resurrection,
 which is the indwelling Christ as the rising-up Spirit,
the designating Spirit, the power of life in our spirit—
John 11:25; Rom. 8:10-11; Acts 2:24; 1 Cor. 15:26;
5:4:
1. We urgently need to learn how to walk
according to the spirit, to enjoy and experience
the designating Spirit—Rom. 8:4, 14.
2. The more we touch the Spirit, the more we are
sanctified, transformed, conformed, and
glorified to become God in life and in nature but
not in the Godhead for the building up of the
Body of Christ to consummate the New
Jerusalem—1 Cor. 12:3; Rom. 10:12; 8:15-16;
Gal. 4:6.
4. As we work for God today, we should participate in God’s
building—the constitution of the divine element into the human
element and of the human element into the divine element—
John 14:20; 15:4a; 1 John 4:15:
1. We need God in Christ to build Himself into us, making our
heart, our intrinsic constitution, His home—Eph. 3:16-19.
2. We need to practice one thing—to minister the processed
and consummated Triune God into others so that He may
build Himself into their inner man; we need to pray that the
Lord will teach us to work in this way—2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor.
3:9a, 10, 12a.
3. When we build the church with the processed and
consummated Triune God, it is not actually we who are
building; rather, God is building through us, using us as a
means to dispense and transmit Himself into others—Acts
9:15.
4. This building will consummate in the New Jerusalem for
eternity, in which God’s redeemed are the tabernacle for
God to dwell in and God Himself is the temple for His
redeemed to dwell in—Rev. 21:3, 22.