THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus
Message Two
The Church as the House of the Living God
Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 3:15; John 14:2; Eph. 2:19, 21-22; 1 Pet. 2:5; 1 Tim. 3:15; 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:15, 25; Titus 1:1, 14; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; John 1:1, 14; Col. 2:9; Rev. 21:2, 10-11
I. As saved ones and members of the church, we need to know the church—Matt. 16:18; 18:17; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:15, 19-22; 3:4, 10-11; 4:16; 5:32; 6:11. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
II. The church of God is the house of the living God—1 Tim. 3:15: (2004 WT, msg. 2)
A. To Christ, the church is the Body; to God, the church is the house—Eph. 1:22-23; John 14:2. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
B. The house of God is the household of God—Eph. 2:19: (2004 WT, msg. 2)
1. The dwelling place—the house—and the family—the household—are one entity—a group of called, regenerated ones indwelt by God Himself—1 Pet. 1:3; 2:5; 1 Cor. 3:16.
2. The household of God is composed of the many sons of God as the many brothers of Christ, the firstborn Son of God—Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10-12; John 1:12-13. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
3. Just as Christ is not separate from the members of His Body but dwells in them, the Father is not a separate member of His household but is in all the children—Rom. 8:10; 12:4-5; 2 Cor. 6:16. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
4. The house of God is organic in the divine life, organic in the divine nature, and organic in the Triune God; because the church is organic, the church grows—Eph. 2:21. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
C. In speaking of the church as the house of God, Paul refers to God as the living God—1 Tim. 3:15: (2004 WT, msg. 2)
1. The living God, who lives in the church, must be subjective to the church and not merely objective—1 Cor. 3:16. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
2. Because God is living, the church as the house of God is also living in Him, by Him, and with Him; a living God and a living church live, move, and work together—v. 16. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
3. The house of the living God is living in the Father’s name and in the Father’s life, that is, living in the Father’s reality—John 14:6; 17:2-3, 11-12. (2004 WT, msg. 2)
III. The church is the supporting pillar and the holding base of the truth—1 Tim. 3:15; 2 Tim. 2:19: (2004 WT, msg. 3)
A. The truth is the Triune God, having Christ as the embodiment, center, and expression, to produce the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, and the kingdom of God—Col. 2:9; Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; 1 Tim. 3:15; John 3:3, 5. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
B. Truth in 1 Timothy 3:15 refers to the real things revealed in the New Testament concerning Christ and the church according to God’s New Testament economy—Matt. 16:16, 18; Eph. 5:32: (2004 WT, msg. 3)
1. The church is the supporting pillar and holding base of these realities—2 Tim. 2:19. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
2. A local church should be such a building that holds, bears, and testifies the truth, the reality, of Christ and the church—1 Tim. 3:15. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
C. The church bears Christ as the reality; the church testifies to the whole universe that Christ, and Christ alone, is the reality—John 1:14, 17; 14:6. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
D. God’s New Testament economy is composed of two mysteries: Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ—Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4: (2004 WT, msg. 3)
1. Christ and the church, the Head and the Body, are the contents of the reality of God’s New Testament economy—Col. 1:18; 2:19. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
2. As the pillar which bears the truth and the base which upholds the pillar, the church testifies the reality, the truth, of Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ—1 Tim. 3:15. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
IV. In the church life, we all need to arrive at the full knowledge of the truth—2:4; 4:3; 2 Tim. 2:25; 3:7; Titus 1:1: (2004 WT, msg. 3)
A. Every saved person should have a full knowledge, a complete realization, of the real things revealed in God’s Word—1 John 2:21. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
B. The full knowledge of the truth is a thorough apprehension of the truth, a full acknowledgement and appreciation of the reality of all the spiritual and divine things that we have received through faith—1 Tim. 2:4; 4:3; 2 Tim. 2:25. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
C. The present truth is the truth that is present with the believers, which they have already received and now possess—2 Pet. 1:12. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
D. To cut straight the word of the truth is to unfold without bias or distortion the reality of God’s economy revealed in the New Testament—2 Tim. 2:15. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
E. For God’s purpose, we must stand firm for the full knowledge of the truth and fight the good fight against the powers of darkness—1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
F. The kind of church we build up depends on the kind of truth we teach; thus, there is the desperate need of the living truth to produce the church, to help the church to exist, and to build up the church—1 Tim. 3:15. (2004 WT, msg. 3)
V. First Timothy 3:15-16 indicates that not only Christ Himself as the Head is the manifestation of God in the flesh but also that the church as the Body of Christ and the house of God is the manifestation of God in the flesh—the mystery of godliness: (2004 WT, msg. 4)
A. Godliness in verse 16 refers not only to piety but to the living of God in the church, that is, God as life lived out in the church to be expressed: (2004 WT, msg. 4)
1. Both Christ and the church are the mystery of godliness, expressing God in the flesh—v. 16.
2. The church life is the expression of God; therefore, the mystery of godliness is the living of a proper church—1 Cor. 14:24-25. (2004 WT, msg. 4)
B. God is manifested in the church—the house of God and the Body of Christ—as the enlarged corporate expression in the flesh—Eph. 2:19; 1:22-23: (2004 WT, msg. 4)
1. The manifestation of God in the flesh began with Christ when He was on earth—John 14:9. (2004 WT, msg. 4)
2. The manifestation of God in the flesh continues with the church, which is the increase, enlargement, and multiplication of the manifestation of God in the flesh—1 Tim. 3:15-16. (2004 WT, msg. 4)
C. When a church is taken care of according to what is written in 1 Timothy 1-3, the church will function as the house of the living God for His move on earth and as the pillar and base of the truth, bearing the reality of Christ and His Body—v. 15; Eph. 5:32: (2004 WT, msg. 4)
1. Such a church becomes the continuation of Christ’s manifestation of God in the flesh—Christ lived out of the church as the manifestation of God—1 Tim. 3:15. (2004 WT, msg. 4)
2. This is God manifested in the flesh in a wider way according to the New Testament principle of incarnation—1 Cor. 7:40; Gal. 2:20: (2004 WT, msg. 4)
D. The great mystery of godliness is that God has become man so that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to produce a corporate God-man for the manifestation of God in the flesh—Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; Eph. 4:24. (2004 WT, msg. 4)