THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
The Divine and Eternal Life
Message Three—Knowing the Lord’s Recovery in Life
Scripture Reading: John 1:4; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6; Rom. 8:2, 10-11
I. In order to see life and to know the Lord’s recovery in life, we need to be unveiled—2 Cor. 3:14-17: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
A. For centuries the human mind has been in captivity to religious and natural concepts; for this reason, we may read the Bible without seeing what it reveals—v. 15; John 5:39-40. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
B. Many in the local churches are still natural in their understanding of spiritual things; they remain under the veil of natural concepts—2 Cor. 3:14. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
C. Everyone has four layers of veils: the natural makeup with its ethical element, culture, religion, and the ethics acquired through teaching and training—Rom. 7:21-23; Phil. 3:3-6. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
D. We may be veiled by our racial and national character; the various national characters, dispositions, habits, and customs are veils that keep us from seeing the vision concerning life—Phil. 3:3-6. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
II. We need to know the Lord’s recovery in life—John 1:4; 1 John 1:1-2: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
A. Our eyes must be opened to see that the Lord’s recovery is a recovery back to life—John 1:1, 4; 14:6; 1 John 1:1-2. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
B. The purpose of the Lord’s recovery is to bring us back to God Himself as our life—Eph. 4:18; Rom. 5:10; 8:2, 10-11. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
C. The Lord’s recovery is absolutely a matter of life—a recovery to bring us back to the Triune God in order to possess, experience, and enjoy Him as life—2 Cor. 13:14. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
D. In order to have an adequate vision of the Lord’s recovery, we need to know the recovery in the Triune God—1 John 1:1-2; 2:25; 5:11-13. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
III. To know the Lord’s recovery in life is to know the Triune God as life in our experience—John 1:4, 14, 16-17; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
A. Life is the Triune God, for the Father is in the Son, and the Son became the Spirit to be our life—1:14; 20:22; 1 Cor. 15:45b: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
1. Life is the Triune God Himself coming into us so that we may experience Him, enjoy Him, be one with Him, and express Him—Rom. 8:2, 10-11. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
2. Life is a person—the Triune God, who in Christ has passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension and has come into us as the life-giving Spirit to be our life and to mingle with us—1 Cor. 15:3-4, 45b; 6:17. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
B. Regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification are the work of life within us, and this life is the processed Triune God, who became the life-giving Spirit to dwell in our spirit and to be one with us—Rom. 6:19; 8:16, 29-30; 12:2. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
C. The records of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, however, overlap; Genesis, speaking of them, considers them as one corporate man: (Life-study of the Genesis, msg. 38)
1. Isaac’s life story began in chapter twenty-one, and Abraham’s life story ended in chapter twenty-five; Jacob’s life story began in chapter twenty-five, and Isaac’s life story ended in chapter thirty-five; Jacob’s life story, supplemented by that of Joseph, ended in chapter fifty; the significance of this overlapping is that, according to the experience of life, these three persons are one man, a corporate man. (Life-study of the Genesis, msg. 38)
2. The God who came to call this corporate person and who dealt with this corporate man was the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, He said, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”—Exo. 3:6. (Life-study of the Genesis, msg. 38)
3. The respective experiences of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are three aspects of a complete one; as the transfer of race began with Abraham, passed through Isaac, and was completed with Jacob, so their experiences should be considered as one complete experience. (Life-study of the Genesis, msg. 38)
IV. If we see the vision of the churches as the golden lampstands—the embodiment and expression of the Triune God—we will truly know what life is—Rev. 1:12, 20; 2:1: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
A. The churches can be golden, having God’s nature, because His life is being worked into the believers through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification; apart from this process, there is no way for the church to be a golden lampstand—John 3:6; Rom. 8:11. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
B. The church is the Triune God’s reproduction, not in the Godhead as a deity to be worshipped but in life, nature, and expression—Eph. 4:4-6; Rev. 1:12, 20. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
C. Life is not only something in our experiences, such as the law of life, the sense of life, and the fellowship of life, but primarily the Triune God dispensing Himself into us and making us one in Him to be the golden lampstands—2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 1:4-6, 12, 20. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
V. 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—John 14:2-3, 20: Eph. 3:17-21; 4:4-6: (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
A. In Genesis 35:7 we have a new divine title—El-bethel, God of the house of God: (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
1. Before this chapter God was the God of individuals—28:13a. (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
2. Here God is no longer just the God of individuals but El-bethel, the God of a corporate body, the God of the house of God—Psa. 84:1-4, 10. (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
3. When Jacob reached Bethel, he came to know God as the God of His house. (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
4. Our God is the God of Bethel, the God of the church—1 Tim. 3:15. (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
B. Bethel signifies the corporate life, which is the Body of Christ; thus, in calling God the God of Bethel, Jacob advanced from the individual experience to the corporate experience—1 Cor. 12:12. (2004 FTTA-S, msg. 15)
VI. The Christian life has the individual aspect and the corporate aspect; the individual aspect is for the corporate aspect—we will truly know what life is—John 3:3, 5-6; 17:22-23: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
A. Outside the church life, people can be regenerated to receive the divine life, but without the church life, they will not have the abundance of life—1:12-13; 3:3, 5-6, 15-16. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
B. We experience life individually, but because our individual experience is for the corporate aspect, we must be in the practical church life in order to have the abundance of life—10:10. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
VII.We need to pray that the Lord will show us a clear vision of life so that we may know the Lord’s recovery in life—Col. 1:9; Eph. 1:17: (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
A. If we see the revelation in the Bible concerning life, we will know what the Lord’s recovery is; we will know that the recovery is not a matter of any kind of activity, movement, or practice, because these things are not the Triune God Himself as life—Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
B. If we see life in a practical way, we will be able to discern life and not be misled if some try to lead the church in a wrong direction—Col. 3:4. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)
C. If we have the vision of the Lord’s recovery in life, no matter what happens, we will be kept in the recovery without any change, distraction, or deviation—Prov. 29:18a; Acts 26:19. (2010 ITERO-F, msg. 7)