THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
The Divine and Eternal Life
Message Five—Life—Growth, Development, Maturity, and Fruit
Scripture Reading: Mark 4:26-29; 2 Pet. 1:5-7; Heb. 6:1; Gal. 5:22-23; John 15:16
I. The Lord’s recovery is a recovery of the truth and of life—John 18:37b; 10:10b: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
A. Whereas Christianity relies on organization and human work, the church relies solely on the light of the truth for the enjoyment of the Lord’s life—Titus 1:1-2; 1 Tim. 2:4; 3:15; 6:19. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
B. The entire content of the church must be the growth of Christ in us as truth and life—John 14:6. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
C. Both the truth and the life are Christ Himself, but they are two different aspects of what He is—8:32, 36; 14:6; 11:25: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
1. The truth is the outward definition and explanation, and life is the inward and intrinsic content. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
2. Christ is in us as our life (Col. 3:4), but the experience of life needs an explanation; this explanation is the truth. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
D. The experience of the Lord as life is contained in the Lord as the truth—John 14:6; 11:25. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
II. If we would have the proper knowledge of life, we need to know what the growth of life is—Col. 2:19; Eph. 3:17a; 4:13 4-5; 5:18; 2 Tim. 1:7: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
A. The growth of life is not the improvement of behavior, the expression of piety, zealous serving, the increase of knowledge, to abound in gifts, or the increase of power. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
B. The growth of life is the increase of the element of God (Col. 2:19), the increase of the stature of Christ (Eph. 3:17a; 4:13), the expanding of the ground of the Holy Spirit (5:18), the decrease of the human element, the breaking of the natural life, and the subduing of every part of our soul (2 Tim. 1:7). (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
III. The Lord’s recovery is not a movement; the recovery is Christ Himself as the seed of life sown into our being—Matt. 13:3-4a, 19: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
A. The kingdom of God is the Triune God in His incarnation sown into His chosen people to grow and develop in them into a kingdom—Mark 4:26-29. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
B. The kingdom of God is produced by the multiplication of the seed—v. 26: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
1. The sower sows the seed, the seed grows and multiplies, and eventually the multiplication of the seed becomes the constituent of the kingdom. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
2. The kingdom is not built by work but by the multiplication of the seed of life. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
C. The kingdom is the enlargement of Christ, the multiplication of Christ as the seed sown into us—Luke 17:20-21; 8:5-8. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
IV. In 2 Peter 1:5-7 we have the development of the seed of the kingdom from faith to love: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
A. Our faith needs to be exercised that the virtue of the divine life may be developed to reach its maturity—v. 5. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
B. Faith may be compared to a seed: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
1. In 1 Peter 1:23 the seed is the word with Christ in it as life. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
2. In 2 Peter 1 this seed becomes our faith, which is “faith equally precious” (v. 1); this faith is one with Christ as the seed. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
C. The development from faith to love includes virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, and godliness—vv. 5-6. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
D. Eventually, we have the full development and maturity from the seed of faith, through the roots of virtue and knowledge, the trunk of self-control, and the branches of endurance and godliness, to the blossom and fruit of brotherly love and love—v. 7. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
V. To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life, whereas to be matured is to be filled with the divine life that changes us—Heb. 6:1: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
A. The last stage of transformation is maturity, the fullness of life: (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
1. God’s eternal purpose can be accomplished only through our transformation and maturity—Gen. 1:26; Col. 1:28; 2:19; Eph. 4:13. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
2. Maturity is a matter of having the divine life imparted into us again and again until we have the fullness of life—John 10:10b; 2 Cor. 5:4b. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
B. The fullness of life is blessing, which is the overflow of life into others—Gen. 47:7, 10; 49:28; 1 John 5:16. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
C. God will sovereignly use persons, things, and events to empty us of everything that has filled us and to take away every preoccupation so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God—Rom. 8:28; Luke 1:53; Matt. 5:6. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
VI. Fruit denotes both expression and multiplication; we need two kinds of fruit out of the divine life—the fruit of Christian virtues and the fruit of persons regenerated with the divine life—Gal. 5:22-23; John 15:16. (2003 TGC, msg. 3)
VII. 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 that precious materials may be produced for God’s building—1 Cor. 3:9: (2002 WT, msg. 4)
A. According to the Bible, growth equals building; this takes place by the growth of the divine seed of life within us—1 John 3:9; Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15-16. (2007 ST, msg. 5)
B. Ephesians 3:17 reveals that the Triune God has come into us to do a building work with Himself as the element and also with something from us as the material; this is illustrated by the parable of the sower in Matthew 13: (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
1. The Lord sows Himself as the seed of life into men’s hearts, the soil, that He might grow and live in them and be expressed from within them—v. 3. (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
2. The seed is sown into the soil to grow with the nutrients of the soil; as a result, the produce is a composition of elements from both the seed and the soil—v. 23. (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
3. We have within us certain nutrients created by God as a preparation for His coming into us to grow in us; God has created the human spirit with the human nutrients along with the human heart as the soil for the divine seed—cf. 1 Pet. 3:4. (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
4. The rate at which we grow in life depends not on the divine seed but on how many nutrients we afford this seed; the more nutrients we supply, the faster the seed will grow and the more it will flourish—Psa. 78:88; Matt. 5:3, 8: (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
a. If we remain in our soul, in our natural man, there will not be any nutrients for the growth of the divine seed, but if we are strengthened into our inner man and if we pay attention to our spirit and exercise our spirit, the nutrients will be supplied and Christ will make His home in our hearts—Eph. 3:16-17; Rom. 8:6; 1 Tim. 4:7; cf. Jude 19. (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
b. If we are going to have the Lord as the seed of life grow within us to be our full enjoyment, we have to open to the Lord absolutely and cooperate with Him to deal thoroughly with our heart—Matt. 13:3-9, 18-23. (2006 TGC, msg. 5)
5. On the one hand, God strengthens us with Himself as the element, and on the other hand, we afford the nutrients; through these two God in Christ carries out His intrinsic building—the building of His home—in our entire being. (2006 TGC, msg. 5)