THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
God’s Building
Message Seven—Experiencing Christ as the Stone Making Us Precious Stones for the Expression of the Testimony of Jesus
Scripture Reading: 2 Sam. 7:13a; John 1:42; 1 Pet. 2:2-7; Rev. 21:10-11
I. In the Bible there is a line concerning stone from Genesis through Revelation; in Genesis 2 we have the onyx stone at the beginning, and in Revelation 21 and 22 we have the jasper city as the consummation—Gen. 2:12; Rev. 21:10-21. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
II. The stones in the temple signify Christ’s humanity in transformation, the transformed Christ—1 Kings 5:17; 6:7; 2 Chron. 3:6: (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
A. Such a transformed Christ is now the foundation stone, the cornerstone, the living stone, the precious stone, and the topstone of God’s building—Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 3:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:4; Rev. 4:3; Zech. 4:7. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
B. In Christ God came in incarnation to be a stone for the building up of His universal habitation—John 1:14; Matt. 21:42. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
C. As the all-inclusive stone, Christ is the centrality of God’s move for the building up of His eternal habitation—vv. 42, 44; Zech. 3:9. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
D. Christ as the cornerstone is for the building up of the church—Isa. 28:16: (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
1. Everything Christ is, everything He has done, and everything He is doing are due to the fact that He is the cornerstone—Matt. 21:42; 1 Pet. 2:6-7. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
2. In Christ, who is the cornerstone, all the building, including both the Jewish and the Gentile believers, is being fitted together and is growing into a holy temple in the Lord—v. 21. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
III. The stones in the temple also signify the believers in Christ who have been transformed by Christ as the stone—Matt. 16:18; John 1:42; 1 Pet. 2:5; Rev. 21:11, 14, 19-20: (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
A. The stone in John 1:42 denotes a work of transformation that brings forth material for God’s building—1 Cor. 3:12. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
B. We, the believers in Christ, are living stones, like Christ, through regeneration and transformation—1 Pet. 2:5. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
IV. We need to experience Christ as the stone living in us and making us precious stones for God’s building—vv. 2-7: (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
A. We need to believe in Christ and regard Him as most precious, having a divine sense of value—v. 7; Jer. 15:19; Luke 16:15b; 10:41-42; Phil. 3:7-11. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
B. We need to come to Christ, the living, precious stone, by turning to our spirit, His dwelling place, and by contacting Him in the Word—2 Tim. 4:22a; Eph. 2:22; John 5:39-40. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
C. We need to be nourished with the milk conveyed in the word of God—1 Pet. 2:2-3. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
D. We need to eat Christ as the passover lamb in His entirety, with the head (wisdom), the legs (activity and move), and the inward parts (the inward parts of Christ’s being, including His mind, emotion, will, and heart with all their functions) —Exo. 12:9; John 6:57; 1 Cor. 1:24; Rev. 14:4b; Phil. 1:8. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
E. We need to experience Christ as the ladder that produces stones—John 1:51. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
F. We need to grow in the divine life through the increase of the element of God and of the stature of Christ within us—1 Pet. 2:2; Col. 2:19; Eph. 3:17; 4:13. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
G. We need to be transformed with the stone element of Christ through the flowing of the Spirit of life throughout our inner being—Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
H. We need to deny the self, take up the cross, follow the Lord in our spirit, and lose our soul-life—Matt. 16:18, 21-26. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
I. We need to be stones “cut” and “finished” at the “quarry” and then fitted into the temple of God, experiencing a life hidden with Christ in God and knowing the quietness of the work of the divine building—1 Kings 5:17; 6:7. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
J. We need to be transfused with all that Christ is and has accomplished by opening our being to the gaze of the seven eyes upon the building stone—Zech. 3:9; 4:7; Rev. 5:6. (2006 FTTA-Spring, msg. 8)
V. The unique focus of the Lord’s recovery is the testimony of the Triune God—the corporate expression of the Triune God; this focus is the testimony of Jesus—Eph. 3:16-17a, 19b; 1 Tim. 3:9, 15-16; Rev. 1:9, 12, 20: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
A. God’s original intention was that man would receive His life and nature and thereby become His expression; the Lord’s recovery is to recover the corporate expression of God—Gen. 1:26; 2:7-9; Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
B. As the corporate expression of the Triune God, the church is the fullness of God—Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19b. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
C. The four-in-one organic entity in Ephesians 4:4-6 corresponds to the golden lampstands, the testimony of Jesus, in Revelation 1:9, 12, and 20; the churches as the golden lampstands bear the testimony of Jesus: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
1. The testimony of Jesus is an all-inclusive expression—vv. 2, 9: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
a. The testimony of Jesus is the testimony of the Son coming with the Father and by the Spirit to live on earth, to die on the cross to clear up the universe, to release the divine life, and to resurrect from the dead to become a life-giving Spirit, who comes as the Son with the Father compounded with divinity, humanity, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection—John 1:14; 14:17-18, 20; 1 Cor. 15:45b. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
b. Such a compound testimony is the testimony of Jesus, and this testimony has a symbol—the golden lampstand—Rev. 1:2, 9, 12, 20. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
2. As the testimony of Jesus, the golden lampstand is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God—v. 12: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
a. In the golden lampstand there are three main factors: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
(1) The entire lampstand is gold; it is not only golden but gold itself, signifying God the Father’s divine nature—2 Pet. 1:4. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
(2) The gold is in a definite form and a purposeful shape, signifying the Son, Christ, as the embodiment of the Godhead, the embodiment of the Father’s nature—Col. 2:9; 1:15. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
(3) The seven lamps shining for God’s expression are the seven Spirits of God—Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
b. In the lampstand we see the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; thus, the golden lampstand is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
c. This is the church as the testimony of Jesus, the testimony of the Triune God, the expression of the Triune God—1:12, 20; 2:1, 5. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
d. In the church as the golden lampstand we have the Father’s nature, the Son’s embodiment, and the Spirit’s expression; this should be the essence of the church’s shining—Matt. 5:14-16; Eph. 5:8; Phil. 2:15-16: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
(1) The light that the church shines forth—the testimony that shines out from the church—must be the Triune God—Eph. 3:16-17a. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
(2) In everything we do in the church life and in our daily life, we must bear a clear, evident, strong testimony of a golden lampstand constituted with the Father’s nature, the Son’s embodiment, and the Spirit’s expression—Rev. 1:20. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
D. To bear such a testimony is to hold the mystery of the faith—1 Tim. 3:9: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
1. The faith is the content of God’s New Testament economy, in which we believe—Eph. 4:13; Titus 1:1, 4; Jude 3. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
2. In using the word mystery, Paul refers to Christ as the mystery of God and to the church as the mystery of Christ—Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4-6. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
3. According to the context of 1 Timothy 3:9, the mystery of the faith should include the church, because the church is constituted with God in Christ and with Christ as the life-giving Spirit; this corresponds to the constitution of the lampstand—Rev. 1:12, 20: (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
a. As the lampstand is constituted with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, so the church also is constituted with the Divine Trinity—Eph. 4:4-6. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
b. The church is a living organism constituted with the living God in His Divine Trinity to be the corporate manifestation of God; this is not only the church but also the church life, the church’s living—1 Tim. 3:15-16. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)
4. Thus, the church is a golden lampstand shining forth the corporate expression of the Triune God; this is the focus of the Lord’s recovery—the testimony of the Triune God—Rev. 1:2, 9, 12, 20. (2011 TGC, msg. 1)