Focus-God and man as one

That Witness Lee did not mean deification was man in the Godhead has been solved in the negative. The book A Deeper Study of the Divine DIspensing makes that crystal clear.

That he didn't mean four-in-one mean the same thing has been demonstrated imo.

Now this is the subject I am accused of shying away from discussing: That is does the Bible show God and His people as one organic unity ?

I say yes. In God's full salvation the triune God and the saved corporate man become one. God ever retains forever the unique Godhead.

So let us start out small. Actually it is NOT small. But it is initial or elementary in some sense.

First Corinthians 6:17 says "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit".

That is God and man made one organic unity in the deepest part of a man's being - the human spirit. God the Holy Spirit and the regenerated human spirit are joined in salvation to become ONE mingled spirit.

"He who is JOINED . . . to the Lord . . . is one spirit."

We start out small. We will go "bigger and bigger".

The skeptics are off deliberating maybe.

"You go first."
"No you go first."

It doesn't matter who goes first. "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." (1 Cor. 6:17)

This is the gospel you know ?

"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)

I'm sorry. I know I am suppose to credit Witness Lee for this sentence.
But he lived from 1905 - 1997.

The Apostle Paul wrote that sentence centuries, even millennia before Lee was born. Witness Lee wasn't even a twinkle in his mother's eye yet when Paul wrote that in the first century.

JOINED to the Lord - the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Second of the Divine Trinity. He who is JOINED to Jesus Christ the Lord is "one spirit".

That is one spirit with the Holy Spirit. The two become mingled , united, interwoven, together as "one spirit" within the believer.

Amen. This is the Gospel you know?

@sonship said
That Witness Lee did not mean deification was man in the Godhead has been solved in the negative.

@sonship said
That Witness Lee did not mean deification was man in the Godhead has been solved in the negative. The book A Deeper Study of the Divine DIspensing makes that crystal clear.

That he didn't mean four-in-one mean the same thing has been demonstrated imo.

Now this is the subject I am accused of shying away from discussing: That is does the Bible show God and His ...[text shortened]... the triune God and the saved corporate man become one. God ever retains forever the unique Godhead.

I am talking about God and man in His full salvation becoming one.

Traditionally Reform Christianity mainly sees forgiveness as and end in itself.
Other Christians appreciate being born again but the significance of it is overlooked. They may think that to be born again is just a kind of ticket reading "Admit One" into Heaven.

A deeper appreciation of Christ coming into man is that God may grow in them.
You may ask "But God is big enough. How can God grow?".

It is the New Testament that speaks of the growth of God in the church, the Body of Christ.

"the GROWTH OF GOD" in Colossians 2:19

"And not holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God."

That is every member HOLDING firmly to Christ the Head and deriving all their nourishment from Him and supplying that rich supplied to each other causes THE GROWTH OF GOD. Not God growing in Himself. But God growing in a corporate humanity. God is growing in the Body to fill up the Body with the divine life.

In the New Testament the Body grows and God growing IN the Body is her growth.

1.) The Body of Christ grows.

"But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ, out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love." (Eph. 4:15,16)

Here we have the Body of Christ growing.

2.) And this growth of the Body is actually God growing in the Body.

" . . . holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God."(Col. 2:19)

This growth of God in the church, this growth of the Body of Christ is to produce a dwelling place of God in spirit, a living holy temple in the Lord.

"In whom all the building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit." (Eph. 2:21,22)

As some of you may see - God and His redeemed people mutually indwell one another for a growth.

The church grows.
And God grows in the church.

The growth of God in the Body is the growth of the Body.
Such growth of God in the Body is also the building up together of the dwelling place of God in man.

This living building is on the one foundation of Christ. Christ is the resurrected and living cornerstone of this building, this living building, is growing into a habitation of God. So the triune God and the redeemed are being built together into one living habitation of God.

"Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone; In whom all the building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord;

In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place [or habitation] of God in spirit." (Eph. 2:20-22)

@sonship said
As some of you may see - God and His redeemed people mutually indwell one another for a growth.

The church grows.
And God grows in the church.

The growth of God in the Body is the growth of the Body.
Such growth of God in the Body is also the building up together of the dwelling place of God in man.

This living building is on the one foundation of Christ. C ...[text shortened]... are being built together into a dwelling place [or habitation] of God in spirit." (Eph. 2:20-22)[/b]

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

"organism of the Triune God Himself"

So Christ said that He came that we may have life and have it abundantly.

"I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly." (John 10:10b)

But this life is not the natural life that we were born with.
This life is the Person of the uncreated God Himself.

Man, in the disobedience in the garden, was estranged from "tree of life" after he became united with the devil. Man was "alienated [or estranged] from the life of God"

" Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them . . . " (Eph. 4:18)

How subjective is "the life of God" to God Himself?
How subjective is your natural life to YOU?

If man was to be given life abundant and this life is the life of God you can see this has to involve a organic union - the human life with the divine life. A oneness of the intermingling of God's life and our human life must occur.

Adam and Eve were created for this. Yet they fell from their neutral and good position to be alienated from not only God but from "the life of God".

This life came in Jesus Christ to give Himself to redeemed sinners as the Way, the truth, and THE life.

"Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)

In receiving Jesus Christ as "a life giving Spirit" which He became (1 Cor. 15:45) He can give Himself to us. This is Him coming that we might have life and have it abundantly. How cannot the giving of God Himself to us in Jesus Christ as divine life not involve a union - an organic oneness of God and man?

To be born anew is no small thing then. To receive the Lord Jesus is the moment
a person is no longer "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18)

The life is planted.
The life is dispensed.
The life is imparted.
The life of God is born within the redeemed sinner.

The life requires the growth. This called "the growth of God" in the corporate entity of the Body of Christ, the church.

Individually, this is also a union of lives as Christ is FORMED in the believer, taking shape, growing and filling all their being. The Apostle Paul and his co-workers labored and travailed faithfully to help Christ be FORMED in the ones they led to Christ.

"My children, with whom I travail in birth again until Christ is formed in you." (Gal. 4:19)

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

"organism of the Triune God Himself"

Where did you lift those few words from?
Lee probably explained himself in the message.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

"organism of the Triune God Himself"

Where did you lift those few words from?
Lee probably explained himself in the message.