GENERAL SUBJECT:
THE FOUR GREAT PILLARS IN THE LORD’S RECOVERY

Message Three
The Third Great Pillar—the Church

Scripture Reading: Col. 1:18; Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 1:2; 10:32; 1 Tim. 3:15-16

I. The Lord’s recovery is a recovery of the truth and of life so that He may have the church; the truth brings in life, and once we have life, we become the church—John 18:37; 10:10; 1 Cor. 10:32.

II. The church is the church of God—1 Cor. 1:2; 10:32; Acts 20:28:

A. The church is not of any person or practice but of God—1 Cor. 1:2; 10:32.

B. The expression the church of God indicates that the church has the nature of God and that it is constituted with the element of God.

C. To say that the church is the church of God means that God is the Owner of the church—Acts 20:28.

III. The church is the house of the living God—1 Tim. 3:15:

A. The house of God is the household of God—Eph. 2:19.

B. Because God is living, the church as the house of God is also living in Him, by Him, and with Him.

C. As the house of God, the church is the dwelling place of God—the place where God can have His rest and put His trust—v. 22.

D. The church as the house of God is the Father’s house, the enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation—John 14:2; 12:23; 13:31-32.

E. The house of the living God is the genuine church in its divine nature and essential character, whereas the great house refers to the deteriorated church in its mixed character—1 Tim. 3:15; 2 Tim. 2:20.

IV. The church is the supporting pillar and the holding base of the truth— 1 Tim. 3:15:

A. Truth in 1 Timothy 3:15 refers to the real things revealed in the New Testament concerning Christ and the church—Matt. 16:16, 18; Eph. 5:32.

B. As the pillar which bears the truth and the base which holds the pillar, the church testifies the truth, the reality, of Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ—Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4.

C. A local church should be a building that holds, bears, and testifies the truth, the reality, of Christ and the church.

V. The church is the corporate manifestation of God in the flesh—1 Tim. 3:15-16:

A. God’s manifestation was first in Christ as an individual expression in the flesh—v. 16; Col. 2:9; John 1:1, 14.

B. God is manifested in the church as His enlarged corporate expression in the flesh—Eph. 2:19; 1:22-23.

C. 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.