A FULL REALIZATION OF THE DIVINE LIFE
This means that the divine life has never been realized adequately and fully by a group of Christians. When people come to a local church they must see the full realization of the divine life. They should not see a kind of behavior and a kind of performance. They should just see people living Christ. They should just see people who are in the full realization of the divine life. The divine life should be fully realized in the local church. Such a realization of the divine life swallows up all gossiping, murmuring, reasoning, and debating. It swallows up backbiting and politics. God does not want to see good manners and politics in the church life. He wants to see Himself expressed from within you. This is the golden lampstand. This is the practicality of God’s expression. Today God wants to recover such a lampstand in many leading cities on this earth. He wants to have such a shining church, golden and pure. It is, no doubt, a composition of human beings, but all these human beings are saturated with the heavenly gold. The substance of the divine Father becomes their very being. Their very being is in the form of Jesus Christ. And what they express is not just a nice behavior, but the shining Spirit, a sevenfold intensified shining. This is a proper local church. This is a proper lampstand. This is what the Lord is going to recover today.
He has no intention to recover trivial matters such as long sleeves and short hair. He wants to recover the Trinity fully enjoyed, possessed, realized, and expressed in the local church. The proper local church is simply a church which possesses the Trinity, enjoys the Trinity, realizes the Trinity, and expresses the Trinity. For this we all need the sevenfold intensified Spirit. We do not need just a onefold Spirit; we need a sevenfold Spirit. This is why we have to pray unceasingly and continually. We have to pray to be filled up and saturated and permeated until we overflow. To enjoy the sevenfold Spirit simply means that the intensified Spirit floods you and fills you and overflows from within you to be the very fullness of the Triune God. This fullness is the expression, and this expression is just the shining in sevenfold intensification. This is the kind of local church that the Lord is going to recover. We are not here just to have a church according to the outward teachings of the Bible. What the Triune God wants to recover among us is a proper lampstand in all the localities. In every city the Lord wants to have such a shining lampstand as the local church.
Among such local churches the Christ whom they experience is exactly the One revealed in Revelation 1. Such a Christ has eyes as a flame of fire (Rev. 1:14). You may consider that His eyes indicate a kind of judging, but they also indicate a kind of supply. Out of His mouth proceeds a sharp two-edged sword to kill, not you, but your flesh. This is to kill your murmuring and gossiping tongue. His feet are like shining brass, judging and burning and purifying. Sometimes the messages in the Lord’s recovery are just like a two-edged sword to cut and to judge, because God wants a pure golden lampstand in each locality. Pure gold is gold which has been purified by fire. The Christ today is the burning Christ for purification. He is not only washing us, but also purifying us by burning. This is the practicality of God’s expression. Don’t consider that the practicality of God’s expression covers such matters as how many elders a locality should have or how old the elders should be. The practicality of God’s expression is a matter of the divine life. It is a matter of the saturation of the Triune God into your being to be your expression.
If you see a vision of such a practicality, this vision will kill all your opinions. You would never think to have a school church or a church on your street or a church in your home. Such a vision will kill all these different views. You will be left with one city and one church. You will be left with one church which is so pure, so golden, so shining, so full of the Triune God.
(Concerning the Lord's Recovery, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee)
