CHRIST PRODUCING HIS BRIDE
IN THE NEW CREATION BY GROWTH
AND TRANSFORMATION
Now we need to go on to see by what way Christ produces His bride. He produces the bride by the way of the new creation. In the Lord’s recovery today, we are fighting against traditional, organized religion and are fighting for the new creation. Traditional, organized religion does not help the believers to grow, to be renewed, and to be transformed. Many of us can testify that we did not begin to grow spiritually until we came into the church life.
Growth is followed by transformation. Both in our physical life and in our spiritual life, we are transformed by growing. The more we grow, the more we are transformed.
Because traditional, organized religion does not help God’s people to grow, there is the need for the Lord’s recovery. We need the recovery, and God also has a need for the recovery. The Lord’s recovery is absolutely for the new creation. For this reason, from the time I came to this country in 1962, I have been giving messages on the matter of transformation. The Lord’s recovery is for the new creation, and the new creation requires transformation from the old into the new. In addition to being transformed, we also need to be built up together so that we may be the Body of Christ and also the bride of Christ, the counterpart of Christ.
Christ needs the Body and the bride. Before His second appearing, He will continue to work in the church in a mysterious way to make us a new creation. When this new creation has been transformed and has become mature in life, it will be attached to Christ and become one with Him to be His bride.
I want to stress the fact that the bride requires maturity. Christ will not marry a bride who is immature. Only when we have reached maturity will He take us to be His bride. We must admit that in the Lord’s recovery we have not yet reached maturity; we are still too young to be presented to Christ as His bride. Thus, there is the urgent need for maturity. When Christ, the Bridegroom, sees that we have reached maturity, He will marry the bride and then come with her as His army to crush the human government.
(Life-Study of Daniel, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee)
