OUR NEED FOR GOD TO WORK HIMSELF IN CHRIST
INTO US AS OUR LIFE, NATURE, AND CONSTITUTION
Just as the photograph of a person does not have the life and nature of that person, so David, a photograph of God’s heart, did not have the life and nature of God. Even though he was a man whose heart was according to God, he did not have anything related to God organically. What David needed is what we need today. We need God to build Himself in Christ into our humanity. This means that we need God to work Himself in Christ into us as our life, our nature, and our constitution. As a result, we are not simply a man according to God’s heart—we are God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. We today are not outwardly as high as David was, but we can declare that we have God’s life, nature, and constitution.
In order to accomplish this, God in Christ became a man and went through some processes that this man could be designated something divine. In resurrection He was designated the firstborn Son of God. In and through resurrection Christ, the firstborn Son of God, became the life-giving Spirit, who now enters into us to impart, to dispense, Himself as life into our being to be our inner constitution, to make us a God-man just like Him. He was God becoming man, and we are man becoming God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
GOD’S DESIRE TO BUILD HIMSELF IN CHRIST INTO US
IN ORDER TO HAVE A MUTUAL ABODE
Many Christians are still trying merely to have a behaving, a living, and a being that are according to God’s heart, but they do not have the concept that God desires to build Himself in Christ into our being. What He is building into us will be His abode, which will be our abode also. Hence, it becomes a mutual abode. The New Jerusalem is this mutual abode. On the one hand, the New Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God; on the other hand, it is also our eternal dwelling place (Rev. 21:3, 22). For eternity the New Jerusalem will be the fulfillment of the Lord’s brief word in John 15:4: "Abide in Me and I in you."
Ephesians 3:17 tells us that Christ is now within us doing the work of building Himself into us to produce this mutual abode. We often say that Christ is living in us and working in us. Now we need to ask this question: What is Christ wanting to accomplish by His working in us? The answer is that Christ is working in us to build up God’s habitation by building Himself into us.
David wanted to build God a house of cedar, but God wanted to build Himself in Christ into David. What God would build into David would be both God’s house and David’s house. This mutual abode is also unveiled in John 14:23: "If anyone loves Me,..My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." This abode will be not only for the Triune God but also for us. What God builds up in us is both God’s habitation and our habitation.
We need to realize that God will have a habitation not by our doing or working but by His building. Christ builds the church (Matt. 16:18) by coming into our spirit and spreading Himself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will to occupy our entire soul. This church will become His habitation and our habitation. This is what we need, and our burden is to emphasize this one thing.
THE TRIUNE GOD BECOMING
OUR INTRINSIC CONSTITUTION
There is no need for us to build anything for God. Rather, God needs to build Himself in Christ into us as our life, nature, and essence. Eventually, the Triune God will become our intrinsic constitution. We will be constituted with the Triune God. That will be the seed of David and the Son of God—something divine and human satisfying God’s need and our need for a mutual abode. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of this mutual abode, and we will all be there.
(Life-Study of 1 & 2 Samuel, Chapter 25, by Witness Lee)
