I.　Living in the reality of the Body—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:10; 1:19-21a; Rom. 8:4; John 5:30-31; 6:46; 14:19-20:

A.　Living in the reality of the Body is a corporate living by a group of perfected God-men:

1.　The reality of the Body of Christ is a group of God's redeemed who have been made God, the God-men, by God and who live a life not by themselves but by another life—the Triune God processed and consummated to enter into them and to take them as His abode, His dwelling place.

2.　The reality of the Body of Christ is a living by all the God-men, united, mingled, and constituted together with God by mingling humanity with divinity and mingling divinity with humanity.

3.　The reality of the Body of Christ is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but are not living by their life but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes have been expressed through their virtues.

B.　The divine fellowship is the reality of living in the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 1:9; Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3, 6-7; Phil. 2:1; 4:14-15:

1.　The Body is absolutely a matter of life; the life we have is not a member life but a Body life.

2.　In the Body there can be no independence or individualism, for we are members and members cannot live in detachment from the Body.

3.　We need to realize our supply is in the Body; we cannot live without the supply of the Body.

4.　We must constantly avail ourselves of the fellowship of the Body, for it is our very life.

5.　As members of the Body, we must allow ourselves to be limited by the other members, not going beyond our measure but learning to be blended.

6.　Mutuality is the characteristic of the Body, and the functioning of the Body is mutual; thus our relationship in the Body is one of mutuality and interdependence—1 Cor. 12:14-22, 25.

II.　Laboring to build up the Body—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:11-16:

A.　In our consideration the Body should be first and the local churches should be second; we should pay more attention to the Body of Christ than to the local churches—Eph. 2:21-22:

1.　The local churches are not the goal of God's economy but a procedure God takes to reach the goal of His economy—the Body of Christ, which consummates the New Jerusalem—Rev. 1:4; 22:16aa; 3:7, 12.

2.　The highest peak of the Lord's recovery that can be really, practically, and actually carry out God's economy is for God to produce not many local churches in a physical way but an organic Body to be His organism—Eph. 4:4-6, 16.

B.　In one accord we should be Body-conscious, and in oneness we should be Body-centered—Acts 1:14; 2:46; 4:24; 15:25; Rom. 15:6:

1.　Oneness should be among the local churches, and one accord should be in every church.

2.　All the local churches should be one Body universally, doctrinally, and practically.

C.　All the co-workers in all the regions should do the same one work universally for the unique Body—Eph. 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 10:32; Acts 20:28:

1.　We should do only one work; there should not be several works in the Lord's recovery—Col. 4:11.

2.　If we are divided by any kind of boundary, the church becomes no longer a Body; rather, it becomes a corpse.

3.　Whatever we do in our locality or universally for the churches should be done in a full realization that we are building up the Body of Christ.

4.　When we are working to take care of the church, we must always keep a view of the Body.

5.　The Body of Chris tis the center, the reality, the ultimate goal of God's eternal economy, consummating in the New Jerusalem:

a.　We need to have the assurance that what we are doing in our locality is building up the center and reality of the economy of God.

b.　We must have the assurance that in our work we are building up the center, the reality, and the goal of the eternal economy of God, which will attain the New Jerusalem.

D.　"Nothing counts and everything is vanity except God's economy with Christ as the center, the hub, and as the circumference, the rim, making us His members to constitute His Body and preparing us to be His bride so that we can return with Him to defeat Antichrist and his followers to bring in the kingdom of God as the great mountain which will fill the whole earth. This is the ultimate end of the divine revelation in the Bible. Since we have seen this, we should spontaneously forget everything in the past. We should go on with our Christ, who is God's centrality and universality, so that we can fulfill His heart's desire" (Further Consideration of the Eldership, the Region of Work, and the Care for the Body of Christ, p. 32).