I.　The Body of Christ is the intrinsic significance of the church—Eph. 1:22-23:

A.　The church of God is the frame, and the Body of Christ is the organism:

1.　If there were no Body, the church would have no meaning.

2.　Without the Body, the church makes no sense, but with the Body, there is the intrinsic significance of the church.

B.　If we consider ourselves as individual churches or as individual believers, we are through; we should consider ourselves as one Body.

II.　The Body of Christ is a divine constitution of the Triune God with the believers in Christ—Eph. 4:4-6:

A.　The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and man are blended and built together to become the Body of Christ.

B.　The building up of the Body of Christ is the constitution of the Triune God and the tripartite man in the Spirit of God and the spirit of man—1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 8:16:

1.　This constitution is the union and mingling of God and man.

2.　Such a constitution is a matter of divinity constituted into humanity to be man's dwelling place and of humanity built into divinity to be God's dwelling place.

C.　The Body of Christ is an organism, both divine and human, to express Christ—Eph. 1:23.

III.　The Body of Christ is expressed in the local churches—Rev. 1:11:

A.　The unique Body of Christ is expressed in many local churches in the divine oneness, as it is with the Triune God—John 17:11, 21, 23.

B.　The seven lampstands in Revelation 1:12, signifying the seven local churches, are identical.

C.　There are many churches, yet they have one divine nature, one divine essence, one divine element, one divine expression, and one divine testimony.

IV.　The genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is a crucial point of the Lord's recovery in this consummating age—Eph. 4:4; 1 Cor. 12:12:

A.　The Body of Christ, being organic, is undivided and indivisible, as Christ is—1?Cor. 1:13a.

B.　The oneness of the Body in reality is the oneness of the one Spirit as the essence, of the one Lord as the element, and of the one Father as the source—Eph. 4:3-6.

C.　All the local churches need to be kept in the oneness of the Body of Christ.

D.　We need to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Body of Christ so that the Lord will have a way to accomplish His divine purpose according to His divine economy.

V.　The Body of Christ is the goal of God's economy, and the local churches are the procedure God takes to reach the goal of His economy—1 Cor. 12:12-13; 1:2; Rom. 12:4-5; 16:1, 4-5, 16b:

A.　We should not think that when we enter into the local church life we reach the goal of God's eternal economy.

B.　The goal of God's economy is the church, which is Christ's Body—Eph. 1:22-23.

C.　The economy of God is for the Body of Christ:

1.　The local churches are nearly ninety percent physical, but they should be for something spiritual, and this spiritual thing is the Body of Christ.

2.　The highest peak of the Lord's recovery that can 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 expression.

D.　Eventually, the local churches will be over, but the Body will remain forever; therefore, we must pay much more attention to the Body of Christ than to the local churches.

VI.　All the problems of the church today are due to the ignorance concerning the Body of Christ—Eph. 1:17-23; Rom. 12:3-5; 1 Cor. 12:24b-27:

A.　Among us this ignorance should be absent, and the full knowledge should be present.

B.　Turmoil after turmoil has transpired because of our not knowing the Body:

1.　The biggest problem, the unique problem, is not knowing the Body and not caring for the Body.

2.　The remedy is only one—we need to see and know the Body, and we have to honor the Body.

C.　We need a spirit of wisdom and revelation with the enlightening of the eyes of our heart to see and apprehend the Body of Christ.