The Local Churches Typified in the Book of Psalms

The Local Church Being Built up by Christ

2. Through Christ’s Resurrection Life

It is very significant that the palaces mentioned in Psalm 45:8, typifying the local churches, are constructed of ivory, signifying the resurrection life of Christ. Witness Lee explains:

The Psalmist continues, “Out of the ivory palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad.” Ivory is a kind of bone, and bone in typology signifies the unbroken, resurrection life of Christ. Not one of Christ’s bones was broken (John 19:33, 36); His bones were unbreakable. This signifies that His life can never be broken. Hence, the ivory palaces signify that all the local churches are built up with His resurrection life. Out of these palaces, stringed instruments make Him glad. All these verses are poetic expressions. Therefore, the stringed instruments speak of the sweet, melodious, harmonious praises. Whenever we meet in all the local churches, the first thing, the main thing, the central thing, must be the singing, the praising….In all the local churches praising must be the central feature, because out of the ivory palaces stringed instruments make Him glad.

(Witness Lee, Christ and the Church, 70)

3. Through Christ’s Ascension

Psalm 68:18 refers to Christ’s ascension and His victory over all His enemies including the last enemy, death. Witness Lee elaborates:

The third point in this Psalm is Christ’s ascension. Verse 18: “Thou hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captive a train of vanquished foes.” Without Ephesians 4:8-11 we would not know what verse 18 means. But by this New Testament passage, we see that it refers to the ascension of Christ. Christ has ascended on high, and the implication of His ascension is that all His enemies have been defeated. Before He ascended, He vanquished every foe, including the last enemy, death. He conquered death. From our human point of view, Jesus was put to death by human hands; but from the heavenly viewpoint it was He Himself who walked into death. He simply took a little walk. He walked into death willingly in order to manifest His life power. He stayed there for three days, and He conquered death. Death did all it could to retain Him, but death could not hold its prey (Acts 2:24). He walked into death, and He walked out of death. He walked right through death, and He conquered it. Before dealing with death, He had already conquered everything else. Death was the last enemy. His emergence from death means that every foe, including death itself, has been vanquished. So He ascended triumphantly. And He led a train of vanquished foes. All the enemies defeated by Him were the captives in this train, including Satan, and including you and me. The train is a procession, celebrating His victory. Praise the Lord! Today we can tell Satan that he is defeated and we are defeated too; but, hallelujah, we can also tell him that we are victorious in and with Christ’s victory, and he can never be victorious. This is a real praise.

(Witness Lee, Christ and the Church, 104)

Here, based on Psalm 68:18, Witness Lee speaks of the issue of Christ’s ascension—regenerated men constituted with the divine life to become gifts for the building up of His Body, the church.

Now we have the issue of Christ’s ascension. It is that many of these defeated foes have been given as gifts by the Father to Christ for His Body. These gifts, which are mentioned in Ephesians 4, are persons, not functions or abilities. “He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers”—these are the gifts. Men such as Paul, Peter, and John are the gifts. It is as if, when Christ ascended to the Father with the train of vanquished foes, He said, “Father, look at these foes defeated by Me.” Then the Father replied, “All right, let Me take some of those foes, let Me take Saul of Tarsus, and this one in Los Angeles, and that one in Houston. I will give them to You as gifts for Your Body. They were defeated by You, and now I will give them to You as gifts.” And He did.

Saul of Tarsus is a good example—he was a real foe of Christ. But the ascended and exalted Christ came to visit him one day. He had become exceedingly violent in persecuting Jesus, but when the Lord cast one look upon him he fell to the ground. I do not believe the Ascended One used His hand, but that He merely looked at him. Saul was smitten to the earth….The Ascended One captured Saul. Saul at that moment became a captive. And Saul repented and said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” On that day the resurrected Christ got into him, and this foe, this vanquished foe, became a captive with the resurrected Christ in him as his life. It was through this Resurrected One that this captured foe was made a gift, even one of the greatest apostles. In this way the Lord Jesus received gifts in man. He captures people as the Ascended One, and He regenerates them as the Resurrected One. It is by His resurrection life that He turns the captured foes into useful gifts. It was in this way that the Father, speaking of Paul, said to the Son, “I give this little one to You as a gift, and You must give this little one to the church as a gift.” Saul was later called Paul, which means “the little one.” Saul became a Paul. The foe of Christ eventually became a gift given by the Father to Christ and given by Christ to His Body.

…The Lord is transforming so many foes into gifts for His Body, and He is doing it that the Lord God might dwell among them. “Thou hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captive a train of vanquished foes. Thou hast received gifts in man, and even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell with them.” I think that today we are much more qualified to speak this verse than the Psalmist in ancient times. We are in the Church, the house of God; we are in the dwelling place where God dwells through the ascended Christ. We are the vanquished foes who are being made into gifts for the building of God’s house. We are in the reality.

(Witness Lee, Christ and the Church, 105-107)

Main

God’s House

Zion

City of God

Bride

Practical Salvation

Built Up

Victory

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