1C The tabernacle typifies God’s church on earth, or His church in the localities, whereas the temple signifies the church as the reality of the Body of Christ; the local churches are the precious procedure to bring us into the reality of the Body as the glorious goal of God’s economy—Eph. 1:22-23; cf. Rev. 21:10-11.
2D The unique ministry is for God’s unique testimony, and God’s unique testimony, the reality of the Body of Christ, is realized in the local churches—Exo. 25:22; 38:21; Rev. 1:2, 9; cf. Eph. 4:4; John 16:13.
3E The Body described in 1 Corinthians 12 is the testimony that a local church should have; it is the testimony of the Body; the local church today must be a testimony that expresses the reality of the Body of Christ—vv. 14-18, 20.
4F The church exists for the testimony of oneness; when we refer to the “local church,” our emphasis is on the church and not on the “local-ness”; the life that the churches possess is a life of oneness—John 17:11, 21, 23; Rev. 1:10-12.
5G The testimony of the reality of the Body of Christ is God’s final recovery—the recovery of God’s eternal economy with Christ being everything to us, with the oneness of the Body of Christ, and with all the members of His Body functioning—1 Tim. 1:3-6; 6:3-5; Heb. 13:9; Eph. 1:17; 3:2, 8-11, 16-21; 4:1-6, 16.