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Scripture Reading: Eph. 5:32; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:22; 4:3-6; Deut. 12:11-14, 17-18; John 4:24
Our God is a God of purpose. He is the great God with a great purpose. We need to see what this purpose is. In the sixty-six books of the Bible we can find only one unique purpose of God. It is true that God has done many things. First, God created the heavens and the earth with millions of items, but His purpose was not creation. In the Old Testament the first thing we see is God’s creation. Then in the New Testament the first thing we see is God’s redemption. God has gone on from His creation to His redemption, but neither creation nor redemption is God’s purpose. Creation is wonderful, and redemption is even more wonderful, but neither of these two wonderful things is God’s goal. Therefore, from redemption God is still going on. The goal in the Bible, as revealed at the end, is a city. The consummation of all the sixty-six books of the Bible is the holy city, New Jerusalem (Rev. 21—22). This city is a building. Thus, God’s purpose, His goal, is a building.
In the first two chapters of the Bible we see creation. In the last two chapters of the Bible we see a building. Creation is at the beginning, and the building is at the end. Between creation and building is redemption. Without creation there is no beginning, without the building there is no end, and without redemption there is nothing to bridge the long gap between creation and building. Redemption is a long bridge between the two ends of the Bible. Today we are on the bridge of redemption. We came from God’s creation, we were redeemed, and now we are going on under His redemption toward the goal of building.
Creation, redemption, and building are three great matters in the Bible. Genesis 1:1a says, “In the beginning God created.” Creation initiated everything. Every one of us began in Genesis 1:1. God’s creation included all of us. Regardless of our age, we were all created in Genesis 1 when Adam was created. We began to have our being not from our father and mother but from Adam. When Adam breathed, we all breathed. We all appreciate redemption, but we may think that creation was something related only to Adam, not to us. If we think that our source is our father, we must then ask where our father came from. Then we must ask from what source our grandfather came. If we continue in this way, we will eventually trace our source back to Adam. We all began from God’s creation. After creation we became fallen and lost, but then we were saved. We have been redeemed. Thank God for His redemption! In the Old Testament and even more in the New Testament we can see this precious, great matter of God’s redemption. However, the Bible does not end with creation, and neither does it end with redemption. Rather, the Bible ends with another great matter — building.
In the first book of the New Testament, one day the Lord Jesus suddenly revealed the matter of building to His disciples. Peter first saw that Jesus was the Christ of God and the Son of God. Peter must have been excited to receive this revelation. The Lord Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” (Matt. 16:13). The disciples told Him, “Some, John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (v. 14). Then the Lord Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (v. 15). Peter had the boldness to answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in the heavens. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (vv. 17-18a). It seems that the Lord was saying, “Peter, you received the revelation concerning Christ, but you also need to see that Christ is for something. You have seen Christ, but I also tell you that I will build My church. Moreover, I will build My church upon this rock. You have seen that I am the Christ of God, but you must also see that I am for My church. Just as you have seen the Christ, you surely need to know My church.” Christ and the church are the great mystery (Eph. 5:32). In this way the Lord Jesus revealed the matter of building to Peter and the other disciples.
The three great apostles — Peter, Paul, and John — all saw the matter of building. In Peter’s first Epistle he tells us, “You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (2:5). In Ephesians Paul tells us, “You also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit” (2:22). In Revelation John shows us God’s ultimate building, the New Jerusalem (3:12; 21:2, 10). Thus, it is clear that God’s goal is His building. Today He is on the way, which began from His creation, passes through His redemption, and eventually will reach His building. We came from creation, we are in redemption, and we are going on to building. This is truly wonderful.
We all need to see these three great matters — creation, redemption, and building. Regrettably, however, the subtle one, the old serpent, has used and is still using many things to cover the eyes of God’s people from seeing the matter of God’s building. Many Christians today believe that they are going to a heavenly mansion. They say, “We are saved. God is merciful and gracious to us. Some day we will all go to a heavenly mansion.” This “heavenly mansion” has become a thick veil. This is one layer of the veils that cover many of God’s people. Other Christians do not care for the heavenly mansion. Instead, they seek spirituality. Furthermore, they reject those who are not for spirituality. Eventually, rather than being spiritual, they end up fighting against others. Still other Christians say, “We have seen the matter of holiness. We are the holiness people.” They teach that as a holy people, the sisters should have skirts of a certain length and hair of a certain length. If anyone does not meet their standards, they reject them as not being holy people. Another group of Christians says, “We cannot be spiritual. We cannot be holy. Rather, we are seeking God’s blessing. We need the second blessing.” These four matters — the heavenly mansion, spirituality, holiness, and the so-called second blessing — are four layers of veils that cover the eyes of God’s people. Another veil is the matter of seeking to be scriptural. Some insist that believers must be scriptural in everything. They say that in everything we need a Bible verse as a base. They argue with other believers whom they think are not as scriptural as they are.
Eventually, all these layers of veils lead to fighting. Those who believe in the heavenly mansion fight against those who seek spirituality, those who seek spirituality condemn those who pursue holiness, those who pursue holiness fight against those who emphasize the second blessing, and those who emphasize the second blessing are condemned by those who insist on being scriptural. This is the actual situation today. What shall we do in such a situation? We need to drop the layer of the heavenly mansion. We also need to drop the layer of spirituality, the layer of holiness, the layer of the second blessing, and even the layer of being scriptural. We should not drop the Scriptures, but we need to drop the way of seeking to be scriptural.
We need to have the Scriptures, but we also need to be careful about seeking to be scriptural. Seeking to be scriptural causes much trouble. You may have one interpretation of a verse, and I may have another interpretation of the same verse. You feel that you are scriptural in a certain verse, but I feel that I am more scriptural than you in the same verse. Recently, a book was published criticizing me as being unscriptural. It says that Witness Lee is not scriptural because he tells people that the Son is the Father and that the Lord Jesus is the Spirit. This book claims that this teaching is absolutely against orthodox Christian teaching and against the Bible. The book says that the Son and the Father cannot be one because the Father spoke to the Son (Mark 1:11) and because the Son prayed to the Father (John 17). This argument may seem to be very scriptural, but allow me to point out some other verses. John 14:8-9 says, “Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how is it that you say, Show us the Father?” Furthermore, Isaiah 9:6 says, “A Son is given to us; / ...And His name will be called / ...Eternal Father.” Regarding the Lord Jesus being the Spirit, I would point out 2 Corinthians 3:17, which says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” Thus, those who wrote the book criticizing me feel that their teachings are scriptural, but I can claim that my teachings are even more scriptural. Christians can never be one by trying to be scriptural. Thus, we all need to drop the veil of trying to be scriptural.
It is the subtlety of the enemy to use all these layers of veils, which are seemingly good matters, to prevent God’s people from seeing God’s goal of building. The thought of going to a heavenly mansion is not an evil thought. Nor is there apparently anything wrong with seeking to be spiritual or holy or to have the second blessing. However, the subtle one uses all these matters to frustrate God’s building. As long as Satan can keep us from God’s building, he is happy. He does not care if many are hoping to go to a heavenly mansion, he does not care if we are spiritual or holy or if we experience the so-called second blessing, and he does not care if we are scriptural. However, he is truly frightened if he sees that we are being built together, for he realizes that he cannot prevail against the builded church. The Lord said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18b).
If we seek spirituality every day, Satan will be happy, for under his scheme we will be kept from God’s building. Pursuing holiness also will keep us from God’s building. As long as we are kept from God’s building, regardless of how holy we are, Satan will be happy. Even if we study the Bible day and night, endeavoring to be scriptural, Satan will be happy. He may even strengthen us to be scriptural because the more scriptural we become, the more we will fight with others, and the more we will condemn others. Allow me to illustrate. A new believer may learn that we will all be raptured. As a result, he may begin to investigate the time that we will be raptured. When he feels that he has discovered the time, he may feel that he has become more scriptural. His being scriptural may motivate him to fight against other believers who disagree with his understanding of the time of rapture. Based on his seeking to be scriptural, he may refuse to meet with others whom he feels are not scriptural. He may meet only with others who have the same interpretation of the Scriptures that he has. When he meets with others, their unity will be in their understanding of the time of rapture. After meeting together for a period of time, some in the group may be influenced to have a different understanding of the rapture. This may immediately cause division in the group. As long as others hold a different concept, a believer who seeks to be scriptural may have nothing to do with them. Eventually, he may have nothing to do with any other Christian because he will feel that he is the only one who is truly scriptural.
The situation in Christianity today is that all the believers have been divided by all kinds of concepts, all kinds of understandings of the same Bible. The Bible is one book, but there are thousands of differences in the interpretation of this one book. When any two believers have differing interpretations of the Bible, each will feel that he or she is being scriptural and the other is not. As a result, they will fight against one another and condemn one another. However, the Bible consummates not in any believer’s concept or interpretation but in God’s building.
I speak from experience. When I was a young believer, the time of the rapture was my favorite subject. I was addicted to it. Wherever I went, I liked to talk about this subject. Pursuing this subject caused me to feel that I was scriptural, and it caused me also to be divisive. One day the Lord opened my eyes to see that He does not care for our being scriptural. Rather, the Lord cares for a proper building; He is seeking a proper church life. After I saw what the Lord truly desires, the veil of seeking to be scriptural was peeled from my eyes. Afterward, whenever a believer came to me to discuss this kind of subject, I had no answer. I would only say, “Praise the Lord! You have been saved, and I also have been saved. You have the Lord’s life, and I also have His life. Eventually, you will be in the New Jerusalem, and I also will be there. Hallelujah! You love the Lord, and I love Him too. You and I are truly one. Regardless of the time of rapture, we all will eventually be raptured. We are one.”
At that time a local church was raised up in my town. We began to meet not on the ground of going to heaven, the ground of spirituality, the ground of holiness, the ground of the second blessing, or the ground of being scriptural, but on the ground of the unique oneness of all the saints. When we began to have the Lord’s table, there were eleven brothers, and these eleven brothers held many different concepts. If someone had stirred up our minds with our different concepts, we eleven brothers would have immediately begun to fight. However, by the Lord’s mercy we dropped all our different concepts. Previously, I had strongly advocated baptism by immersion, insisting that we needed to do everything according to the Scriptures. Three or four others did not like this way of baptism. They thought that sprinkling was a more convenient way and that immersing people was too difficult for the sick and the elderly. They also felt that there was no difference between the outward forms of immersion and sprinkling. However, when we began to take the Lord’s table as the local church, we all agreed not to fight. We were only for the oneness. We no longer insisted on baptism by immersion or by sprinkling. Thus, we began to have the Lord’s table in a joyful way. At that time we still held our different concepts, but by the Lord’s mercy we did not insist on anything. In this way we began to have the church life.
We all need to see what the Lord desires. His goal is not a certain method of baptism. He is seeking the proper church life, where His lovers and seekers are one in Him, with Him, and for Him. The proper church life does not depend on any kind of concept or teaching; it is simply in Christ, with Christ, and for Christ. This is what the Lord desires today.
Since the Lord’s recovery came to the United States, many Christian groups have risen up to oppose the recovery. This opposition occurs because in the Lord’s recovery we preach that believers should forget about their practices and their concepts in order to come to the genuine ground of oneness. This is not a small matter. A pastor may have worked hard for many years to establish a denomination based on the teaching of holiness. If such a one hears that those in the Lord’s recovery teach that believers should forget about holiness and come to the unique ground of oneness, he will surely do everything he can to fight against the recovery. This is why the Lord’s recovery is suffering by being attacked from every side.
The Lord’s recovery is being attacked from every side, but it is also prevailing on every side because the truth is with the recovery. No one can claim that holiness is the unique ground of oneness. Holiness may be used by Satan as a divisive factor, but it could never be the uniting factor. Sooner or later many seekers and lovers of the Lord will realize, “I must be for the Lord’s Body. I should not care for spirituality, holiness, or the second blessing.” When their eyes are opened, many will drop their denominations. When they leave their denominations, it will stir up the pastors to fight against the Lord’s recovery. Nevertheless, we declare that we are not here for holiness, spirituality, the second blessing, or being scriptural. Rather, we are here for the genuine oneness on the unique ground of oneness so that the Lord can build us all together.
We need to see what the genuine oneness and the unique ground of oneness are. Before the children of Israel crossed the river Jordan, the Lord showed Moses the good land, and then Moses died according to the Lord’s word (Num. 27:12-14; Deut. 34:1-5). However, before Moses died, he was greatly concerned for the children of Israel. He told them that they had no right to choose the place for their public worship of God. They could worship God privately anywhere, but they had no right to choose the place to come together to worship God corporately. God would choose the unique place among the twelve tribes where He would cause His name to dwell and where He would set up His habitation (12:11-14, 17-18). Regardless of how far from that place any of the children of Israel lived, they all had to go there three times a year for the public worship of God (16:16). They had no right to offer their burnt offerings, their vows, their firstfruits, or any of the things that belonged to God in any other place. They were all required to go to the one unique place chosen by God where God’s name and His habitation were established.
Many Bible readers do not know the significance of this point; they do not know why God commanded His people to worship Him publicly only in the place of His choosing. God commanded this so that His people would be kept in oneness. If the children of Israel had been given the freedom to set up centers of worship wherever they chose, many centers of worship would have been set up not long after they entered into the good land, and they would have been immediately divided. The tribe of Dan might have said, “We are far to the north. It is not convenient for us to go down to Jerusalem to worship. God is omnipresent. If God is with those in Jerusalem, why would God not be here with us in Dan? Let us set up a center of worship here in Dan.” However, God had the foresight and the wisdom to warn them and charge them not to set up other centers of worship but to go to the place He would choose to establish His name and set up His habitation. By doing this, the oneness among them would spontaneously be kept. Based on this charge, even today no Jew dares to build a temple, because the Jews know that God has chosen Mount Moriah as the unique place for His people to build the temple that bears His name and is for His worship (2 Chron. 3:1). They can build synagogues elsewhere, but they dare not build the temple, because there is only one unique ground on which God’s house can be built. Today they are still waiting for that ground to be returned to them.
The unique ground chosen by God in the Old Testament for His people to gather to worship Him is a physical type. We need to see the spiritual interpretation, the spiritual application, of this type. For years it was difficult for us to see this, but by the Lord’s mercy and through much experience, we have seen what today’s Jerusalem is.
The New Testament application of this type is revealed in John 4. One day the Lord Jesus spoke with an immoral Samaritan woman (vv. 4-26). In their conversation she was exposed for having had five husbands and for living with a man who was not her husband. Surely, she was a sinful woman. When her sinfulness was exposed, she turned the subject of conversation from her husbands to the worship of God. She said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (v. 20). The Lord said, “An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (vv. 23-24). By saying, “An hour is coming, and it is now,” He meant that the age had changed. The real Jerusalem today is “in spirit.” Jerusalem is the place where the temple of God is, where God’s dwelling place is. Ephesians 2:22 reveals that God’s dwelling place today is in our spirit.
We all need to realize that today our human spirit is the place chosen by God for us to keep the oneness. Our experience verifies this fact. Whenever we exercise our mind to think about various teachings, we are immediately divided. When we come together, we should not exercise our mind to discuss, muse over, or consider various matters. We need to forget about our mentality and turn to our spirit, where we are all one. We cannot be one in our interpretation of any portion of the Bible, in any doctrine, or in any practice. We can be one only in our human spirit because today our spirit is the place chosen by God for all of us to worship Him.
When we come together, we should not gather in our doctrinal agreement or in certain practices. We should not gather together because we all shout in the meetings, because we all pray-read, or because we all call on the name of the Lord. Rather, we should gather in our spirit. Today our human spirit is the unique place where we can keep the oneness. We need to consider the kind of Christians we are. We are not Baptists or Presbyterians, nor are we pray-readers or callers. Rather, we are Christians who are in spirit (Rev. 1:10). We come together in spirit. Because we are in spirit, we are one. I am not concerned about the length of the sisters’ hair or the length of their skirts. I do not care for whether the sisters wear head coverings. I do not care for any of these things. We do not come together in the matter of head covering. We come together in our spirit.
Some dear new ones among us who are not accustomed to the brothers and sisters shouting Amen! Hallelujah! may wonder, “Amen what? Why so many Amens?” Many years ago some denominations had an Amen corner in their church building. That age is over. Now we have not only an Amen corner but an entire Amen hall. Everyone says Amen. Some new ones may think that this is crazy. They may prefer to be silent. We should not be bothered by the silent ones. They are dear saints; nothing is wrong with their being quiet. We all simply need to come to the spirit. I have the full assurance that by being in the spirit for two weeks, the silent one also will say Amen. I have seen this happen. If a silent brother comes to his spirit and stays in his spirit for two weeks, he will become the loudest one, shouting, “Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I have been liberated from my quiet disposition!” The place where we can be one, typified by Jerusalem, is our spirit. As long as we are in spirit, we are one in the place chosen by God for His dwelling place. God’s dwelling place is simply the human spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16). Therefore, we need to keep the oneness of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3). Oneness is of the Spirit and is kept in our spirit.
You may ask, “Then what about the Bible?” The Bible is simply our food — it is not mainly for our understanding but for our eating. When we come to the Word, we should not care for doctrinal understanding; we should care mainly for eating. We can eat the word by pray-reading any verse. By pray-reading the Word, we will be fed and nourished. We do not need to ask what every verse, phrase, and word in the Bible mean. Regardless of whether we know what every word means, the Bible is good for food. The Lord Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4), and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Your words were found and I ate them” (Jer. 15:16a).
Our oneness is not in our understanding of the Bible but in our spirit. Although another brother and I may have different interpretations of a verse, since we are both saved and love the Lord, we are brothers and should come together in our spirit. The spirit is our place of meeting; it is where the Lord has caused His name to dwell, where His habitation is, where we can be one, and where we can be delivered and rescued from all our different concepts. If we come together to discuss doctrines, we will fight. However, in our spirit we are one. Fighting leads to division, not the oneness of the Spirit. In our spirit we have the oneness of the Spirit. When we are in our spirit, we do not need to try to keep the oneness of the Spirit; rather, we spontaneously have the oneness of the Spirit. When we are in our spirit, we are all one. Oneness is in our spirit.
