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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:12-13, 15-16; 2 Cor. 4:1; 3:8-9; Rom. 5:18b; Jude 3b; Eph. 2:15b; 4:24
We have seen that God’s intention is to give the gifted persons — the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers — to perfect the saints so that all the saints may participate in the work of the building up of the Body of Christ. These gifted persons perfect the saints to be what they are. This is similar to the professors in a teachers’ college who perfect their students to become teachers like they are. A local church may be likened to a teachers’ college, and the gifted persons are like professors teaching different courses. They perfect the saints to be what they are — apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. The gifts’ perfecting of the saints results in a proper local church.
The New Testament tells us that all the believers are priests (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). In order to help us understand the perfecting of the saints, we need to look at the type of the priesthood in the Old Testament. To serve in the priesthood, a priest had to be of age. When a person was twenty-five, he could be an apprentice in the priesthood (Num. 8:24). This apprenticeship lasted for five years until he was thirty years of age (4:3). Then he was considered a full-grown man and was fully qualified to be a priest.
The priests were perfected to do mainly four things. First, they were perfected to offer the sacrifices (Lev. 6:8—7:38). They had to learn how to offer the burnt offering, the meal offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the peace offering, and the other offerings. They had to learn how to work at the altar. The altar typifies the cross. We must help people to offer Christ as their sacrifices at the cross. We may say that offering the offerings equals preaching the gospel.
Second, the priests also had to learn how to enter into the Holy Place to display the bread of the Presence (Lev. 24:5-8; Exo. 25:30). They had to take care of this every day. The bread of the Presence signifies Christ as our life supply. As the New Testament priests, we should learn how to display Christ as the bread of the Presence to all of God’s worshippers. We have to help the saved ones by showing them how to enter into the Holy Place to enjoy Christ as their life supply. That means that we also have to learn how to dispense Christ into people as the life supply.
Third, the priests took care of the lampstand in the Holy Place (Lev. 24:1-4). They trimmed the wicks and filled the lamps with oil to make the lampstand shine brightly. As the New Testament priests, we should do the same thing. We have to learn to be filled with the Spirit as the oil, and we must minister Christ as the divine light with and in the Spirit to the saints. This is to make Christ as the light shine with the Spirit. We have to help the saints to realize and enjoy Christ as their divine light, shining within them with the sevenfold Spirit. To minister such a Christ with the sevenfold Spirit to the saints is to perfect them.
Fourth, the priests had to burn the incense (Exo. 30:6-8). Burning the incense signifies getting into the presence of God and talking to God. We converse with God to enjoy God’s presence, the Triune God Himself. As the New Testament priests, we must learn to fellowship with God in prayer, and we must be able to perfect the saints to do the same thing.
The priesthood perfects the saints to present Christ as the offerings, the sacrifices, at the bronze altar, the cross. It perfects the saints in ministering Christ as the life supply and in displaying Christ as the shining light, as the lampstand with the seven lamps, the sevenfold Spirit. It also perfects the saints to present Christ to God at the golden incense altar as the all-inclusive incense that they may converse with God. The saints need to be perfected to fellowship with God in a conversational way to enjoy His presence, to enjoy the Triune God Himself. We need to be perfected to take care of these four major items of the priesthood, and we must perfect others to do the same thing. The gifted persons need to perfect the saints in these aspects. All the believers need to learn these four things.
The New Testament uses the word priesthood to refer to the priestly office (Heb. 7:12) and to the priestly body, the corporate body of priests (1 Pet. 2:5, 9). The Old Testament priesthood was a corporate body of priests with the high priest as their head. In the New Testament we also are the priesthood in the sense of a priestly body. We are not separate, individual priests serving God. We serve God as priests in a corporate way. We believers are a corporate body of priests with the High Priest, Christ, as our Head. Christ as the Head of the church is the High Priest with all His saints as priests to form a priesthood. The corporate priesthood with Christ as the High Priest bearing all the people of God on His shoulders with strength and on His breast with love in the presence of God is the church life (Exo. 28:9-12, 15, 17, 21, 29-30; Heb. 7:24-26). The entire church is on the breast and on the shoulders of the Head of the priesthood.
Such a church life needs four classes of gifted persons — the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers — to perfect all the saints to do the same thing that they do. Can we see such a scene in today’s church life? By the Lord’s mercy, we may have a little bit of perfecting work among us in each of the four major aspects typified in the priesthood, but we must admit that we are short of the perfected and perfecting priestly services. We do not have the reality of Ephesians 4:11-16 among us in a definite way. In the Lord’s recovery we are short of the services of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. This is why I have the burden to do my best to help all the saints in all the local churches realize where we should go. Ephesians 4:13 uses the phrase until we all arrive. Paul included himself and all the serving apostles and gifted ones in saying that we all have to go on to arrive. Our having to arrive indicates that we are traveling on the way. We need to be like the runners in an Olympic race. We have to strive, to struggle, to run the course until we arrive at the goal. By the Lord’s mercy, He has given us a vision of His desire to build up the Body of Christ. The Lord has brought us into His recovery and put us on the course. We are running this course. We are on the way, and we have a goal. The goal is the full expression of Christ on the earth.
We have seen that there is the need for the gifted persons to perfect all the saints. In this chapter we want to go further to see the saints’ direct building of the Body of Christ. The building up of the Body of Christ is through the gifted persons’ perfecting of the saints. Then the perfected saints do the direct building of the Body of Christ.
The Lord desires all the saints to be perfected (v. 13), but the Bible shows us that the Lord is calling for overcomers. In the seven epistles to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Lord is sounding the trumpet for overcomers. His call for the overcomers indicates that not all the saints will be perfected. Just some of them will be perfected. The ones who are willing to be perfected will be the overcomers. These overcomers will eventually constitute the bride of Christ, and this bride will be the fighting army, following Christ to fight against and defeat Antichrist (19:11-21). According to Revelation 17:14, the army of overcomers who follow the Lamb are “called and chosen and faithful.” The choosing of the Father in eternity past was for salvation, but the choosing in Revelation 17 at the end of this age is for overcoming. Thank God that we have been chosen by Him in eternity for salvation, but now we are under the test to be approved. If we are faithful to follow the New Testament teaching to run the course, to pass the test to be approved, we will be chosen to be the overcomers who constitute the army and the bride of Christ. The army is formed in Revelation 17. These chosen ones constitute a ready-to-fight army. Then these ready-to-fight chosen overcomers will be the bride in Revelation 19 to attend the wedding feast of the Lamb (vv. 7-9). After the marriage feast Antichrist will fight directly against the descending Christ. Christ will fight him with His bride, who is the chosen army.
I am concerned for some of the saints because they are still not willing or ready to be perfected. By the Lord’s mercy and under the covering of His blood, I would ask you as you are reading this book — are you willing and ready to be perfected? If you are not willing and ready, you will make yourself a dropout. The door is open for everyone to be perfected. I hope that we all would have a hearing ear to hear the calling of the Lord. Everyone who is contented with the present situation of the church life is not ready to be perfected, to go on with the Lord. This means that they are in the risky situation of becoming a dropout. In these days I believe that the Lord has given me a vision with a burden for His churches, His recovery. Our present situation is not something with which we should be contented. We should feel sorry for our present situation. The recovery has been in the United States for over twenty-five years. During this period of time, we may have heard many messages, yet our situation is not up to a level with which we can be satisfied. We have to realize that we are far off from the goal. We need to say, “Lord, I am ready and willing to be perfected by You. I will take the perfecting word through Your gifted persons.”
All the members of the Body of Christ are parts of the one organism. What a privilege, what a mercy, and what an all-sufficient grace that we are now in the one organism of the Triune God! As living members of this organism, we need the organic perfecting. We need to be perfected to do what the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers do. We have to be perfected so that the entire Body of Christ functions in the same way that the gifted members do.
There is much hope that we can be perfected to do what the gifted members do. In a local church some can do the apostles’ work to preach the gospel, teach the truth, establish churches, and appoint elders. The Lord needs many apostles, not just one or two. God’s intention is to perfect every saint to do what the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers do. Some saints will do the apostles’ work. Some will be perfected to do the prophets’ work to speak God, speak for God, and speak forth God, ministering Christ to all the people. They will be perfected not merely to give a testimony but to give a living word of revelation. Some of the saints who were not evangelists may be perfected to be evangelists. They will be those who are on fire and burdened for the preaching of the gospel. They will have the ability and the knowledge to talk to people about sin, the fall of man, the love of God, the person of Christ, redemption, forgiveness, and regeneration. Then there will be no need for the saints to bring their unbelieving contacts to a gifted person, because the saints will have been perfected to do the work of an evangelist. Some of the saints also need to be perfected to shepherd. Today very few of the ones whom we baptize are under the proper care because of a lack of shepherding. This is why we lose many of the ones whom we baptize. But if the saints are perfected to be shepherds, every baptized one will have a nursing mother (1 Thes. 2:7). Immediately after the new ones are baptized, the saints will pick up the burden to care for them. They will care for the new ones as they would care for newborn babes, nourishing and cherishing them.
The saints in a local church must be perfected to do the same work that the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers do. Because the situation is not like this today, we have to strive and to struggle by fighting. There are many resistances that we have to fight through. We all should pray, “Lord, make me willing and ready to be perfected. I will receive the perfection from the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. I am not content with my present situation.” This is my intimate fellowship with you all. I hope that you are willing to accept my fellowship.
The saints are perfected by the perfecting gifts with the life supply as the nourishment for the growth in life. Proper mothers feed their babes nourishing food. We have to perfect the saints with some solid food supply that they may be nourished. This food supply actually is the life supply. Christ Himself is not only our life but also our life supply. We have to learn how to minister Christ as life to sinners and then as life supply to the saved ones. We have to help the saints by feeding them with some solid food. I have been learning throughout the years not merely to teach people but to feed people.
The Lord brought me into His ministry in 1932. In 1943 the Lord exercised His sovereignty to put me through many trials. The Lord allowed me to be arrested by the invading Japanese army. I was in their prison for about one month. Twice a day they judged me, tested me, and examined me. Each session lasted about three hours. During these sessions, among other things, they poured water upon me and threatened me. This took place for over twenty days. That was a real suffering, but in that suffering I learned how to trust in the Lord and how to enjoy His presence. One day I was alone in the prison, and I said, “Lord, You know that I am here just for You.” The Lord’s presence was so real that I felt He was standing in front of me. I wept before the Lord. What an enjoyment that was! I enjoyed the Lord’s presence in prison in a practical, real, and actual way. I also enjoyed the Lord’s wisdom. Many times when I was being tested by my captors, the Lord gave instant answers to my prayers. If I had given the wrong answer without wisdom, I could have been executed by the Japanese army. While I was being asked a question, I asked the Lord to either stop the person’s questioning or give me the wisdom to answer. The Lord answered my prayers instantly to give me the appropriate answers.
After I was released from prison, I contracted tuberculosis, and the doctors prescribed absolute bed rest for me. I was in bed for twelve months. My family also suffered extreme poverty during the war. They had to spare every cent to care for me in my illness. By the Lord’s mercy, I recovered from this serious illness. During this period of recovery, the Lord showed me that my ministry in the previous ten or eleven years had been mostly in teaching based upon the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord assured me that I was not through with His recovery yet, that He would heal me. The Lord charged me to learn to minister life after coming out of this illness, this test. He charged me not to teach people according to what is right or wrong, yes or no, good or evil. I was charged not to minister anything related to the tree of knowledge but only to minister things based upon and concerning the tree of life. The Lord showed me from the Gospel of John that what He did on this earth was always according to the principle of life. People brought questions to Him concerning good and evil, right and wrong, and yes and no. His answers always brought them to Himself as the tree of life. I gave a message on this subject in Berkeley, California, entitled “Not Good or Evil but Life” (see chapter 2 of the book Our Urgent Need — Spirit and Life).
In 1942 there was a big turmoil in the church in Shanghai, and Brother Nee was forced to stop his ministry. I became sick in 1943, and I learned the lesson of the tree of life in the two and a half years that it took me to recover from my illness. In 1946, after recuperating, I went to Shanghai. My ministry in Shanghai was altogether focused on the tree of life. A number of the saints in Shanghai came to ask me who was right and who was wrong. Instead of answering yes or no, I referred them to the way that the Lord Jesus lived and acted in the Gospel of John. In John 8 the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery to the Lord. They asked the Lord, “Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do You say?” (v. 5). The Lord Jesus did not answer yes or no, according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He said, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (v. 7). He answered in a way that exposed man’s real condition in the eyes of God according to the divine light.
We must learn to perfect the saints but not as a Bible teacher. Bible teaching has been going on for centuries with very few of the Lord’s children being perfected. What is needed today is the nourishment of Christ. Do not tell people what is right and what is wrong. Even if something is right, that does not mean anything in the sight of God. Only life means something. Only life counts. Let us all learn to perfect the saints not by something but with something. We need to perfect the saints with the solid life supply, the very Christ whom we enjoy. Only this nourishes the saints to perfect them.
Ephesians 4:12 says that the gifted persons are “for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.” According to the grammatical construction, the work of the ministry is the building up of the Body of Christ. The perfecting is unto the work of the ministry, which is the building up of the Body of Christ. The word unto in Greek in Ephesians 4:12 means “in view of,” “for the purpose of,” “resulting in,” “issuing in.” The perfecting of the saints is in view of the work of the ministry, which is the unique ministry in the New Testament. Thousands of believers may be doing a work of a thousand parts, but every part should be for the unique work of the unique ministry to build up the Body of Christ. Paul referred to the building up of the Body of Christ, not to the building up of the church. Paul’s stress was not on the building up of the church as a congregation but on the building up of the Body as an organism. The saints are perfected unto the work of the ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ as an organism. The New Testament ministry builds up an organism, not an organization.
The British Brethren who were raised up in the early part of the nineteenth century were greatly used by the Lord. In his book The Orthodoxy of the Church, Brother Nee considered that at one time, the Brethren were the fulfillment of the church in Philadelphia, but they became degraded to become what is prefigured by the church in Laodicea. In 1931 the Brethren sent eight representatives to visit us in China. Brother Nee told them that they would be welcome, but he asked them to please not bring with them anything of what they represented. When they came to visit us, however, they caused much trouble among us. After their visit to us, they invited Brother Nee to visit them, so Brother Nee went in 1933. He traveled to France, England, Canada, and the United States to attend the meetings of the Brethren. He returned and told us of the confusion among them. He came back to tell us that we could not go along with the Brethren absolutely. He found out that they could have several churches, or assemblies, in one city. They did not see that in one city, regardless of how big that city is, there should be only one church, one local expression of the Body of Christ (Acts 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:11).
Darby advised all the leading ones of the so-called churches in a certain city to come together once a month. G. H. Lang in his book The Churches of God condemned what Darby did, saying that Darby was trying to make the churches a federation. Lang said that each local church should be autonomous. The concepts of their assemblies, either being unified together into a federation or being separately and independently autonomous, destroyed the entire testimony that the Lord raised up among the Brethren. Today the Brethren are divided into many divisions. They have been divided over things such as whether to have a piano or an organ in their meetings. The group that favored using a piano decided to start another assembly on another street in the same city. This was an actual case. The divisions among them are mainly due to the teaching of autonomy.
The terms federation and autonomy may be used in the field of politics or government. On the one hand, the states of the United States are autonomous with their state governments, but on the other hand, they are a federation of states under the federal government. The terms federation and autonomy are organizational terms in the political circle. They should not be brought into the realm of the church, because the church is not an organization but an organism, the Body of Christ, with one life. The members of my physical body are not independently autonomous, having nothing to do with the other members. There is only one circulation of blood in our physical body, and the members are all organically related to one another. In like manner, all the members of the Body of Christ, the organism of the Triune God, enjoy the same life and are organically related to one another. This one organism comprises all the saints, past and present, and it comprises all the local churches. All the local churches are one Body. How can we say that the local churches are separate and autonomous, since they are one Body?
When we visit another local church, we should not consider ourselves as guests. Wherever we go, we should consider ourselves as members of the Body. For practical matters of hospitality, we may refer to hosts and guests, but in the meetings of the church there are no guests, only members of the Body of Christ. We are the members of the unique, universal Body of Christ. If we go to a place where there is an expression of this Body, we are members of that expression. Suppose a brother from the church in New York is visiting the church in Taipei. Should he have the attitude that because he is a member of the church in New York, he is not a member of the church in Taipei? Would it be right to say that the church in New York and the church in Taipei have nothing to do with one another because they are separate autonomies? This is impossible, and it is not practical. The churches are one Body. In his book The Churches of God, G. H. Lang quotes someone who says that each local church is a Body of Christ. If this were true, the Lord Jesus would have thousands of bodies. This concept is terrible! There is one Body of Christ in the universe, and we are members of this Body. All the saints in the local churches should be one with one another. The Lord prayed for us in John 17 that we would be one.
All the local churches should be one, but this does not mean that they should be unified or federated. We do not agree with any federation. We are not one organizationally. We are one organically because we have the same one life of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. The Body of Christ is organic, full of life. We are one in this divine life regardless of where we go. If we go to Japan and meet with the saints there, we are one with them because we are members of the unique, universal Body of Christ.
All the members of the Body of Christ who do the work of the ministry participate in the unique ministry of God’s New Testament economy (2 Cor. 4:1; 3:8-9). This unique ministry is the ministry of the Spirit, who gives life (v. 8). The unique ministry of the Old Testament was the ministry of death because that was the ministry of the law, which condemns and kills us (vv. 7a, 9a). But the unique ministry of the New Testament is altogether a life-giving, organic ministry. This ministry is the ministry of righteousness, which brings in justification unto life (v. 9; Rom. 5:18b). The ministry of the law was the ministry of condemnation unto death, but the ministry of the faith, the New Testament, is the ministry of justification unto life, so it is altogether organic. The work of the ministry to build up the Body of Christ is directly by the perfected saints in the growth in life (Eph. 4:15-16). The saints grow up by being nourished, and this growing up is the building up.
The saints are perfected unto the work of the ministry, the building up of the Body of Christ, until we (the gifted persons and the saints) all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The building up of the Body is a continuous matter. We are under the process of building, and we are on the way of building until we arrive at the practical oneness.
We need to arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God. The faith refers to the full redemptive work of Christ as the object of our believing (Jude 3b). The Old Testament ministry was a ministry of the law, whereas the New Testament ministry is the ministry of the faith. The law was the very center of all the teachings in the Old Testament. When the New Testament came, the faith replaced the law. The entire teaching of the New Testament is centered on the faith. Galatians 3 tells us that the law was there in the Old Testament but that faith came (vv. 23-25). Now we are not under the law but in the faith. As the law is the center and reality of the Old Testament, so the faith is the center and reality of the New Testament.
The faith implies the entire teaching of the New Testament. The New Testament record is a record of the full redemptive work of Christ. The New Testament begins with the incarnation of Christ and continues with His death, resurrection, and second coming. His death and resurrection with His second coming issue in the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate consummation of the church. We believe in Christ’s full redemptive work that is recorded in the entire New Testament. This full redemptive work is of Christ as a person.
We need to arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, which is the full knowledge of the person of Christ. The person of Christ is so marvelous and all-inclusive. This person is the embodiment of the Triune God and the perfect, transformed, tripartite man. He is also the processed Triune God as the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving, sevenfold, indwelling Spirit. He is the reality of every positive thing in the universe. We need to know in full the all-inclusive person of Christ.
When we arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of this all-inclusive person, we will not care for minor things. In Romans 14 Paul was very general in his attitude toward doctrinal matters that did not concern the faith or Christ’s all-inclusive person. Things such as whether to observe the Sabbath and whether to eat meat or vegetables did not matter to Paul. As long as a person believed in Christ, Paul recognized him as a brother in Christ and received him. When I was a young Christian, I was so much for the truth of baptism by immersion that it affected the way I received the believers. If a believer was sprinkled instead of being immersed, I did not care that much for him. Baptism by immersion was my first “Christian toy.” Children like to play with toys. Some Christians receive other believers on the basis of what they believe concerning the Lord’s second coming and the rapture. They will not receive those who have a different view than they do regarding the rapture. This is another “toy” that Christians like. Humanly speaking, an older person does not like to play with toys. Only children like to play with toys. If we are still playing with minor doctrinal matters and practices other than the faith and the person of Christ, this is a strong sign that we are still little children. A grown-up person does not care for minor things. He only cares for the marvelous, full redemptive work of Christ and the all-inclusive person of Christ.
We have to learn the aspects of Christ’s person in His death on the cross and the things that He terminated and took away on the cross. We have to know Christ as the very embodiment of the processed Triune God, the complete God and the perfect, tripartite man. We also have to know how this wonderful One is being dispensed into His chosen and redeemed people for their full salvation and for His glorious expression. His chosen and redeemed ones are regenerated, they are being transformed, and eventually they will be glorified. Matters such as these should occupy us and be the subjects of our talk at home and with the saints. Anything other than these things are toys that divide us.
Ephesians 4:13 tells us that we need to arrive at a full-grown and mature man. All of us need to grow up to reach this state. This full-grown and mature man is the church as the new man (2:15b; 4:24). We are growing up in full measure through the direct building of all the saints perfected in the growth of life by the gifts. This means that each member’s growth is a part of the building. The growth of all the saints equals the building up of the Body.
Ephesians 4:13 also says that we need to arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The measure is the size, and this measure is of the stature. The stature is of the fullness of Christ. The fullness of Christ is the very expression of the Triune God, which is the Body of Christ (1:23). This Body has a stature, and the stature has a measure. We can arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ by the growth in life.
