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Scripture Reading: Rom. 15:16; 12:1-2; Col. 1:28-29; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Luke 10:1-6; John 15:16
In these messages we will specifically consider the church life in the Lord’s recovery today. The church life mainly involves worshipping God, meeting, preaching the gospel, serving God, and working for the Lord. The entire New Testament does not present these matters in sequence in a systematic way. Rather, the New Testament record is according to the spiritual need; that is, it takes the spiritual need as the center, revealing a certain matter when it speaks of the spiritual need for that particular matter. Therefore, when the New Testament speaks of spiritual matters such as how to meet and how to serve God, it brings out their practical aspects but does not clearly point out their details all at once. For example, when Paul uses the term priest of the gospel of God in Romans 15:16, he does not specifically elucidate it; rather, he merely brings it up in passing in connection with the spiritual situation. Because of this, many have read the Bible throughout the centuries, but not many have seen the significance of the term priest of the gospel of God. There are many other similar cases in which the Bible mentions a certain matter without giving a particular explanation for it. Hence, when we come to explore these matters, we need to take the view of the entire Bible. Unless we take this view, when we come to the matter of how to serve God in preaching the gospel, we may never realize that we who preach the gospel are all priests of the gospel of God.
Because the record in the New Testament is often spiritual, it is difficult for us to be clear concerning the way to practice certain matters. This is not to say that the presentation in the New Testament lacks clarity; it is to say that it is not easy to discover in the New Testament the way to practice certain matters. Therefore, throughout the centuries those who love the Lord and desire to serve God have encountered problems when studying the Bible. This is one reason why the way to practice the church life has stirred up many arguments and debates among Christians in the past nineteen hundred years and has even led to divisions. This is very regrettable.
Because not everyone has received sufficient light from the New Testament, some unscriptural practices have been brought into the church life. For example, there are many different practices of baptism. Because no plain regulations are given in the New Testament concerning this matter, there have been endless arguments throughout the centuries concerning how to baptize people and how many times to baptize them. Because there were so many arguments, many became confused, and consequently, some unscriptural practices were gradually brought in. Such situations happened again and again, especially in the degradation of the church. The only way to understand the Bible is to trust in the Holy Spirit. However, due to the church’s degradation, the degree of relying on the Holy Spirit was greatly reduced; thus, many practices that are not found in the Scriptures were brought in.
The matter of the eldership is another example. In the New Testament elder and overseer are synonymous terms referring to the same person (Acts 20:17, 28). However, in the second century a teacher by the name of Ignatius introduced an erroneous teaching, saying that an overseer is higher than an elder. He then appointed overseers as bishops over a district to rule over the elders of the different places within that district. This extreme error resulted in the formation of a hierarchy. This teaching is also the source of the episcopal system of ecclesiastical government. Later, after gradual development, there were not only the bishops who governed a district but also the archbishops who mostly governed a country. Then, on a higher level, there were the cardinals who surround the pope to rule over the Catholic Church on the whole earth. They are the “cabinet members” of the pope, and if the pope dies, they elect a new pope from among themselves. The pope, of course, is the highest bishop. Besides the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church is also governed by the episcopal system. Although the presbytery system of the Presbyterian Church is not as strict, the principle is the same with them.
Despite the church’s degraded condition, there have been a few since the second and third centuries who have loved the Lord with a pure heart and who have recovered the Lord’s truths. Such a recovery has been gradual and has been continuing throughout the past centuries. The most evident example occurred in the 1500s when Martin Luther recovered the truth concerning salvation through justification by faith. Then in the 1600s the Lord raised up a group of people in the Catholic Church who particularly pursued the matter of life; they were the “mystics” who stressed the inner life. After another century, in the 1700s, the Lord raised up Zinzendorf, who recovered the oneness in the church life and thereby ushered in a tremendous blessing. In the 1800s the Brethren in England were raised up; they brought in a much clearer and deeper recovery of the church life. However, the good condition among them did not last long, and they faded away at the end of the last century.
In the beginning of this century, after 1920, the Lord’s recovery turned from Europe and America to the Far East. Church history tells us that when God could not find virgin soil for the church life, He came to the pagan land of China to raise up the church. In the beginning we mostly adopted the ways of the Brethren in our practice, but later we found that in many aspects of the truth they had not entered into the depths of the spiritual significance of the Bible. Brother Watchman Nee, who was the most advanced and who had the most revelation among us, saw many new things from the Bible, and he put what he had seen into the book The Normal Christian Church Life. From then on he saw new things again and again. Every time he saw something new, that became a turn to him. At first, he practiced a certain way, but after he saw something new, he would make a turn, a change. Then after another few years he would change again. Because of this people could not understand him, and some even condemned him. However, concerning this matter, Brother Nee’s reply was that we are in the Lord’s recovery, and the Lord’s recovery is gradually advancing. Every time there is an advance, spontaneously there will be a turn. If we never make a turn or a change in a certain matter from the beginning to the end, it proves that we have probably fallen from the Lord’s way in that matter.
This is the mistake made by the denominations in Christianity. Those in the Baptist denomination saw the truth concerning baptism and stopped there. Until this day they have not advanced, nor do they want to have any change. Yet after them, the Lord still had something more to recover. Then the Presbyterian denomination appeared when there were some who saw the truth concerning the administration of the church by the elders, the presbytery. They were right, but they remained there and were not willing to make any further turns. All the denominations are in this condition. Finally, the Brethren also had the same weakness. Because of this Brother Nee was in fear and trembling before the Lord about this matter. He was afraid that we would be the same, that we would be content with seeing a small aspect of the truth and not be willing to receive more light, supposing that if we made a change that was not in accordance to what we had seen originally, then our new discovery was not the truth. Of course, the truth in the Bible can never change, but how the saints and the church follow the Lord’s truth, and to what extent they follow, changes depending on the amount of light they have seen concerning the truth. The more truths we see and the more light we discover, the more we will make a turn and will advance.
By 1984 we in the Lord’s recovery definitely saw His blessing; eight to nine hundred churches had been raised up on the whole earth, spreading the Lord’s recovery over the six continents. In spite of this there were two conditions, two big shortcomings, among us. One condition was that our inner life was not sufficiently strong, living, or fresh, showing that we were in a half-dormant state. The churches both in the West and the East in general were in this same condition. At that time I mostly stayed in the United States, where there were approximately one hundred churches, but the spiritual condition there was not high. As for the East I have had a deep relationship particularly with Taiwan, and I was very familiar with the condition of the churches there. Their condition was about the same as that of the churches in the West in that they also were not high enough. This was the inward aspect.
Another condition, the outward aspect, was the slow increase of the number of believers. Because of the literature work in the Lord’s recovery, churches had been raised up in the six continents. The number of churches had increased, but the number of believers had not increased much. In those fifteen years the annual rate of increase of the believers in the churches in the United States was only two to three percent. In general, this was the condition of the churches in both the East and the West — the rate of increase of believers was very low. This matter was irrefutable evidence indicating that we had a problem, which I gradually began to detect. Not only did we detect this problem, but the large denominations also discovered that they had the same problem. In the past few decades the increase of the number of believers has been declining. Although our numbers did not decrease and even slightly increased, the rate of increase was neither high nor fast enough.
Since October 1984 we have spent much time to delve into this problem. Today I can testify to all the brothers and sisters that within these four to five years the Lord has definitely shown us many precious revelations. These revelations mainly comprise four major items, all of which we had not seen so clearly, or perhaps not seen at all, prior to 1984.
The first item is that we are priests of the gospel. We know that the believers should all preach the gospel, and we may say that the brothers and sisters in every place have endeavored to preach the gospel. We cannot deny, however, that our gospel preaching has not been so powerful, and the results have been unsatisfactory to us. Very few of the saved and baptized ones have remained after the gospel preaching. Many churches among us began with only ten to twenty people; after several years they increased to about seventy to eighty people and then gradually to one hundred. Once the number in a church exceeded one hundred, the rate of increase became very low. For the following few years the number would constantly remain one hundred plus a few dozen. We zealously preached the gospel, yet we did not investigate thoroughly to see why the results of our gospel preaching were not ideal and why not many people remained after we had baptized them. Instead of investigating the reasons for our being in such a condition, we simply continued to preach the gospel in a routine way.
At the present time, after spending four to five years to study this problem, we have come to the conclusion that in the past we did not see that the preaching of the gospel is a work of the priests of the gospel. In the past our concept and our feeling were merely that since we are believers, we should love the Lord and lead others to salvation. Over time this kind of concept or feeling did not increase our sense for gospel preaching, nor did it develop our spiritual faculties for us to minister as the New Testament priests of the gospel. Although we preached the gospel, we did not have the sense that we are priests of the gospel. A priest is one who specifically takes care of the matters pertaining to the service of God. For example, in the meetings we have the piano service, which we may speak of as the “priestly service of piano playing,” and those who serve in piano playing may be called the “piano-playing priests.” In Chinese the service to God is called “the priestly service of sacrifice,” and those who serve are called “the sacrificing priests.” Since we, the New Testament believers, are the priests of the gospel, we are exclusively in charge of the preaching of the gospel. It is not that when we are happy, we preach a little, and when we are not happy, we do not preach at all. Whether or not we are happy, preaching the gospel is our duty, our exclusive responsibility.
The revelation of the priests begins in the Old Testament. The entire Bible deals with the service rendered by God’s people to Him. God’s intention is that all His people would serve Him as priests. For this reason, in the Old Testament, God ordained that His elect, the Israelites, would all be priests so that they could be a kingdom of priests (Exo. 19:6). Later, however, the children of Israel failed when they committed a great sin by worshipping the golden calf; consequently, they lost their priesthood. Thus, God had no alternative but to choose the house of Aaron as priests to bear the responsibility of the priesthood and to choose the Levites as the ones to serve with them.
At the beginning of the New Testament we first see John the Baptist, who may be considered the last of the Old Testament priests. He was born into a priestly family, and his father, Zachariah, was not only a priest but also the leading priest of a priestly order. John was the only begotten son given to his father by God through the work of grace. After he grew up, he should have, according to the regulations, dwelt in the temple, eaten the priestly food, worn the priestly garments, and carried out the priestly work of offering bulls and goats as sacrifices. But he completely abandoned all these things and went into the wilderness, a place that was far away from the religious regulations and the background of civilization. He lived in the wilderness, ate locusts and wild honey, and wore a garment of camel’s hair. Furthermore, it seems that the work he did was also something “wild”; he preached, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near” (Matt. 3:1-4), and then he put the repenting and confessing ones into the water.
What John the Baptist did indicates a basic turn and change from the service of God in the Old Testament to that of the New Testament. In the Old Testament there was a system for the service of God, including the great, holy temple with its magnificence and splendor; the perfect, sacrificial regulations; and the dignified, orderly priesthood. At the end of the Old Testament, by gaining John, the only son of Zachariah, who was a leading priest, God repudiated the Old Testament service and initiated a new beginning. John rejected being a priest of the Old Testament, and he turned and became the first priest of the gospel in the New Testament. The priests in the Old Testament offered bulls and goats as the primary sacrifices, which were physical, but the New Testament priests offer sinners, who have repented by believing the gospel, as spiritual sacrifices. In God’s eyes every repenting and believing sinner is a spiritual sacrifice offered to God.
In his Epistle Peter says that we, the New Testament believers, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God (1 Pet. 2:5). Becoming a New Testament priest who offers up spiritual sacrifices to God is the result of preaching the gospel. Hence, Peter goes on to say that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, so that we may tell out the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (v. 9). This is to announce the salvation of God through the gospel that people may be saved to become spiritual sacrifices offered to God.
When the Lord Jesus came out to minister after John, He did the same as John did, preaching the gospel of God everywhere and saving sinners to offer as sacrifices to God. He did not only do this Himself, but He also sent out His disciples to do the same thing. After the church appeared on the earth on the day of Pentecost, the disciples did this even more. Among them there was an apostle who can be considered as a pattern in this matter, Paul the evangelist. He went all over the Gentile world to preach the gospel and save sinners, bringing them back to God. In Romans 15:16 he tells us that, as a priest of the gospel of God, he offered to God as sacrifices the Gentile sinners saved through him. This was the beginning of the work of Paul as a priest of the gospel. After this he nourished them that they might grow in life and present themselves as living sacrifices to God. This is what we see in Romans 12:1, which is the second step of the work of a priest of the gospel. However, Paul did not stop here. In Colossians 1:28 he says that he admonished every man and taught every man in all wisdom that he might present every man full-grown in Christ. This is also the perfecting of the saints, which he speaks of in Ephesians 4:12. The saved believers not only grow in life, but they are also perfected in every way in Christ unto maturity that they may directly do the work of the building up of the Body of Christ. This is the third step of the work of the apostle Paul as a priest of the gospel. Not only so, but in 1 Corinthians 14 he encourages those who served God to desire earnestly that they may prophesy. To prophesy is to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, and to speak the Lord into people for the purpose of ministering and dispensing Christ into them that they may be nourished and built up. This is the fourth step, which is also the highest step, of the work of a priest of the gospel.
The work of the priests of the gospel begins with the preaching of the gospel to save sinners and continues on with bringing them to grow in life, perfecting them, and enabling them to speak for the Lord. It is only when we arrive at the final stage that we can say that the work is complete. At this stage all the saints can do what the gifted ones, such as the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers, do for the building up of the Body of Christ. This is the proper service of the New Testament believers. When the believers serve in this way, they serve as the New Testament priests of the gospel. Hence, the work of the priests of the gospel is very extensive, from leading people to salvation to nourishing and perfecting them until they are able to prophesy for the Lord that others may receive the life supply and the dispensing of Christ. As a result every one of the saints can build up the Body of Christ. At the same time the New Testament priests are a priesthood, in which all believers should and can participate. In 1 Corinthians 14:31 Paul says, “You can all prophesy one by one.” If a saved one has become a New Testament believer but still cannot prophesy, this shows that he has not been completely perfected in the work of the New Testament priests of the gospel and that he still has a lack. Since we are New Testament believers, we need to be perfected to such an extent that we can prophesy for the Lord to release the riches of Christ and minister Christ to others for the building up of the Body of Christ.
What we have spoken here is a great matter that we have seen in the last four to five years. This clearly tells us that every New Testament believer must take the responsibility to do the specialized work of the priests of the gospel. For this reason, dear brothers and sisters, my main burden here is to show you that, since you love and seek the Lord, you must do the first step of the work of a priest of the gospel. Instead of others doing it for you, you need to carry it out personally by preaching the gospel to save sinners and offer them to God as sacrifices. This is also what the Lord Jesus said in John 15 as the branches of Him who is the vine, we must bear fruit to glorify the Father. Since we are branches, we must bear fruit. No branch can bear fruit for other branches. Fruit-bearing is not something that others can help us with by doing it for us. Today as the priests of the gospel, we cannot be substituted; we ourselves, personally, need to preach the gospel and lead people to salvation. For this reason, in the church those who are gifted in gospel preaching not only should go forth to preach the gospel but also should spend time to perfect other saints so that they also may be able to preach the gospel as the gifted ones do. Every one of us must learn how to preach the gospel to save sinners, bearing fruit of the gospel as sacrifices to be offered to God. I believe that if we all are willing to receive this light, there will be no lack in the Lord’s recovery in the matter of preaching the gospel to save sinners. Furthermore, the number of believers among us will increase considerably. May the Lord grant us His visitation in this matter.
