Search
Scripture Reading: Col. 1:25-27; 2:2, 9; Rom. 9:5; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 8:9-11; Eph. 3:14-19; 2 Cor. 13:14
Before we continue with the central vision of the apostle Paul’s completing ministry, I would like to tell you some of my history in the hope that you will see my gradual realization of the importance of this vision.
I was born into organized Christianity. After I grew up, I got saved. It was a marvelous conversion. I began to seek the Lord. I loved the Bible. Then I was attracted to the Brethren assembly. It was their familiarity with the Bible that drew me. I stayed with them for seven and a half years. I learned their teachings on prophecy from Daniel, Matthew, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation.
We were also taught about the Old Testament types and their fulfillment in the New. Furthermore, we were repeatedly charged not to do anything that was not scriptural. We must not celebrate Christmas or birthdays; both were unscriptural. Again and again we heard that this was scriptural and that that was not scriptural.
Never did I hear a word concerning God’s operating in us. Their Bible seemed not to contain Philippians 2:13: “It is God who operates in you.” Hebrews 13:21 was also missing: that the God of peace is “doing in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.” In the famous Brethren teaching nothing was ever said about God in us, about Christ’s indwelling us, or about the indwelling Spirit. Occasionally there would be mention of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
I recount this background to you so that you can see how the Lord has gradually shown many things to us. I received much help throughout the years from Brother Nee. Then for these past thirty years or so I have been abroad. The vision I see today is far clearer than it was thirty years ago.
Nonetheless, however much light we have received, we must all admit that our daily practical life is still around those eleven “off” concepts that we covered in the previous chapter.
Those concepts are like circles, closing us in and limiting us. It is not bad to think about God. Surely there is nothing wrong with worshipping our Creator and trying to please and even glorify Him. Man’s ethical concepts also seem commendable. Within man there is a God-created good nature. Of course, it was corrupted, but that good element is still in us. On the one hand, we are accustomed to sinning; on the other, we have an intention to do good. These moral inclinations are our ethical concepts. We may, for instance, get angry and quarrel with a member of the family. Later, however, when we are quiet, we are sorry about it and remind ourselves that we must love our family. We may not even quarrel. Under our parents’ discipline we have learned not to fight; thus, the annoyance remains inside us. At the breakfast table we may be exasperated with our younger sister. By midmorning, however, the thought comes, “Oh, I must love my sister; she is younger than I.” Then we pray, “Lord, help me to love my sister from now on.” Later, perhaps while we are at the dining table in the evening, again something comes up, and again the feeling of annoyance comes. Then, perhaps in the meeting that night, we hear something in a message, and the thought returns, “Oh, I must love my sister; Lord, help me to love her.” Is not this the story of all of us? It illustrates our ethical behavior.
Then there are our religious, devotional concepts. We want to be pious or holy or spiritual. These are some of the concepts we hold.
We may want to have everything according to the Scriptures. As fundamental Christians, we take the Bible as our guideline. Being scriptural is another concept.
There are also the concepts of wanting to have power and of being able to perform the miraculous. How easy it is to be impressed when we hear of some miraculous happening!
To serve God is another widely held concept. Some thirty or forty years ago many young American Christians devoted themselves to mission work. To be a missionary on the foreign field was considered the highest career.
Do you believe that you are out of these concepts? Day by day all of us, including myself, still travel in all these places. We try to have a good meeting, to stir up the saints to function; this is the concept of having a good meeting. We want to build up the service groups, to get the hall cleaned, the lawn mowed; this is the concept of Saturday morning service. I know the elders might not be happy to hear this; they think I am undoing the church service!
Many times I have confessed, “Lord, I have been good to this one or to that one, but without You.” We may be devotional, but apart from the Lord. We may faithfully participate in the church service, but with very little of Him. We are His container; as such, we should take Him as our contents. We should not act in an empty way. As His vessels, we should be filled with Him. Whatever we do must be an expression of Him.
To do good things for others apart from the Lord is to be in the circles of our natural concepts. There is yet another circle, separate and distinct from these, which we will call “God in you.” It is not a concept; it is having God in us as our contents. This was the subject of our previous chapter. For this chapter we will consider Christ as the mystery of God. Then the final chapter of this series will be on the church as the mystery of Christ.
As I have been preparing these messages, my heart has been aching. How much do the saints in the recovery have of God as their contents, of Christ as the mystery of God, and of the church as the mystery of Christ? Not very much. In Christianity these points have been much neglected.
If the fourteen Epistles of Paul were removed from the Bible, there would be a great lack. Even if we leave them in, yet remove from them these three points — God as our contents, Christ as God’s mystery, and the church as Christ’s mystery — Paul’s writings would be simply an empty shell.
Nonetheless, dear saints, these are the very points we have missed or neglected. In our daily life, how much attention do we pay to God as our contents? It is not a matter of whether we are defeated or victorious, whether we are common or holy, or whether we celebrate birthdays or not. The question is, Is God our contents? I do not celebrate my grandchildren’s birthdays; that saves us work, money, and effort, but these are not the issue; the question is, Where is God? Is He our contents? Sometimes the thought has come to me to buy a present for one of my grandchildren. I would like to reward him for being such a good student and getting top honors. I have not done this, however, because God was not there. God is in me, but when I was considering buying my grandson a present, He became absent. I had a sense of His moving in me but in a way of absenting Himself. There was no still small voice telling me not to do that; only God’s moving indicated that He was unhappy. Whatever we do, God must be our contents.
In the whole Old Testament there is no mention that God would be in His chosen people as their contents. The highest charge was that given to Abraham, when God said, “I am the All-sufficient God; / Walk before Me, and be perfect” (Gen. 17:1). The highest possibility was for Abraham to walk before God, to be in God’s presence. Abraham even had God pay him a visit in Genesis 18. God stayed with him for part of a day and even ate what Abraham prepared for Him. Have you realized, however, that God did not dwell in Abraham? He did not even dwell in Abraham’s tent. The best Abraham could enjoy was a temporary visit. Then God departed. Enoch “walked with God” (5:24), but God did not make His home in him.
When we come to the New Testament, however, there is no such term as walking with God. It says instead, “Walk...according to the spirit” (Rom. 8:4). The spirit in Romans 8 is a mingled person, God mingled with us. God as the Spirit is mingled with our spirit. It is according to this spirit that we must walk. Romans 8 tells us clearly that to walk according to the spirit means to walk in God, in the Triune God. How is this possible? It is because the Triune God is in us.
John 14:23 says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” When the Father and the Son come, it is not to visit; it is to make an abode. Once this dear One comes, He never goes away; He stays forever. In this same chapter the Lord said that the Spirit of reality “abides with you and shall be in you” (v. 17); He will “be with you forever” (v. 16).
Here is something extraordinary. How could God as the divine person — holy, righteous, glorious — come into a sinful human being who is fallen, corrupted, ruined? How could He enter into us and make us His home? Such a thing could not have happened in the Old Testament. The procedure that made this possible had not yet been carried out.
The New Testament opens with the birth of God into mankind. The first thing recorded is the incarnation. That God came to be born as a man is unbelievable! But it happened. From Isaiah 9:6 we know that the little child born in a manger in Bethlehem was the mighty God. What a wonder!
The very God grew up in a poor carpenter’s home. Here He passed through His childhood. We have an account of an episode when He was a child of twelve (Luke 2:41-52). For thirty years He lived there in that humble home. Then He came forth to minister. He thus sowed Himself into His followers. After three and a half years He went to the cross.
He was crucified to redeem us. As our Substitute, He died for us, shedding His blood for our redemption. By that death He bruised the head of the serpent; He crushed the devil. His death released His inner divine life. After accomplishing this work, He went into the tomb and into Hades. After three days He emerged from death and entered into resurrection.
In resurrection He took another form. No longer is He in the flesh; though He still has a physical body, it is a body in resurrection. Now in resurrection He has become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). No doubt this is the Spirit of God. But before this process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Spirit of God had no way to impart life to man. Now He is able and ready to impart the divine life into God’s chosen people; thus He is indeed the life-giving Spirit.
Though this story has become familiar to us, it is not a simple one. God became incarnate. He was born as an infant, grew up as a child, then lived as a man, experiencing all kinds of sufferings and trials. At the cross He settled our problem with sin, with Satan, and with death. A flow of life came out of His crucified being. Then in resurrection He became this life-giving Spirit. John 7:39 says, “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” At that time crucifixion and resurrection had not yet been accomplished; once they were, the Spirit of God was able to impart life.
Who is this life-giving Spirit? Christ. God Himself. The traditional teaching on the Trinity cannot account for all these items. Christ cannot be separated from God, nor can He be separated from the Spirit. We have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son has become the life-giving Spirit. The way has been paved, the procedure fully carried out. Now He is ready. All that remains is for us to open and receive Him. He comes in at once.
We then have within us as our contents the very God who is the Creator and is now the dispensing Triune God. We are vessels containing the processed God. This is the mystery of Christ. Christ is the wrapping up of all the divine mysteries.
While human language is inadequate to express the things we have seen, I believe enough has been said to help you if you have a heart to see. Do not be held back by the shallow teachings. You must go on to see these deeper truths concerning God’s heart’s desire. Who is this indwelling God? He is the Father. He is Christ. He is the Spirit. The attempts of the theologians to systematize these truths are a failure. The reputable scholars admit that in our Christian experience Christ is identical to the Spirit. Yes, They are one; nonetheless, They are also two. Because this is a mystery, we cannot fully explain it; it corresponds, however, with our experience.
In Colossians 2:2 Christ is called the mystery of God. Such a term indicates something incomprehensible and inexplicable. God is a mystery; He cannot be defined. Since the mystery of God is Christ, if we want to understand God, we must understand Christ. If we want to receive God, we must receive Christ.
Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Christ is the embodiment of God.
Romans 9:5 says of Christ, “Who is God over all, blessed forever.” This Christ who is the mystery of God and the embodiment of God is God. He is the very God. Paul clearly states this in this verse. Can Christ be separated from God? No more than you can be separated from yourself. Theologians may say that He is God the Son but not God the Father or God the Spirit. They may have such a concept, but that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says that He is God over all. It does not say that He is only God the Son; that is an interpretation.
In Exodus 3:2 and 6 the Angel sent by Jehovah was not only the God of Abraham but also the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He was not only God the Son (the God of Isaac); He was also God the Father (the God of Abraham) and God the Spirit (the God of Jacob). He is the Triune God. He cannot be separated into God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. You may have such a teaching, but it is not scriptural.
We must know this Christ. He is God, the very Triune God.
This One first took the step of becoming flesh (John 1:14). In the flesh He was the Lamb of God, dying for our sins to accomplish redemption. Then in resurrection He took the second step: as the last Adam, He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Paul tells us that Christ is God Himself, the very Triune God; then he also tells us that He became a life-giving Spirit. Notice this word became. Christ took the initiative to pass from one stage to another. First, He was in the stage of the flesh; after resurrection, however, He entered into the stage of the Spirit. He became a Spirit to give life to us.
There are those who claim that I have destroyed the three divine persons of the holy Trinity. The truth is that the opposers have neglected or chosen to ignore what the Bible clearly teaches of the Trinity. While privately acknowledging that, according to Isaiah 9:6, Christ is called the Father, they dare not say this publicly because it goes against tradition.
“The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17-18). No word is clearer than this: the Lord is the Spirit. Still the opposers argue that the Lord here refers to Jehovah, not to Christ. Who is Jehovah? He is Christ in the Old Testament. In the New Testament Jehovah is Jesus. Who is the Lord in verse 18, whose glory we are beholding and reflecting? Surely it can be none other than the glorious Christ, into whose image we are being transformed “even as from the Lord Spirit.” Here is a compound title, Lord Spirit.
The Spirit cannot be separated from the Lord. In verse 17 we are told that the Lord is the Spirit; then we have the term Spirit of the Lord. The first part of the verse indicates that the Lord and the Spirit are one; the second part, that They are two. This is our understanding because of language. An electric current is electricity; there is no electric current apart from electricity. In the same way, the Spirit of the Lord is simply the Lord Himself.
Romans 8:9 through 11 clearly describes the Triune God: “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.”
There is a mystery here. There is the Spirit of God, then the Spirit of Christ, then Christ. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ; the Spirit of Christ is simply Christ. There is mention of God, the Spirit, and Christ. The three of the Godhead are all here. However, there are not three in us; there is only one. When we have the Spirit, we have God and Christ. When we have Christ, we have both the Spirit and God.
This God we have is not the God in Genesis 1 but the One in Romans 8, who has passed through incarnation and crucifixion and entered into resurrection. With this God we have Christ and the Spirit. The three are one and inseparable.
Ephesians 3:14-19 is another reference to the Triune God: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.” God the Father listens to the prayer; God the Spirit fulfills the prayer; and God the Son completes what is asked, namely, that Christ make His home in us, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God. First there is the Father, then the Spirit, then Christ the Son, and finally all the fullness of God. Here is one divine person, wrought into our being. We will be saturated with Him, filled with Him to the brim, even running over. Then we will become the fullness of God, expressing His riches. This is the mystery of Christ.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). Here is the love of God the Father, the grace of Christ the Son, and the fellowship of God the Spirit. May all these be with you. There is such a flow to us and in us.
The central vision of the apostle Paul’s completing ministry is God in us as our contents, Christ as the mystery of God, and the church as the mystery of Christ. We must lay aside our natural concepts, whether religious, ethical, devotional, spiritual, holy, or pious. Even the concept of having a good meeting or a strong service must not be our goal. The meetings and the service must come from the source; the church life is the issue.
The Lord’s recovery is the central vision. In 1970, after the successful migrations, we began to pay attention to the spread of the recovery and became somewhat negligent of the central vision. The recovery was off, for which I have very much repented to the Lord. By His mercy He cleared things up and brought us back to the right track. The Lord has rebuked me and charged me not to do much to encourage the spreading of the recovery or to gain an increase in numbers. I am not opposed to these, but I have been charged not to be concerned about them. Let the recovery grow in life. Spontaneously there will be a spreading and a proper increase, both issuing from life, not from our doing. “Little one,” the Lord pointed out, “when I was on the earth, I did not do anything to spread My work. All I did was sow Myself as life into a small number. Eventually, in Acts 1, I had only one hundred twenty. Not many.” It seems unbelievable that after the Lord’s labors for three and a half years all that He reaped was a mere one hundred twenty. The Lord asked me, “From all your efforts to spread and increase, where are the one hundred twenty? After you go, where are the one hundred twenty? Who will carry on the Lord’s recovery on the right track? Without the one hundred twenty, as soon as you go, everything will be off. The recovery will become a part of the pitiful history of Christianity, a repetition of its doing so many things that are scriptural and spiritual yet without Christ. If you could gain the whole world as your increase, what would that mean?”
I recently talked with the brother visiting from Taiwan. From now on, I fellowshipped with him, the work there should not pay much attention to the spreading or the increase. All your efforts must be directed toward getting the one hundred twenty. Otherwise, in ten years everything will be gone, lost because of the increase. There are already a good number in Taiwan, twenty-three thousand in the church in Taipei alone; perhaps on the whole island there are forty thousand. How many of these can be counted among the one hundred twenty? If we do not take care of this, our work will be empty concerning the central lane of God’s economy. Instead of recovering, we will be drifting back. The more spreading we have, the more we drift back to a repetition of Christianity. I am happy that there are so many, but if they do not see the central vision, my happiness is futile.
We need some faithful ones to rise up and say, “Lord, here I am. Show me the central vision as You did with the apostle Paul.” I hope you younger ones, especially those who are in their twenties, will do this. Then after ten years you will be valuable to the Lord’s recovery.
