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Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:11; Gen. 1:26; 1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17
Before I moved to the United States, I had no thought that I would ever do so. When I visited the United States, I came simply as a visitor with no intention to stay, but while I was here, I carefully observed the situation. One night while I was in San Francisco, I told the brother with whom I was staying that I had the definite sense the Lord wanted to do something on the West Coast of the United States. After staying with this brother for two or three nights, I left the United States and had no plans to return. My thought was that if the Lord wanted to do something in America, He would surely raise up some saints in America to do this work. After a while, although I still had no thought to move to America, I felt that the Lord was urging me to visit again. Because of this, I came to the United States for a third time. My intention was to stay for three months and then to return to the Far East. When the three months were nearing an end, I made arrangements to visit Taiwan and Manila. Everything was ready for my departure, but the Lord would not allow me to leave. The Lord simply kept me here. This was a great suffering to me. I desired to leave, but the Lord would not allow me to leave. Eventually, I became clear that I had no other choice but to submit myself to the Lord. I told the Lord, “Lord, I have to go along with You. I give up. I will go along with You, and I will stay here.” Then I became very clear, and I immediately sent a cable to the Far East, telling the brothers there that I would not be able to return. I also made a call from Seattle, where I was staying at the time, to San Francisco. I told the brother there that I had the burden to visit Sacramento and then to go to Los Angeles. Shortly after this, I visited Sacramento. That was the first time I visited a place without first being invited.
At that time the Lord greatly used two books written by Watchman Nee — The Normal Christian Life and The Normal Christian Church Life. Prior to the publication of these two books in America, I visited place after place and saw that the Lord had raised up seeking ones. I also observed that nearly all these seeking ones had been raised up by the Lord in the preceding two to five years. When these two books were published, the hungry Christians devoured their contents, because the Lord had prepared all these seeking believers. These two books were published at exactly the right time. In fact, The Normal Christian Church Life was published in the very same month that I became clear the Lord was leading me to stay in America. At that time, in addition to observing the tremendous response to the writings of Watchman Nee, I received letter upon letter and call after call from believers all over the country. These things have confirmed to me that the Lord truly desires to do something wonderful in the United States in these days.
In this message we will consider three great matters in the Scriptures. The first matter is God’s eternal purpose, God’s ultimate intention. God is a divine person with a mind, emotion, and will and who is full of wisdom and desire. Thus, in His divine mind there must be a purpose, and this purpose must be both divine and eternal. Ephesians 3:11 says, “According to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In light of this verse we need to ask, “What is God’s eternal purpose?” The second matter we will consider in this message is the way that God takes to accomplish His eternal purpose. Once we have seen that God has purposed something according to His own desire, we need to find out how He accomplishes this purpose. The third matter that we will consider is the way in which God applies what He has accomplished to us. First we will consider God’s eternal purpose, then we will consider how God accomplishes this purpose, and finally we will examine how the accomplishment of this purpose is applied to us.
The entire Bible reveals that in eternity past, according to His own desire, God purposed to do something. He purposed to do one thing — to gain a group of people who would be His living Body and would express God the Father in God the Son as God the Spirit. God’s eternal purpose is to have a living, corporate Body through which He can express Himself as the Triune God. God the Father in God the Son as God the Spirit will be expressed and manifested through a corporate Body composed of human beings.
God is mysterious, infinite, and unlimited, yet He desires to be expressed and manifested. To this end God created man. Man was the last item of God’s creation. This indicates that everything God created prior to creating man was in preparation for man. Once God had made everything ready, He created man. This reveals that man is the center of God’s creation. God created man as the center of His creation in a very purposeful way. Man was created in the image of God and committed with God’s divine authority over all creation (Gen. 1:26). The fact that man was created in the image of God reveals that man was created to express God, for an image is an expression. For example, if I take a picture of you, the picture will capture your image and will be an expression of you. The fact that man was given authority over all the earth means that man is to be God’s representative on the earth. From the way in which God created man, we can see that God’s purpose in creating man was that man would express Him and represent Him. This is God’s eternal purpose.
How does God accomplish that which He has purposed? How does God gain a group of people to express and represent Him? God accomplishes His purpose through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. In incarnation God Himself became a man. In so doing, He joined and mingled Himself with man. Jesus was a God-man, a man joined and mingled with God. This man lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years and then died on the cross. His death was all-inclusive; when He died, everything died with Him (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14). Following His death, He rose from the dead, and in His resurrection He imparted His life into man (John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3). In incarnation He brought God into man, and in resurrection He brought man into God (John 14:6, 20). This was the way that God accomplished His eternal purpose.
Now we need to see how this accomplishment is applied to us. The application of the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose is carried out absolutely in and by the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, following the Lord’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit was poured out from the heavens to the earth. This Spirit is all-inclusive. Christ’s incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection are all in this Spirit, who is the realization of Christ. God the Father is embodied in the Son, and God the Son is realized as the Spirit (14:10, 16-20). In this Spirit is everything that we need.
The Spirit takes three steps in applying the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose to us: He regenerates us, transforms us, and causes us to realize that we are members of the Body. When we first heard the gospel and received the Lord, the all-inclusive Spirit entered into us and regenerated us (3:6). In regeneration we received God Himself as life into us. This was the beginning of our spiritual life. Regeneration is the first step that the Spirit takes in applying the accomplishment of God’s purpose to us. After regenerating us, the Spirit continues to work in us to transform us from our old, human nature into a new, divine nature. This is the second step that the Spirit takes in applying the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose to us. The third step that the Spirit takes is to work in us to cause us to realize that we are members of the Body of Christ. The Spirit works in us, demanding that we enter into the Body life, the church life. While the Spirit is transforming us, we will have the realization that we must fellowship with others and have a meeting life. A meeting life is a life of meeting with other Christians. This is the life of the Body. We can never be individual Christians. Instead, we must join ourselves to other believers. This is a demand of the Spirit within us.
If you meet with the Lord in the morning by yourself, surely the Lord within you will lead you to meet with the saints in the evening. Whenever you go to the Lord, the Lord will send you to the saints. This is because the Lord’s desire is to have a built-up Body as His corporate expression. At the Lord’s coming back, His work of transformation in us will be completed, and He will transform even our body into His glorious likeness (Phil. 3:21). At that time we with all the saints will be a divine, corporate expression, manifesting and expressing God the Father in God the Son as God the Spirit. May we all go to the Lord and consider where we are in relation to these three matters — God’s eternal purpose, the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose, and the application of the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose.
Question: Can you tell us what kind of spiritual movement you are starting?
Answer: In response to this question, I would say that we do not want to be a part of any movement. Upon hearing this answer, you may wonder, “If Brother Lee is not starting a new movement, then what is he doing?” I can answer you only in the following way. God created the heavens, the earth, and man, but man fell. Thus, through incarnation God Himself came to be the second man (1 Cor. 15:47). This man died on the cross to put the entire old creation to an end, and then in resurrection He was transfigured into the Spirit so that He could impart His life into all those who believe into Him (v. 45). Those who believe into Him and receive Him as life into their spirit are the Body of Christ. God’s desire is that this Body would express God the Father in the Son through the Spirit. This Body is the church (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18). Wherever they may be on this earth, the believers should come together as the corporate Body of Christ. They should come together to express, exhibit, exalt, and preach Christ. This is the church life.
We know from church history that Satan has done and continues to do many things to damage the Body of Christ and the genuine church life. One of the main things he has done is to bring many foreign things into the church. If you put a nail into your physical body, this foreign item will damage your body and cause it to suffer. This is what Satan has done to the Body of Christ. In addition to bringing foreign things into the Body, Satan has also done much to divide the Body. Thus, if we consider the condition of today’s Christianity, we see these two things — foreign things and division. The Roman Catholic Church has brought many foreign things into the church, and the Protestant groups have produced a great number of divisions. I once read an article that was written following World War I. The brother who wrote the article said that in 1919 there were more than one thousand five hundred denominations. He also said that at that time there were more than one hundred divisions among the Brethren. That was in 1919. Consider how many more divisions there are today. This is a terrible and wicked situation.
Faced with a situation marked by foreign things and division, what shall we do, and what is the Lord doing? Today the Lord is working to deliver His people from all the damage caused by foreign things and division. We do not want to have any kind of movement; rather, we realize that the Lord is going to deliver us from the negative things, bring us back to the original state of the church, and lead us to have a very simple church life. We must forget about all the foreign things and all the division, and we must practice the church life in a simple and general way. Wherever we are and wherever we go, we should meet together with the saints as a corporate Body to express, experience, exalt, and preach Christ in a simple way. We believe that this is something the Lord will recover in these last days.
Question: Who should be excluded and who should be accepted into the church life? Who would you recommend that we receive into our church life?
Answer: The only ones who should be excluded are those who are not saved. We must include all the believers. All the regenerated believers are members of the Body of Christ, even those in the Catholic Church. If some from the Catholic Church desire to participate in the church life, we must welcome them. If they do not have this desire, that is their business, and there is nothing that we can do. Our responsibility is to forget about all the foreign things and to forsake division. If someone were to come to me and ask what church I belong to, I would tell him that I simply belong to the church. There is only one church in the entire universe, and I belong to that one church. If they were to ask me what kind of Christian I am, I would say that I am simply a Christian.
Question: Some would question the practicality of actually doing this on a local scale. We are all members of the spiritual church, but how can this be carried out in actuality?
Answer: In the Scriptures this is very practical. Wherever Christians are, they should come together to practice the meeting life, the assembly life. This is a demand of the Spirit within all believers. If you are in Las Vegas, you should come together with the other believers in Las Vegas. You should not stay home and be a secret Christian. You need to join with others. This is very simple. The problem is that we have become confused by the situation in today’s Christianity. If we were living in the first century and we had received the Lord, I believe it would have been very simple. We would have realized our need to join ourselves with the other Christians around us. Today we should do the same thing. If we live in Los Angeles, we should simply join with the other believers in Los Angeles. The problem today is that when a believer goes to Los Angeles, he does not know where to go, because there is so much confusion. The present situation is confusing, but in principle the church is something simple. It is genuine, divine, eternal, heavenly, spiritual, and of the Lord. Today if we want to realize the church life, we need to rid ourselves of all the foreign things in Christianity, forsake all the divisions, and be simple, general Christians, coming together in the place where we are to worship God in Christ through the Spirit and to experience, exalt, exhibit, express, and preach Christ.
Question: It does not seem easy to find a group of believers whose desire to grow spiritually is strong enough that they are willing to take this way. What does it take for a believer to be brought to the point where he has the desire to take this way?
Answer: This relates to the third great matter that we considered earlier in this message — the application of the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose. The question you are asking relates to how we can apply what Christ has accomplished. When we meet an unbeliever, we need to preach the gospel to him. This is clear to all of us. However, what should we do when we meet believers? When we meet a group of Christians who have been regenerated by the Lord and we realize that they do not have much realization of spiritual matters, we need to help them. First of all, we need to help them to be impressed with the love of Christ. For this we need to pray much. We need to pray, “Lord, I need these saints. I realize that they are genuine brothers and sisters in Christ. However, I also realize that although they have been regenerated, they do not love You very much. Work in them and cause them to love You more.” In addition to praying for these believers, we need to fellowship with them to stir up their hearts to love the Lord more. If they would begin to love the Lord more and would offer themselves to the Lord, the Spirit would have the ground within them and would be able to work in them and cause them to desire to take this way.
If we have the desire to realize the genuine church life, we must consecrate ourselves to the Lord again. We should go to the Lord and tell Him, “Lord, cause me to love You more.” Stanza 1 of Hymns, #368 says, “More love to Thee, O Lord, / More love to Thee! / Hear Thou the prayer I make / On bended knee; / This is my earnest plea: / More love, O Lord, to Thee, / More love to Thee, / More love to Thee!” We need to love the Lord more, and we need to help others to love and seek the Lord more. Then the Holy Spirit will have the ground in us to bring us on and to apply to us everything that God has accomplished for His eternal purpose.
