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Scripture Reading: Matt. 28:20; 1 Tim. 6:3; Matt. 16:16-18; Eph. 3:5; Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4; 5:32; Jude 3; 1 Tim. 1:3-4; cf. 1 Cor. 16:12; Acts 13:2, 4; 2 John 9-11
The ministry of the New Testament is to build up the Body of Christ according to the teaching of the apostles. The teaching of the apostles is a special term in the Bible (Acts 2:42). It has a deep and strong background, that is, Judaism. Outwardly speaking, Judaism is linked to the Old Testament, which existed among the Jews for one thousand five hundred years. During the period of time beginning with Moses and continuing until the coming of the Lord Jesus, Judaism became strongly and firmly established among the Jewish people. All the Jewish people, men and women, young and old, had a deep impression of Judaism. Their conversations, practices, and daily life were all according to the law of Moses, that is, the teachings of Moses. For this reason God even arranged for a group of priests, who were required to come before God every day to offer sacrifices, burn incense, and light the lampstand in the Holy Place. These same ones also bore a commission before man, that is, to speak and teach the law of Moses.
When the Lord Jesus came, He was the first one who kept the law. It can be said that ever since the law was given through Moses, no one had ever fully kept the law. Only Jesus of Nazareth fully kept the law. Moreover, He also complemented the law. Although the law was good, it was not good enough; although the law was complete, it was not sufficiently complete. For example, the law says, “You shall not kill” (Exo. 20:13), but the law does not say, “You shall not hate.” Hence, in Matthew 5:22 in His teaching on the mountain, the Lord Jesus complemented the law. He told His disciples, “Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment.” Anger is the motive of murder. The Lord Jesus not only dealt with murder but also with the inward motive. The law says, “You shall love your neighbor” (v. 43), yet if we love only our neighbors, only the good ones, what shall we do with those who are not good, such as our enemies? Hence, the law is incomplete. The Lord told us as a complement to the law, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (v. 44). On the one hand, the Lord Jesus kept the law of God, and on the other hand, he complemented the law.
Such matters as keeping dietary regulations and keeping the Sabbath are matters of ceremonial law. No one can fulfill the ceremonial law because no one can be man’s food and rest. However, when the Lord Jesus came, He was the rest typified by the Sabbath and the reality of the various offerings. Only He was able to fulfill the ceremonial part of the law. He did not abolish the law but fulfilled and complemented it. He fulfilled every item in the law. The second paragraph of footnote 2 in Matthew 5:17 reads, “Concerning the law there are two aspects: the commandments of the law and the principle of the law. The commandments of the law were fulfilled and complemented by the Lord’s coming, whereas the principle of the law was replaced by the principle of faith according to God’s New Testament economy.”
The Lord said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill” (5:17). Through keeping the law, the Lord complemented the law and fulfilled all the commandments of the law. In the law of the Old Testament the ten main commandments, such as to honor one’s parents and not to steal, concern human ethics and man’s relationship with God. The Lord kept, fulfilled, and complemented all the laws of the moral commandments.
In the Bible there is the testimony of the law. In the Old Testament age the principle of God’s dealing with man was according to the testimony of the law and based on the law. If man did well and was perfect, he could live; otherwise, he had to die. Hence, we see that when man kept the law, he was justified, but when man disobeyed the law, he was condemned. This was the principle with which God dealt with man in the Old Testament. This principle is based on the law and has nothing to do with faith; therefore, we can say that in relationship to the law, faith is not found in the Old Testament.
When the Lord Jesus came, He fulfilled and complemented the law. He put the law aside, and thereafter, the principle by which God deals with man was no longer based on the law but on faith. Hence, faith became the principle with which God deals with man in the New Testament. This faith, that is, the faith, is what we believe in. The contents of the entire New Testament are in faith. God deals with us based on the principle of faith. Whoever believes is justified; whoever does not believe is condemned. This is entirely different from the principle of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is based on the principle of keeping the law; the New Testament is based on the principle of believing in the Lord Jesus, that is, on the principle of faith. If we understand the law in this way, we will be clear concerning it.
The apostles’ teaching teaches us concerning the faith, not concerning the law. To teach concerning the law was something of Moses and the priests of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, however, the apostles’ teaching is altogether the faith in God’s New Testament economy. This faith, which is the contents of the New Testament, was first taught by the Lord Jesus when He ministered on earth. After His resurrection He told the disciples, “Go therefore...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). The disciples were charged to teach all the nations to observe all that the Lord commanded them. Therefore, the first aspect of the apostles’ teaching is related to the things that the Lord Jesus taught while ministering on the earth for three and a half years. At the end of that time, He told His disciples, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality” (John 16:12-13). The Spirit of reality in the disciples was to lead them into the profound truths. These profound truths are the economy of God.
The center of God’s economy in the New Testament is that Christ, the God-man, accomplished redemption, entered into resurrection, became the life-giving Spirit, enters into all who believe into Him to be their life, their everything, their life supply, and their person, and mingles Himself with them to be one spirit with them to make them members of His Body. The center of God’s economy is to save us to the extent that Christ becomes our Head and that we become His members.
In regard to this center, Christianity has spoken, at most, only concerning Jesus living in us. Twenty years ago, when I came to the United States, people told me that they never knew that there is a spirit within man. However, twenty years later Christian radio stations are now telling people that there is a spirit in man. Sadly, they do not know that there is a verse in the Bible that says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45b). Not only do they not know that Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, but they even consider it a heresy. Christianity adheres to the doctrine of “three persons, one substance,” saying that in the Godhead there are three persons with one substance. This is to say that the Father is a person, the Son is a person, and the Spirit is a person. This can lead to tritheism if the persons are considered to be both distinct and separate. This was condemned by the church fathers.
Ever since we came out of mainland China and went abroad, we have had the burden to tell people that as persons, we have another person living within us; a regenerated person is the dwelling place of God. We also have the burden to tell people that the Lord Jesus is God who became flesh, passed through human living, died, resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit. Many may acknowledge that Christ lives in His believers, yet how could Christ enter into them and dwell in them unless He became the Spirit? For Him to dwell in His believers, the Lord Jesus must be realized as the Spirit. Since Christianity teaches the doctrine of “three persons, one substance,” most Christians dare not say that Christ is the Spirit. Although they advocate the doctrine of “three persons, one substance,” they also say that there should not be the confounding of the persons. This means that one should not say that the Father is the Son, that the Son is the Spirit, or that the Spirit is the Son. Hence, they dare not say that Christ is the Spirit, because once they say that Christ is the Spirit, they believe that they are confounding the three persons of the Godhead.
First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit,” and 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” A number of people understand the Lord here as referring to Jehovah in the Old Testament. As a result, in this verse God’s being the Spirit corresponds with John 4:24, which says that “God is Spirit.” This is to misinterpret the truth of the Lord being the Spirit and thus to lose the revelation of the truth.
For twenty years we have been fighting the battle for the truth, and we have read quite a number of books on this subject. According to our observation, the booklets published by Christianity are influenced by the thought that the three in the Godhead are three distinct and separate persons. However, the fact is that God is distinct in person but absolutely not separate. We have published a number of books which show from the Gospels that although the Lord Jesus came to the earth from heaven, He came to the earth with the Father. He said, “He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone” (John 8:29). When He was on the earth, He did not work by Himself, because the Father was with Him. Not only was the Father with Him, but the Spirit was also with Him wherever he went. Therefore, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were embodied in Jesus the Nazarene.
The center of God’s New Testament economy is that the Triune God was incarnated to be the God-man Jesus, who brought our sins, our old man, the old creation, Satan, and the world to the cross and crucified them there. His death solved every problem and released the divine life from within Him. In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit; thus, when we believe in Him, He enters into our spirit to be our life and our everything, making us members of His Body, who are joined to Him. He is the Head, and we are the members who constitute the Body of Christ. This is the center of God’s economy in the New Testament. To have a part in this, all we need to do is believe. This is our faith; this is what we believe.
Sadly, among tens of thousands of Christians, only a handful are able to speak our Christian faith in such a succinct way. Consequently, I hope that all the elders, co-workers, and full-timers will know this faith in a thorough way. We cannot simply tell people that we believe in Jesus; rather, we need to speak forth the kernel of the New Testament. The kernel of the New Testament is that the Triune God became flesh, passed through human living, was crucified, resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit and that He now enters into us to be our life, our person, and our everything and to mingle Himself with us, making us a part of the Body of Christ to express the Triune God. This is the New Testament ministry, which is our faith.
If we read John 14 through 16 carefully, we will see the deep thought contained in these chapters. The Lord said to His disciples, “If anyone loves Me,...My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (14:23). Moreover, the Lord prayed for the believers: “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us” (17:21). These words are profound. When the Lord Jesus said these words, He knew that Peter, John, and James had no way to apprehend them at that time but that when the Spirit of reality came, He would guide them into the reality of the truth (16:12-13). John, in particular, wrote several Epistles addressing this matter.
When the Spirit of reality came, He found a person named Saul of Tarsus, who had been taught the law of the Old Testament under the great rabbi Gamaliel; this provided Saul with a thorough knowledge of the law. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit revealed to him the New Testament economy, that is, the kernel of the New Testament, the deepest portion in the New Testament concerning the faith. In Colossians 1:25-26 Paul says, “I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations but now has been manifested to His saints.” Here you refers to the church; Paul received a stewardship for the church. The word stewardship in Greek is translated elsewhere as “economy.” This indicates that when God’s economy came to Paul, it became a stewardship. He became a steward in the house of God with a stewardship to dispense God’s economy. Hence, Paul continued by saying, “To complete the word of God.” Prior to Paul, although the word of God existed, it had not yet been completed. The word of God was completed at the time of Paul.
Complete is a weighty word. The word of God is the revelation of God, the holy Word of God spoken in the New Testament. There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament, of which fourteen, over half, are Paul’s Epistles. If we were to take Paul’s Epistles out of the New Testament, a great part would be missing, and we would not be able to see God’s economy or the mystery of God in Christ. The fourteen Epistles of Paul form the kernel of the New Testament; they complete the word of God and fully reveal and fulfill the word of God. The portion that Paul completed is spoken of in Colossians 1:26: “The mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations.” The words Paul spoke revealed the mystery hidden in God from the ages and from the generations; this mystery is Christ in us, the hope of glory (v. 27). Christ in us is our life today, and He will be our hope of glory in the future. This is God’s New Testament economy, that is, the faith that God has given us in the New Testament. The apostles’ teaching is simply the content of the New Testament.
The apostles’ teaching is also concerning the mysteries of God and of Christ (Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4; 5:32). The content of the New Testament, that is, our faith, is concerning the mystery of God and the mystery of Christ. The mystery of God is Christ; the mystery of Christ is the church. Hence, Christ and the church are the great mystery of God.
The apostles’ teaching is God’s New Testament economy, which is in faith (Jude 3; 1 Tim. 1:3-4). If we were to take the apostles’ teaching out of the Bible, the New Testament would be empty. The Old Testament concerns the law of Moses, and the New Testament concerns the apostles’ teaching, that is, God’s New Testament economy in faith. Many Christians know that the Old Testament is concerning the law of Moses and that the New Testament is concerning the grace of Christ, but this is all they know. Very few know that the grace of Christ in the New Testament is God’s economy. This economy is the Triune God who became flesh, passed through human living, was crucified, resurrected, became the life-giving Spirit, and enters into us to be our life and person, becoming one with us and making us part of the Body of Christ for His expression; the ultimate consummation of the Body of Christ will be the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is the processed Triune God working Himself into His redeemed people to be one with them. There was the age before the law and the age of the law; now we are in the age of grace, and in the future there will be the age of the kingdom. Passing through one age after another, God accomplishes everything; eventually, in the new heaven and new earth, the ultimate consummation of God’s economy, the New Jerusalem, will be manifested. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the church. This is God’s New Testament economy, that is, the teaching of the apostles.
Although Luke was not an apostle, he wrote the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts under the direction of Paul. It can be said that Luke wrote for Paul based on all that Paul had conveyed to him. Mark was also not an apostle, but he was the spiritual son of Peter; Peter conveyed to Mark the things concerning the Lord Jesus, and Mark wrote accordingly. All the other writers, such as Matthew and John, were apostles. It is the apostles who completed the New Testament; hence, the content of the New Testament is the teaching of the apostles. Today our faith is the entire New Testament, which is the teaching of the apostles.
The denominations in Christianity promote certain practices in the New Testament as their faith. For example, the Baptists promote the practice of baptism by immersion; hence, their faith is baptism instead of the entire New Testament. Presbyterians promote the governing of the church by the presbytery as an item in their creed. As a result, they do not have the entire New Testament as their faith; rather, they take a certain item in the New Testament as the primary element of their faith. This is the case also with Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Methodists. The Pentecostal movement promotes speaking in tongues. This is the condition of Christianity today. If someone asks us what our faith is, we should tell him, “Our faith is the entire New Testament, that is, the teaching of the apostles.” The twenty-seven books of the New Testament are the teaching of the apostles and speak primarily of the economy of God.
For over a century the matter of the New Testament ministry has been discussed, debated, disputed, and even attacked by Christians. Everyone is involved in discussions as to who should take the lead in the New Testament ministry. The Catholic Church says that Peter should take the lead, because Peter was the successor of the Lord Jesus. They also claim that the popes succeeded Peter. They claim that Peter was the first pope; thus, the pope should take the lead. Whenever those in the Catholic Church encounter a problem, their decision is not based upon the Bible but upon the papacy. Some may not say that it is according to the pope but according to the Vatican; nevertheless, because the Vatican refers to the pope, it is still the pope who takes the lead.
The Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther, recovered justification by faith and overthrew the headship of the pope. In the Lutheran Church, undoubtedly, Luther was considered to be the leader. The Baptist churches, on the other hand, are not led by any person but by the teaching of baptism. If a person is a preacher in the Baptist Church, whatever he teaches, speaks, and does must be according to baptism. If a preacher teaches, speaks, and does anything different from baptism, he will be rejected. As to the other denominations, some take an individual as their head, and others take their so-called faith as their head. In the Episcopalian Church, that is, the Anglican Church, the state church of England, the king or queen of England is the head.
According to the record of the New Testament, Peter took the lead at the beginning, but in Galatians 2:11-14, when Peter came to Antioch, Paul opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. Before some came from James, he continually ate with the Gentiles, but when they came, he shrank back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews also joined him in this hypocrisy. When Paul saw that they were not walking in a straightforward way in relation to the truth of the gospel, he said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews?” After this incident it seems impossible that Peter would be able to continue to preach Jesus among the people. Not long after this, Paul went up to Jerusalem to discuss the matter of circumcision with the apostles and elders. He knew deep within that Peter’s fault was apparent; God had established Peter to take the lead, but he led the saints into hypocrisy. This example shows that Peter was not the “pope”; he was not the leader.
In the New Testament ministry, who is the “pope”? Who is taking the lead? The teaching of the apostles is taking the lead. When Peter was rebuked, it was not actually Paul who rebuked him; it was the teaching in the New Testament that rebuked him. If one does not act according to the standard of the truth of the gospel, such an action damages and violates the truth of the gospel. It was the truth of gospel, not Peter, that was taking the lead. The teaching of the apostles is the leadership in the New Testament ministry. We began to see this matter in 1986; earlier, we were not clear concerning this point. Through our experience in serving the churches for the past several decades and due to our research and study, that is, our comparing and checking with the New Testament, we have seen that the leadership in the New Testament ministry does not rely on a single person, not on Peter, Paul, or anyone else; rather, it relies on the teaching of the apostles. Only the teaching of the apostles counts.
In the Catholic Church Peter is considered irreproachable. He is called the successor of Jesus Christ, the leader in the New Testament. However, this is not according to the facts. When Peter and Paul carried out their ministry, their ministry was led by the apostles’ teaching. As an illustration, a nation is actually led by its constitution, not by its president. The “constitution,” that is, the leadership in the New Testament, is the teaching of the apostles; we all need to follow this teaching.
Perhaps some may say that Paul led a group of co-workers and that everything was under his direction. Although this is not altogether wrong, if we consider carefully the record in the Bible, we cannot find a definite verse that indicates that Paul was directing his co-workers. He did write to Timothy, saying, “Be diligent to come to me quickly;...the cloak which I left in Troas with Carpus, bring when you come, and the scrolls, especially the parchments” (2 Tim. 4:9, 13). In 1 Corinthians Paul severely rebuked the Corinthian believers, but when he wrote the book of 2 Corinthians, he was apprehensive and sorrowful within, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Titus so that he would know the condition of the Corinthian believers (2:13; 7:6). At the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul indicated that he had hoped that Apollos would go to comfort the Corinthian believers, but Apollos was not willing. Regarding this, Paul said, “Concerning our brother Apollos, I urged him many times to come to you with the brothers; yet it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity” (16:12). This is a strong proof that every co-worker has the liberty in the Holy Spirit in his work. According to our natural concept, we may think that Paul took the lead in the work in the same way that the pope does today; however, this understanding is not correct. If the pope were to say to a bishop under him, “Go and pay a visit to Corinth,” I doubt that any bishop would be like Apollos and dare say to the pope, “It is not at all my desire to go now; I will go later when it is convenient for me.” This proves that Paul did not direct the co-workers.
In the Catholic Church the Virgin Mary, the so-called mother of God, is considered to be without the sinful nature. Beginning in the Middle Ages a great controversy began concerning whether or not Mary was without original sin. Finally in 1854, Pope Pius IX broke the deadlock and made it church dogma that Mary was without original sin. From then on, all Catholics and Catholic theologians must say that the Virgin Mary was without the sinful nature. Even Madame Guyon, author of Sweet Smelling Myrrh, obeyed the pope to the uttermost. Although the pope put her into prison, she still obeyed him. This teaching is not according to the Scriptures.
The example concerning Paul and Apollos shows that Paul was not the directing one. In other words, a matter was not settled simply because Paul said something. In sending co-workers to particular places, Paul did not insist; rather, he gave the brothers absolute freedom. In the matter of speaking the truth, however, he was unyielding. In 1 Timothy 1:3 Paul told Timothy, “Even as I exhorted you, when I was going into Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus in order that you might charge certain ones not to teach different things.” From the context, these different things refer to the law, Old Testament genealogies (v. 4), and profane and old-womanish myths (4:7). According to Paul’s thought, we should speak only God’s economy, which is in faith; that is, we should speak only the apostles’ teaching. Hence, we draw the conclusion that it was the apostles’ teaching that took the lead in the New Testament, not Paul as an individual. The apostles’ teaching, the truth, the faith, the teaching of God’s economy took the lead in the New Testament ministry.
In 2 John 7-11 the apostle John charged the saints that if some did not bring them the teaching of Christ but preached that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh, they should neither receive such ones into their house nor even greet them. In 3 John 9-10 Diotrephes, who loved to be first, would not receive the Lord’s workers, including John, but babbled against them with evil words. Moreover, he forbade those intending to receive them and cast them out of the church. This indicates that John was merely carrying out the leading. Hence, the leading one is not an individual person but the apostles’ teaching; it is the faith that leads the saints.
In the very beginning of the Lord’s recovery in mainland China, Brother Nee was clearly in the lead. Nevertheless, having worked with him for eighteen years, I can testify on his behalf that I cannot remember one instance in which he took the lead. One time a co-worker asked him, “Brother Nee, I have a burden to go to Nanchang in Kiangsi Province. How do you feel?” At that time Brother Nee was at home in his rocking chair. After being asked repeatedly, he continued not to say anything but kept rocking in his chair. Eventually, Brother Nee replied, “How do you feel?” When dinnertime came, he went to eat and did not continue the conversation.
Later, I asked Brother Nee why he remained silent when someone asked him a question. He told me, “This brother had already made the decision to go to Nanchang. If I were to tell him that he should go, he would go, but if I were to tell him that he should not go, he would still go. He came to ask me simply because he wanted to receive an ‘endorsement’ so that he could say that Brother Nee wanted him to go. Why should I do that? Even if I were to ask him not to go, in the end he would still go, because he had already made the arrangement to go. He came to me merely to receive an ‘endorsement.’” This shows that Brother Nee was not the so-called leading one; otherwise, if he felt that this brother should not go, he would have told him not to go. He was not the directing one, nor did he desire to be the directing one. Brother Nee also realized that even if he expressed how he felt, people might not listen.
After I went abroad, many people have attempted to add the title of “pope” to me. Consequently, I would like to ask whether I have been the directing one. Since 1949 I truly took the lead in the church and the work in Taiwan; nevertheless, from 1961 to 1984, a period of twenty-three years, I have never directed the church in Taipei to do anything nor have I interfered with the church. If I remember correctly, when I was first in the United States, Brother Chang Yu-lan wrote me every week, providing me with detailed fellowship concerning the church, and the letter was co-signed by Brother Chang Wu-chen. Later, Brother Yu-lan became physically quite weak, so Brother Wu-chen began writing me every two to six months. After some initial leading, I ceased to inquire about the matters related to the church in Taipei. Moreover, as a result of our publication work, at least six hundred churches were raised up in the West. None of them are under my control. This is strong proof that I am not the directing one and that I have no intention to be such. However, I am burdened that all the churches would walk according to the apostles’ teaching. If there is any discrepancy between the churches and the apostles’ teaching, I must speak up. This proves that, according to the fellowship in the New Testament, it should be the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament, not any person, that takes the lead among us.
Since my return to Taiwan in 1984, in order to change the system and bring in the new way, it may seem that I have done so much and that I am directing everything. Nevertheless, if someone inquires of the elders in the church in Taipei, he will find out that I have been in constant fellowship with them. Everything related to the church in Taipei has passed through the meeting, discussion, and decision of the elders before it was carried out. They do not simply do whatever I tell them; this would not be right. Neither is it right for two or three to make a decision and do something simply because they all agree that things should be done in a certain way. Rather, everything needs to be carried out according to the principle of the elders’ administration of the church; that is, the elders discuss matters together, seek the Lord’s leading together, and make every decision in the elders’ meeting. After the decision is made, then they need to discuss who will carry out the matter; this person will be appointed in the elders’ meetings.
From the beginning of 1949 until 1988, not one local church on the island of Taiwan or anywhere else on the entire globe has received orders from me. Many times brothers have written to me and told me of the problems they are encountering and have asked me for advice. I often have answered by saying that they should bring this matter before the Lord in prayer and ask for His leading.
If a church does not walk according to the apostles’ teaching, this is truly a problem. When I returned to Taiwan in 1965 to handle the matter related to the four dissenting co-workers, I followed this principle. We must realize that the way we are taking is not the way of human organization but the way of following the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament. Everything is under the leadership of the apostles’ teaching, that is, God’s New Testament economy, the faith of God in the New Testament. Whether in the work or in the church, we should rely upon the apostles’ teaching. The apostles’ teaching is the constitution of the church and the work.
