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Lord, we need You, and we need You to have mercy upon all of us. Lord, we thank You for Your sovereign environment. You have brought us all together; Lord, we thank You for this gathering, and we believe it is of You. We believe, Lord, that You have a purpose for this gathering. We do treasure this time. Lord, be with us.
We thank You, Lord, for Your cleansing blood. This is what we trust in every day. Lord, we are still so natural, so full of the old creation. Too much we have been living in ourselves or doing things in the flesh. Even our view, Lord, our purpose, our motive, and our intention are altogether impure. How much, Lord, we need Your cleansing, the cleansing of Your redeeming blood. We thank You, Lord, for the redeeming blood. Lord Jesus, even in our service to You, our activities for You, the work we have done is impure. We are so impure, Lord; we need Your cleansing. Cleanse us thoroughly. Lord, we have regret for the past, and we repent to You of all the things. Lord, we still take You as our sin offering and our trespass offering.
Lord, we come together to look unto You that we may receive mercy and find grace to meet our timely need. Lord, we need You; we need You to grant us a further visitation. Lord, open the heavens and clear the sky. Even, Lord, open Yourself to us. We are looking to You and to Your speaking, to Your unveiling, and to Your deep, deep work within us.
O Lord Jesus, we can do nothing, and we have nothing. Lord, everything is entirely up to You. Lord, give us the willingness, and make us ready. Lord, purify our intentions, and purify our heart. Give us a sober mind; even, Lord, give us a seeking and open spirit. Lord, do cover us. We trust in Your prevailing blood. Lord, defeat the enemy for Yourself, for Your recovery, and for these two weeks of this training. Lord, defeat him in me every day. Lord, keep us in Your presence. Amen, Lord.
In our burden to see the Lord’s present move among us in His recovery, we need to consider twelve main items, beginning with the ministry of the New Testament. Second, we need to see what the up-to-date vision in the Lord’s recovery is. Third, we need to see the way to carry out this vision, which is a very crucial matter.
Fourth, we will fellowship about the use of reference books. The Lord’s testimony has been on this earth for over nineteen centuries. Many saints have been very much used by the Lord, and many of them have written something. The way we will use those books is a major consideration that has very much to do with our present work and surely affects this work either profitably or unprofitably. We need a thorough consideration of how to use the reference books.
In addition, we will fellowship about the regions of the ministry and about the relationships between the regions of the ministry and the local churches. These are items number five and number six. Seventh, we will consider the Chinese-speaking work and the Chinese-speaking meetings. This has been raised up by the Lord’s move, especially in recent months. Therefore, we need to consider how we should cooperate with the Lord’s move in this matter. Eighth, we need to fellowship about the matter of publications for the Lord’s ministry.
Furthermore, we need to spend more time to fellowship about the elders’ position and function. We need to reconsider, to review, and to thoroughly get into the matter of the elders’ position and function. This is the ninth item. Tenth, we need to fellowship thoroughly about the damages of control. Then we will fellowship about the liberty of the saints.
As the last item, we need to fellowship again concerning our attitude toward the denominations and the free groups. In other words, we need to reconsider what our attitude should be toward our fellow Christians, the fellow believers who are not meeting with us.
When we come to the ministry of the New Testament economy, we need to see why the apostle Paul emphasizes the matter of the New Testament ministry so strongly in chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians. The word ministry is defined by the apostle Paul very much in that chapter, which we have covered quite thoroughly in the Life-study of that book. Paul stresses the New Testament ministry in that chapter because he is strongly vindicating his ministry, which he calls the ministry of the new covenant, compared with and in contrast to the Old Testament ministry, which he calls the ministry of the old covenant. In 2 Corinthians 3 we can see that in God’s eyes there are only two ministries in the entire Bible. One is called the ministry of the old covenant (vv. 7, 9, 14), and the other, the ministry of the new covenant (v. 6). The Greek word for covenant is actually the same as the word for testament. It is more clear and more convenient for us to use the word testament, because the two sections of our Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament, use this term. What we call the New Testament and the Old Testament, Paul calls the new covenant and the old covenant.
In the Bible God reveals to us only two ministries — one of the Old Testament, or the old covenant, and one of the New Testament, or the new covenant. Actually, these two ministries are one, just as the Old Testament and the New Testament are one Bible with two parts, or two sections. The word Bible means “the Book,” and it denotes God’s holy writings, the Holy Scriptures. The word Scriptures means “the Writings.” These two expressions refer to the same book. God does not have two Bibles; He has only one Bible with two sections — the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the same way God’s ministry is actually one with two sections — the old section and the new section. The Old Testament was a preparation for the New Testament, which was to come.
After much study of the holy Word and after many years of laboring in the Lord’s word, we can see today that God’s ministry is to use His chosen vessels to carry out His economy, that is, to fulfill His eternal purpose by dispensing Himself into His chosen people so that they may express Him. For the accomplishment of His economy, God needs men as His chosen vessels.
According to the divine principle, although God is able to do everything to carry out His economy, and He will do everything for this purpose, He will not carry out His economy by Himself apart from man. The principle for God to accomplish His economy must be the same as the principle of incarnation. The principle of incarnation is very great. God is surely able to save the fallen people. Because He is God and He is sovereign, He is able to do everything. Nevertheless, He has a divine principle — He must do everything concerning His economy in the principle of incarnation. The principle of incarnation requires that God enter into man to make man one with Him. Therefore, man is a vessel for the mingling of God and man.
Even in the Old Testament we see the principle of incarnation. Nevertheless, it was hard for God to make a type of incarnation. Only in creation did God do everything by Himself, apart from man, apart from the principle of incarnation. In God’s work to produce the old creation, the first creation, man had no share because he had not yet been created. When man was created, everything else had already been created. Therefore, man had nothing to do with God’s creating work.
However, to carry out His economy, God depends upon His second creation much more than on His first creation. His first creation resulted in physical materials, but it was not God’s intention to merely create the old things and stop there. His intention was to go from the first creation to the second creation. It is by the second creation that God accomplishes His economy. In God’s second creation nothing has ever been done or will be done without man. God does not accomplish His economy apart from man, and man cannot accomplish it himself. It can only be accomplished by God mingled with man.
The first case, the first instance, the first accomplishment, of God’s economy was by Jesus Christ. We need to see who Jesus Christ was. He was neither only God nor only man. He was both God and man, a God-man. Although God is altogether mighty and altogether able, He cannot accomplish redemption without man. Apart from man, He cannot do anything to accomplish His economy. In the first step, in the old creation, He did everything by Himself, but in the second step He can do nothing apart from man. In the second creation it is necessary for Him to be one with man and to make man one with Him, not in adding Himself to man but in mingling Himself with man.
The very conception of the Lord Jesus of the Holy Spirit, the conception of the incarnation, was itself a mingling. A conception of any kind cannot take place without mingling. Therefore, we should not listen to the traditional, so-called theological teaching against mingling. Actually, the strong ground for the teaching of the divine mingling is the divine conception.
Incarnation was a conception that equaled a mingling of God with man, a mingling of divinity with humanity. This mingling produced a God-man, a holy One who is both God and man. This holy One is the complete God and the perfect man, and He was the first One used by God to accomplish His economy. He was the beginning. Following Him is His reproduction, His increase, His continuation. This reproduction, this increase, this continuation, is corporate. This is His Body, a composition of all the members who are the reproduction, increase, and continuation of that unique One who is both God and man. In principle, we are the same. Therefore, it is altogether scriptural and necessary to say that we are God-men, according to the principle of incarnation, a principle kept by God to fulfill His economy.
In the Old Testament there was a ministry for the preparation of the New Testament economy. Actually, the Old Testament ministry and the New Testament ministry are one. The Old Testament ministry was a preparation, a shadow, a prefigure, and the New Testament ministry is the fulfillment. What took place in the Old Testament was a shadow of what would take place in the New Testament ministry. Therefore, the New Testament ministry is the very fulfillment of the Old Testament ministry.
I am burdened to stress this point of the oneness of the ministry because of all the divisions and confusions that have taken place in the past centuries among Christians. The most damaging thing among Christians is the divisions and the confusions. Moreover, all the divisions and confusions came out of one source, and that source is the different ministries.
In the Old Testament there are thirty-nine books with accounts of different services, but these different services did not constitute different ministries. There was the service of the priesthood, of the kingship, and of all the prophets. It is true that the word service equals the word ministry in Greek, but in our present language we need to use different words to denote different aspects. In order to make this matter clear, we need to use these two different words, the ministry and the service, or the services. Everyone would have to agree that there was only one ministry in the Old Testament. The priests, the kings, and the prophets all bore the same one ministry in different aspects of service. Some, including Aaron and Melchizedek, served in the priesthood. Some, including David and Solomon, were in the service of the kingship. Nevertheless, their different services were all for that unique ministry. In the same principle, Isaiah and Jonah served as prophets, yet they accomplished God’s unique ministry. God did not have two ministries in the Old Testament, but He had one ministry definitely called the ministry of the old covenant, according to the word of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3. That ministry was a figure of the real one that was to come.
The reality of the one ministry, the ministry that fulfilled the figure of the old covenant ministry, did not actually begin with the Lord Jesus but with John the Baptist. First, there was John the Baptist, then the Lord Jesus, then the twelve disciples, and then so many others from Acts to Revelation. In all these ministers the New Testament bears or unveils only one unique ministry, a ministry to carry out the ministry of Christ to bring forth the church. Eventually, the unique ministry of God is to carry out the ministry of Christ so that the church might be brought into being. Christ and the church are the central subject of the entire Bible. This is the center, the focus, and also the circumference of God’s economy. Christ and the church must be everything in God’s economy. To carry out this economy, God has only one ministry, a unique ministry. Of course, the service of John the Baptist was different from that of the Lord Jesus. The service of the Lord Jesus laid a foundation for the service of the apostles. The apostles accomplished a service that occupies the great part and the main part of the New Testament ministry to accomplish God’s economy.
Why is it that there were divisions even from the time that the apostles, including Paul and John, were still here on this earth? Divisions began to take place from the last part of the first century and have continued to take place until the present century. There have been divisions after divisions, which have caused all kinds of confusion. What is the reason for all these divisions? They all came about simply because of different so-called ministries.
As those in the Lord’s recovery, we must ask ourselves what our realization is of the Lord’s ministry to carry out His economy. What is our view concerning the damages that have been brought in through the so-called different ministries? Today every denomination has its own ministry. To be a preacher in a certain denomination, it is necessary for you to be limited to a certain kind of ministry, limited in your teaching, in your preaching, in your doctrine, and even in your behavior. In every denomination you need to be limited to the ministry of that particular denomination.
We need to be very clear that the foundation of all the denominations and the factor that produces each denomination are their different ministries. If all the Christians today would be willing for the Lord to take away their different ministries, they would all be one. The basic factor of all the divisions, their very root, is different ministries. Ministries that are different may be very sound, even very scriptural, but they are something that Paul says was brought in secretly at the time of Galatians 2 (v. 4). This thing crept in as early as the time of Paul. Paul, Peter, and James were all there, and a ministry of another kind was trying to come in. In 1 Timothy 1 Paul charged Timothy to remain in Ephesus to take care of one thing: to charge certain ones not to teach different things, which means not to teach according to another ministry (vv. 3-4). At that time the different teaching was the teaching of the law. In Galatians 2 what was trying to creep in was the law.
At a later time the heretical teaching of Gnosticism came in. Gnosticism was heresy, but you cannot say that to teach something of the Old Testament was heretical. At this point we need to consider that whole situation carefully. Paul was carrying out God’s New Testament ministry, and his ministry followed Peter’s ministry, which was an immediate continuation of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself. In the four Gospels Jesus Christ carried out God’s ministry, and in the first part of Acts, Peter continued that ministry. Then in the second part of Acts, Paul’s ministry was a continuation of Peter’s to carry out God’s New Testament ministry. Nevertheless, when the Judaizing believers were strong in teaching the law, Peter became weak. Peter was afraid of those who came down from James (Gal. 2:11-12). This also indicates that James was a strong figure, a strong character, in tolerating the teaching of the law in the New Testament age.
Can you imagine Paul facing that problem? In Antioch Paul was facing the number-one apostle, Peter, and he was facing representatives of the most influential apostle, James. It was not easy for Paul to face that situation. Two strong influences were there, the influence of Peter and the influence of James. Peter could have said to Paul, “Who are you, Saul of Tarsus? When I was speaking there in Jerusalem, you were still a young man opposing. Who do you think you are?”
In addition, Paul was facing the representatives of James, a godly man who prayed so much, day after day, that there are reports that his two knees were calloused. James was famous for his godly perfection and was very influential. He became even more influential than the great first apostle, Peter. Peter was afraid of his influence. In Antioch Peter was eating with the Gentiles peacefully. However, when some representatives came from James, Peter became a hypocrite and pretended that he had not eaten with the Gentiles. This indicates how strong James’s influence was.
Paul, as a younger apostle who had come later than Peter, was facing such a situation. Undoubtedly, it was hard for him. Nevertheless, for the sake of the truth, Paul did not tolerate that situation. He did not allow such a thing. He cut off the different ministries. He closed the door to the different ministries that were creeping in, and God honored what Paul did in that situation.
According to the New Testament and according to church history, from that time onward Peter did not play an important role in God’s New Testament economy, not as important as the role he played in the first twelve chapters of Acts. This is an important point. After not too long a time, in A.D. 70, God destroyed Jerusalem (Matt. 24:1-2), which was the base of Peter’s work and the base of James’s influence. God tore down the whole thing, leaving no stone upon another, destroying it. Not only was that a judgment on the rebellious Israel, but it was also the destruction of the base of Peter’s work and of James’s influence. After the destruction that took place in A.D. 70, however, Paul’s ministry and his influence remained. God did not allow different ministries and other influences.
We need to see this principle throughout the entire Christian era. All the troubles, divisions, and confusions came from the one source of the tolerance of different ministries. Many Christian teachers have known the peril of different ministries; nevertheless, they have tolerated them. There has been a tolerance of different ministries. In the Lord’s recovery, for the long run, we should not believe that this kind of creeping in of different ministries would never take place. Rather, we must be on the alert. Such a peril is ahead of us. If we are not watchful, if we are careless, in one way or another the enemy would creepingly use some means, some ways, to bring in different ministries. Such a thing would end the Lord’s recovery.
One hundred fifty years ago the testimony of the Brethren was unique, and it was very strong. However, it was damaged by one thing: different teachings. They neglected Paul’s word to Timothy to charge certain ones in Ephesus not to teach different things (1 Tim. 1:3). The Brethren were very good in cutting straight the word. Actually, this was their main teaching, according to 2 Timothy 2:15. Nevertheless, they neglected one crucial verse concerning God’s economy in Paul’s Epistles to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 1:4 the word economy (oikonomia), also translated “dispensation,” is strongly used, and Paul charged Timothy to take care of God’s economy.
All of us today need to be on the alert. We need to realize that Satan could use any one of us to bring in some other kind of teaching that may be scriptural. At Paul’s time it could not be considered heretical to teach the law according to the Old Testament. The law had been given by God and unveiled by God. If I had been there teaching Gnosticism, then I would have been a heretic. On the other hand, if I had been there teaching the law of Moses, no one could have said that my teaching was heretical. In fact, the law of Moses was scriptural. Nevertheless, such teaching would have been different from the teaching concerning God’s economy as it was presented by Paul. We need to be very careful because Satan is subtle. All of us need to be alert not only to watch over others but to watch over ourselves.
When I speak such words of warning to all the dear saints, I speak them even the more to myself. Many times I have seen something new that had to be considered very carefully in the light of the Lord’s up-to-date ministry. I need to consider very carefully whether or not each item is something of God’s ministry today. Each point must be measured according to God’s basic economy. How to measure every point, how to make a decision about every item, all depends upon God’s basic economy, which is to carry out the ministry of Christ for the producing of the church.
If we keep this one basic principle and one basic factor concerning God’s economy, we will be well protected. Nevertheless, each one of us needs to be on the alert not only to watch over others but to take care of ourselves so that we would not be used by the enemy to bring in different thoughts or different teachings that may seem to be scriptural.
