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Through all the Life-studies of the New Testament that we have completed during the past ten years, the Lord has laid a basic foundation that will enable us to see something further at this time concerning the ministry of the New Testament. There is the need of such a solid foundational work in order to see the ministry of the New Testament in the four Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles of Paul, the Epistles of Peter, the Epistles of John, and finally, the book of Revelation.
When we finish the Life-study of the entire New Testament, probably within one more year, I am burdened to have one full ten-day training with thirty messages to review all the Life-studies of the New Testament. However, I consider that this is a golden opportunity to open up within these few chapters something of what is on my heart along this line. To get into the depths of these matters in a solid way, to get into the intrinsic essence of them, it is necessary to have this basic foundational work, and it is also necessary to have a pure situation, a pure oracle for the Lord to speak. I believe we do have such a situation among us, and I therefore have no hindrance or reservation within me to keep me from pouring out something of what has been on my heart for a long time. It would take at least thirty messages to cover what is on my heart; nevertheless, within these few chapters we can touch some crucial points.
In the four Gospels there are actually only two unique ministers — John the Baptist and Jesus the Savior. The ministry of John was the initiation of the ministry of the Lord Jesus, and the ministry of the Lord Jesus was the main ministry in the four Gospels. Needless to say, we should neither despise nor even neglect John’s ministry, since it was a very solid initiation of the New Testament ministry. We need to consider these matters carefully in the light of the depth of the truth, not merely according to the letters in black and white.
The ministry of John was a termination of the old creation, the old culture, the old religion, the old ordinances, and the old practices. We all need a deep realization that the intrinsic element, even the intrinsic essence, of John’s ministry was altogether a termination of all things that existed prior to and until his time. When John opened his mouth to begin his ministry, it was God’s intention to use that ministry to terminate everything that was in existence up to that time except Himself. The only One who could never be terminated and who never would need to be terminated was the Triune God Himself. When John stood up to minister, his ministry terminated whatever God had created, whatever had come into being.
The best way to terminate anything is to bury it, not merely to get rid of it. Such a termination through burial was the intrinsic essence of the initiation of the New Testament ministry. The main reason we cannot take the way of the majority of today’s Christians is that their way is not to terminate the things of the old creation but rather to cultivate and even nurture and foster the things of the old creation.
John’s ministry was a termination that led to a new beginning. God had no intention to merely terminate things. Our God is a God full of purpose; only one with no purpose would have terminated things for the sake of termination. God terminated the things with the definite purpose that the termination would lead to a new beginning.
That new beginning was there with the second minister in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Himself. Jesus was initiated and ushered into His ministry by John’s baptism. It initiated Jesus into His post to accomplish His ministry. While John was ministering to terminate everything, Jesus came into John’s ministry, not to take over that ministry but to enter into it. The way Jesus entered into John’s ministry was by accepting John’s baptism; even He accepted the termination at that time.
We need to consider carefully the reason Jesus accepted such a termination. Jesus was the God-man. The divine conception of Jesus was one of the Holy Spirit, with the divine essence mingled with the human essence to produce this unique person — a person who is the complete God and the perfect man. In the previous four thousand years of human history, there had never been such a wonderful One, One who was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence mingled with the human essence to produce a God-man, One who was completely God and perfectly man. He was unique. He was a God-man. Nevertheless, we need to have a deep realization within us that in His constitution there was the essence of the old creation. In its essence His humanity belonged to the old creation. He was a man, a genuine human being, with a human will, with human emotions, and with a human mind. He was not some kind of phantom, as the Docetists falsely taught (see footnote 31 in 1 John 4, Recovery Version).
Jesus was a real man, and that man was called, in the Bible, flesh. “In the beginning was the Word,...and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). We need to take special note that John 1:14 does not say that this Word became a man but rather that this Word became flesh. Not only did flesh belong to the old creation, but it belonged to the fallen creation. Such a statement may cause you to ask whether the Word, which was God, became something fallen. We need to exercise much carefulness in answering such a question. Paul gives the answer to this question in Romans 8:3: “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” Paul uses three things to compose one explanation: the likeness, the flesh, and sin. Of course, flesh here is the central item, the basic item. Attached to it is sin, and related to it is likeness. Jesus became flesh, and flesh had become fallen by that time. However, He took only the likeness of the flesh of sin, the likeness without sin. Jesus took the form, the likeness, yet it was the form of something that belonged to sin. This crucial point is neglected by many. The flesh is of sin, and the Son of God did indeed become flesh (John 1:14; Heb. 2:14; 1 Tim. 3:16). However, He was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin and had no participation in the sin of the flesh (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). This was typified by the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses for the sinful Israelites (Num. 21:9; John 3:14). The bronze serpent was in the form, the likeness, of the actual serpent, without its poison. The Lord Jesus was typified by a serpent in form but only in form. There was no serpentine nature in that bronze serpent.
It was such a Jesus who came into God’s terminating ministry, which was being carried out by John. Jesus came into that ministry, and He accepted the termination. He was buried in that death water. It was not until that juncture that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. Before the descending of the Spirit upon Him, He had already been conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Holy Spirit. He possessed the mingling of the divine essence with the human essence by the Holy Spirit. He was conceived in this way, He was born in this way, and He was born to be such a being. However, at this point, when He accepted the termination ordained by God, the Holy Spirit came upon Him to anoint Him. Right away He became One who was a mingling of divinity with the terminated humanity and anointed with the Holy Spirit. It is quite meaningful that incarnation gave the Lord Jesus humanity and brought Him into humanity, but John’s ministry terminated that humanity. The purpose of this termination was to lead to a new beginning in resurrection. After His baptism the Lord Jesus was a resurrected person. According to the Old Testament type in Exodus, the holy ointment was not to be poured upon any flesh (30:32). Immediately after His baptism the Holy Spirit as the holy ointment descended upon Him; that is, it was poured upon Him because His flesh was terminated, and He became a resurrected man. In other words, His humanity had been terminated and resurrected.
After the Holy Spirit descended upon the Lord Jesus, He was the qualified minister of the New Testament ministry. John was qualified, but in comparison with the Lord Jesus, John was not so thoroughly qualified. John was qualified only to a certain degree. John was not such a person as the Lord Jesus was. John was not a person conceived and born of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence mingled with the human essence. Only Jesus was uniquely such a person. To the uttermost, what John had was a pouring out of the Spirit upon him.
Luke tells us that John was to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb (1:15). According to the black and white letters, when we read that John was filled with the Holy Spirit, we presume that to be filled means to be filled within. Actually, this is not the case. When the one hundred twenty were filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, that filling did not mean that the Holy Spirit entered into them; it meant that the Holy Spirit descended upon them (Acts 2:4). Not only John the Baptist but also his mother Elizabeth and then his father Zachariah experienced such a filling of the Holy Spirit. John was the first one to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. In that family the son took the lead, the mother followed, and the father concluded this filling of the Spirit. The entire family was anointed by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, John did not have the intrinsic element within him as Jesus did. Jesus had something intrinsic that was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence mingled with the human essence. That intrinsic element is the basic difference between John’s conception and birth and that of Jesus.
All of us need to grasp this basic point that after His baptism and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him, Jesus became such a being with divinity and with humanity, but with a humanity that had been terminated and resurrected. After He was anointed, He began to minister. It is crucial for us to see what it was that He ministered. The four Gospels present His ministry to the readers, but many readers do not realize adequately what the four Gospels present.
Most readers realize only that the four Gospels are a biography, telling the stories of one life. Some good students of the Bible may present some spiritual teachings, doctrines, out of this biography. All of us need to see what the purpose of God is in presenting these four Gospels to us. These four were selected by the Holy Spirit out of many gospels that were written (Luke 1:1). It is very meaningful that these four were selected, and all the others were not qualified. In these four Gospels that were selected out of so many, we have a clear picture of the ministry of this unique One. Such a ministry is hard to describe.
In recent days we had a conference on Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. In those messages I pointed out that there are no human words available in any language to describe the wonderful One whose life is recorded in these four Gospels. When Christ came out to minister, He acted, He lived, He worked, He moved, and He ministered in such a way that no vocabulary in any language can describe. Language depends upon culture. If there is a certain kind of culture, surely there will be language to match it and to convey it. However, in all of human history and all of human culture, there has never been such a One as this unique One, and there has never been such a life as the life of this One. Therefore, there is no vocabulary available for us to describe Him. Human eyes have never seen such a One or such a life. Therefore, no human words are adequate to describe this One or His life. You cannot find one adjective in any language that is adequate to describe the One presented in the four Gospels.
Even you cannot find a single adjective adequate to describe the life portrayed in the sixteen chapters of the Gospel of Mark, which has been somewhat disregarded by many Christian readers. Not many Christian readers respect Mark as much as they do John, Matthew, or Luke. In the Life-study of Mark we have seen a life that human words cannot describe. We could say that this life was a holy life, a divine life, an ethical life, a godly life, a righteous life, and a life that was right both with God and with man, but none of these words are adequate. No philosopher ever invented a term that can describe Christ’s character. We could say that He was loving, humble, kind, meek, and mild, but again none of these words is adequate. A life is portrayed in the Gospel of Mark that stood out uniquely. You can only see it, but you cannot describe it because of the shortage of human language. No adjective can adequately describe this person, the life He lived, the way He moved, the way He worked, the way He acted, and the way He ministered. No words are adequate, but a picture is presented, which we have seen in the Life-study of Mark.
This One was willing to be under God as a Slave. He served God, and He took care of God’s house, of God’s chosen people. All of them got lost, and He took care of the lost household of His Master, the very God. Again, we are short of vocabulary to describe the way He took care of them.
By the Lord’s mercy, we have picked up all the elements of His ministry in our human words, in human expressions that we can understand: to preach the gospel, to teach the truth, to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to cleanse the lepers. We do have words such as these in our human language, and this is all that we can understand. Yet there is something further that we cannot utter. In the footnotes on each of these items, we saw that to preach is to announce the glad tidings to the miserable people, to teach is to shine upon the people in darkness, and to cast out demons is to destroy Satan’s kingdom and release God’s people. However, after we have said all that we can say, even with much consideration, we realize that there is still something more that we cannot utter concerning this wonderful One and the life He lived. Not only is it true that with Him we cannot find any fault, any shortcoming, or any wrongdoing; even we cannot find words adequate to describe Him on the positive side. Surely He was humble, patient, and enduring, but there is also something that we cannot put into words. When we have exhausted our human vocabulary, there is still something more.
Furthermore, it is clear that the Lord Jesus would never let His followers go, especially Peter, James, and John. We have covered this point in the Life-study of Mark. Whatever He did, He did with them. Wherever He went, He went with them. For many years I did not know what His purpose was in bringing them with Him all the time, but now we understand that His intention was to bring them all into His terminating death and into His germinating resurrection.
In addition, we need to realize that Peter, James, and John were the ones who were miserable, in darkness, under Satan’s usurping hand, sick of fever, and contaminated by leprosy. It was Peter, James, and John who heard the gospel, who received the truth, and who were released from Satan’s possession. These disciples were the ones who were healed of their fever, healed of the abnormal condition of their human life, and cleansed from leprosy. However, they were still deaf, dumb, and blind, and thus they were still in need. When the time came, the Lord healed their ears. He thrust His fingers into their ears so that they could hear, healed their mouths so that they could speak, and especially opened their eyes so that they could see.
When the day of Pentecost came, we can see Peter standing there. He was the one who received the gospel, who saw the light of the truth, who was liberated from the possession of the usurper, who was healed from his abnormal situation, and who was cleansed from his leprosy. His deaf ears were opened. Surely he heard God’s word, his eyes saw the divine vision, and his mouth was opened wide to speak. As we have seen, there was still something further. Finally, Peter was replaced. Peter, as such a one, was brought into Christ’s death and into His resurrection. We may say that he became another person, a reproduction of Jesus, in the sense that something within him was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence mingled with the human essence, yet terminated and germinated. In chapter 1 of Acts Peter was there as such a person. He was ready there for ten days. After those ten days the Holy Spirit, who descended upon Jesus after His baptism, descended again upon those people, and they were anointed. In a proper sense, just as we may say that Peter became a reproduction of Jesus, we may also say that they became Jesus. This is the ministry of the New Testament in the section of Jesus’ ministry, along the line of Peter. Mark and the first twelve chapters of Acts are in the line of Peter.
If you consider this very Jesus who served God as a Slave in such a ministry, what words could you use to describe this ministry? We have used a number of sentences to describe something of this ministry. I do believe that what has been spoken has created an impression within you that will cause you to see His ministry, which is the ministry of the New Testament.
While this Slave was serving to take care of God’s household in this way, according to the Gospel of Luke, He was a genuine, perfect, and entire man who came to seek and to save the lost sinners in the way of the highest standard of morality. It is very strange that certain cases are recorded only in Luke and not in the other Gospels. In Luke 7 there is the case of the son of the widow in Nain who was dead and being carried in a coffin on the street. The Lord Jesus came in to raise him up. Following this, there is the case of a sinful woman weeping and washing the feet of the Lord Jesus (vv. 37-38). In chapter 10 there is the good Samaritan, and in chapter 19, Zaccheus, a chief tax collector.
All these cases are found only in Luke, not in the other Gospels. If you consider these cases, you could realize that Jesus is presented here as a perfect man who was carrying out His saving work in the highest standard of morality. Actually, the word morality is not adequate to describe His standard. The standard was something more excellent than morality, but we are short of words to describe it. Nevertheless, if you take this concept and go back to read the story of the good Samaritan, you could see something there that is not merely His saving but His saving in a way that is indescribable.
It was against a very black background that the good Samaritan came to the wounded one in Luke 10. The Jews themselves called the Lord Jesus a Samaritan in John 8:48. Luke describes how a priest came to the place where the wounded one was, and he passed by on the opposite side of the road without doing anything. Likewise, a Levite passed by and did not do anything. Then this good Samaritan, the despised one, came in a way that is beyond human words to describe. He was not asked or begged to do something to rescue the fallen one. He did everything out of himself on his own initiative. Here is a story that shows us in what kind of standard and way, Jesus, the perfect man, carried out His saving. This case does not emphasize His power. To call Lazarus out of the tomb shows His mighty divine power. However, this case shows us something of the highest standard of morality.
Then in Matthew this One lived a life that is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. While He came as a Slave to serve God’s household and as a man to save the lost sinners in the highest standard of something that is beyond our utterance, this One lived a kingly life. Many Christian teachers talk about the kingdom in Matthew, but they have failed to see that the kingdom is portrayed by a kingly life, which we do not have words to describe. This life portrays the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. If you want to know what the kingdom of the heavens is, you need to look at this life. In Matthew this life is the kingdom of the heavens.
Furthermore, this matchless One, who came as such a Slave taking care of God’s household, as such a perfect man saving in that high standard, and as such a One who lived a life that was the kingdom of the heavens, also expressed God. God lived through Him, God was expressed through Him, He lived by God, and He lived as God. In the Gospel of John we see such a life as God’s expression. What indescribable life is this? We must confess that we are utterly short of a proper vocabulary to describe such a fourfold life in this way. This life was the ministry of the Lord Jesus. You need to look at this ministry and also look at His person. Consider what kind of person He was and consider His ministry. This is marvelous. This is the New Testament ministry.
After He had completed such a life as the very New Testament ministry, the Lord Jesus went to the cross to die a death as the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) to terminate the old man with the old creation. The death He died was also a death as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) to take away sin and its result — sins. In addition, He died a death as the bronze serpent (3:14) to destroy Satan and his kingdom, the world. Moreover, we need to realize also that the Lord Jesus died to abolish the ordinances (Eph. 2:14-15), which include human culture, habits, and customs that divide the very mankind created by God. The death that He died to abolish all these things may be designated the death of the Peacemaker. In addition, as a grain of wheat (John 12:24), He died a death that released the divine life. The Bible tells us that He died at least a fivefold death — a death as the last Adam, as the Lamb of God, as the bronze serpent, as the Peacemaker, and as a grain of wheat. When He was dying there on the cross, in the eyes of God He was at least a fivefold person, a person in at least five aspects.
The Lord Jesus as such a person terminated everything through such a death. That termination means that He accomplished the real baptism, as He said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). He had already been baptized, but He still had to go through a real baptism, a baptism that was the death on the cross, signified by the death water used by John the Baptist.
On the positive side, through the death of the Lord Jesus, the divine life was released. In that divine life the very Jesus who had died was resurrected. Some of the things that were dealt with through His death could never come back again, including sin and sins, Satan and the world, and the ordinances, habits, and customs, but the old man and the old creation were resurrected. The Gospels of John and Luke give us a sign concerning this matter. However, we need to realize that it is not easy to study the Bible properly and to understand it properly and adequately. On the morning of the resurrection Mary and the other sisters and Peter and John went to the tomb. The man Jesus was gone, but the grave clothes were left there (John 20:5-7; Luke 24:12), representing all the things that were not related to the person of the Lord Jesus. The old man and the old creation, however, were very much related to what the Lord Jesus was in His humanity. Therefore, that part was resurrected, but the rest that was buried was left in the tomb.
In the Life-study of Colossians we pointed out that God was busy when the Lord Jesus was dying on the cross (Message 23, p. 191). All the demons were busy, the evil angels were busy, and Satan was busy because it was not only Jesus who was crucified there on the cross. Jesus carried many things to the cross. He carried our sin and our sins, Satan and his world, and the ordinances, including the human culture, to the cross. Moreover, He carried the old man, which was a part of His very being and was related to the old creation, to the cross. In His resurrection, though, He brought the old man and the old creation with Him.
For this reason in God’s germination there is the new man and the new heaven and the new earth. There is no such thing as a new Satan. There is no such thing as new sin or new ordinances. But out of the tomb there was brought forth a new man and a new creation. The rest was left in the tomb. On the morning of resurrection the disciples saw the grave clothes left in the tomb. Eventually, Mary the Magdalene saw this resurrected man related to God’s new creation.
In such a life Jesus became the life-giving Spirit. Now you can understand how He became the life-giving Spirit and also why He needed to become such a Spirit. Just as He needed to be incarnated to live a human life, in order that by this human life He could die to accomplish God’s all-inclusive redemption, so also it was necessary at this time for Him to become such a life-giving Spirit.
All the old things were terminated at the cross of the Lord Jesus, and all the new things were germinated in His resurrection. Now in His resurrection He is the life-giving Spirit, and as such a Spirit, He comes to germinate everyone chosen and predestinated by God according to Ephesians 1:4-5. He comes to germinate the chosen ones based upon His death and based upon His redemption, to make them the reproduction of Jesus in the same sense that Peter became another person, a reproduction of Jesus, in Acts 2. This is to produce the church, and this is the ministry of the New Testament in the section of the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
In the case of messages such as these, we need much desperate prayer and fellowship so that we might be brought into the depths of these truths and have the reality of them constituted into our very being. What I am sharing with you is what has been constituted into my own being over a period of many years. I am eager to pour out what has accumulated within me when there is opportunity. We hope to have a concluding training of the New Testament to review all these matters, but we expect that out of your prayer and exercise over these messages, all of you would see something further concerning the New Testament ministry, and something would be constituted within you. Among the majority of today’s Christians, the concept of ministry is far short of what we are touching here, and their way of speaking about ministry is too superficial. If we mean business with the Lord, we should bear some part of the genuine ministry.
In this light concerning the New Testament ministry, you could see where you should be, what you should be, and what you should do. As far as the ministry of the New Testament is concerned, you should not trust in your ability to speak, your ability to present doctrinal truth, your ability to write, or any of your other abilities. You should not think that you are qualified in those areas and, therefore, there is no problem with you. With some of you there is a definite problem. You should not think that any of your abilities qualify you for some part of the New Testament ministry. On that basis you are not qualified, for your abilities are not a part of the New Testament ministry and have nothing to do with the New Testament ministry.
Especially in the present situation I am very much burdened that we could see the intrinsic essence of God’s New Testament ministry. I would caution the younger ones among us in particular that they have no standing to be proud of how much they know. There are some with us from the Far East who have been under my training for more than ten years, yet from what I call the weather reports that have come to me, there are signs to indicate the danger of storms approaching. These weather reports have been the words that I have heard out of your own mouths. The same kind of weather reports have also come to me from different parts of this country in recent months. It was based on this pressing need that the decision was made to call these meetings for urgent fellowship to present these messages to you. Therefore, I would not consider this training an ordinary one but rather something related to the urgent need. In these days we are very much in need of the Lord’s mercy that we might see the very inner essence of the New Testament ministry. The Lord’s recovery is much more than a matter of teaching the Bible, presenting doctrines, and even helping people to grow a little bit or holding conferences to edify others. All these things are too superficial.
None of you has the standing to be proud of what you know. You may not realize how little you know, even how little has been wrought into you from the trainings we have had together. There are some among us who are off track; whether you stay where you are or go to another place, you are off. Some of us have been in the Lord’s recovery more than twenty years. There is the danger that we would become old and that we would become persons who feel that they are full. This is something of Laodicea. In some cases these things may have happened already. What I have released to you is a small part of what is on my heart, a small portion to show you what God’s New Testament ministry is.
In carrying out God’s New Testament ministry, the Lord Jesus told us that He never did anything out of Himself (John 5:19), He did not do His own work (4:34; 17:4), He did not speak His own word (14:10, 24), He did everything not by His own will (5:30), and He did not seek His own glory (7:18). If you use these few points as a standard to measure all the Christian work today, you can see that nearly all the Christian works fall short according to this yardstick. Who can say that they do not do anything in the Lord’s work out of themselves? Who can say that they do not do their own work or speak their own words? Also, who can say that they do not do anything by their own will and that they do not do anything to seek their own glory? If we can answer these five points positively, I believe that we are also in the New Testament ministry of God. If not, we are off.
This is the section of the Lord Jesus in God’s New Testament ministry, and it is this that produces the church, edifies the saints, and builds up the Body. If you are short of these five points, whatever you do will be divisive and will cause division. Therefore, we need to see that there is a big difference with a terminated person who is not doing a work out of himself, not doing his own work, not speaking his own word, not doing things by his own will, and not seeking his own glory. This is not only a section of God’s New Testament ministry but our pattern, a pattern of such a person with such a life. May the Lord make our vision clear concerning these matters.
