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In the verses listed in chapter 3, the Word is revealed in many different aspects. One of the ways to study the Bible is to count the occurrences of certain things and then to arrange them in a good sequence. First, there is the word of grace. Following this, there is the word of truth, based upon John 1:14 and 17. These verses tell us that the Word became flesh, that the Lord came through incarnation, full of grace and reality, or truth. How could this grace and truth come to us? Electricity comes into a building by means of a wire. The wire by which grace comes to us is the Word. Actually, the Word is more than a wire; it is the embodiment of grace. The divine grace is embodied in the Word, just as God is embodied in Christ. Outside of Christ you cannot find God. In the same principle, outside of the divine Word it is hard for you to find grace. Grace is embodied in the Word. The truth is also embodied in the Word.
Following this, the Bible reveals the word of life (Phil. 2:16; 1 John 1:1). Then there is the word of the gospel (Acts 15:7). The three main constituents of the gospel are grace, truth, and life. When we refer to the word of grace (20:32), the word of the truth (Eph. 1:13), and the word of life, we are speaking of the word of the gospel. Besides this there is the word of the faith (Rom. 10:8). The faith is the very contents of God’s New Testament. The New Testament is a will, and a will is a bequest, something given to us as an inheritance. A will always has as its contents the many items contained in it. From God’s side it is a will; from our side it is the faith. Besides the word of grace, the word of truth, the word of life, the word of the gospel, and the word of the faith, there are many more aspects of the Word.
I have been serving the Lord in the line of His New Testament economy for many years. During this time we have studied and investigated the different practices of Christianity. Especially since the Reformation, many different practices have been raised up, such as the practice of baptism and of the presbytery. When we were young, we were the modern young people of China. During our youth there was a great turn among the conservative Chinese. Our fathers were very conservative, but we were raised up as young people in a new era. We all became quite modern, and we decided to learn the real situation in the world and in history. Almost sixty years ago I came to know the world situation quite well. All the unequal treaties made by the foreign powers with China were so familiar to us. The leaders of the two main political parties in China today, the nationalist party and the Communist party, are my age. We were taught in the same schools as they were. At that time there was a great tide sweeping over all of China to catch the young people. Either one was caught by the nationalist party, or later on he would be caught by the Communist party. But we were caught by the “Jesus party.” I was glad that I was born in that period of time. When I graduated from the English-speaking college established by the American Presbyterians, my graduation paper was on imperialism, a subject selected by me. In it I gave a history of the world’s inventions and how modern science produces modern industry. Modern industry caused overproduction that forced the Western powers to gain the world markets with the help of their gun boats. They went out to invade other countries and forced them to sign treaties for their markets. I gave quite an account of those matters. This is what is called imperialism.
I mention this to you so that you could see that we were not foolish, old-fashioned young people. We were not raised up by the Lord in a blind way. We scientifically studied Christianity. We investigated the situation. Since the first year I was saved, I studied the Bible and made a resolution to know the Bible word by word. I read a number of articles by Watchman Nee, and those articles really caught me. I admired his writing and had the highest regard for the truth he presented. I wrote to him and asked him to tell me the best book to help me to understand the Bible. He responded, saying that according to his knowledge, the best book to help me to know the Bible was John Nelson Darby’s Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. Eventually, he gave me a set as a gift. I tell you this to give you an indication of where we were and from where we came. We two young people in China, considered as “natives” by the missionaries, were seeking to know the Bible by means of Darby’s synopsis.
We have not only studied the Bible, but we have studied the history of Christianity. We have studied how the different denominations were founded. According to our study, the most vain practice is Pentecostalism. Most of the practices of Pentecostalism are not built upon the divine Word. They build nearly everything upon their feelings and experiences. In our writings we stress experience very much. However, when we speak of or stress experiences, we do so with a strong scriptural base. Perhaps no other writings use quotations from the Scriptures as much as ours do. Almost no one would give a message with as many verses as we have in our Scripture readings. Before you get into the message, you must study all the verses given with it. We stress experiences very much, but we do not do it without a base, without a ground in the Scriptures. We would not take anything that is not grounded on the Scriptures. Without this ground, we would not even care for our very deep, intimate experiences. There must be a ground with the Scriptures. But the practice of Pentecostalism is almost entirely not grounded on the Scriptures. Those who practice Pentecostalism often use the Bible simply to justify their way. Most of those who practice this way are “drugged.” No logical person would believe some of the things spoken about in this movement. It is so strange that in the twentieth century, in this top scientific country with so much education, people would believe these things. I have studied Pentecostalism for more than fifty years, and when I talked to a number of persons who spoke in tongues, they were all convinced that what they were speaking was false. They could not argue with me and admitted that I had the ground in the Scriptures. Yet even though they admitted that what they were practicing was false, they still continued to practice it, insisting that they liked it and that it made them feel happy. This proves that many of those who practice in this way are drugged. We must come back to the divine way. The divine way is to use the Word to the uttermost.
The old creation was created by God’s word. The universe came into being through the Word of God (John 1:1, 3; Heb. 11:3). God spoke, and it was so (Psa. 33:9). With the new creation it is the same. By the word, God created us as the new creation. John 5:24 says, “He who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment but has passed out of death into life.” Other verses confirm that the word produced the new creation. First Peter 1:23 says that we were “regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God.” James 1:18 says that “He brought us forth by the word of truth.” The word regenerates us, and the word enlightens us (105, Psa. 119:130). You should study to find out how much the word of God does for us.
The Bible reveals many other items of what the Word is. The first item, the basic item, is that the Word is God. “In the beginning was the Word,...and the Word was God” (John 1:1). In Colossians 3:16 the word is personified: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Recently I began to realize that personification is implied here, based upon the word dwell. The word dwell here (enoikeo, Gk.) is from the root word meaning “house” (oikos, Gk.). We cannot say, “Let a table dwell in your home,” or “Let the books dwell in your home.” We cannot even say, “Let a dog dwell in your home.” A dog is something living, but it is not a person. In this verse the word of Christ is a personification. In Paul’s concept the word of Christ is simply Christ. We must let this person dwell in us. To take in the word of Christ simply means to take Christ in. To let the word of Christ dwell in you is to let Christ dwell in you. We cannot separate the word of Christ from Christ Himself.
In the New Testament, phrases such as the life of God, the light of God, the love of God, and the word of Christ denote something in apposition. The life of God means that life is God. The love of God means that love is God. The word of Christ means that this word is Christ or that this Christ is the word. The word and Christ are in apposition to each other. Actually, the two are one. This is very meaningful. That Christ and the word are one is confirmed by Revelation 19:13. The One who will defeat Antichrist and his army is named the Word of God. The Word of God is a person.
Throughout the entire Bible, especially in the New Testament, God sent His chosen people to preach the word. A number of times the New Testament, especially the Acts, simply refers to the word (Acts 4:4; 8:4; 11:19; 17:11; 2 Tim. 4:2). Acts 4:4 says that many heard the word. In Acts 17:11 some received the word. The word is something unique. In the early days, in the Acts, the saints must have used this term, the word, saying, “Let us speak the word,” or “Let us preach the word.” Our activity in propagating Christ must be through the word.
If we have much to say, to teach, or to preach from the Word, we are rich. If I am filled with the Spirit, I will not simply practice the so-called gifts or speak in tongues that no one can translate. The New Testament, especially Paul, tells us that when the Spirit is upon the believers, the topmost aspects of the manifestation He gives is the word of wisdom and then the word of knowledge (1 Cor. 12:8). The Spirit will always do this. He will not simply give the gift of healing or speaking in tongues.
The New Testament tells us clearly that all the miraculous things can be done by the enemy (Matt. 24:24; 2 Thes. 2:9). If you trust in these things, when Antichrist comes with his prophet, you may be deceived. They will do great miracles. The biggest miracle will be that the image, the idol of Antichrist, will speak (Rev. 13:15). According to the prophecy of the New Testament, many will be attracted (Matt. 24:24; Rev. 13:14). They will all be impressed and believe in Antichrist because of the signs and wonders.
Recently, through an article I learned more concerning Mormonism in the days of Joseph Smith, its founder. In those days the Mormons practiced miracles very much and spoke in tongues. They picked up the thought of Mark 16:17-18 — speaking with new tongues, healing, picking up serpents, and drinking deadly things without being harmed. According to this article, Joseph Smith told a learned Methodist pastor that the Mormons had advanced further because they had picked up the miracles, healings, and tongue-speaking. One of the Mormons even encouraged certain Methodists to come with him to see many persons who would heal blindness, deadness, and so many diseases. They practiced according to the powers of the age to come (Heb. 6:5). The subtle one, Satan, can use all the miraculous things, but he can never use anything that is revealed or conveyed by the divine Word.
I have heard about things such as these many times and have even seen them. Once someone gets into the miraculous things, he gets addicted. We all must build on the solid rock of the divine Word, not on the sinking sand of the so-called gifts, as taught by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 7:24 through 27. If we behave, work, and live based upon His Word, whatever we are, whatever we do, how we behave, and how we work will be solidly based. We will have the solid rock as our foundation, not sinking sand.
The old creation was created by God’s word, and the new creation was also created by God’s word. We are still under the work of the solid Word. Therefore, we must pick up the solid Word for our preaching. We cannot preach God without His Word. We cannot preach Christ without His Word. We cannot preach the gospel without the word of the gospel. We cannot minister grace and truth and life to others without the word of grace, the word of truth, and the word of life. The Word actually is our preaching. Without the Word, how could you preach? It is impossible to preach anything without the Word. But Hallelujah, what a big book we have — the Bible, of sixty-six books. The longest chapter in the entire Bible is Psalm 119. It is composed according to the twenty-two characters of the Hebrew alphabet in the proper order. The one hundred and seventy-six verses of that psalm are divided into groups of eight verses. Each group of eight verses forms one section with a heading, a character of the Hebrew alphabet. In those one hundred and seventy-six verses nearly every verse deals with the word of God. Two words are very much used in this psalm — the word and the testimony. Likewise, the law is mentioned often. In that psalm the word, the testimony, and the law refer to the same thing. The law is God’s testimony, and God’s testimony is God’s Word. This psalm says, “The opening of Your words gives light” (v. 130). We should spend some time in these verses. That was simply the word of the law, not the word of grace, the word of truth, the word of life, or the word of the gospel. The ancient saints treasured that word to the uttermost. They lived by that word. Today the New Testament continues the Old to give us many more words.
The Word is God. The word is life. The word is so many things. The word enlightens us; the word regenerates us; the word transfers us out of death into life; the word sanctifies us and does many more things for us. If we do not have the adequate knowledge of the word, if we do not have a deposit of this word, an accumulation of this word, then how could we preach? It would be impossible.
In China there were a good number of saints who were saved through the Pentecostal movement. They were very good brothers and sisters. However, they found out they had no way to go on in that movement, so they turned to the way of the Lord’s recovery. Whoever had such a Pentecostal background was hard to help. They had a heart to seek the Lord, but their background was too strong. That background replaced the real knowledge and the full realization of the divine life.
It is hard to minister the word of life to those with a Pentecostal background. Unconsciously they may hold on to their background. It is something deeply grounded and rooted in them. It is hard for one to dig it out and clear it away. The only rescue for all of us is the Word of God. I would beg you in love to put the Pentecostal things aside. Come back to the pure Word. Forget about your background and come back to the pure Word of God, regarding yourself as knowing nothing. Then you will be rescued. The word of the Bible, the Bible full of the word, will become a new book to you.
Our problem today is the superficial replacement of Christ with the so-called gifts and the practice of the gifts. Even with this superficial, replacing practice, there is still something real. We cannot deny this. In a very positive sense we are not standing against the gifts. They are in the Bible. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 still gives ground to these things, but he put the miraculous gifts at the “tail” of the list of gifts. The top gifts are related to the Word. The first aspect of the manifestation of the Spirit is the word of wisdom, and the second is the word of knowledge (v. 8). The enemy can perform a deceit to imitate the manifestation of the Spirit by means of the miracles, but the enemy can never imitate by means of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. You cannot receive the word of wisdom in a sudden, miraculous way. In 1 Corinthians 2:7 Paul indicates what the word of wisdom is — “But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages for our glory.” Much wisdom is required to understand such a mystery. This is why Paul uses this word mystery, indicating at least three things: first, the mystery of God is Christ (Col. 2:2); second, the mystery of Christ is the church (Eph. 3:4-6); and third, putting these two together, there is the great mystery, Christ and the church (5:32). How much wisdom is needed to understand these mysteries! Therefore, Paul charges the deacons in the church to hold the mystery of the faith (1 Tim. 3:9). This can never be imitated.
We must come back to the divine way of using the Word to the uttermost. The Word is God. The Word is personified. Even the coming triumphant Victor will be designated with such a title, the Word of God. We must preach, teach, and speak the word. In the service, in the meetings, in our daily life, and everywhere, we must always speak the word. We can have the assurance that when we speak the word, the word conveys the Spirit. The Spirit always honors the Word.
We must now consider the home meetings, the meetings of the small groups. The traditional way for Christians to meet is to have a gathering, to gather the members of the church or perhaps some unbelievers. At least one or two learned speakers will speak while all the rest sit and listen. This is commonly called the service. In a sense we have improved this. At one time Brother Nee strongly insisted on canceling the Sunday morning meetings so that the saints could preach the gospel. However, Brother Nee never got through. To tear down any kind of tradition is hard. Some among us may say, “Today almost all the nations are accustomed to having a holiday on Sundays. This is the best time to gather the people, either to preach the gospel or to teach the truth. All the people today are accustomed to gathering together to have a service.” Some may argue that even the unbelievers like to go to church on Sundays to attend the service and that we should take advantage of this. In a good sense this is quite logical. Therefore, even until now we still could not annul the Sunday morning meeting. We all have to admit that even today we consider the Sunday morning meeting to be the top meeting. It is “the meeting.” Recently, due to my study, I became bold, even to revolutionize our practice. But wherever this news went, some may have considered it to be too much. They may have considered that to put away the Sunday morning service is to commit suicide.
In Brother Nee’s book The Normal Christian Church Life there is a section on the home meetings (ch. 12). I was there under that ministry. I listened to those messages, and in a good sense I helped in giving those messages. This had never before been brought forth. Brother Nee tried, but he could not get through. If we were to have divided the total congregation into small groups in the homes, there would just have been an absolute silence in each place. We were too used to the big meetings to go directly into the home gatherings. As a bridge between the big congregations and the home meetings, Brother Nee proposed to have a brothers’ fellowship meeting and a sisters’ fellowship meeting. On Saturdays the brothers would come together, and the sisters would come at another time. These meetings were not for teaching or for praying but for fellowshipping. We began to practice this way. In the first two or three weeks Brother Nee said that the best way to have these fellowship meetings was to give testimonies. We should learn to speak by testifying. We all could have some testimony, testimonies of our repentance, testimonies of our salvation, or testimonies of our daily walk. We all took this word and practiced it. For a few weeks we had testimonies. However, after all these testimonies were exhausted, we came back again silent. This became a hardship to the leading ones. They had to consider what they should do in the meetings, whether to call a hymn or give a prayer. Eventually, the report went to Brother Nee that they were not able to have such meetings.
Later we came to Taiwan. By that time we had learned a lot. I myself had eighteen years of experience. We dropped some of the things we practiced on the mainland, which I had learned were not practical. We had a new start in Taiwan that was prevailing. Within six years we increased from about four hundred people to forty thousand, a hundredfold increase. At that time we began our meeting and our work in one hall in Taipei. After one year we began to meet in a few halls. Then we found out that simply by using the halls, we could not fulfill our purpose. Therefore, we began to have small groups. The church had a number of halls. Under each hall there were a number of small groups. This way worked very well. It was through those small groups that a great number of people were brought in. After being brought in, they were cared for by the small groups. By 1960 the number of saints in Taipei alone was over twenty thousand.
In 1961 I left Taipei and stayed in the United States for four years. For the next twenty years I returned to Taipei only once in a while. Gradually, the work in Taiwan with all the churches was in an unnoticeable decline. They did not drop the small group meetings altogether, but without realizing it, there was an unnoticeable decline. By 1984 the church in Taipei had twenty-one halls. However, their membership came down from over twenty thousand to at most eleven or twelve thousand. Among these, about one-third was always present in the meetings. Only about four thousand people were gathered in twenty-one halls. They practiced only the large gatherings. Rarely did they have some small meetings. Very few of the saints paid attention to the small meetings. Their burden was mainly to train twenty-one speakers to take care of the twenty-one halls. In principle, they had gone back to the traditional way of meeting. They cared mainly for the large Sunday morning meetings and neglected the fact that after twenty-three years their numbers had decreased from more than twenty thousand to less than twelve thousand.
Around 1980 I began to notice that the work and the churches there were not going up but were instead going down. From 1980 to 1984 I had serious talks with the leading ones there, telling them that they should consider their way. Their present way was not working. However, once we get into something, it is hard for us to get out of it. Outsiders may have a clear view, but we ourselves may be veiled by what we practice.
In the beginning of 1984 I realized that I had to go back to Taiwan. I could not forget about the work there. I could not go immediately, though, because of the writing of the notes on the New Testament, the outline, and all the annual trainings. In October of that year I finished the last of the notes on the New Testament. Then I said, “Now I must go back to Taiwan,” and I went. When I went back, I was frank, faithful, and bold with them, because they were mostly people who were raised up through my ministry. I proposed that they have a revolutionizing change. First, the present number of saints was divided into small groups, not more than eight or ten in a group. They formed three hundred ninety-nine groups. Second, at that time in that church of nearly twelve thousand, with around four thousand meeting in twenty-one halls, there were only less than six elders. The younger ones were considered to not be qualified. No more than four or five were brought into the eldership. The elders mentioned the brothers by name, saying they were all not qualified. However, I told them that this was the time to change our system and add more elders. To some extent they realized that their system was wrong and that they needed to have a new start. On that same night over fifty elders were established. Each of the twenty-one halls had either one, two, or three elders. Many among them are just a little over thirty years old. I saw their fathers and their mothers before they were saved, and I saw the fruit of those marriages. These young fruit now are elders. This is wonderful.
It is not easy to change our ways. Recently, however, in Taipei during one weekend eleven hundred and four were baptized. This is good news, but I am also waiting to see another positive aspect — that all the saints speak in the meetings. The eleven hundred and four were brought in not by preaching but by speaking. While I was in Taiwan, I told the saints to go out to speak the gospel. This is not a preaching in an official way but rather a speaking in a regular way in the daily life. I told them to speak the gospel to their friends, colleagues, relatives, neighbors, and everybody. These eleven hundred and four newly baptized believers were brought in by just about ten percent of the church in Taipei. Only a little over three hundred practiced the speaking of the gospel, yet at that time they were baptizing people every day. All of this came about through only one-tenth of the saints. Of course, it would be better if one hundred percent would practice in this way. Now I am waiting to see if all of them would speak in the meetings. The home meetings are the major burden of this elders’ training.
