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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:18; Rom. 8:2; John 10:10; 6:35, 55, 57, 63; Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7; Rev. 2:7; 22:2
Prayer: Lord, we thank You for Your sovereignty, and we thank You for Your sovereign grace that we may have this training. Lord, we believe it is of You, yet we still put our trust in You. We have no trust in ourselves. We trust in You for all the trainees. Grant them Your merciful, gracious visitation every day. Lord, this morning we look unto You for Your speaking. Speak a word out of Your heart to our heart. We need Your word of life. Reveal life to us. Lord, do cover us, fight the battle, and condemn the evil one. We ask You, and we even give You the command, to defeat him in these fighting days. Lord, defeat the enemy. We bind him. O Lord, thank You. Give us a living word. Amen.
This is a very special and particular training. We have never had such a training as this in the past sixty years. First, I will not speak very much. I will speak only four times each week out of the eighteen to nineteen classes. I will speak Tuesday morning, Thursday morning, Saturday morning, and one evening. I hope that this will encourage you rather than disappoint you.
Second, there will be ten other teachers to help you. They are willing to participate in this training for a period of sixteen weeks. Most of them will speak once or twice a week, and a few of them will speak as many as three times a week. So, including myself, you will have eleven brothers helping you.
Third, the visiting work that will be assigned to you beginning tonight will consist of four things: to visit people as the priests of the New Testament gospel, to feed and nourish the newly saved ones in the home meetings, to endeavor to build up small groups in order to perfect the new ones, and to raise up new churches in new cities. We have never had such a long-term training with such special daily practices.
In the visiting work, especially concerning the small groups, there is much to learn. Many of the so-called small groups that have been meeting for some time are too natural. For the most part they are not according to the way of the New Testament economy. Rather, they are according to the natural understanding. Some may say that they know what a small group is and that all that is needed is to group people together. I would say a strong no to this. The small group is the practice of perfecting the saints revealed in Ephesians 4:12; hence, it is a great thing. The small group is not only for your perfecting but also for you to perfect others. However, before you can perfect others, you yourself must learn. This is why we will spend a lot of energy in this training to strengthen your learning.
In raising up new churches, we will assign some of you to new, nearby cities. You will be formed into teams of three persons each. Two new teams, six persons, will be sent to take care of a new city. Within the sixteen weeks of the training, I hope that a number of new, small churches will be raised up in those new cities. After the sixteen weeks of training are completed, when you go, another group of new trainees will come to continue the work. This is a particular aspect of the visiting work in this training.
In this term of training I do not have the burden to release any new vision as I have done in special meetings and conferences in the past. I will just sit down to converse with you concerning two main things: the growth in life and the practice of the new way. According to spiritual sequence, life should be first and the new way second, but according to my burden, the new way should be first. I will spend sixteen hours, one hour each week, to talk to you about the new way. The new way has been misunderstood, rejected, and even, to some extent, slandered. Some have said that the full-time training in Taipei was a “Hagar” and that all the ones baptized through door-knocking were “Ishmaels.” This is a very serious, evil slander. So I must spend some time to give sixteen talks about the new way.
I will speak four times each week concerning these two things, dealing with them in different ways. Related to the matter of life, what I will talk with you about is the experience of life and the growth in life. Concerning the new way, we will spend some time to look into the new way, and we will also talk about the exercise of the new way. Even though I have released quite a number of messages in the past four and a half years about the new way, there is still the need of some deeper insight concerning the new way.
Perhaps most of you have read the book entitled The Experience of Life. The messages contained in that book were given in 1953 and 1954 and printed two or three years later. So this book has been among us for many years. However, today, although I may refer to that book, I will not speak according to that book. Rather, I will talk to you according to your situation.
What is life? Or who is life? According to the Scriptures, in the whole universe there is only one life. All the other lives may be considered “non-life” because they are temporal lives. There are many different kinds of life, such as that of the mosquitos, termites, ants, wolves, dogs, and tigers. There are also different categories of life, such as the vegetable life and the animal life. The highest of all these created lives is the human life. Yet all these lives, including the human life, are temporal.
Only one life exists without beginning and without ending. Only one life is the source of life, the substance of life, the element of life, and the factor of life. This life is called the eternal life. This life is eternal, not only in time but also in source, in substance, in element, and in factor. To be eternal means to be unlimited and unrestricted. This eternal life is not bound, limited, or restricted in time, in source, in substance, in element, or in factor. In every aspect and in every regard this life is unlimited and unrestricted. This life is eternal in every way. The Bible tells us that when we believed into the Lord Jesus, we received such an eternal life (John 3:16).
Many Christians do not understand the term eternal life. Have you ever heard that this eternal life is eternal not only in time but also in quality, substance, element, factor, and even in its source? With all the other lives, the created lives, there are some restrictions. For instance, we have strength, but our strength is limited. We have might, power, and ability, but we are limited in each one of these things. We are very limited in our might, our power, and our strength. We as human beings have more strength, power, and ability than any other created life, yet our strength, power, and ability are all with some restriction and limitation. We may be able to endure, but regardless how long we can endure, our endurance is limited. God’s endurance, however, is not limited. Only one life, the eternal life, is unlimited in every way. This eternal life is not only of God but is the very God Himself.
In the entire New Testament the term the life of God is mentioned only once in Ephesians 4:18. The term the life of God indicates that God is life, just as the phrases the love of God (1 John 4:9; 2 Cor. 13:14) and the light of Jehovah (Isa. 2:5) indicate that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and God is light (1:5), respectively. These phrases are synonyms. All are in the form of appositions. In the phrase the life of God, life and God are also in apposition. God is life, God is love, and God is light.
The eternal life, the divine life, is the very God of whom is life, and who is the Spirit. Life is God Himself, God is Spirit (John 4:24), and the Spirit is life (Rom. 8:2). The eternal life, the divine life, is also the Spirit of life. God the Spirit, has embodied Himself in Christ (John 4:24; 1:1, 14). The life of God, God Himself, is also the life of Christ, Christ Himself. Actually, in the New Testament there is no such term as the life of Christ. It simply states that Christ is life (14:6; 11:25).
Life is eternal. Life is divine. Life is Christ. Christ is God, and Christ is the Spirit. The eternal, divine life, which is God, the Spirit, and Christ, is embodied in the word. The New Testament says that the word is life (6:63; 1 John 1:1). This life is embodied not only in the words spoken by God but also in His word spoken by us. Acts 5:20 reveals that the word spoken out of Peter’s mouth was the word of this life. Peter’s speaking was not only the word of God but also the word of his testimony. Peter’s life and work made the divine life so real and present in his situation; hence, it was the word of his testimony.
The entire content of the Bible, especially the New Testament, is life. Life is its center. Life is the substance, element, and factor of the entire New Testament. The New Testament is a book of “this life” (Acts 5:20), the eternal life.
Life being the content of the Bible is fully signified by the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). In order to know the significance of the tree of life, we must consider the background of chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis portrays the tree of life with a certain kind of background. According to Genesis 1 and 2, God created man as the center of His creatures, the center of His creation. Man was created in God’s image, according to God’s likeness. Outwardly, in appearance, man bears God’s image and has God’s likeness (1:26-27), and inwardly, God’s breath has entered into man (2:7). The Hebrew word for breath in Genesis 2:7 is neshamah. This word neshamah is used also in Proverbs 20:27 and is translated “spirit.” This is a crucial verse, and I encourage you to learn it. Proverbs 20:27 says, “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah.” By looking at the usage of the word neshamah in these two verses, we can see that when the breath was with God, it was a breath (Gen. 2:7). But when this breath entered into man, it became man’s spirit (Prov. 20:27). By this we can see that the spirit of man is very much linked with God.
Genesis 1 and 2 show us that man is outwardly made in God’s image, according to God’s likeness, and that inwardly he is filled with God’s breath. The breath of God became man’s spirit for man to contact God, to receive God, and to contain God. These two portions of Genesis, 1:26-27 and 2:7, show us that man is a vessel. His outward appearance is like God, and his inward parts are linked with God. Although at the time of his creation man had all these things, he still did not have God within him. Man did not have the life of God within him. Man only had the breath of God, but that breath was neither God Himself, nor was it God’s life. This breath linked man with God by forming man’s spirit.
The picture shown by these portions of the Word is that God created man as an eating vessel. To eat is to receive, digest, and assimilate food. In this way whatever you eat will eventually become you. Last night I ate a very good fish. Before I ate the fish, it was fish. But this morning while I am sitting here, the fish is becoming me. It was received by me last night at dinner. Later, I digested it. A little later, it was assimilated into me, and eventually, this morning it has become me. Look at the picture in Genesis 1 and 2. Man was created as a vessel with God’s image and likeness outwardly and with a spirit as a receiver inside. After man was created in this way, God brought him to the tree of life (2:9). This tree of life was good for food. This is like bringing someone to a dining table. Once he eats the food, he begins to digest and assimilate the food. Eventually, the food becomes part of him.
Before man could eat of the tree of life, the Bible tells us that Satan the devil, through the serpent, distracted man (Gen. 3:1-6). Thus, man was separated from the tree of life (vv. 22-24). Eventually, the Lord Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). The life the Lord came to bring us is the life of the tree of life, a tree that is good for food (Gen. 2:9). In the Gospel of John the Lord also told us that He is the vine tree (15:1, 5) and that He is food (6:35, 55), good for eating (vv. 51, 53, 57). The picture in these verses in the Gospel of John is the same picture as that in Genesis 2. In Genesis 2 man was placed before the tree of life, and in the Gospel of John we are told to eat Jesus, who is the tree of life (15:1).
In Revelation 2:7, after the churches had become degraded, the Lord came in to call the overcomers to eat the tree of life. The overcomers are those who are eating Jesus as the tree of life in the church life today. This eating of the tree of life today signifies that the tree of life will be in the New Jerusalem in the millennium. Today in the church life as overcomers, we are eating Jesus as the tree of life, and tomorrow all the overcomers will be eating Jesus as the tree of life in the New Jerusalem during the thousand-year millennial kingdom. Ultimately, in eternity the tree of life will be in the center of the New Jerusalem (22:2). The tree of life will feed all of God’s redeemed people for eternity.
God is not a religion. God is life and He is for life. Today this life is in the word (John 6:63). Therefore, we must come to the word and eat it. In the new way we all must learn to prophesy. In order to prophesy we must eat the word. God is life and He is for life, and this life is in the word. So we must come to the word and eat it. We have received this life by eating the word. The way to eat the word is by exercising our spirit to take the word. Our spirit is our organ to receive God. So every day, all the time, we must exercise this organ to take the word. In this way we receive life. This is the experience of life. The experience of life is just to exercise our spirit to eat the word that we may receive life. After being received by us, this life will live out all kinds of divine, spiritual, and heavenly things in an unlimited way.
