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Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:15-18; Eph. 5:32; Phil. 3:10a; Rev. 1:10-13a
In the previous chapter we saw that the young people need to set their heart not to be defiled by the things of this age. They need to flee youthful lusts and pursue Christ with their companions, “those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). In this chapter we shall see what the Lord’s recovery is. The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of Christ and the church. Although these terms may be familiar to us, I would still encourage the young people to spend much time with their companions in groups of five to thoroughly research the truths concerning Christ and the church.
In Matthew 16 the Lord revealed Himself and the church to His disciples. Verses 15 through 18a say, “He said to them, But you, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said to him...I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.” The Lord’s recovery is not a recovery of doctrines, such as foot-washing, head covering, proper baptisms, or the bread and wine at the Lord’s table. It is a recovery of “the Christ” and “the church.” The term recovery implies that something has been lost. If something has not been lost, there is no need of a recovery. The proper revelation of the Christ and the church has been lost. Many in Christianity do not have a proper understanding of who Christ is and of what the church is. Many only know and appreciate the Jesus who is their Savior, saving them from hell to heaven.
Matthew 16:16 speaks of “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” According to this verse, Christ has two main aspects. The first is His person, and the second is His work, ministry, or commission. Therefore, He has two main titles. The Christ is His title according to His ministry. Christ is the anglicized form of the Greek Christos, meaning “the anointed One.” Daniel 9:26 says, “After the threescore and two weeks shall the anointed one be cut off” (ASV). “The anointed one” is a translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah, the equivalent of the Greek Christos. In God’s administration, whenever God commissions someone to fulfill His purpose, He anoints that one. When God established priests, kings, and prophets, they were anointed. Samuel anointed David to be king (1 Sam. 16:13), and Moses anointed Aaron and his sons to be the priests (Lev. 8:30). To be anointed is to be charged with a certain commission. In today’s terms, to be anointed is to be appointed. God appoints one to fulfill His commission by anointing him.
In typology the anointing oil or ointment signifies God the Spirit. God anoints people with Himself. When Jesus was baptized and came out of the water, the Holy Spirit came upon Him (Matt. 3:16). The Holy Spirit was the ointment, and the Spirit’s coming upon Him was the anointing. Therefore, in Luke 4:18 Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me.” On the day of Pentecost, before the one hundred twenty proclaimed the gospel for the fulfillment of God’s commission, God poured out His ointment, His Spirit, upon them (Acts 2:1-4, 14-18), and they were all anointed.
Christ means “the anointed One.” God has anointed His Son. This anointing was accomplished both in eternity past before the foundation of the world and in time. In eternity past God anointed and commissioned His Son. God the Father was the Author, the Source, the Planner, the One who made a purpose. God’s purpose, which He made in eternity past for eternity future, His eternal purpose, was to have a church to express the Triune God in a corporate way. When God made this purpose, He anointed His Son, charging Him with the commission to fulfill His eternal plan. This is indicated by His title the Christ.
At the beginning of time, the Son of God as God’s anointed One, the Christ, came to create. The Son of God accomplished the creation because as God’s anointed He was charged by God to do this. John 1:1 and 3 say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being which has come into being.” For the fulfillment of His purpose, God needs a universe with a heaven and an earth with so many items, especially man as a vessel to contain God. Christ came as God’s anointed One to call the things not being into being. Creation was the first item in God’s commission that He gave to His anointed One.
The second item in God’s commission was the incarnation. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” In incarnation He brought God into man, that is, into His creation.
The third item of the commission of Christ, the anointed One, was the crucifixion. Crucifixion signifies the termination of the entire old creation (Col. 1:15, 20). God’s creation became old because of Satan’s rebellion and man’s fall. The angels and mankind were the two main items of God’s creation, the living creatures that God created for His purpose. The angels were in the heavens, and man was upon the earth. The Bible tells us that the leading angel rebelled and became Satan (Ezek. 28:14-18; Isa. 14:12-14). That rebellion contaminated the whole creation. This rebellious leader of the angelic race then tempted and seduced the head of mankind to fall. The contamination of Satan got into mankind, and man became contaminated. Both the angelic race and the human race became contaminated and evil. As a result, the entire creation became old. To be old is not a matter of age. God is the most ancient One, but He is never old. After we have been in eternity for so many years, we will be ancient, but we will never be old. The New Jerusalem will be ever new. It will be ancient but not old. Oldness is due to contamination, corruption, and vanity.
Romans 8:20 and 21 say that the whole creation is under the slavery of corruption, subjected to vanity. God as the ever new, ever fresh God, the “evergreen” God, could never use anything old. This corrupted old creation as something of vanity had to be terminated. Christ accomplished this in His crucifixion. Christ Himself created, and Christ Himself also terminated the old creation. This is the significance of crucifixion.
The fourth step of Christ’s commission was resurrection. Resurrection means germination. Christ terminated all the old creation in His crucifixion, and in His resurrection He germinated the crucified creation with the very God as the divine germ, the seed of life. God as the divine life has been wrought into the crucified man as a germ to germinate him. The created man who was crucified was also resurrected to become the new creation. Resurrection was the producing of the new creation.
After His resurrection Christ ascended to the heavens. Christ’s ascension was His inauguration. After a president is elected, he must be inaugurated. Inauguration is to place the selected one into his position. Christ was appointed by God, but He was not officially inaugurated before His ascension. When Christ ascended to the heavens, God inaugurated Him officially, universally, and once for all, putting Him into His position. Acts 2:36 says, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Before the ascension the Lord of the universe was only Jehovah or Elohim. But on the day of ascension a man by the name of Jesus, who was mingled with God, was inaugurated to be the Lord of all. Praise Him! Now the Christ is fully qualified, officially inaugurated. He is the Christ who created, who became incarnated, who was crucified, who was resurrected, and who ascended to the third heaven, inaugurated to be the Lord of the whole universe.
Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). When we answer, “You are the Christ,” we must know what we mean by the Christ. We must be able to give a long definition of the Christ. The revelation that I have presented in this chapter is only a small part of the Lord’s recovery of the Christ. In this chapter I am presenting only major points and lines of research. This is an outline that the young people must build upon. You must research all these matters. The laboratory for your research will be your group of companions.
Peter answered the Lord, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). The title the Son of the living God is quite meaningful. The Christ is the Lord’s title in His commission, while the Son of the living God is the title of the Lord’s person, indicating who He is. He is the Son of the living God. John 5:18 says, “Because of this therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” The ancient Jews understood that to be called the Son of God was to be equal with God. They considered it blasphemy for Jesus, a man from Nazareth, to say that He was the Son of God, making Himself equal with God.
Even though Jesus is God, He is still called the Son of God. The word Father refers to the source of life. The father of a family is the source of the life of that family. While the Father is the source of life, the Son is the expression, the propagation, and the multiplication of life. When a man is a bachelor, he is alone. However, after he marries, he will have children and eventually may have many grandchildren. These children and grandchildren are his propagation and multiplication. God the Father as the source of life needs the Son of God as the propagation and the multiplication of life.
To speak of Christ is to refer to His work, but to speak of the Son of God is to refer to His person as life. The Son of the living God has life. He is the expression of the living One, and the expression of the living One is life. There is no human language that can express what life is. Life is One who never dies but who is ever living for eternity. This is God, and God is expressed, propagated, and multiplied in the Son. The Son is the life of the Father. John 1:1 and 18 say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” In the beginning He was God, and in time He was the declaration of God, the Son of God. In His declaration the Son said, “I am...the life” (14:6).
The title the Son of the living God denotes not only life but also life to us. Christ is our life (Col. 3:4). The Gospel of John tells us that God as the source of life is Spirit (4:24). The Son of the living God as the expression of the source, as life to us, is also the Word as the Spirit. He is the living Word, and this living Word is the Spirit. We all must be born of this Spirit. We received our first birth from our parents in our flesh, but we need a second birth in our spirit (3:6). The Spirit of whom we are born is not only God Himself but also the Son of the living God as life to us, the Word and the Spirit. Such a One has entered into and is now residing in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16). Our life today is not in our flesh or our soul but in our spirit. This is why we have to set our mind, our being, on our spirit (v. 6). The mind set on the spirit is life because life is in our spirit. This life is the Son of the living God as the Word and the Spirit. The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of such a Christ.
The second aspect of the Lord’s recovery is the church. When Peter recognized and acknowledged that the Lord Jesus was the Christ and the Son of the living God, Jesus answered, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). Peter had seen one-half of the revelation but not the other half. He had seen the Husband but not the wife. He had seen the Head but not the Body.
The church is the second half of the Lord’s recovery because not only has the revelation of the Christ been lost, but the revelation of the church has also been lost. Many in Christianity today do not like to talk about the church. They are afraid of this subject. This is the subtlety of the enemy because without the church God can never fulfill His purpose. Without the church Christ, God’s anointed One, can never complete His commission. His commission is creation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension for the bringing forth and building up of the church. Creation was for the church, incarnation was for the church, crucifixion was for the church, resurrection was for the church, and ascension was for the church. All the steps of Christ’s commission are for the church — either to produce the church, to bring it into existence, or to build the church.
The book of Revelation, the conclusion of the Bible, speaks of a city (21:10-27). A city is the largest unit of building. The city, the New Jerusalem, is the ultimate building in the entire universe, and this building is the ultimate consummation of the building up of the church. Without the building up of the church, Christ as God’s anointed One can never accomplish His commission to consummate the building. Therefore, we all must see the recovery of the church.
Just as Christ has two aspects, His person and His ministry, the church also has two aspects, the universal aspect and the local aspect. Universally speaking, the church is the unique Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23). Christ as the Head has only one Body. It would be terrible for a person to have one head and many bodies. Universally speaking, the Body of Christ, which is the church, is one.
Just as Christ and the church are one Head and one Body, they are also one Husband and one wife. Christ does not agree with polygamy. Christ agrees with the principle of one husband and one wife. Fornication and adultery are abominable in the eyes of God because they destroy humankind and spoil the significance of marriage. Marriage signifies that Christ as the Husband has only one wife. Instead of the church being expressed as the one wife of Christ, Christianity has produced many divisions. These divisions may be considered as “concubines.” Concubines do not care for the proper wife. They may say to the wife, “Are only you the wife? Are we not also wives?” Hagar might have asked Sarah, “Is Abraham only your husband? Isn’t he my husband also?” Abraham was Hagar’s husband, but she was not his wife; she was his concubine. Just as Sarah foolishly proposed that Abraham take a concubine (Gen. 16:2), the church in the past has produced many “concubines.” Because the young people would like to be used by the Lord to turn the age, they must know that to turn the age is to turn it from the concubines to the wife. They must see that according to God’s eternal plan, the very anointed One of God should have only one Body, one wife, the church. In the entire universe the church must be one. This is the universal aspect of the church.
I like to see people get saved. However, only to be saved is not meaningful enough. The most meaningful thing is to get into the Lord’s recovery. The Lord’s recovery is the continuation of God’s eternal economy. To get into God’s economy is a great thing. I gave up everything for this recovery, and in doing so, I made the best choice. I was one of only a few of my schoolmates, friends, and relatives who made this choice. Many years ago they misunderstood me, but now they appreciate my choice. Even those who have not been saved tell me that I made the proper choice. Nothing else on earth except the Lord’s eternal economy is meaningful. Even to become the president of the United States does not mean so much. To come into the Lord’s recovery as a young person and carry on the divine economy is glorious and becomes more glorious as time goes on. Let the enemy wait and see. When we are the New Jerusalem, the whole universe will declare that we made a marvelous choice.
It is not sufficient only to be saved, to preach the gospel to get others saved, and to be spiritual. We must realize that God has an eternal plan. God has an economy to accomplish in the universe, and He is accomplishing it now in this age. In the last fifty years I have seen many things happen according to the prophecies in the Bible. In 1967 Israel took over Jerusalem against the protest of so many nations. I told the brothers at that time not to worry for Israel’s sake because the Lord would take care of them. What happened there was the Lord’s doing. Who could oppose it? All the surrounding Arab countries have not been able to do anything to that little nation of just over two million people. The prophecies of the Bible are being fulfilled now. However, the Lord is not waiting for Israel. He is waiting today for the recovered church. Israel is now a nation, but where is the church? For the accomplishment of His economy God needs both Israel and the church. In Revelation there are two groups of one hundred forty-four thousand, one from Israel (7:3-8) and one from the church (14:1-5). According to prophecy, there should be these two peoples cooperating with the Lord to fulfill His purpose. The nation of Israel is established even though they are still unbelieving, but today the Lord is waiting for the church. There is no proper church to match the Lord’s move on the earth today. The Lord does have a recovery, but it is still too small.
It is not an accident that so many young people have been brought into the Lord’s recovery. This is something sovereign of the Lord. I hope that the real situation regarding the church will be clear to all of you.
The second aspect of the church is the local aspect. In each locality there should be an expression of the Body of Christ (Acts 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:11). This expression of the Body in a locality is the local church. The universal aspect of the church is revealed in the book of Ephesians, while the local aspect of the church is unfolded practically in the book of Revelation. In chapters 2 and 3 there are seven churches in seven cities, one church in each city. We all must see the one Body, and we must also see the local churches. We must see the universal aspect of the Body, and we must also see the local aspect of the church, the local churches. In every locality the church must be one as the local church.
To see the local churches we must be in our spirit (1:10-12). Do not exercise your mind. The more you exercise your mind, the more you will be confused. We need to be in our spirit, and we need to be out of our self. We must be away from the present situation, away from today’s culture and religion. We must be away from everything else and be in our spirit. Then we will see not only the church but also the churches.
The Bible reveals four great figures: God, Christ, the church, and the churches. The Jewish people today do not believe in Christ, but they do believe in God. Fundamental Christians not only believe in God, but they also believe in Christ. However, many Christians have no concept of the universal church. Some Christians with improved knowledge have a vision of the church as the universal Body. They have a heavenly vision, but they cannot touch it practically. I do not want merely a heavenly vision that is not practical. Praise the Lord, in the Lord’s recovery we have seen not only God, Christ, and the universal Body but also the local churches.
Most of the Jews today are still in “Genesis.” Many Christians are in the “four Gospels,” while a few might be in “Ephesians.” However, the church people today are in “Revelation.” Because we are living in the local churches, we are close to the New Jerusalem. Where is the Lord Jesus today? He is the Son of Man walking in the midst of the seven lampstands (Rev. 1:9-20). If you wish to find the Lord Jesus, you must get into the seven lampstands, which are the seven local churches. Today the Lord Jesus, not only as the Son of God but also as the Son of Man, is in the midst of the local churches.
The local churches are different from the denominations. In Genesis 2 Adam gave names to all the animals, but none of them matched him. He needed someone who matched him, who was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh (vv. 19-23). Just as Eve was different from all the animals, the Lord has made the church different from everything else. Some who do not care for the local churches may still appreciate that the churches are different from the denominations, and they may try to imitate the churches. They may imitate the churches, yet they may still not be the proper church. The Lord’s recovery is not a matter of certain practices. It is the recovery of the local church as the expression of the Body of Christ. Today we have God, Christ, the Body, and the local churches. Because we are standing as the local churches, we are in the Lord’s recovery.
The young people should have much fellowship about the Christ and the church, not only in one group of five companions but in five or ten groups coming together. You may also need to read some of our publications. You need the experience, and you also need the definition of all these matters.
