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Scripture Reading: Matt. 18:16-18, 20; Acts 2:46; 8:1; Eph. 1:23; Rev. 1:20; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 10:25
In the previous chapters we spoke concerning Christ as our life and the truth as our freedom. In this chapter we will consider the church of the living God as our house. This kind of utterance cannot be heard in Christian groups. I was in Christianity for many years, but I never heard this word.
The Chinese Union Version of the Bible translates the living God in 1 Timothy 3:15 as “the everlasting God.” However, the meaning of this word in the original Greek is “living,” not “everlasting.” This word was also used in Matthew 16:16 when Peter said to the Lord, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The church of the living God in 1 Timothy 3:15 is based on the living God in Matthew 16:16.
We all have a physical home that meets our material needs. Hence, we feel that a home is sweet and precious. Without a home we do not have a place to rest when we are exhausted and tired. However, as Christians, we do not only have physical needs, but we also have spiritual needs. Where can we go to find satisfaction for our spiritual needs? The answer is the church. A person without the church is spiritually homeless. We thank the Lord that we have life, freedom, and a home.
The church is universal. The universe encompasses both time and space. It is the totality of time and space. Therefore, every believer from the time of the apostles until now belongs to the church. The church is the sum total of all the believers throughout time and space. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord said, “Upon this rock I will build My church.” This rock refers to Christ, and My church refers to the universal church.
The church is also local. On the one hand, the church is universal, and on the other hand, it is practically expressed in every locality. According to Matthew 18:16-20, whenever two or three believers are gathered into the Lord’s name, the Lord is in their midst, and He hears their prayer. Whatever they bind on earth has already been bound in heaven, and whatever they loose on earth has already been loosed in heaven. However, these two or three are not the church, because when they have a problem, they must “tell it to the church.” This proves that two or three believers gathered into the Lord’s name are not the church. Even though two or three believers can meet together, we cannot say that they are the church simply because the Lord is in their midst. If this were the case, the church would be divided. Two or three gathered together are a part of the church; they are not the church.
According to its universal aspect, the sum total of all the believers throughout the ages is the universal church, but according to its local aspect, the totality of the believers in a city is the church in that locality. For example, the totality of the believers in Taipei is the church in Taipei, and all the believers on the island of Taiwan constitute the churches, the local churches, in Taiwan.
In God’s eyes the church is the house of the living God. Just as we need a home, God also needs a home. I was raised in Christianity and often heard people say, “Heaven is my home.” Many Christians hope that they will go to a home in heaven when they die. For this reason, when a Christian passes away, his friends and relatives often say that he has returned gloriously to the heavenly kingdom or to the heavenly home. Is it even logical to think that Christians who aimlessly wander throughout their lives would have a glorious return to a heavenly kingdom when they die? In contrast to this thought, the Bible shows different degrees of salvation. According to Peter’s second Epistle, believers must grow and develop in life by advancing through many steps, which are composed of spiritual virtues, toward the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this way an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly and bountifully supplied to them (1:5-11). We should not be foolish and accept what Christianity teaches concerning believing in the Lord and waiting to go to heaven after we die. This is not the way of God’s salvation, nor is it the thought conveyed in the Scriptures.
In John 14 the Lord said, “In My Father’s house are many abodes;...I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go..., I am coming again and will receive you to Myself” (vv. 2-3). According to these verses, most Christians believe that the Lord Jesus went to prepare an abode for us and that He will come and receive us to this heavenly home when it is ready. A Brethren teacher once said, “After two thousand years the Lord has still not returned. On the one hand, this proves that the place is not yet ready. On the other hand, this means that it must be a wonderful place since the Lord Jesus Himself has been preparing it for two thousand years, and it is still not ready.” However, when we read the Scriptures and consider the depths of the Gospel of John, we see that the house in chapter 14 does not refer to a heavenly home.
According to the context of John 14, the Lord Jesus spoke concerning a mutual abode of God and man. In verses 16 and 17 He said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever...because He abides with you and shall be in you.” In verse 23 the Lord said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” These verses show that the abode the Lord spoke of was not a heavenly mansion. Rather, every believer who loves the Lord is an abode. Do we realize that we are a house? This abode is not only for God to dwell in; it is a mutual abode for God and man. If we can say that God has found an abode in us, we can surely say that we have found an abode in God. Therefore, in John 15 the Lord described this mutual abode, saying, “Abide in Me and I in you” (v. 4).
The house in John 14 is not a heavenly mansion. It is the house of the living God, which is the church in 1 Timothy 3:15. The Lord said, “In My Father’s house are many abodes” (John 14:2). This means that there are many abodes in the church. The Lord’s going to prepare a place for us was His going to bear our sins in order to solve the problem of our sins and to destroy Satan, to terminate the world, and to crucify the flesh and the natural life. His going was His dying, and He returned in resurrection. Everything that the Lord accomplished was for the preparation of a dwelling place.
Therefore, the Lord’s going is His death, and His coming is His resurrection, which is recorded in John 20. The Lord did not wait two thousand years to return. The Lord returned in chapter 20 and stood in the midst of His disciples. He then breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). From that day on, every disciple has become an abode, a dwelling place for the Triune God. Paul even asks, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). The temple is the house, and the house is the temple. The temple of God is the house of God, and the house of God is the temple of God.
In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul says that the house of God is the church of the living God. The church is God’s house, and it is our house. Without the church God is homeless, and we also are homeless. Today God has the church, His home, and we have a home. The church is also the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23). The Body of Christ is an organism. Just as my body is an organism that carries out and coordinates my every move, so the church is an organism, the Body of Christ, to express Christ and carry out His every move.
In addition, the church is also a golden lampstand. Revelation 1:20 says, “The seven lampstands are the seven churches.” The Body of Christ is universal, and the lampstands are local. In Revelation 1 the seven local churches are in seven cities, and each church is the lampstand in its city. The function of a lampstand is to shine, to be a testimony. The house of God is for God to find rest, the Body of Christ is for Christ to be expressed, and the lampstand is to shine forth as a testimony of Christ. In this chapter we will consider the church as God’s house.
The church is universal, and it is also expressed locally in city after city. Regardless of how small or large a city is, there can be only one church in a city. For instance, a church was raised up in a small village in Kansas. There are only about thirty people living in this village, but twelve brothers and sisters were raised up to stand on the ground of locality and meet in the Lord’s name.
However, there are also large cities, such as Taipei with a population of about two or three million, New York with about ten million, and Tokyo with more than ten million. Even in large cities there should still be only one church. The Bible gives Jerusalem as a pattern. Two thousand years ago Jerusalem was a large city with a population of more than one million. On the day of Pentecost three thousand people were saved, and later another five thousand were saved (Acts 2:41; 4:4). There were more than ten thousand believers in Jerusalem, but there was only one church, not many churches. The saints there met from house to house, breaking bread, praying, preaching the gospel, and continuing in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles. There were thousands who practiced the way of meeting “from house to house” (2:46). Every household was a small meeting, not a church. We know this because Acts 8:1 speaks of “the church which was in Jerusalem.” This verse uses the singular form of the word church, not the plural form. There was only one church in Jerusalem. Even though the saints were scattered in thousands of homes, there was only one church.
The church in Taipei is an example. There are at least three hundred and sixty small groups in Taipei, but these groups are not three hundred and sixty churches; they are one church. Although the saints are gathered in many places, there is only one church with one eldership and one administration.
Meetings are crucial to the church as the house of the living God. We have many meetings in the local churches. The life pulse of the church is in the meetings. Not going to the meetings is equivalent to cutting off our life supply. When a person stops attending the meetings, his church life comes to a halt. This can be compared to a person who is never at home. As far as he is concerned, his home does not exist. Therefore, the church life is a meeting life, and we should never stop meeting.
We need to take care of many needs for our human existence. These needs include food, clothing, housing, and transportation. We should also take care of our marriage and family, including begetting and raising children, and we must take care of education. With these responsibilities how should we take care of our meetings? At present, we have five kinds of meetings. There is the ministry meeting, bread-breaking meeting, prayer meeting, small group meeting, and truth meeting.
The ministry meeting is to minister the word through the release of messages for the edification of the saints. This meeting is held on Lord’s Day morning in the different halls so that the saints can meet in their respective halls. The young saints should attend this meeting even if they are very busy. The Lord’s Day is the first day of the week, and we should set this day aside to meet.
Even though the young saints need to sleep less during their final exams, they must enjoy the word that ministers life on the Lord’s Day and also break bread to remember the Lord and worship the Father. Since the students must study hard, they do not need to attend the other meetings, such as the prayer meeting and the truth meeting. However, they should do their best to attend a meeting on campus during the week. This will enable them to keep in touch with one another. They should come together in the small group meetings to set one another on fire, just as a hot piece of coal must be placed beside cold pieces of coal. This is the way to exhort and encourage one another according to Hebrews 10:25: “Not abandoning our own assembling together...but exhorting one another.” I hope that the young people will earnestly practice this.
The church is Christ and the Spirit. When we speak in the meetings, we need to obey the Spirit. Sometimes, when someone makes an incorrect announcement, a young person can point it out in a proper manner in his spirit. We should not think that we are not in our spirit when we correct other saints. We can correct others in our spirit. Nevertheless, it is not easy to correct others. We should not say, “Brother, you are wrong. Did you not hear what Brother Lee said? Why was your announcement so confusing?” We should not quarrel, because when we quarrel, we are not the church. This does not mean that we cannot adjust one another, but we need a proper attitude when we adjust others and when others adjust us. As long as we are human, we will make mistakes. Only God does not make mistakes. If we believe that we are never wrong, we must consider ourselves to be God.
I have been giving messages for fifty years. Sometimes certain situations are exposed when I release the word. Once, when I was in the Philippines, the brothers and sisters were concerned that I would mention their names in the meetings. At another time I stayed in the home of an elderly sister and asked her about her prayer, not knowing that she had not prayed. That was the exposing of the Spirit. This is the church life. When unbelievers see this, they will say, “Indeed God is among you.”
Between 1941 and 1943 we held gospel meetings in Chefoo during the Chinese New Year. During this time there was a deaconess who was a widow and who had a son who refused to believe in the Lord. This sister brought her son to a gospel meeting. In that meeting I pointed at him and said, “You say you have not sinned, but you have stolen chalk from school.” This caused him to be saved. The Lord’s presence is real in the meetings.
On another occasion in a gospel meeting in Chefoo, I spoke of how women make their husbands work many hours to support them so that they can have high-heeled shoes. A woman in the audience, who had accompanied a friend to the meeting, was unhappy when she heard this, and she accused her friend of exposing her situation to me. The sister assured her that I did not know who she was and that it was the Lord’s grace to allow someone to point out her sin. These words subdued her, and she confessed that she was a sinner.
When we preach the gospel, we should not give dead messages in a mechanical way. We need to follow the Spirit. When we stand up to speak, we should have the faith to declare, “The economical Spirit has been poured upon the church and is upon me as I speak for the Lord in the Body.” We should believe this. Whenever we meet in the Lord’s name, His Spirit is in our midst.
The young brothers and sisters should also preach the gospel. According to the present leading, there will now be co-workers preaching the gospel on the large campuses. We hope that the young people will cooperate with the co-workers. On the Lord’s Day the young people are in the ministry meeting and the bread-breaking meeting, and during the week they have a campus meeting. We hope that they can set aside one or two evenings to labor with the co-workers in the gospel. This may be in a Bible study or in a gospel seminar. We hope that the young people who are students, whether in college or in a special trade school, would bring a minimum of two people to the Lord every six months. However, they should not think that they cannot remain in the church if they do not bring two people to the Lord.
The students should encourage one another to attend the meetings on the Lord’s Day. The bread-breaking meeting is usually at the meeting hall, and sometimes it may be in the small groups. During the week they should have a small group meeting with other students to fellowship and encourage one another. Furthermore, they should do their best to help with the campus gospel work. On the personal side they should spend five minutes to pray and ten minutes to read the Bible every morning. In this way they will make significant progress every year. During their vacation time they should read a few Life-study messages. By practicing these matters from their freshman year to their senior year, they will advance every year. They will be well nourished and receive a good education in the truth to be proper children in God’s house who live a life of loving the Lord.
In conclusion, we must know that Christ is our life, the truth is our freedom, and the church of the living God is our house. Furthermore, we need to see that our living must be a life of preaching the gospel to lead people to receive salvation and turn to the Lord. All the young saints should understand, know, and actively practice and experience these four points.
