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Scripture Reading: Rev. 2:14-15, 20; 3:1-2
In the past two chapters we have seen the positive items of the divine economy and of the Divine Trinity’s operation. In this chapter we want to see an item that is altogether negative. We need to compare what is seen in the Bible with what is seen today in Christianity. I have to use two words to describe today’s Christianity: deformed and degraded. If we are not careful, we might become something that is deformed and degraded. All of Christianity is deformed from the form of the revelation in the holy Word and is also degraded. We need to know the real situation and see a clear picture of today’s Christianity. When we talk about Christianity in such a way, this does not mean that we do not love all Christians. We love all of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, yet we have to admit that today’s Christendom is absolutely far off from God’s eternal plan.
This deformed and degraded religious system is fully covered by the Lord in a prophetic way in three parables in Matthew 13. The first four parables of this chapter form one group, and the last three form another group. Three of these first four parables give us a picture of today’s Christendom. One parable shows us that while the wheat is growing, the enemy of the Lord comes and sows tares in the midst of the wheat (vv. 24-30). This means that the false believers, the nominal Christians, were sown into the so-called church. In degraded Christianity there are many false, or nominal, Christians. Only about twenty percent of the members of the denomination in which my mother was a member were genuine Christians. Even though my mother attended that denomination and loved Christianity, she was not saved until the Lord used me to raise up a local church in our town.
In today’s Christianity there are also modernists, who do not recognize the inspiration of the holy Word and deny the Lord’s incarnation through the virgin Mary. They say that the Lord’s death was not for redemption but only a kind of martyrdom. They believe that the Lord was martyred on the cross for His teachings, which were different from the Jewish traditional religion. They also deny the resurrection of Christ and all the miracles in the Bible. This modernistic teaching spread even to China, and fifty years ago it was prevailing on the college campuses. We had to fight against this teaching in mainland China, and eventually the Lord gained the victory. Today, there are hardly any modernists among the Christians on the mainland of China. Second Peter 2:1 says that such modernists are degraded to such an extent that they even deny the Master who bought them. The false teachers at Peter’s time, like today’s modernists in their apostasy, denied both the Lord’s person as the Master and His redemption, by which the Lord purchased the believers.
Another parable in Matthew 13 describes today’s Christendom as a great tree with great branches that become a lodging place for birds (vv. 31-32). This is the parable of the mustard seed. The mustard is an annual herb, which shows that the church should be like an herb to produce food. Instead it became a tree, a lodge for birds, having its nature and function changed. These birds refer to Satan’s evil spirits with the evil persons and things motivated by them (vv. 4, 19). They lodge in the branches of the great tree, that is, in the enterprises of Christendom. Today’s Catholic Church is full of all kinds of evils. Evil persons, evil practices, and evil things are lodging there. In this great organization there is much darkness.
Another parable describing the situation of Christendom is the parable of the woman who took the leaven and put it into the fine flour (vv. 33-35). This woman, prophesied by the Lord in Matthew 13:33, is mentioned in Revelation 2:20. She was typified by Jezebel in the Old Testament and fulfilled by the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church became such an adulterous woman who added leaven (signifying evil, heretical, and pagan things) into the fine flour (signifying Christ as the meal offering for the satisfaction of God and man). The Catholic Church took in all kinds of pagan practices. G. H. Pember pointed out that Catholicism even took in Buddha under the name of Saint Josaphat. The story of this saint named Josaphat is actually that of Buddha.
Roman Catholicism is depicted in Revelation 17 as a great harlot and as “THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS” (vv. 1, 5). Since the mother of the harlots is the apostate church, the harlots, her daughters, should be all the different sects and groups in Christianity who hold to some extent the teaching, practices, and traditions of the apostate Roman Church. The Two Babylons is a book that gives a full documentation of the deformation and degradation of this evil religious system. G. H. Pember in his book The Great Prophecies also points out the abominations of the apostate Roman Catholic Church. The Brethren also saw the real situation of Catholicism, and we received much help from them. The entire Christianity is the totality of deformation and degradation.
In the 1920s on mainland China a number of us young people left this deformed religion. We thank the Lord for sending the Western missionaries to China to bring us the gospel. They told people that Jesus is the Son of God who became a man and died on the cross for our sins. They said that if we believe in Him we would receive the forgiveness of our sins. We heard the proper preaching of Christ being our Savior. These missionaries also brought us the real name of Jesus Christ, and we treasured this. They also brought the Bible with them, providing us with one of the best Chinese translations of the Bible. We thank God for these three things: the gospel, the name of Jesus, and the Bible. We young people who came out of Christendom made a decision to keep just these three things. We would not have anything to do with the remaining unscriptural things in Christianity. We came out of this deformed system, and the Lord led us to begin the church life for the first time in Brother Nee’s hometown. From that time we have been suffering persecution, not mainly from the unbelievers but from Christianity.
We love all our Christian brothers and respect them, yet we cannot agree with the religious system they are in. There are many genuine believers even in the Catholic Church, and some of them are seeking and devout. Yet the Catholic Church itself is full of idolatry. In some cathedrals the ones who enter buy a candle and select an idol to pray to. They do not call these statues idols but saints. A certain Catholic cathedral in Manila has a statue of a “black Jesus,” and all the people who go into this cathedral touch the feet of that statue. I watched the people buy candles and go in to worship the idols, and I read some of the inscriptions on the wall, which said that if you pray to a certain saint for a period of time, your relatives would be rescued from purgatory. This shows that Catholicism is full of superstition. This fellowship should give us a glimpse of the practice in today’s degraded Christianity.
The deformed and degraded Christianity has left the God-ordained way for carrying out the New Testament economy. Christianity does not care for the New Testament economy, but God does. God’s New Testament economy is first to complete His Christ and then to propagate this completed, pneumatic Christ to produce the church. The entire Christianity is far away from this economy, having left the God-ordained way to carry out God’s eternal purpose.
This degraded religious system takes the natural, human, traditional, cultural, and religious way. Humanly speaking, religion is a good thing, but spiritually speaking it is something against God’s economy. God does not want a religion, but He surely wants to see His economy accomplished. We are not here for religion but for God’s economy, which is to propagate His completed Christ to produce the church as the Body of such a Christ. Christianity is not focused on the divine economy but is a human religion saturated with demonic and satanic things. This natural, human, traditional, and cultural religion is full of organizations. Without organizations, Christianity could not survive. The Catholic Church and all the denominations depend upon organization. Although we do not like to have organization, sometimes the leading brothers in some of the localities brought in and trusted in their organization. We must realize that organization kills. We trust in the living Spirit. The church as the Body of Christ should be a divine organism full of the living Spirit.
Christianity is also full of formalities and rituals. The new way that we are taking to carry out God’s New Testament economy has nothing to do with formalities and rituals. In Taipei we practiced to baptize the new ones immediately after they received the Lord. Sometimes the husband got baptized one day, and the next day he baptized his wife. A father was baptized one week, and the next week he baptized his son. The New Testament shows us that whoever preaches the gospel has the right to baptize those whom they bring to the Lord.
In the past we would not baptize someone unless he passed through the examination of the elders. As a result, a person who received the Lord could not be baptized immediately, but he had to wait. Sometimes a candidate for baptism could not pass the examination of the elders, so he was encouraged to learn more and come back next month to see if he could be baptized then. This practice is a formality that is not according to the Scriptures. In the book of Acts whenever someone believed in the Lord, he was immediately baptized (8:35-38; 16:14-15, 31-33; cf. Mark 16:16). There was no waiting to be baptized. To wait is wrong. Mark 16:16 tells us to believe and be baptized. This is one complete step for salvation. Many in Christianity teach that we need to believe in the Lord Jesus and receive Him, but they will not baptize a person unless that person has passed through a formal examination. We should not practice any kind of formality.
The deformed and degraded Christianity is also full of regulations and of unscriptural practices. The celebration of Christmas is an example of an unscriptural and even pagan practice. Centuries before the Christian era, on December 25 the European pagans celebrated the birthday of the sun. When Constantine embraced Christianity, he encouraged the Roman citizens to become Christians, and he even rewarded many thousands for being baptized. Thousands who knew nothing of Christ were baptized and came into Christendom, bringing their pagan customs with them. Later, the name of Christ was attached to the birth of the sun god celebrated on December 25. We should have nothing to do with such unscriptural and even pagan practices.
The religious system of today’s Christendom also kills the living members of the Body of Christ. To some extent Christianity brings many people to the name of Christ in a good way. However, after people enter into Christianity, their function is bound and eventually killed. Nearly every so-called church service kills the function of the people there. Thus, the very people who have been brought to the Lord in Christianity are killed in their function. In the new way we need to stand against killing the living members of the Body of Christ. On the other hand, we need to be those who make people alive.
Furthermore, the deformed and degraded Christianity annuls the organic function of the members of Christ. About thirty years ago in Manila a group of brothers among us went to visit a sick person in the hospital. The brothers who went to visit this sick person all prayed one by one, and his relatives, who were also Christians, were shocked. They asked whether or not these brothers were pastors. They were told that none of them was a pastor but that all of them were just brothers. The relatives of this sick person said that they did not know how to pray and that they never prayed. They thought that praying was the job of a pastor. The prevailing concept in today’s Christianity is that preaching, teaching the Bible, and praying for others is the pastor’s job. A person goes to a pastor in the same way that he would go to an attorney or a doctor for specific services. This clergy-laity system annuls the functions of the members of Christ. The attendants in the so-called Christian services go there and do nothing. They do not know how to do anything. They only know how to sit there and watch a few others function. In the church life there should not be an annulling of others’ functions but a stirring up of everyone to function.
In the community meetings of the new believers in Taipei, they are all encouraged to function. In the training in Taipei, we charged the trainees not to replace the new ones in their home meetings. They are charged not to act as a pastor. They must behave like an ordinary, little brother among all the new converts, and they have to give place to everyone. They should not replace anyone. This is why the result of the Lord’s move in Taipei has been so successful. The new believers in these communities are encouraged to function to the uttermost. They have their own home meetings, and they themselves either rent a place or have a place in a home where the whole community can come together. They even set up their own offering box. They do everything by themselves, and they are not told what to do. We recently had a burden to purchase some land in Taipei. When these new believers heard this, they began to give for the purchase of this land.
We must believe that every believer is a living one because every believer has the living God, Christ, the Spirit of life, in him. We should afford every believer an opportunity to express his living situation as a living member of the Body of Christ. In today’s Christianity the living members are killed, and their functions are annulled.
Christianity also opens the way for the nominal Christians to move and act in the so-called churches. We have already mentioned this point in our fellowship concerning the tares. The tares are false believers, believers only in name, who do not have the divine life in them. The Lord tells us that the tares are the sons of the evil one (Matt. 13:38). The judgment upon the tares will be so serious (vv. 40-42) because they have been confusing, frustrating, and damaging God’s economy. In the eyes of God the tares are exceedingly evil. Christianity is full of false believers.
Christendom also builds up hierarchy. The hierarchy in the Catholic Church has been fully established with the pope as the head followed by the cardinals, the archbishops, and the bishops. The woman depicted in Revelation 17 is clothed in scarlet (v. 4). The color scarlet is found everywhere in the Vatican. The most striking use of scarlet is in the garb of the cardinals, who have red hats and red robes. The daughters of the great harlot in Revelation 17 follow their mother in this matter of hierarchy. Which denomination has no hierarchy? The highest degree of hierarchy can be found in the mother of the harlots, and a lower degree of hierarchy is practiced and found with her daughters. Therefore, we must hate any kind of hierarchy.
If the elders in the local churches consider themselves higher than others, that is the satanic thought of hierarchy. There is no hierarchy among us. No one in the churches is higher than others. Everyone is the same. The thought of hierarchy is in our fallen nature. Everyone likes to be a king or a leader. Some brothers are ambitious to be elders, and some wives of elders feel that they are above others. The wives of the elders should not consider themselves as queens but as wives of slaves. All the elders are slaves to the saints. It is a shame for an elder’s wife to consider her husband higher than others. The Lord Jesus Himself exposed this matter of ambition and hierarchy in Matthew 20:20-28 and 23:1-12. For me to consider myself higher than another brother is shameful. If you consider me to be higher than you, the satanic thought of hierarchy is in your mind. We all have to love each other and respect one another, yet we should not consider anyone to be higher than others. Among us there is only One who is higher than everybody — the Lord Jesus. All of Christendom is filled with hierarchy.
Christendom also utilizes the big meetings as a façade to attract people into the religion of Christianity. Since October of 1984 I began to promote the small home meetings. Some of the saints thought that these small home meetings were very poor in comparison to the big meetings. I attended a small home meeting in Taipei. At first I was disappointed. By the scheduled time of meeting there were only an old man, a small girl, and a young school teacher. Gradually, however, many new ones came. The stronger saints had gone out to bring these new ones to the meeting. By the end of the meeting I was very encouraged with the functioning. Some, however, like to have the façade of the big meetings to attract people. Today’s Christianity attracts people with a formal, religious gathering. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He had a small meeting in the house in Bethany (John 12:1-3). He also ministered to a large gathering of five thousand in the wilderness (Matt. 14:14-21). This large gathering in the wilderness was full of spiritual reality, unlike the big meetings in Christianity, which are full of formal attraction with little spiritual reality.
The new way for the Lord’s new move in Taipei has brought in thousands of people. Since August of 1986 twenty-four thousand have been baptized and one-third of these still remain to meet in their homes. We have never had so many home meetings in our past history of thirty years in Taipei. When we had only the big meetings, we had very little increase. The attendants came to the meetings again and again to see the same faces. Whenever new ones were in the big meetings, we were happy. But very few of them remained. Eventually, many of the saints began to lose their heart for the meetings, and they had a heart only to come to see each other. Many of us have to admit that the meetings in the Lord’s recovery have been lacking in power and motivation. This is why I told the church in Taipei in October of 1984 that we must drop the old way, which is a part of the degraded Christianity. We have to take care of all the saints but not in the old way of Christianity. We have to take care of them in the new way by helping them and stirring them up to function in bringing people to the Lord and in sending meetings to people’s homes. We should not merely ask the new ones to come to the church meetings, but we should bring the church meeting into their homes.
Finally, the deformed and degraded Christianity forfeits the proper church life, not caring for the building up of the Body of Christ. The whole practice in today’s Christianity is forfeiting and annulling the church life. There is no concern for the building up of the Body of Christ, so the divine economy is altogether dropped and missed. The Lord’s new way is to recover the church life so that the Body of Christ can be built up through the church life in many localities.
My burden is to open up the real situation of today’s Christianity so that we may know where we should go and where we should remain. We should stand for the testimony of Jesus in this age. We need to compare what is revealed in the Bible with what is being practiced in today’s Christianity. We must stay away from the practice of the deformed and degraded Christianity and come back to the divine revelation for the Lord’s recovery. The preaching of the gospel and the teaching of the Bible do take place in Christianity. But in a larger sense the religious practice of Christianity kills the living members of Christ and annuls the organic function of the members of the Body of Christ. This religious system also involves the building up of hierarchy.
We must come back purely to the God-ordained way to practice the New Testament economy so that God can operate in His Trinity to dispense His triune being into us that we may be filled and saturated with the Divine Being to become His very expression on this earth. This is what God wants today. Christianity has missed this, and God is recovering this in His recovery. The way to meet is not a small matter. The traditional way of meeting kills and annuls the functions of the members of the Body of Christ and builds up something satanic and demonic. We must come back to the biblical way, the new way, the living way, that affords God the opportunity to operate among His chosen people.
