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Prayer: Lord, You know that this meeting is both critical and crucial, so we need Your presence. We pray that You would lead us into Your fellowship. O Lord, we pray that You would give us the accurate feeling and best judgment concerning these spiritual matters. Save us from making mistakes. Amen!
In this chapter we will still speak concerning the cross and the Spirit. The cross denotes death, whereas the Spirit denotes resurrection. The life that we God-men live in the Body of Christ should be a life of death and resurrection. Death brings us out of Adam, out of the old creation. Christ’s death terminated the old creation, which includes us; we are the major constituents of the old creation. Today the life that we live in the Body of Christ is a life of being delivered out of Adam and the termination of the old creation. However, this is merely the negative side. We do not stop here. We still have the positive side of entering into Christ and the new creation. According to the principle of the New Testament, the cross issues in resurrection. On the cross Christ terminated the old creation for us that we might be delivered out of the realm of Adam; in resurrection He has made us alive and has brought us into His new creation. It is in the new creation that we can accomplish God’s economy.
The five major steps of God’s economy are incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. According to the New Testament principle, resurrection is joined with ascension and vice versa. When resurrection is mentioned, it includes ascension. Of these five major steps of God’s economy, only His crucifixion and resurrection are real and practical in us. We cannot experience His incarnation; Christ alone carried it out. Neither, in a certain sense, do we need to experience His human living. However, in our living in the Body of Christ we need to experience the cross ceaselessly and experience death continually, because if there is no death, there is no life. Death is not the end; rather, only when there is death can there be life. Actually, death and life are two sides of one thing. When a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, there is death outwardly, but there is actually life inwardly (John 12:24). When the grain undergoes a transformation in the soil, there is death without but life within. Hence, if there is no death, there is no life; once there is death, there is life.
In the preceding chapter we saw the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the bride of Christ. These are the five aspects of one issue. This issue with five aspects is produced out of death and resurrection. If Christ had not died and resurrected, He could not produce the church, and therefore there could not be the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the bride of Christ. This is the fact and the truth, but it is still not the experience. The church is definitely produced by Christ, but without our experience there is no reality. This fact, this truth, must be carried out in us; then it becomes our experience. Let us use regeneration as an example. We were regenerated in the Lord’s resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3); however, unless we believe into Christ and receive Him in time, we cannot experience regeneration. Hence, the fact, the truth, must be experienced and carried out by us. Then it becomes a real, practical matter to us.
Before the ages, in eternity past, God chose millions of people, including you and me. Then in time He created Adam. He did not create us directly. Genesis tells us that God created only one man; then He took a rib out of Adam’s side and made it into a woman. Hence, out of the one man Adam, men proliferated. They became fruitful and they multiplied, filling the whole earth (Gen. 1:27-28).
Before the woman was built, Adam might have felt lonely and bored. He was seeking a counterpart. Therefore, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper as his counterpart” (2:18). Then God brought every living thing that He had created to Adam. Adam had not studied biology, yet he gave names to all the living creatures. However, he did not find his counterpart. When he finished his seeking, God caused him to have a deep sleep and operated on him by taking a rib out of him. Adam’s being in a deep sleep with his side opened indicates death. The bone, which is a type of resurrection, signifies death and resurrection. God enlarged that rib and built it into a woman who was like Adam, and God brought her to Adam (vv. 19-22). When Adam saw her, he said, “This time this is bone of my bones / And flesh of my flesh; / This one shall be called Woman / Because out of Man this one was taken” (v. 23). Verse 24 continues, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” This is a clear picture portraying the bringing forth and building of the church and the practical living of the church.
We must see that in order to have the church, the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the bride of Christ, death is necessary. We must allow God to operate on us; this is to experience the cross. To be conformed to His death, as mentioned in Philippians 3:10, is to be made the same as the form of Christ’s death, that is, to take Christ’s death as the mold of our life. In our daily living of the church life, the life of the Body of Christ, we need to be conformed to His death. Hymns, #631 is a short hymn consisting of only three stanzas, but almost every line is a new utterance. Stanza 2 says,
If I’d have Christ formed within me,
I must breathe my final breath,
Live within the Cross’s shadow,
Put my soul-life e’er to death.
It is only in this way that Christ can be formed in us. Such a hymn has the practical experience as well as the fact and the truth.
What we have been speaking is the utterance and expression given to us by the Lord. Traditional theologians in Christianity say that we should not create new terms lightly. They say that it was all right for the church fathers to create expressions such as the Triune God, but we should not create any more new expressions lest we stir up trouble. This is due to their ignorance of the truth and their deficiency in experience. Language is a product of culture. If a certain thing exists in a certain culture, there is a definite term in that culture to express that thing. Stanza 1 of Hymns, #631 says, “If I’d know Christ’s risen power, / I must ever love the Cross.” The Chinese translation of the second line reads, “I must ever love the mold of the cross.” The mold of the cross is an expression created by us, but actually it is not, because it is based on what Paul says concerning our being conformed to the death of Christ. The Lord’s death on the cross is an accomplished fact. Paul, after receiving this revelation, saw the application of the fact and therefore wrote the truth of being conformed to Christ’s death in Philippians 3:10. Later, many saints, such as Madame Guyon, one of the inner-life people, A. B. Simpson, and Mrs. Penn-Lewis, all saw this truth and experienced this fact. In these years, since we have seen something of the Lord and have received from the saints who were before us, we have found out that there is the need to have a new vocabulary to express the truths that we have seen.
Stanza 3 says,
If God thru th’ Eternal Spirit
Nail me ever with the Lord;
Only then as death is working
Will His life thru me be poured.
These are words from the human race, but they are utterances in the divine culture. This is the new language in the new culture that is incomprehensible to those who are not saved and to those who have no experience. They may appreciate the poetry of this hymn, but they do not understand its content or know what it means when the chorus says, “If no death, no life.” This is the language of the heavenly kingdom that can be understood only by the saints who live the heavenly life.
Today if we want to have the church life and experience the Body of Christ, we must experience the cross and death. Take the family life as an example. The biggest problem between a husband and wife is that they always have different opinions, ideas, and ways. It is strange that among the couples, a slow one usually is matched with a quick one. It is seldom that both are quick or both are slow. Since one is slow and the other one is quick, the slow one complains about the quick one, and the quick one cannot stand the slow one. Sometimes the husband is sick and wants a drink of water, yet after a long time the wife still has not come with the water, and the husband fumes for being kept waiting. Not only has sickness caused the husband to become thirsty, but the waiting has also caused him to experience death. This is the problem with being slow. On the other hand, being quick also has its shortcomings. Some people clean the table after a meal by hastily removing all the bowls and chopsticks, yet the table is not clean and is still very messy. They wash the bowls quickly, but the bowls are not clean. They draw the water quickly, but the water is not hot enough. We have many such incidents happening in our family life. The secret to solving these problems is in stanza 1:
If I’d know Christ’s risen power,
I must ever love the Cross;
Life from death alone arises;
There’s no gain except by loss.
If there is no death, there is no life; if there is death, there is life. If we sing this hymn and experience the death of the cross, there will be no problems.
We should not just speak about the objective doctrine of the cross and the Spirit; we must have the practical experience. Sometimes the elders in the church argue over a certain matter that is brought up because they all have their own views. The Chinese have a saying that since we all have different views, we need to be broad-minded and forbearing. But how can we be broad-minded? We have to prepare ourselves, saying, “I have died, so I have no opinions, no views, no ways.” I speak this from my own experience. When I first served as an elder, I also felt that I should be more yielding, but regardless of how much I tried, I could not make it. The northern Chinese have a saying that some people carry a club at their side to bully others into yielding, but they continue to hit them after they have yielded. People who behave in this way are truly unconscionable; they feel that they are the only ones of importance. We often consider that this is the way we are treated in the church coordination. As a result, we may go home with no appetite for eating, and after a period of time begin to have ulcers and even tuberculosis. Hence, the following lines in Hymns, #477 are excellent:
The Cross on Golgotha,
Will never save thy soul;
The Cross in thine own heart,
Alone can make thee whole.
Our opinions are a sickness that can be cured only by the cross. When the cross comes into us, we are finished and have no more opinions.
In 1933 Brother Nee brought me into the co-workers’ meetings in Shanghai. Because I was of the younger generation, even the youngest, I learned some tremendous lessons there. Quite often, instead of asking the other brothers, Brother Nee would ask me, “Brother Witness, what is your view concerning this matter?” Usually I just smiled and said, “Brother Nee, whatever you say, I will do; I have no opinion.” After a long period of time, Brother Nee knew what my answer would be. Afterward, we worked together for eighteen years, but he would not ask me anything, because he knew that it was useless to ask, since I would do whatever he said. I behaved like this not only with Brother Nee but also with the other co-workers. I would always do according to whatever they would say.
I have given the following illustration: Three elders have decided to go from Taipei to Keelung, but they argue a great deal about how to get there. It takes an hour to get there by car, but after a long time they have not started their trip, because they are arguing and no one is willing to give in. If they would have stopped arguing, they could have already arrived at Keelung. Such things have happened frequently in the church. Often the elders would argue even to the extent that they have delayed the important affairs of the church, yet all they care about is just to argue. In the co-workers’ meetings someone may disagree with something but not speak up during the meeting; then after the meeting they criticize. I saw such things happen again and again. Therefore, I often say in the co-workers’ meetings that if you have something to say, say it openly and not behind someone’s back. Some of the elders’ wives are very knowledgeable concerning the matters fellowshipped among the elders because their husbands like to bring those matters home to discuss with them. The elders are somewhat reserved when they argue in the meetings, but when they go home, they break loose and pour out everything. Consequently, their wives know everything, and even their children hear things and are affected. Such things happen repeatedly because of the shortage of the experience of the cross.
On the other hand, even though we do not argue or fight, if we do not remain in the Spirit through death, whatever we do, we are not the church; rather, we are merely a social organization. What is the church? As those who have received grace and love, we have been redeemed by the Lord and have been enlightened by Him to see that we need to die so that He may live in us. The Spirit lives when we have the cross in us. Moreover, when we have such experience daily, what is lived out is the church. This is not merely the church in fact or the church in doctrine; it is the church in experience. If we check with ourselves seriously in this light, we will see that very few churches are genuine churches in experience. Who is living in the shadow of the cross day by day and putting the soul-life to death moment by moment? Without such a living, how can there be the genuine church in experience?
Dear brothers, if we see this, there will be no problems at all. Neither exhortation nor rebuke works; the only thing that works is to help everyone to know the cross and the Spirit. He who sees this has more death, and he who has more death has more life. “Life from death alone arises.” There can be life only through death.
In order to experience death and resurrection we need to know the Spirit who is so wonderful. He is the consummated Spirit, the Spirit compounded with God and man, with the person of Christ, divinity, humanity, death, resurrection, the effectiveness of death, and the power of resurrection. Hence, this Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ with a bountiful supply (Phil. 1:19). He is the all-inclusive Spirit, the life-giving Spirit, and the indwelling Spirit in us. Furthermore, in Revelation, due to the church’s desolation, God has intensified His Spirit sevenfold; therefore, the Spirit is also the sevenfold intensified Spirit. Only this Spirit is the “good medicine” that heals our sickness.
Today the Triune God has been consummated as the Spirit through various processes. The Spirit is the very Triune God, the aggregate of the Triune God. He humbled Himself not only to come into us but also to abide in us, make His home in us, and build in us. Ephesians 3:17 says that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith that we may be rooted and grounded in love. Furthermore, in John 14 the Lord Jesus 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” (v. 23). Make an abode denotes building; this is to build God into man as man’s dwelling place and to build man into God as God’s dwelling place. Thus, God and man have a mutual dwelling place.
What we have been fellowshipping here is not being taught by anyone in Christianity. Even very few among us understood these things three to five years ago. I have been speaking these things for thirty years. Thank the Lord, today by His mercy I am glad to see some results. On the one hand, the Lord’s recovery has spread to the whole earth with churches raised up in a great number of places. On the other hand, there is definite harmony in the Lord’s recovery. Since Brother Nee’s time, we have rarely seen the co-workers among the churches moving together in harmony. However, after I came back from Taiwan to the United States in 1989, from the time we began to have the training here in Anaheim to this day, I can testify that we have had a group of co-workers here who are truly in harmony. This harmony depends on our knowing the cross and the Spirit. The co-workers visited different places through the invitations of the churches and have thereby blended the churches as one. This is a good phenomenon. Now the churches around the globe all have the desire to be blended together. There is definitely such a trend of blending in the Lord’s recovery.
In conclusion, we need to see that God Himself went through five major steps — incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension — to produce the church. None of the five major steps is simple. God Himself becoming flesh was not a simple matter. To God, it was not simple to experience human living. He was God, yet He lived in a man on the earth to have the human living for thirty-three and a half years. He also passed through death and then resurrected and ascended to heaven. Without passing through these processes, God could not produce the church. Likewise, we cannot have the church in experience today unless we pass through death and resurrection with ascension. Consider the situation of many so-called Christians today. Where is the genuine church? We need to be on the alert.
From Brother Nee’s time to this day, at least ten rebellions have occurred in the Lord’s recovery. At least three have taken place in the days of my ministry, and six or seven took place during the time of Brother Nee’s ministry. The rebellions are due to not knowing the flesh, the cross, the Spirit, and resurrection. Brother Nee and I worked together for eighteen years; the Lord can testify that we never spoke a joking word with each other. Furthermore, the two of us truly did not have opinions. Only those who know the cross and the Spirit can behave in this way. If there is no death, there is no life; only by death can there be life.
The earth itself remains unchanged, but the means of transportation are constantly being improved. Today transportation is becoming more and more convenient. Whereas in the past it would take at least two days and two nights to travel from Chefoo to Shanghai, today it takes only one day to make a trip between the United States and Taiwan. In addition, the telephone, telegraph, fax, and other machines are very convenient for the fellowship among the churches. This is God’s doing in order that His chosen ones among the nations may become a corporate God-man, one Body. We need to be governed and controlled by this vision and see clearly that what we are doing is not the work of one local church but the work of the one Body.
