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Scripture Reading: Rev. 4:1-5; 5:1-10; Matt. 28:18-19; Mark 16:19-20; Acts 1:8; 2:33
Revelation 4 and 5 used to be a great puzzle to me. As far as I can recall, I never heard any message on them, and it was quite a long time before I came to have some understanding of what they meant. These two chapters present a scene in the opened heavens. There is a throne where God is sitting, surrounded by twenty-four other thrones. There are twenty-four angels as elders in the universe and four living creatures. No doubt there are also myriads of angels present, as well as all the other created beings. This picture declares that God on the throne is the center of the universe.
Then John saw a scroll in the hand of the One sitting on the throne. When the question was raised as to who could open the scroll, John wept that no one was qualified to do so. “Do not weep,” one of the elders told him, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so that He may open the scroll and its seven seals” (5:5). When John looked, what he saw was a Lamb with seven eyes. This Lion-Lamb was standing, not sitting, and His seven eyes were flashing. From this picture it is clear that His work is not finished. What was finished in John 19 was the work of redemption. But His standing position and His seven flashing eyes both indicate that He is taking action.
“He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sits upon the throne” (Rev. 5:7). This is the beginning of Christ’s ministry in the heavens. Without these two chapters we would not know what happened when Christ ascended to the heavens. From Revelation 4 and 5 we learn that when Christ ascended, He went directly to the throne at the center of the universe. Before the throne, before the twenty-four elders, and surrounded by all the created beings, He received a commission to carry out God’s economy, symbolized by that scroll.
We enjoy singing the hymn that is based on Revelation 5:12-13:
The blessing, honor, and glory are for the Lamb, not on the cross but standing before the throne at the center of the universe and receiving a universal commission. We must not be so shallow as to confine our praises to Christ for redemption only. Our vision must be uplifted to see this Lamb accomplishing a work of eternally vast dimensions.
Consider this photograph that John has taken for us. The redeeming Lamb is now standing at the center of the universe, before God’s throne. This tells us that the Redeemer is now in God’s administration. He is the Administrator of the universe, executing God’s economy. He is not sitting or sleeping there. He is standing, His seven eyes flashing, watching, searching, and even burning. The whole universe is watching this scene. The four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, myriads of angels, and all other creatures are wide awake, alert, observing. These are the circumstances in which they proclaim, “To Him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might forever and ever” (Rev. 5:13).
How do we know that this scene took place at the time when Christ ascended? We conclude this from verse 6, where the Lamb is described as “having just been slain.” The Greek here implies that He had just recently been slain. Right after His sacrificial death, He received the universal and eternal commission from God’s hand.
In His earthly ministry Christ accomplished redemption. Now in His heavenly ministry He is raising up God’s building. Redemption is for God’s building. The center of this building is the church. Its ultimate consummation is the New Jerusalem. Today the church is a house (1 Tim. 3:15), but that house will consummate in a city. When this happens, God’s building is completed. The work of redemption was finished in John 19. A few chapters later, in Acts 2, the building work began. This is the work that continues today.
These two aspects of the work of Christ are not generally known among Christians today. They are familiar with the work of redemption, but if you tell them that Christ is still working in the heavens to accomplish God’s building, they may wonder at the strange doctrines you hold. How marvelous it is to be in the light and to see this heavenly view, which is hidden from the eyes of most Christians. There is a Lion-Lamb standing in the center of the universe with seven flashing, burning eyes. He saves us from our silence, our coldness, and our laziness.
Who can thwart this Lion-Lamb? Who can stop the Lord’s recovery? The recovery is not part of traditional Christianity. I do believe that what the Lord is doing in the heavens finds its correspondence among us in His recovery. On the day of Pentecost the response to Christ’s move in the heavens began on earth. Only one hundred twenty people were there at the start, most of them simple people from Galilee, not scholars. That work, which began then, is what we are part of today. The work did not begin in China but in Jerusalem. We are here in our day reflecting what Christ is doing in the heavens.
When Christ was ready to ascend to the heavens, He met with His disciples on a mountain and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:16-19). The Lord’s charge to the disciples to preach the gospel was a reflection of the authority He had been given both in heaven and on earth (see also Mark 16:19-20).
With this authority He has charged us to disciple the nations. His first commission to the disciples was to go with His authority. I can testify to you that when I became clear that I should begin the work in the United States, I had the deep conviction that I would be there with Christ’s authority. I was just a little man from China, with no prestige nor financial backing, but I arrived in the United States with the conviction that Christ’s authority was with me.
For Christ to have His gospel preached to the uttermost part of the earth requires His leadership. As the Ruler of the kings of the earth, the whole earth is under His dominion. He has ordered world events and everyday human affairs for the spread of the gospel.
Let me illustrate this for you subjectively. Over fifty years ago in China a group of young people was raised up by the Lord. We were the young generation, striving to get a modern education in order to rescue and build up our country. The leaders of both the Nationalist and Communist parties were all the same age as we were. We were all attending college at the same time, seriously pursuing the knowledge of science, politics, and economics. I started studying English, for example, right after World War I ended in 1918. Some of that generation were captured by communism; we were captured by Christ.
We came to love the Lord and His Word. We studied the Bible, as well as the classic spiritual writings, church history, and the biographies of the spiritual giants from the second century right down to our day. From our research we came to know what Christianity was, and the Lord opened our eyes to see some light in His Word. The first little meeting, or church, was established in 1922. We did not have an easy time of it, but the Lord brought us through and spread His recovery.
After World War II the recovery became prevailing in China. There were about four to six hundred churches scattered throughout the thirty-three provinces. We had no thought to come to the Western world. A great work lay ahead of us, a nation of seven hundred million people of one language. Our only burden was for this people, but we did realize that what the Lord had shown us would one day be brought to the Western world.
We considered that the Lord’s move is like the circulation of the blood in the body. First, the Lord sent some from the Western world to bring the gospel to China. Then, there in that pagan country, the Lord raised us up and opened the Bible to us. We realized that what we saw was far beyond what the missionaries had brought. Some day, we believed, the circulation in the Body, which had begun from the West, would flow back with something from the East. This, we thought, would be through others, not through us. Our hands were full.
Within a short time, however, in 1948 and 1949 the whole situation in China changed. We were bothered and puzzled at this turn of events. The decision was made that I leave mainland China. Where I should go I did not know, but I went to Taiwan.
That small island, primitive in every way, fully discouraged and disappointed me. I had been working in Shanghai, the largest city in the Far East, with six million people. Taiwan seemed insignificant and backward. One day, however, I traveled by train throughout the island. The Lord burdened me and said, “Do not think that this place is too small. I will use this island. You begin to work.” Within six years, between 1949 and 1955, our number went from less than five hundred to twenty thousand. During that time I was spending about four months of the year in the Philippines and eight months in Taiwan.
Then in 1958 I was invited to visit England and Denmark. On the way I passed through the United States. Two years later the Lord again brought me to the United States. Then in 1962 He brought me there again and this time kept me there. I was gradually being impressed. After a while I became clear that instead of returning to the Far East, I should begin the ministry in the United States. At the end of 1962 we began. We had no organization or financial backing, but we began.
This story shows the Lord’s rulership. He arranged international events so that we had to come to the United States, even though this was far from my intention.
My thoughts were otherwise. Before the end of World War II, I realized that Japan would be defeated and that China and the United States would win the war. I picked up a burden to evangelize Inner Mongolia and drew up a plan to develop this northwest region. I was living in northern China, where we had a good number of saints who could provide the manpower. We had nurses, medical doctors, schoolteachers, and merchants. The financial needs would be supplied by some quite wealthy brothers in the northeast of China, which is Manchuria. My plans were well thought out. There was northern China, the northeast, and the northwest. China did win the war, but contrary to our expectations the Communists gained control of the country. My dreams vanished, although there were some seventy saints who did migrate to Inner Mongolia.
Recently, I heard news regarding those seventy. A co-worker, one of the elders in my hometown, took the lead in that migration in 1943. Now thirty-seven years later, he is still alive, though he has been imprisoned fifteen times. Now there is some freedom, and there are a number of churches in that district. I was happy to hear the news, even though I never got the opportunity to go there myself.
My intention was to go to the northwest, but the Lord sent me to the southeast. I was headed for Inner Mongolia, near Siberia, but the Lord sent me to Taiwan, Manila, the United States, and now to Europe. How could this be? This Jesus in the heavens is the Ruler of all kings. He manages every nation. How He manages is absolutely right. He has sent us to spread His recovery, to gain more people for Himself. Fifteen years ago did you ever imagine that the Lord could so move in Germany? In our midst we have Italians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, and British, as well as Germans. Now I am here in Europe, enjoying the voices of so many different nationalities.
Who has arranged all this? The heavenly Christ has done this. It is not your doing, nor is it mine. I am too little to have arranged any of it. We praise the Lord for this reflection of His heavenly ministry!
Within a few years the recovery will saturate the whole of Europe. I believe that it will invade all the leading cities. Before too long it will even spread back to Jerusalem. It will go south to Athens, then across the sea to Jerusalem. This is where the church began, and in this age it will return there. This is the Lord’s move from the heavens, reflected on the earth.
