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Scripture Reading: Acts 26:19; Gal. 2:1-2a; Rom. 1:9a; 2:29; 2 Cor. 3:6
In Acts 26:19 the apostle Paul said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” In this book I am burdened that we would see six visions: the vision of Christ, the vision of the church, the vision of the Body, the vision of the self, the vision of the world, and the vision of consecration.
With the history of the apostle Paul there are two parts, two sections: the part before he got saved and the part after he got saved. In both parts of his history he was a person serving God. Even before Paul was saved, he was a person dedicated to the service of God. If we read the New Testament carefully, we will realize that before he got saved Paul was a full-time worker, a full-time servant serving God.
However, there is a great difference between Paul’s service before he got saved and his service after he got saved. First, before he got saved, Paul’s service was a service without vision. Second, it is absolutely correct to say that his service was according to tradition and religion. Instead of serving with a vision, he was serving traditionally and religiously. Third, he was serving according to the knowledge of the Bible, that is, according to the letters, commandments, and regulations of the Old Testament. Fourth, he was serving in a condition of self-righteousness, serving in his self-righteousness. Fifth, he was serving with the full confidence that he was right. Sixth, his service was full of enthusiasm. He was serving not coolly but very enthusiastically, with his whole heart. Seventh, he had a goal, and he served with a definite purpose. Thus, he was serving purposefully.
In principle, the work of nearly all of today’s Christian workers is according to these seven points. In brief, these points are serving without a vision, serving traditionally and religiously, serving according to the knowledge of the Scripture in letters, serving in self-righteousness, serving with confidence, serving enthusiastically, and serving with a definite purpose. Are these things bad? They are not bad, but neither are they right. They may be good, but they are wrong.
One day while Paul was serving God according to these seven points, he was on the way to Damascus. Suddenly, a heavenly vision came to him. This vision turned him, changed him, revolutionized him (9:1-5). This vision turned him from the old way of service. After he saw this vision, he became blind and very weak, even impotent. Before this vision came to him, Paul was clear, full of sight, and he was also potent, able to do many things. But suddenly a heavenly vision came to him, and Paul was changed. He became blind, unable to see anything, and impotent, unable to do anything. Before the vision came to him, he took the lead to do things, but after the vision came, he needed others to guide him.
At this juncture I would like to ask you a question: When was the time in your Christian life that you became blind and impotent? There needs to be a time in our Christian life when we realize that we are blind, when we realize that our sight is gone and that we do not know the direction but need others to lead us. It is a blessing to be blind in this way. Oh, blessed blindness! If you have never had a time in your Christian life when you became blind and impotent, then your service to God will be like Paul’s service before he got saved. Those who serve in this way will be clear about everything and will have the full assurance that they are doing the right thing and that they know the right way to go on. But a blessed blindness comes upon those who are met by the heavenly vision. After this blindness comes upon us, there will be the inner anointing and the inner shining, the inner enlightening. The inner vision will increase more and more and will revolutionize the way we serve the Lord. In serving the Lord we will become a different person.
Let us now contrast Paul’s service after he got saved with his service before he got saved. In every aspect, his service now was opposite to the way he had served before.
First, instead of serving without a vision, Paul served with a vision. He served with a vision not only in big things but even in small things. For example, in Galatians 2:1-2a he tells us about his going up to Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish religion. “After a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus with me also. And I went up according to revelation.” The fact that even such a move was done by revelation indicates that Paul was serving with a vision.
Second, instead of serving traditionally and religiously, Paul now served spiritually. In Romans 1:9 he says, “God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son.”
Can you discern what is traditional and religious from what is spiritual? Anything in the service of God that is not in the spirit but is according to the past is traditional and religious. We need to learn to serve not according to the past but in our spirit. This means that we should not imitate others and not even imitate our own past. If we imitate, our service will become religious and traditional. We need to have fresh contact with the Lord in spirit. However, if we serve merely according to what we know or according to what we remember, our serving will be traditional and religious. We need to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord to have something new and fresh. Then we will serve with our spirit, not with anything old.
In contrast to serving according to the knowledge of the Bible in letters, after he got saved, Paul served in spirit. In Romans 2:29 Paul says, “He is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is of the heart, in spirit, not in letter.” This indicates that we must serve not in letter but in spirit. Concerning this, 2 Corinthians 3:6 says that the ministers of the new covenant are ministers “not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
What is the opposite of serving with self-righteousness? The opposite of serving with self-righteousness is serving with Christ. When we do not have the heavenly vision, we have self-righteousness. When we have the heavenly vision, we no longer have self-righteousness—we have Christ. Then we serve with Christ, not with self-righteousness.
The opposite of serving with confidence is serving in faith or with faith. A person who serves God without having the vision is a person who serves in a natural way with much confidence. Those who are naturally strong in themselves do not need faith. Actually, a natural person cannot have faith; he has confidence instead of faith. But when we have the vision, we serve God not with confidence but with faith and in faith.
The opposite of serving enthusiastically is serving fervently. One who serves God fervently is not enthusiastic in himself but is fervent, inwardly burning in spirit.
Now we need to ask, What is the opposite of serving God with a purpose? Instead of serving with a purpose, we should serve by the Lord’s guidance. Whenever we do something with a purpose, we are behaving like a politician. Politicians always do things with a definite purpose. The more we act with a purpose, the more political we are. If we do not have the Lord’s guidance to go to a particular place, yet we go to that place with a definite purpose, we are serving naturally and religiously.
Suppose you are going to the Far East. If you are going there with a definite purpose, you are going there as a politician. If you are asked why you are going to the Far East, you should be able to say, “My going to the Far East is of the Lord’s guidance. I am not going there to accomplish a certain purpose. Rather, I am going to the Far East according to the Lord’s guidance.”
It is hard to discern guidance from purpose. You may say that when you have the guidance you have the purpose. Even if this is the situation, you need to act not according to the purpose but according to the guidance. In the book of Acts the apostles, the sent ones, went out, but it is difficult for us to see what their purpose was in going out. They went out by the Lord’s guidance. They had no purpose, but they did have the Lord’s guidance. Consider the example of Philip in Acts 8:26-39. The Holy Spirit guided him to contact the Ethiopian eunuch (v. 29). Philip did not have a purpose; he simply had the Lord’s guidance. Before Philip contacted the eunuch, Philip had no idea concerning what would happen. His contacting the eunuch was not with a purpose; it was by the Lord’s guidance.
We need the vision, and we should pray much that we may have the vision. It is not adequate merely to learn how to serve. If we only learn certain things, what we learn will become something traditional and religious. It is good to learn something, but we need the vision to change what we have learned into something else.
I would ask you to pray that the Lord would grant you certain visions. First, we need the vision of Christ. We all need to see Christ, not merely have the knowledge about Christ. We also need the vision of the church, the vision of the Body, the vision of the self, and the vision of the world. Regarding the self, we need a vision of the self so that the self may be exposed to us.
We may have much knowledge about Christ, the church, the Body, the self, and the world, but mere knowledge about these matters does not mean anything. For example, a sinful person may have a lot of knowledge about the gospel, yet he is still not saved. Only when what this sinner knows becomes a vision will he be saved. It is the vision, not the knowledge, that saves. A person may be told how sinful he is and how evil his heart is, and others may point out his shortcomings to him. But even then he is not convinced. He knows about these things, but he is not saved because as yet there is no vision. One day the vision comes to him, and under that vision he is saved.
The principle is the same with hearing about Christ, the church, the Body, the self, and the world. Only when we have the vision of Christ, the church, the Body, the self, and the world will we have the reality of what we have heard. Once we have reality, we will have deliverance.
Let us now go on to consider some aspects of the vision of Christ.
We need the vision of Christ to see that He is the center of God’s eternal plan. In addition, Christ is the center of all things belonging to God.
Christ is the very embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9). We all know this, but to know is one thing and to have the vision of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is another thing.
Colossians 1:15-18 reveals that Christ must have the first place, the preeminence, in everything.
We need to see clearly that Christ must be the essence, the substance, of our daily walk. This means that the essence of our daily walk is not humility or patience or love or kindness or good behavior. The essence of all these virtues must be Christ Himself. Our humility must be Christ. Our patience must be Christ. Our love must be Christ. Our kindness must be Christ. Our good behavior must be Christ. We need to see this vision.
If we see such a vision of Christ, we will never help others to have humility, patience, love, and kindness without Christ. We will never help them to be good without Christ. Rather, we will minister Christ to others. We will testify to others that Christ, the essence, the substance, of our daily walk, is humility, patience, love, kindness, and good behavior.
Christ must also be the reality of our service, the reality of our ministry. No matter what kind of service we may do or what kind of ministry we may have, the reality of that service and ministry must be Christ. We should not minister knowledge and forms to others or impart gifts to others. Instead, we should minister Christ to others.
It is not easy to minister only Christ to others. Try to cease from ministering knowledge, forms, and gifts. If you do this, you may find that you have nothing to minister, for your ministry is full of knowledge, forms, and gifts. If you desert these things, you find that nothing remains. I would ask you to check your ministry in this way.
Christ’s being the reality of our ministry and service includes His being the reality of the gospel. When we preach the gospel to sinners, we must have Christ as the reality of the gospel. This means that we should not merely preach the gospel but should preach the gospel with Christ. Christ is the gospel, and we should preach Him to others.
We need the vision of Christ as the reality of our ministry. We need the vision to see that our ministry must be full of Christ. If I come to contact a brother in order to have fellowship with him, I must not have only the knowledge of the Word but must have Christ as the reality of this fellowship. The knowledge of the Word is the means by which Christ is conveyed to this dear brother.
Knowledge, forms, and gifts should simply be the means to convey Christ to others. We may say that such things are the “wrappings” used in “packing” Christ as the content. Suppose you buy a diamond. The diamond is placed in a container, and then the container is wrapped. Neither the container nor the wrappings are the reality of the diamond which you have bought. The reality of the wrappings and the container is the diamond itself. If you take away the wrappings and the container, you will still have the diamond. However, with many so-called ministries today, once the “wrappings” and the “container” of teachings, forms, and gifts are removed, there is nothing left. There is no “diamond.” Because this is the situation, I say once again that we need to have the vision of Christ as the reality of our ministry and service.
Christ must be the expression of the church life. The church life is for nothing other than Christ, and the church life should not express anything other than Christ. The church is not for knowledge, forms, gifts, and practices—the church is only for Christ. The church must be the expression of Christ.
Christ is the center of all things related to God. Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God. Christ must have the preeminence, the first place, in everything. Christ must be the essence, the substance, of our daily walk. Christ must be the reality of our ministry and service. Christ must be the expression of the church. We need to pray that we would see the vision of Christ in all these aspects.
Some of us may have a question regarding the difference between vision and knowledge. A vision is something that catches us, whereas knowledge is something that we have to remember.
The first time I came to Los Angeles, in 1958, a friend brought me to an observatory on a hill in order to have a view of the city. I will never forget my impression of the city of Los Angeles as I looked down upon the city. I was caught by this view. But suppose my friend had merely given me some knowledge about Los Angeles and had told me about the streets and about how beautiful the city was at night. After a short time I would have forgotten what he had told me. However, I cannot forget the view of Los Angeles I had from that observatory on a hill. This is an illustration of the difference between seeing a vision and having knowledge.
We need to pray that the Lord would grant us the vision of Christ. All the knowledge about Christ that we have received needs to be transferred into the vision of Christ. We need to see that Christ is the center of God’s eternal plan and of everything belonging to God and that Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God. We need to see that Christ must have the preeminence in all things, that Christ must be the essence of our daily walk, that Christ must be the reality of our ministry and service, and that Christ must be the only expression in the church life. Once we are caught by such a vision of Christ, we will lose sight of all other things. Then we will have only Christ, and we will no longer care to preach mere doctrines and knowledge.
When we have the vision of Christ, the Bible will become to us a book of Christ. Before we saw this vision, the Bible was to us not a book of Christ but a book of other things, in particular a book of doctrines and teachings. In reading the Bible we gained many things, but we did not gain Christ. But when we come to the Bible after we have seen the vision of Christ and have been caught by Christ and are occupied with Christ, in our reading of the Bible we will see Christ and we will care only for Christ.
People have told me that I speak too much concerning Christ and that I need to be balanced and speak about other things. To those who say this, I would reply, “Brother, don’t speak in this way. You need to be balanced, because you talk too much about things other than Christ. Perhaps I have only the diamond and display just the diamond, not the wrappings nor the container, but you have only the wrappings and the container. Don’t tell me that I need the wrappings and the container—you need the diamond.”
Because there are so many substitutes for Christ, we need to be recovered to Christ, even in an “extreme” way. We need the vision of Christ, and we need to cry out to the Lord, saying, “Lord, grant me the vision of Christ.”
