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Scripture Reading: Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 4:16
Prayer: Lord, how we thank You for this precious hour that we may come to learn the way of Your recovery. O Lord, You know that our heart is full of gratitude for Your mercy and grace. We bow before You to confess that we are still sinful, that we are still in the old nature, and that we are still so much in the self. How much we still have self-seeking, self-interest, self-righteousness, and self-consciousness. Lord, how much we need Your cleansing! Lord, we have no merit, no good, for us to stand on. But, Lord, we have Your blood as our covering and as our standing. Lord, grant us a living word to speak something about Your mystery, the Body of Christ. Lord, grant us the inner grace that we need for this matter. How much we need You as the inner grace! O Lord, draw us to love You. Lord, draw us to go with You that we may be one with You and may be built up as Your living Body. Lord, deliver us from so many distracting elements and frustrating things and deliver us from our self that we may be truly one in Spirit. Lord, You know that we are weak. We look to You for Your help. In Your precious name.
In this chapter we come to the third vision, the vision of the Body. Before we consider this vision, however, let us review what we have covered regarding the vision of Christ and the vision of the church.
We have seen that the real service, work, and ministry that we could render to the Lord must be something of the heavenly vision, not something traditional, religious, or natural. In the first chapter we pointed out that in the first part of his life, Paul’s service was according to tradition and religion and was without vision. He had the confidence that he was serving God, but he was serving according to the letter, knowledge, teaching, and regulations of the Old Testament. But after he received the heavenly vision, his service, work, and ministry were changed from tradition to vision. He served no longer according to the traditions of his forefathers or according to knowledge and regulations but according to the heavenly vision, the present vision. In Galatians 2 Paul went up to Jerusalem not by regulation but by revelation, by vision. He had come to see something, so he went up to Jerusalem. As we read his Epistles, we can see that Paul was a man full of visions.
The first of these visions is the vision of Christ. To have the vision of Christ is to see that Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God and the center of all things related to God. Christ is the center of God’s plan, of God’s eternal intention. Christ is also the center of God’s work, God’s creation, and God’s redemption. Christ is the center of all that God has planned to do. Christ must have the preeminence in everything; He must have the first place in all things. We need to apply this Christ to our life, ministry, and church life. Christ must be the essence, the substance, of our Christian walk and the reality of our work, service, and ministry. Our ministry should be a ministry of Christ, full of Christ. Furthermore, Christ must be the content and expression of the church life. The church should be an expression of nothing other than the all-inclusive Christ. We all need such a vision of Christ.
In order to see the vision of Christ, you may need to pray earnestly for a period of time. You may need to cry out to the Lord day by day, saying, “Lord, reveal Yourself to me that I may see. Lord, I do not just need to know—I need to see. I need to be impressed by the vision concerning Yourself.” Eventually, something like a veil will be opened to you, and within you there will be an inner revelation, an inner unveiling. Then, as was the case with Paul, “something like scales” (Acts 9:18) will fall from your eyes, and you will be able to say, “Before now I knew something about Christ, but I did not have the vision. Now I see!” Once you were veiled, but the veil has been lifted, and the curtain has been opened. No human word can explain this; it is something that you must experience.
You may hear messages about Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, as the center of the things of God, as the One who has the first place in everything, as the essence of our Christian life, as the reality of our service, and as the content and expression of the church life. You may hear about all these matters, but one day the veil will be opened, and you will see the vision of Christ. Once you see this vision, you will be caught by it. From that time onward your burden will be to minister Christ to others. If you speak about something other than Christ, you will not have the inner anointing. But the more you speak concerning Christ, the more you will have the inner anointing. You are now “shut in” with Christ, kept away from mere knowledge, for your eyes have been opened, and you have seen the vision of Christ.
If you would be a proper Christian, you need to see not only the vision of Christ but also the vision of the church. You need to see that God’s desire is to have the church. The Holy Spirit will point out to you that God’s purpose in creating the universe was to produce the church. Redemption also is for the church. All that God does is for the church, and every kind of work and ministry should be for the church. Gospel preaching is for the church. Edifying the saints is for the church. Teaching the Bible is for the church. We have been saved for the church, not for ourselves nor for any other purpose. The desire of God’s heart is to have the church, and we were saved to be built up as the church. We must have this vision.
I believe that if you really mean business with the Lord and take sides with Him, sooner or later He will open your eyes to see that His desire in this universe is to have the church. All other things are secondary. The primary thing is that the church is God’s heart’s desire.
Seeing this will not only rescue you from the wrong concept and understanding; it will revolutionize your Christian service. You will see that God’s intention is to have the church, not just to have the gospel preached that others may be brought to the Lord, nor just to have others helped to seek the Lord, love the Lord, and be spiritual. Everything you do in your work and service for the Lord will be for the building up of the church. Whatever you are and whatever you do will be for the church.
Consider the ministry of the apostle Paul. What did Paul do after he had been changed, revolutionized, to this way of vision? Everything he did was for the church. Strictly speaking, he did not have what we may call “a piece of work.” He simply did everything for the church. Apart from the church, Paul did not have anything. Whatever he was and whatever he did were for the church. If the church had been taken away, Paul would have had nothing left.
I would ask you to check yourself by comparing yourself with Paul. I am concerned that you have many things besides the church. You may have some good works, but these good works are besides the church. This proves that you are wrong. The church is the real test that proves what we are and where we are. The church is God’s desire.
We need to see that the church is not something “in the air” but is very real and practical. In the New Testament we do not have much teaching about the church, but we surely have the practicality of the church. In the New Testament the church was a matter that was put into practice. Therefore, we today must have the practice of the church.
We should not say that the church is invisible or that it is something for the future. The church is certainly visible. In the New Testament we do not read about an invisible church nor about a church in the future. In the future there will be not the dispensation of the church but the dispensation of the kingdom. Do not postpone the church. The church must be today. If you do not have the church on the earth in this life, then where and when will you have the church? After you die, will you go to a place where you will have the church life? If the church life is postponed until the future, where will this future church life be? Can you show me a verse or a passage of Scripture which tells us that after we die we will go to heaven and there have good church meetings with Paul and Peter? Can you show me where the Bible tells us that we will have the proper church life, the so-called invisible yet real church life, in the future in heaven? There is not such a verse. Neither is there a verse which tells us that the church will be in the future.
Why do people take in the thought that the church on earth today is not the real church, that the real church is the so-called invisible church? Why do people accept the teaching that the church is something for the future? The church must be practical today. We all need to see the vision of the practicality of the church.
The church is also local. Since the church must be local, wherever you are is the right place for you to have the church. The church should be in the very place where you are. A place may seem to be good, but if that place is without a church, it is a hell. On the contrary, any place with a church is a heaven.
This reminds us of Jacob’s experience in Genesis 28. “He dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (v. 12). When Jacob awoke, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (v. 17). Then he called the name of that place Bethel, which means “house of God.” Today Bethel, the house of God, is the church (1 Tim. 3:15). Wherever there is the church, the house of God, that place is the gate of heaven. The only place that is good for us today is a place where there is the church.
Wherever we go and wherever we are, there must be a church. Concerning this matter of the church, we should be troublemakers. We should trouble others for the producing of the church. If there is not a church in a particular locality, we should not let the people there be at peace. Rather, we should cause trouble so that there may be a church in that locality. We should declare to the universe, “If there is no church in this place, I do not have a dwelling place. I must have a home, and for this I must cause trouble.”
I expect that the day will come when we all, like Paul, will be troublemakers. We need to trouble the entire country for the sake of producing the church. Wherever Paul and the other apostles went, there was trouble. Before they came to a particular place, the people were at peace. But after these troublemakers arrived, the whole city was troubled, disturbed. Acts 17:6 says, “These men who have upset the world have come here also.” It is by upsetting the world, by causing trouble, that we establish and build up the church.
We also need to see that the church has its definite ground—the ground of the unique oneness. This is the ground not merely of a particular kind of oneness but of the unique oneness. Today there are many different kinds of oneness. However, the genuine oneness is unique; all the other kinds of oneness are divisions. We need to have a clear vision concerning this.
I can say with full assurance that only when you are settled with regard to this unique ground of oneness will your Christian life be settled. If you are not settled regarding the ground of oneness, you will be continually wandering and changing your tune. Today you have one tune, but tomorrow your tune will change. You will not be settled and your tune will not be constant until you are settled regarding and settled on the ground of the unique oneness.
You need to see that the church is the desire of God’s heart, and you need to see that the church is practical and local. Then you need to see that among so many divisions and in the midst of so much confusion, there is the definite standing of the church, and this standing is the ground of the unique oneness. If you see these things, you will not care about how many others will come to this ground. You will realize that, as far as you are concerned, as long as you are on this ground, you are settled. You are like the Israelites who came back to Jerusalem and who became settled there. We need to see a vision of the church that will cause us to become settled on the ground of the unique oneness.
After we have seen the vision of Christ and the vision of the church, we need to see the vision of the Body. You may be wondering what the difference is between the vision of the church and the vision of the Body. By the Lord’s mercy many of us have been brought to the ground of the church and are now practicing the church life on the proper ground. Although we have been brought to a realization of the ground of the unique oneness, we still need the realization of the Body. We need to see the vision that we are members of the Body and that we need to be built up together and related to one another. It is not sufficient just to be brought to a realization concerning the church ground, but on this definite ground we need to be built up as the Body. The three main portions of the New Testament which speak of the Body are Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4.
First, we need to see the vision of Christ; second, the vision of the church; and third, the vision of the Body. With respect to each of these visions, there is a particular hindrance.
Formerly you did not see the vision of Christ, but now you see this vision. What kept you from seeing the vision of Christ before now? What hindered you, and what hinders others today, from seeing the vision of Christ? The answer is that people are hindered from seeing Christ by the various substitutes. Many things are substitutions for Christ, and these are the hindrance to seeing the vision of Christ.
Some may say that divisions are what hinder them from seeing the vision of the church. To speak like this is to speak in a doctrinal way. I prefer to talk about this matter in an experiential way. People oppose the church, especially the ground of the church, because of the cost involved in coming to the church ground. Some claim that they cannot understand this matter of the ground of the church. Actually, they do understand it, but they are unwilling to pay the price to meet on the church ground. They may offer an excuse, saying, “I do not like to be so narrow. I love all the children of God, and I want to be broad-minded. I cannot understand this strange speaking about the ground of the church.” This sounds good, but it is actually a cloak that covers the unwillingness to pay the price. People talk like this because of the cost involved. The Lord knows and their conscience knows that they are not faithful to the Lord in the matter of the cost of practicing the church life on the proper ground.
We should not argue with such people. When people came to argue with Brother Nee, he would smile and say, “You can argue with me, but there is something within you that agrees with me.” Today people may argue with us about the ground of the church, but something within them takes sides with us regarding this. Their conscience knows that they are hindered by the cost, by the price. For more than thirty years we have seen people come and go. In each case they were frustrated by the cost.
Whereas the substitutes are the hindrance to seeing the vision of Christ and the cost is the hindrance to seeing the vision of the church, the hindrance to seeing the vision of the Body and to practicing the Body life is the self. Yes, we are practicing the church life on the proper ground of the church, but are we built up together? Are we rightly related to one another? Are we fitly framed together? We meet together, but we may not be built up together. We have the meeting, but we do not have the building. We need a vision of the Body, but this vision is at the cost of the self. If we are to be built up in the Body, the self must go. This is why we also need to see (in the next chapter) the vision of the self. The self is a problem to the Body.
Once we see the vision of Christ, we are qualified to see the vision of the church. However, with the matter of the church, you may sense that there is a cost and that you will have to pay the price. If you are not willing to pay the price, you may go back to the vision of Christ and say, “It is sufficient that we know Christ. Christ is everything. We should not talk about the church. Let us speak to others concerning Christ, telling them what He is. Let us preach Christ to sinners, and let us minister Christ to the saints. It is enough that we talk about Christ. There is no need for us to talk about the church.” This kind of speaking is subtle; it is a sugar-coated excuse for not paying the price to practice the church life on the ground of the unique oneness.
At this juncture let us consider the Lord’s word to Peter in Matthew 16. Immediately after Peter declared concerning the Lord Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” He said to him, “Upon this rock I will build My church” (vv. 16, 18). This indicates that knowing Christ and experiencing Christ are for the church. Today some condemn us, saying that we are too much for the church, that we make the church greater than Christ. Some go so far as to say that we make the church an idol. This argument is subtle. Oh, the subtlety of the enemy! Christ died on the cross for the church (Eph. 5:25). If we are too much for the church, Christ was the first one to be too much.
After we have seen the vision of the church, the Lord will open our eyes to see the Body. We will see that we need to be built up in the Body. We are not just members of the church; we are members of the Body. For the Body we must not only pay a price—we must lose the self.
By the Lord’s mercy I can testify that from the time I first began to meet on the proper ground more than thirty years ago, I have not changed in this matter. Furthermore, after coming to this ground, by the Lord’s mercy I began to realize and practice the Body, and I am still practicing the Body today. I have not moved from this ground, and I have not changed my position on this ground.
You may not change in the matter of the ground, but you may change your position on the ground. As an illustration let us suppose that various kinds of material are brought to a certain lot, or site, as the ground. All these materials are now on the same ground. However, it is possible for them to remain on the building site and yet have a change of position on that site. In like manner, we have been brought to the proper ground of the church, and on this ground we are practicing the church life. Perhaps a “soft” brother is put together with a “hard” brother. The “soft” one may cry out to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I cannot stand being with this brother. I want to have a change.” This brother is seeking a change not of the ground but a change of position on the ground. He remains on the ground, but he wants a change of relationship on the ground. This is the situation with many in the church life, and it may be your situation. You have not changed concerning the ground, but you may have changed in position, in relationship, again and again.
Some of today’s Christians are wandering among the denominations, among different grounds. At present they are meeting with a particular group, but tomorrow they may begin to meet with a different group. Others are not wandering among different grounds, but they are wandering in their position on the proper ground. This indicates that with them there is a lack of building. They have not been built up with others. But once we have been built up, just as the materials in a house or a meeting hall cannot change their position, so we will not be able to change our position. We are fixed in place and can no longer wander from one position to another.
Why is it so difficult for us to be built up? The difficulty is the self. It does not matter whether the self is good or bad, pleasant or ugly. As long as there is the self, there cannot be any building.
For instance, some brothers have a dominating self, and because of this dominating self they cannot go along with others in doing things for the church. No matter what the situation may be, these brothers must be the dominating ones. How, then, can they have the building? In order for them to be built up with others, the self must be broken. The problem is not their strong character; it is their dominating self. It may be right for them to be strong, but they should not dominate others. A person who is built up with others may be very strong, but he is properly related to others and constantly has fellowship with others. A marble column in a building is strong, but it is related to others. It is strong, but it does not dominate. The situation is the same with a strong brother who has been built up with others in the Body.
We need to learn the lessons regarding the self so that we may be built up in the Body. As we are considering this matter of the self, I would urge you to receive more grace so that the self might be exposed. In being built up with others, the greatest problem is the self. Some brothers and sisters like others to praise them or to say something good about them. If you were to speak to them frankly and truthfully in love, they would be hurt and offended because they are so much in the self. This indicates that even though such brothers and sisters are meeting on the ground of the church, it is very hard for them to be built up because of the self.
You need to see the vision of the Body. This vision will break you. You will be broken under the vision of the Body. You will realize that the only way for you to be built up in the Body is for you to be broken. The only way to realize the Body is to be broken.
After you see the vision of the Body, you will be not only settled but also built. Only then will you be satisfied in your Christian life. Until you are built up in the Body, you cannot be satisfied. No matter what you say, the inner feeling will tell you that you are not satisfied. But one day you will be built up, and then you will be able to say, “Lord, praise You that I am here. I am built and now I am satisfied. Because I am built, I am finished. I am not good for anything else. I have been wrecked by this building.”
Many brothers are afraid to be built because they realize that once they are built, they will be finished, “wrecked.” They desire to preserve themselves as “good material.” They know that once they are built, they will be “wrecked,” good for nothing except the building. I agree that to be built means that we are no longer good for anything else. Consider the lintel of a door. The material used in making the lintel has been “wrecked,” for now it is good only for that lintel. Likewise, when we are built, we are finished. We are no longer a piece of “good material”; we are part of the building. This is what the Lord needs today.
There must come a time when you will be able to say, “Lord, I am satisfied here in the building, but I am also wrecked. I have been wrecked by You, and I am good only to be part of the building.” Because you have been “wrecked,” finished, you will no longer be welcomed by others or praised by others. You will no longer be useful to others, and they will forget you. But although you will be forgotten by others, you will be remembered by the Lord. He remembers you because you are in the building.
I can testify that, by the Lord’s mercy, I have never changed my ground, I have never changed my position, and I have never changed my co-workers. Because I have been built, I am finished and do not expect anything better. The vision of the Body has kept me from changing my tune. This is not something of me; it is of the Lord’s mercy.
Have you ever seen the building among today’s Christians? There are all kinds of Christian meetings and Christian groups, but there is no building. I believe that in these last days the Lord’s goal is the building up of the Body. It is not adequate that we realize that Christ is everything and then come together to practice the proper church life. We need to be built up together as members of the Body.
Unless you are built up with others, you will not be stable with the matter of the church ground. Let us suppose as an illustration that some building materials are placed on a particular lot or building site. If these materials are simply left there lying on the ground, someone could come and take them away. However, if these materials are built up together, they will be stable in their position on the site. They cannot leave the site unless the entire building is torn down. In like manner, our position on the ground of the church will not be stable until we are built into the building, into the Body.
We need to realize that the hindrance to the building up of the Body is the self. Certain brothers and sisters have seen something of Christ and of the church and have come to the ground of the church. However, they have never opened themselves to others. Outwardly, they do not criticize the elders, and they seem to be very nice, but inwardly, they are critical. The problem with them is not sin—it is the self. This indicates that in order to be built up, we need to be opened, exposed, and broken. We should be able to present ourselves to others in fellowship and tell them that we are ready for whatever is necessary to be built up with them.
I believe that in this country the Lord intends to build up a real expression of the Body. His desire is not that we simply come together and meet together but that we be built up together.
Oh, how we need the vision of the Body! We need to be burdened to pray, “Lord, help me to see the vision of the Body. It is not good enough just to be a Christian and a member of the church. I must be built up in the Body. In a practical way, I must be a member of the living Body. I must have fellowship with others and be related to others in the Body.”
God’s intention is to have the church, and this church must be the Body. We must be built up in the Body, but the hindrance to this building is the self, one of the last things in us to be dealt with by the Lord. If we would be built up in the Body, the self must be condemned, denied, rejected, and renounced. Day by day the self must be renounced in all things. Only when the self is renounced will we have the Body and be genuine members of the Body.
It is by the Body that God’s purpose will be fulfilled; it is by the Body that Christ will be expressed; and it is by the Body that the enemy of God will be defeated. Nothing is as worthy as the Body. Not even the preaching of the gospel is as worthy as the Body. Nothing can compare with the building up of the Body. May we all see the vision of the Body and be captured by this vision.
