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II. To experience and enjoy Christ (to gain Christ — Phil. 3:8) in His full ministry in His three divine and mystical stages:
C. In the third stage, the stage of His intensification, from the degradation of the church to the consummation of the New Jerusalem:
1. To intensify His organic salvation:
а. For His ministry in the stage of His inclusion, Christ became the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, to carry out His organic salvation for the producing of the church and the building up of His Body to consummate the New Jerusalem.
b. On the way of Christ’s ministry in the stage of His inclusion, the church became degraded to frustrate the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy.
c. Hence, Christ as the one life-giving Spirit became the seven Spirits of God — Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6; 3:1:
1) Not seven individual Spirits.
2) But the one Spirit who is intensified sevenfold.
3) To intensify the organic salvation of Christ sevenfold for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate God’s eternal goal — the New Jerusalem.
2. To produce the overcomers:
а. Through the degradation of the church nearly all the believers in Christ became defeated in their old man by Satan, sin, the world, and their flesh.
b. In His seven epistles to the degraded churches, Christ calls the defeated believers to be His overcomers by Himself as the sevenfold intensified Spirit for their experience of His organic salvation in His sevenfold intensification.
3. To consummate the New Jerusalem:
а. According to the entire revelation of the New Testament, the unique goal of the Christian work should be the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate goal of God’s eternal economy.
b. The degradation of the church is mainly due to the fact that nearly all the Christian workers are distracted to take many things other than the New Jerusalem as their goal.
c. Hence, under the degradation of the church, to be overcomers answering the Lord’s call, we need to overcome not only the negative things but even more the positive things that replace the New Jerusalem as the goal.
d. An overcomer’s goal should be uniquely and ultimately the goal of God’s eternal economy, that is, the New Jerusalem.
Prayer: O Lord, we bow our heads in worship to You, for everything depends upon Your mercy. You will have mercy on whomever You will have mercy. We worship You that in Your recovery, for over seventy years from the past up to the present, You have never stopped Your speaking. You have even given us unprecedented light to see how You carry out Your ministry in three stages in the age of the New Testament. We worship You for these three precious stages of Yours — the stage of Your becoming the flesh, the stage of Your becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the stage of Your becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit. Thank You for showing us the particular things performed by You in each stage. O Lord, You have been so patient to wait until today for us to be ready in this last age to see Your ministry in these three stages. O Lord, speak a clear word again to us this morning. Furthermore, we pray that You would quiet our heart and open our spirit so that we may be pure in heart and poor in spirit to be willing to receive Your word. We pray that You would be with us. Also, we accuse Your enemy, we condemn him, and we bind and destroy him. Amen.
Concerning how to be a co-worker and an elder, there are two precious points: first, to know Christ and, second, to experience and enjoy Christ in His full ministry in His three divine and mystical stages. To know Christ is very general. Christ is too rich, and His riches are unsearchable, so how can we know Him? In the preceding chapters we saw that there are many items of all that Christ is, but there are four of them in particular that we need to know. First, we need to know particularly that He is both God and man. Over forty years ago, a co-worker among us said that Christ was a man until He went to the cross, and that after His resurrection, He was no longer a man, because He put off His humanity when He passed through death. It is altogether wrong to say this. The New Testament tells us clearly that after His resurrection Christ in His ascension is the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power (Matt. 26:64). At his martyrdom Stephen saw Christ as the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). The Lord Himself also said that in His coming back, He will be the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven (Matt. 26:64). Furthermore, Revelation tells us that Christ is the Son of Man as the High Priest taking care of God’s lampstands (1:13). It also shows us that He will come back to reap His harvest as the Son of Man sitting on the cloud (14:14). Not only so, the Gospel of John tells us that in eternity Christ as the ladder is the Son of Man, on whom the angels of God ascend and descend (1:51). This shows us that for eternity Christ will still be the Son of Man. Hence, it is a great heresy either to deny that the Lord Jesus is the Son of Man or to say that He was the Son of Man only until His death.
Second, we need to know particularly that Christ possesses both divinity and humanity. We must know this in order to be able to interpret the New Testament in a logical manner. The book of Hebrews says that, as our great High Priest, Christ can be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses because He has been tempted in all respects like us (4:15). If He had only divinity without humanity, how could He have been tempted? Who can tempt God? Hence, to deny that Christ possesses both divinity and humanity is unscriptural.
Third, we have to know particularly that in His humanity Christ accomplished His judicial redemption through His death. It is true that Christianity teaches people that Christ accomplished redemption for us. Most people in Christianity, however, cannot say that Christ, in His humanity, accomplished His judicial redemption through His death. In this statement the modifiers in His humanity, judicial, and through His death are very precious. Such expressions show that we know the redemption of Christ in a deep way.
Fourth, we need to know particularly that in His divinity Christ is carrying out His organic salvation in His resurrection. The judicial redemption has been accomplished, whereas the organic salvation is being carried out. We need to know Christ particularly in the above four points.
It is not enough to merely know Christ; we still need to experience and enjoy Him so that we may gain Him. To experience, enjoy, and gain Christ is not that simple. We can do this only by being in the full ministry of Christ in His three divine and mystical stages as explained in the first three chapters of this book. Actually, what are the things accomplished by Christ in His full ministry in three stages? Simply speaking, in the first stage, the stage of His incarnation, He accomplished four great things. First, He brought God into man; second, He united and mingled God with man; third, He expressed God in His humanity and lived out God’s attributes in His human living as His human virtues; and fourth, He accomplished His judicial redemption.
In the second stage of His ministry, the stage of His inclusion, Christ accomplished three great things. First, He was begotten as God’s firstborn Son; second, He became the life-giving Spirit; and third, He regenerated the believers for His Body. These three things seem to be simple, but their details are quite complicated. This is similar to our body, which seems simple but is very complicated when it is analyzed and tested in the laboratory.
In the third stage of His ministry, the stage of His intensification, Christ is accomplishing three great things. First, He is intensifying His organic salvation; second, He is producing His overcomers; and third, He is consummating the New Jerusalem. Hence, in summary, in the three stages of His full ministry, Christ accomplishes ten great things. The New Testament simply deals with these ten things. This is the new language expressing a new culture in the Lord’s recovery that has never been seen in Christianity.
Now we want to see the third stage of Christ’s full ministry, the stage of His intensification, from the degradation of the church to the consummation of the New Jerusalem. In his Epistles, especially in 2 Timothy, Paul speaks thoroughly concerning the degradation of the church. He says that all who were in Asia turned away from him (1:15). This means that the churches established by Paul in Asia turned away from him. The saints in those churches did not forsake Paul himself; rather, they turned away from his New Testament ministry, the apostles’ teaching which he preached. All that Paul had preached to them, all that he had nurtured them with, all that he had taught them, and all that he had shown them were completely abandoned by them. The first thing that happened in the degradation of the church was the turning away from the apostles’ teaching. If all of us today in the Lord’s recovery did not care for the apostles’ teaching preached by Brother Watchman Nee and me, the church and the Lord’s recovery would become degraded. To remain in the apostles’ teaching is a tremendous grace.
Concerning the degradation of the church, Paul goes on to say that Alexander the coppersmith did many evil things to him (4:14). Alexander was probably a person who had been quite intimate with Paul, yet in the degradation of the church, he became one who did many evil things to Paul and resisted the apostles’ teaching.
In 2 Timothy Paul also charges Timothy to cut straight the word of the truth (2:15), which means to unfold the word of God in its various parts rightly and straightly without distortion, as a carpenter cutting wood perfectly straight without any crookedness. Today some Bible interpreters cut the word of Scripture crookedly. This is also an indication of the degradation of the church. For example, the Bible speaks of the spirit and the soul of man as two distinct parts (1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 4:12), yet some people distortedly say that the spirit and the soul are identical. Another example is that the Bible says that Christ became the Spirit in His resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45b), yet some insist on saying that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are separate persons and, therefore, Christ is not the Spirit. This is to not cut straight the word of the truth.
Paul also says to “pursue...with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). Not having a pure heart and not calling on the Lord also indicate the degradation of the church.
Finally, Paul says, “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you” (4:22). If we do not experience the Lord’s being with our spirit and therefore lose the presence of grace, that is the degradation of the church. We need to be careful about this. Our highest enjoyment and experience are that our Lord is with our spirit. The Lord, who is the Creator of heaven and earth, the sovereign Lord of all, is with our spirit. This is a tremendous thing. The Lord’s being with us is not in our mind or our thoughts; He as the Spirit is with our spirit. Over thirty years ago I came to the United States with a specific burden, that is, to speak concerning the two spirits, the divine Spirit and our human spirit. In those days many American saints said that they never knew that man has a spirit. Thank God, we have been fighting here for thirty-four years, and now it is more common for Christians to refer to the human spirit. Recently, the Lord also has shown us that the secret of experiencing God’s organic salvation lies in “the Spirit...with our spirit” (Rom. 8:16). Today Christ is the Spirit, and if we want to experience and enjoy Him, we must be in our spirit. I can testify that, according to my age, without the Spirit’s being with my spirit, I could not bear the burden of the Lord’s recovery and the churches. Some have advised me to not have so many activities, but I thank and praise the Lord that it is the Lord as the Spirit with me who enables me to have such activities. As soon as I rise from my bed, I say, “O Lord, I rise with You.” The moment I touch the floor, I say, “O Lord, not only do I walk by You, but I walk with You. You are holding me while I am walking.” If the Lord were not the Spirit but were far away in heaven, what would He have to do with me? Thank the Lord, today the Lord is the Spirit, and we can enjoy Him in the spirit. This is an exceedingly great blessing. To enjoy the Lord’s Spirit being in our spirit is to have grace with us. When this is lost, the degradation of the church is present.
The first thing that Christ is doing in the third stage of His intensification is to intensify His organic salvation. The organic salvation, carried out by Him as the pneumatic Christ in the second stage of His inclusion, is already adequately strong. In the stage of His intensification, however, He intensifies His organic salvation sevenfold.
For His ministry in the stage of His inclusion, Christ became the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, to carry out His organic salvation for the producing of the church and the building up of His Body to consummate the New Jerusalem. However, on the way of His ministry in the stage of His inclusion, before He had attained His purpose, the church became degraded; such degradation frustrates the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy. Hence, Christ as the one life-giving Spirit was intensified sevenfold to become the seven Spirits of God (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6; 3:1).
The book of Revelation refers to the seven Spirits of God. The seven Spirits are not seven individual Spirits, but the one Spirit who is intensified sevenfold. This is the proper interpretation of the Word. Christ has become the seven Spirits, not seven separate Spirits but one sevenfold intensified Spirit. This is our interpretation altogether by cutting straight the word of the truth under the divine guidance and revelation. Christ became the sevenfold intensified Spirit in order to intensify the organic salvation of God sevenfold for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate God’s eternal goal, which is the New Jerusalem.
The second thing that Christ is doing in the third stage of His intensification is to produce the overcomers. By ourselves we cannot become overcomers. Overcomers are produced, not worked out. They are produced by Christ in the third stage of His intensification.
Due to the degradation of the church, nearly all the believers in Christ have become defeated in their old man by Satan, sin, the world, and their flesh. Hence, there is the need to have the overcomers. Today very few believers are not defeated in their old man by Satan, sin, the world, and their flesh. The majority have been defeated and have become defeated believers. Look at today’s Catholicism and Protestantism, in the midst of which are thousands and thousands of believers, but where are the overcomers? There are hardly any. The United States as the top country of Christianity today has the greatest number of Christians. However, generally speaking, according to the contents of people’s conversation and the manner of their dressing and adornment in their workplace, there is simply no way to tell which ones are Christians. Many saints have told me that in their workplace, when people return to work on Monday after the weekend, the contents of their conversation are too filthy for one to hear. How can one possibly tell who are the genuine Christians?
Today’s Reformed theology teaches people that God has predestinated us, and if we believe, His salvation will be accomplished in us. Hence, once we are saved, whatever we do afterward is all right. We were chosen by God and have believed in Him. From now on we can be at peace without worry; we can go dancing, gambling, or do whatever we like. To some extent, the Reformed theologians know the Bible. They see that we were chosen by God in eternity past and that God’s selection and calling are forever irrevocable (Rom. 11:28-29). Nevertheless, they neglect the matter of the kingdom, thinking that as long as a person believes, everything is settled; he is eternally saved and will go to heaven after his death. Because of this, after they have been saved, many people live a life of indulging in their lusts.
Because this kind of pitiful situation has been going on for almost two thousand years, the Lord’s calling in Revelation for overcomers is still going on today. Christians read the Bible, but they altogether overlook the fact that, in its last book, the Bible uses two long chapters to call for the overcomers seven times, saying that he who overcomes will be rewarded (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21). Revelation even warns us that if we do not overcome, we will be hurt by the second death (2:11). To be cast into the lake of fire to suffer eternal torment is the second death (20:11-15). Anyone who is genuinely saved will not suffer the second death; they will not be cast into the lake of fire to suffer eternal torment. However, if the believers are defeated in this age, they will be hurt by the lake of fire in the coming age. This is to be hurt by the second death. In his book The Gospel of God, Brother Nee points out clearly that to be hurt by the second death is to be hurt by the lake of fire. Certainly, our salvation is eternally secured. Nevertheless, if we do not overcome in this age, one day we will still suffer being hurt by the lake of fire. This is the clear revelation of the Word, yet it is neglected by many Christians. Do we also ignore and are we also indifferent concerning the warning of the Bible and the Lord’s call to the overcomers?
Recently, I have often repented and prayed, “Lord, I am in fear and trembling about one thing, that is, that from the past until the present, I am still not an overcomer. Lord, I pray that You would give me a few more years and measure to me another length of time in which I can exercise to become one of Your overcomers.” Today we dare not say who are overcomers and who are not. We can only wait for His return when we will stand before His judgment seat, and He will judge whether we have overcome or have been defeated (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10). The overcoming ones will enter into the kingdom with Him to reign as kings; the defeated ones will go to the outer darkness to be chastened for one thousand years (Matt. 25:21, 23, 30). Sooner or later, we all have to mature. If we do not mature in this age, we will be put into the darkness in the coming age to be chastised so that we may become mature. After the one thousand years all the believers will have become mature to be the overcomers (Rev. 21:7), who will be qualified to participate in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem in the kingdom age is of a small scale, being constituted with only the overcomers in this age. After the kingdom is over, after the majority of the believers as the defeated ones have suffered chastisement in the outer darkness, they will have become mature and will be qualified to participate in the New Jerusalem in its consummation. This is the pure revelation of the holy Word.
In His seven epistles to the degraded churches, Christ is calling the defeated believers to be His overcomers by Himself as the sevenfold intensified Spirit for their experience of His organic salvation in His sevenfold intensification. I can testify that this is a reality. It has not been until recent years, especially the last three years, that I know in a deep way what God’s organic salvation is. Furthermore, this organic salvation is strengthening me from within. In such a sevenfold intensified organic salvation, we can become overcomers by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit.
The third thing that Christ is doing in the third stage of His intensification is to consummate the New Jerusalem. According to the entire revelation of the New Testament, the unique goal of the Christian work should be the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate goal of God’s eternal economy. Some preach the gospel with the goal of winning souls. Others establish seminaries with the goal of teaching theology. Still others pursue spirituality with the goal of living a spiritual life. Also, there are others whose goal is to pursue holiness.
In the Lord’s recovery, what is our goal? Is it to be people who are holy? Today among Christians in general, nearly no one has a proper goal. They pursue being spiritual, being holy, preaching the gospel to win souls, and establishing seminaries to teach theology and the Bible, yet hardly anyone can say that they are doing these things with the goal of consummating the New Jerusalem. They have all missed the proper goal.
In the degradation of the church, on the negative side, there is the frustration from Satan, sin, the world, and the flesh. On the other hand, many positive, proper things have become replacements of God’s eternal goal. God has only one ultimate goal, that is, the New Jerusalem. This is a very clear and definite matter in the Bible. The Bible with its sixty-six books opens with “In the beginning God.” In the beginning of the Bible there was only God and nothing else. At that time God was only in His one aspect — the triune Father, Son, and Spirit. Therefore, God referred to Himself as “Us” and “Our.” In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” This indicates that God is three — the Father, Son, and Spirit — and therefore has the aspect of being three. Besides this, there was nothing else. At the end of the Bible, however, we reach the New Jerusalem. Between the beginning and the end, there is a course of much history with many ages, including the age of the patriarchs, the age of the law of the children of Israel, and the age of the grace of the New Testament, in which many things take place and in which God does a great deal of work. However, regardless of how many ages there are and how much work God does, He has only one goal. In the beginning of the Bible there is one single God, and at the end there is a great, corporate God — the New Jerusalem.
Just as the Bible begins with God, so it ends with God. In the beginning He is a simple God, a God who is triune; at the end a city appears, and that is the corporate God. The New Jerusalem is God’s enlargement and expansion, God’s expression in eternity, which is the corporate God. Those who participate in the New Jerusalem are all God’s children, God’s kind, God’s species. Today my descendants total only about forty. However, God’s children are innumerable. Consider how many are in the New Jerusalem! They all are gods; they all belong to God’s species. Hence, the New Jerusalem is the corporate God.
In spite of the fact that the holy Word contains such a clear revelation, most readers of the Bible disregard the New Jerusalem. Some say that the New Jerusalem is “heaven,” where Christians will go after their death and where there are the golden street, pearl gates, and jasper wall. Others say that since Revelation is a mysterious book, no one can understand what the New Jerusalem is, so there is no need to pay any attention to it. They feel that since you are not a theologian, you do not have to study it. Today the majority of Christians disregard the New Jerusalem, the tree of life, and the river of water of life. Instead, they take many other good things as replacements of the New Jerusalem. But the Lord’s recovery is not like that. Today we establish the churches, edify the saints, practice the vital groups, and visit people by door-knocking, but our aim, our goal, is for the consummation of the New Jerusalem.
The degradation of the church is mainly due to the fact that nearly all Christian workers have been distracted to take many things other than the New Jerusalem as their goal. Hence, under the degradation of the church, to be overcomers answering the Lord’s call, we need to overcome not only the negative things but even more the positive things that replace the New Jerusalem as the goal. We do not want a kind of gospel preaching that is merely for soul-winning. The goal of our preaching the gospel must be the New Jerusalem.
This is why I said that you should not trust in big gospel campaigns. That is not the Lord’s way. In creation, in nature, God’s ordination for man’s multiplication is not by having several hundred births in one delivery or by having twelve deliveries in one year but by one delivery within nine months’ time, and, in general, one birth in each delivery. This is the law ordained by God. Genesis 1 says that God created man, blessed man, and told man to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth (v. 28). But God’s way is to do it slowly. It is by one birth at a time, with only one pregnancy a year, and with each pregnancy lasting nine months before delivery. In this way, after six thousand years, the earth is filled with human beings. Therefore, we need to preach the gospel according to the principle ordained by God. Do not believe in holding big meetings to preach the gospel; that will not be effective. We have already learned the lesson. Perhaps some will say, “Brother Lee, over forty years ago, didn’t you hold big meetings to preach the gospel?” Yes, but I had prepared people to follow up. After the big gospel meetings, I gave all the lists of names to the brothers and sisters for them to visit one by one. Hence, we should no longer have big meetings; we need to practice the vital groups and go out to visit people, one by one, by knocking on their doors. Suppose your church has only two hundred fifty people and all of them practice the vital groups; then by each one begetting one, the next year you will have five hundred. Suppose the Lord’s recovery has two hundred fifty thousand members throughout the earth and all practice the vital groups. After one year there will be five hundred thousand, and after another year, one million. Apparently, it is slow; actually, it is very fast. The proper way is to practice the vital groups. There is no need to establish seminaries or hold big meetings.
To be overcomers we should take the goal of God’s eternal economy, the New Jerusalem, as our unique and ultimate goal. We all need to remember this goal. Our goal is not to help people to be spiritual or to be holy. Rather, we are leading people toward the New Jerusalem to consummate the New Jerusalem. How do we do this? It is by drinking the Spirit and eating Christ for us to receive His rich and fresh supply. Thus, we adorn and consummate the New Jerusalem with God the Father as its golden base, God the Son as its pearl gates, and God the Spirit for its wall of precious stones. It is not according to your will, or by using your way, or with you as the element and essence. Rather, it is with God as the essence, Christ as the element, and the Spirit as the way. We need to daily drink the flowing God, the Spirit, as our river of water of life; we need to eat the overcoming Lion-Lamb as the tree of life to be our fresh and rich supply; and we need to take the Triune God as the essence, the element, and the way to build and consummate the New Jerusalem. This is the consummation of the full ministry of Christ.
