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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:22 Hymns: #852, #203
I. Since the transmitting of the transcending Christ includes all the triune dispensing, it is the total continuation of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity — Eph. 1:19-22a:
А. The three aspects of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity produce the components of the church, the Body of Christ.
B. The transmitting of the transcending Christ is the total consummation to continue the dispensing of the Divine Trinity for the continual and permanent supply to the church, the Body of Christ.
II. The transmitting of the transcending Christ is to transfuse into the church, the Body of Christ, what the Triune God has accomplished, attained, and obtained in Christ:
А. This is not only for producing the church but also for growing, establishing, and building up the church.
B. This function is local for the universal Body of Christ and universal for the local churches.
III. The church — v. 22b:
А. It is not merely the redeemed, called-out people of God gathering together, as denoted by the Greek word ekklesia.
B. It is also, even more, the organic constitution issued out from the element and essence of the Triune God into the regenerated believers in Christ that they may be an organism to express the processed Triune God as the Body of Christ:
1. Such a church is universal, but it is to be expressed locally.
2. Although there are many churches locally, they are still one Body universally.
3. In nature it is universal; in practice it is local.
4. In business affairs the local churches are different from one another, but in testimony all are identical, like the seven lampstands being indiscernible — Rev. 1:20b.
5. The local churches may be distinct, but they should not be divided.
6. Any kind of division damages both the Body and its local expressions.
7. To keep the unique oneness of the one Body in all the local churches is vital, and it safeguards the believers from being led astray.
For this chapter I would like us to read Ephesians 1:15-23: “Therefore I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you and your love to all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the operation of the might of His strength, which He caused to operate in Christ in raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and He subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.”
Paul prayed that we would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. I want to stress this one point. The book of Ephesians has really become a treasure to many Bible students and teachers, yet very few have seen the intrinsic contents of this prayer in Ephesians 1. The Lord Jesus prayed a great prayer in John 17 concerning His Body in His oneness. The prayer by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1 should be counted as second to the Lord’s prayer in John 17. These are two great prayers. A number of believers may have seen something of the oneness prayed for by the Lord Jesus in John 17, yet not many have seen something in this prayer by the great apostle, Paul.
Paul’s prayer is centered on a spirit, our spirit, to be a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Wisdom is for us to have the way to understand, and revelation is the very view for us to see. On the one hand, we need the wisdom to understand, yet we still need the view to see. If we do not see anything, there is nothing for us to understand. First, we have to see the divine view. Through the fellowship in this book, we have seen a view; a view has been opened up. The curtain has been taken away.
We have a clear sky, a clear view, in front of us, yet we also need the wisdom to understand. Nearly all of Ephesians 1 is one sentence in Greek. Chapter 2 begins with the word and. This indicates that the long sentence in chapter 1 is not finished yet. What Paul said is really hard for us to understand (2 Pet. 3:15-16), so we need the wisdom. This is why I put out the concluding notes at the end of each of the previous four chapters. We should spend some time to get into these notes.
We need to pray, “O Lord, give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation.” We have a spirit, but we need a kind of anointing from God to make our spirit a gift from Him. We all have a spirit, but our spirit is not so keen. Instead, it is dull. Thus, we need something from the very inspiring, enlightening God to make our spirit a new gift to us, full of revelation to see God’s economy and full of wisdom to understand His economy. We need to see and understand God’s economy, which is carried out by His divine threefold dispensing to result in the many sons, in the heritage as a treasure to God, and in the glorification of the saints. The many sons, the heritage to God, and the glorification of the saints all come out of God’s divine dispensing. How we need the revelation to see this and the wisdom to know this!
Regretfully, many Christians deny that we have a spirit, yet Paul prayed that the Father may give to us a spirit. This is not the Holy Spirit but the human spirit. Paul did not pray that we would have a spirit of power, the kind of so-called power that the Pentecostals stress. Power is not what we need. Christ is what we need. We need the wisdom to understand and the view as a revelation for us to see. We need the eyes of our heart to be enlightened. Have we ever heard that our heart has eyes? Our spirit needs the wisdom and revelation, and our heart’s two eyes need the enlightenment. We have eyes, but we may have no sight and no light. Without the enlightenment of the divine light, we cannot see.
Paul prayed that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened that we may know three things. The first thing is the hope of God’s calling. The second thing is the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints. This means that God in His economy through His dispensing will get an inheritance, a heritage of worth, and this heritage will be full of glory. The riches of this glory are unsearchable. Paul also prayed that we would know the great surpassing power that operated in Christ, which is toward us. This is the power that raised up Christ from the dead, from Hades, that seated Christ above all things in the heavens, that subjected all things under His feet, and that gave Him to be Head over all things to the church. This is not common teaching. This is why I have the burden to stress that we all need to have this prayer. We should pray, “Lord, in these days in which You are moving in Your recovery on this earth, I need a spirit of wisdom and of revelation. Lord, give me such a spirit as a great gift.”
I have spoken on the church many times throughout the past sixty years. When I first began to speak on the church, the standard was too low, but thank God that my speaking on the church has been all the time going up. We need to see what the church is. The messages presented here are of the highest standard because they reveal that the church is the issue of the dispensing of the processed Trinity and the transmitting of the transcending Christ. The church is the issue of God. When God issues out, He becomes the church. The church is the surplus of God.
All of us need to be impressed with the revelation of the church in Hymns, #203. I wrote this hymn in 1963. During that time I realized that there was a shortage of hymns on the deeper truths. This hymn says,
We must pay our full attention to stanza 4 of this hymn. This stanza reveals that the church is God’s total reproduction, God’s dear Body, God’s bride, God’s expression, God’s fullness, God’s continuation, God’s life-increase, God’s spread, God’s full growth, and God’s rich surplus. We may have sung this hymn many times without any impression of its significance. Stanza 4 tells us what the church is. Have we ever considered that as the church we are God’s total reproduction, God’s continuation, and God’s rich surplus? This is why we should pray, “Lord, give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation to sing such a song.” We need to read and sing this song prayerfully until we really see what the church is in its highest sense. The church is the total reproduction of God.
My burden is not to merely teach us the Bible but to present us a view so that we can really see what the church is. The view of the church over these many centuries has been made very dim. Those who do not see anything at all say that the church is a physical building. The Brethren strongly pointed out that the church is not a physical building but the gathering of God’s called-out ones. This is according to the denotation of the Greek word ekklesia. But this is still not the intrinsic significance of the church. The intrinsic significance of the church, from the entire New Testament, is that the church is God’s total reproduction, God’s continuation, God’s increase, God’s full growth, and God’s rich surplus. We all should declare, “We are the total reproduction of God! We are God’s continuation! We are God’s increase! We are God’s full growth! We are God’s rich surplus!” We may be able to say that we are God’s expression, but have we ever considered that we are God’s continuation?
You may wonder where I learned all these things. Years ago Brother Nee told me face to face that we, the church, are God’s duplication, God’s reproduction, and God’s continuation. Without us, God has no continuation. Brother Nee also told me that we are God’s increase and God’s full growth, so we are God’s surplus. Such a high vision of the church needs us to pray, “Lord, give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation to see and to know what Your church is.” We may have heard that the church is the Body of Christ for the expression of God. But we still do not know the intrinsic denotation of this until we see that the church is God’s reproduction. The church is God’s xerox copy.
How could the church be the reproduction of God, the continuation of God? How could the church be the full growth, increase, and surplus of God? The church can be all these things by the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity and by the heavenly transmitting of the transcending Christ. We should not say that the transmitting equals the dispensing. That is not right. But we can say that the transmitting comprises, includes, the dispensing. We have to be impressed that the transmitting is crucial, but it is not as basic as dispensing. The Father’s dispensing, the Son’s dispensing, and the Spirit’s dispensing are very basic. By, through, and with this threefold, triune dispensing, many regenerated sons of God are produced and transformed into a treasure, becoming the heritage to God as God’s personal, private possession. Also, the consummation of the processed Triune God as the compound, all-inclusive, indwelling Spirit seals this heritage of God. This sealing is not once for all but is still going on with its spreading effect to saturate and soak the regenerated sons and transformed treasures to make them God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
But thus far, there has been only the producing of the materials, the components, the constituents, to constitute the Body of Christ. The materials are here, but the formation has not yet taken place. So there is the need of the transmitting of the transcending Christ from the heavens, in the heavens, and with the heavens. The church was formed by the transmitting of the transcending Christ from the heavens, in the heavens, and with the heavens. This is a great thing.
Concerning Christ and the church, there were three great things: incarnation, resurrection, and Pentecost. In incarnation the very God became a man, and this man in resurrection became a life-giving Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, something marvelous took place in the universe. There was the blowing of a rushing violent wind (Acts 2:2), and the church was formed. God became a man, this man became the life-giving Spirit, and this life-giving Spirit brought in the formation of the church, the constitution of the Body of Christ. Now we have a Savior, we have an all-inclusive consummated Spirit who is the reality of Christ, and this Christ is the very embodiment of the Triune God. Eventually, on the day of Pentecost, He poured out Himself upon all His components to make them one church, one Body. We need a spirit of wisdom to understand to this extent, and we need a spirit of revelation to see to this high standard.
Dear saints, the church is the organism of the Triune God. It is not an organization but an organism, and this organism is the organic Body of Christ. A wooden stand is an organization because it is a mere composition of lifeless materials. But our body is organic, full of life. The church is not an organization, nor is it like an inorganic robot. The church is the organic Body of Christ.
Also, such a church is God’s house. This means that the church is God’s household, God’s family (Eph. 2:19). This is fully unveiled in 1 Timothy 3:15, where Paul told Timothy that the church is the house of the living God. Such a church as the house of God, as the family of God, is the manifestation of God in the flesh (v. 16). The church is not only the house as the household, the family, but also the house as a dwelling place. God has a family on this earth, and He is not homeless. His family becomes His dwelling place. He dwells in you, He dwells in me, and He dwells in all of us, the regenerated sons of God.
Ephesians 2:22 tells us that He makes His habitation in our spirit. The spirit of wisdom and revelation eventually becomes God’s dwelling place. In the United States there is a motel called “Travelodge.” The church is not God’s travel lodge but God’s permanent lodge on this earth. On the day of Pentecost something great took place. In the entire universe God secured a lodge. What a great thing it is that today on the earth God has a lodge, a home, a dwelling place! Fifty or sixty years ago I was teaching the saints about the church. I told them a number of things about the church, but if you ask me to speak on these matters today, I have no burden. My burden today is to tell you that the church is God’s lodge.
Why has there been turmoil among us? I had a twenty-five-year relationship with Brother Nee. For eighteen years I was with him shoulder to shoulder. I saw what happened to him. Nearly every seven years there was a turmoil. Why? Because those involved in the turmoil did not see what the church is. All the problems of the church today are due to the ignorance concerning the Body of Christ.
Some might like to talk about the practice of foot-washing. Every time they set up the Lord’s table, they insist on the practice of foot-washing. When I was young in the Lord, I insisted on baptism by immersion. That was my favorite topic for debate, but I have no heart for things like this anymore. There are so many debates concerning baptism. Should we use fresh water or salt water? Should it be in a lake, a river, or a baptistery? Some think that you cannot follow Jesus to the uttermost unless you go to the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. But no one knows the very spot where Jesus was baptized. Should we baptize in warm water or cold water? Do we immerse once, twice, or three times? There is no end to these kinds of arguments.
We need to forget about all these minor things and see what the church is. The church is the organism of the Triune God. The church is the organic Body of Christ, which is God’s family, God’s household, God’s folks becoming His home, His dwelling place. There is no need to argue about any doctrinal matters or practices. We just need to see and know that the church is God’s total reproduction, God’s continuation, God’s full growth, God’s increase, God’s rich surplus, and this surplus today is the organism of the Triune God, the organic Body of Christ, which is the family, the folks of God, becoming His dwelling place on this earth. Today God not only is with us, with the church, but also has made us His dwelling place.
Some like to talk about the distinction between the universal church and the local churches. Even such a thing is not worth arguing about. God’s house, the Body of Christ, is just one. Some say that the church is local and the work is regional. We need to forget about all these things. We need to see that we are one church. Some may say that the saints in Taipei cannot meet with the saints in Anaheim, so apparently in practice there are two churches — one in Anaheim and one in Taipei. Actually, today in the Lord’s recovery there are over twelve hundred churches, but all these churches are parts of the one church, the one Body of Christ. On this earth there is the element of space and the element of time. But with God there is no space element and no time element. In His eyes in the whole universe there is one church.
The final point of my burden in this chapter is that we should not consider just our church in our city. We have to consider God’s church in the universe. We may wonder how to practice this, but we should not worry about this. Now we are in a city, and we simply need to come together to meet. We can say that we are a local church, but we are not separated from the church of God. We are just a part of the church of God.
If you have received the gift of a spirit of wisdom and revelation, you will see that the church is just one. In the eyes of God, all the local churches are just one. When you live in a certain town, you meet with the saints in that town. You are still a part of the one church of God. You may say, “I’m burdened to build up the church in my locality.” You are burdened, but God is not so burdened. He is burdened to build up His church, the one church of God.
When the church was first formed, it was very normal. But after a short while, Satan came in and did something to damage the one Body of Christ, the one church of God. Satan worked to such an extent to form the Catholic Church. The word catholic means universally one. In a sense this is not bad. All the saints are one church. We are all catholic, but the Catholic Church is under a pope. Under the pope are the cardinals, who are the cabinet members of the papal government. Then under the cardinals are the archbishops, the bishops, and the priests. This forms a hierarchy to control people. That damaged the Body of Christ to the uttermost for ten centuries, from about A.D. 500 to 1500.
Then Martin Luther was raised up in the Reformation. He left the Catholic Church, but he did not take care of the truth concerning the church. Instead, he helped the Germans to form the state church, the church of a nation. Eventually, other state churches were formed in the Scandinavian countries and in England. Today there is the Church of England, and the queen of England is the head of the Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church.
Some pursuers and lovers of Christ did not agree with the Catholic Church or the state churches, so they invented the private churches. Today there are private churches, such as the Baptist Church, practicing baptism by immersion, and the Presbyterian Church, practicing the government of the church through the presbytery.
Eventually, the Brethren rose up in England, and they stressed that the church should not be under anyone’s control. The church must be free. They were free to such an extent that they established local churches on streets. These were not city churches but street churches. Not long after the Brethren were raised up, they were divided into hundreds of divisions. I know of one case where a group of them divided over whether to have a piano or an organ in their services. Thus, one group became a “piano church,” and the other became an “organ church.”
Today there are also the Pentecostals, who care only for speaking in tongues and miraculous gifts, not for God’s desire to have His one church. Many of them do not care whether their speaking in tongues is real or false. Other seekers of Christ take the excuse that they do not like to be under any man. They only want to be under the Holy Spirit. If I do not want to be under you and you do not want to be under me, we cannot have a church life. Instead, each of us becomes a “church.” Today there is much division and confusion among the Lord’s children. There are many Chinese churches, such as the Church of Taiwan in Anaheim and the Taiwan Church of the Gospel. People are too free to set up divisions. It seems that establishing a church is easier than establishing a restaurant.
We need to have a church life, so we need to be clear about today’s situation. Our constitution is the Bible. We must come back to our constitution and check everything of today’s situation with what the Bible says. We must come back to the Bible and see what the Bible says about the church. God’s economy is not for the purpose of having only individual believers to be saved, to be spiritual, and then to go to heaven. This is not God’s economy. This is the teaching of fallen Christianity. The Bible tells us that God has a desire, and He has made an economy to dispense Himself into His chosen people and make His chosen people His many sons. Then He transforms them into His treasure and seals them with His life element unto the redemption of their body. Through the transcending Christ’s transmitting, He brings them together to make them one church. This is why we say that there is the need of a recovery of the proper church life according to God’s economy.
Praise the Lord and thank the Lord that we have seen the light to this extent, and we have been brought into the Lord’s recovery. But regretfully, our seeing is not that high. Our sight is not up to the standard. We are still merely for our local church in our city. This is wrong. None of us should be only for our church in our city. We are here for God’s church in the universe. Every local expression, every local church, should be the same to us. If I am in Anaheim, I surely should meet, worship, serve, and work in the church in Anaheim. Next year I may go to Taipei. Then after another month I may go to another place. Every church is my church because that is God’s church. There are no regional differences. To think that a certain region is my region for my work is wrong. Christ has only one Body.
We need a spirit of wisdom and revelation with the eyes of our heart being enlightened to see God’s vision and to know God’s economy in His wisdom. The center of God’s economy is His desire to have many sons constituted through transformation into one Body, which is the church to be expressed on this earth in many localities as local expressions, local churches, and all these local churches are one church.
