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I thank the Lord for the rich blessing, even the particular blessing, that He has bestowed upon this conference. Through the ministry and fellowship in this conference, Ephesians 1 has become much more clear to me in three points: first, in the triune dispensing of the Divine Trinity; second, in the unique transmitting of the transcending Christ; and third, in the spirit of wisdom and revelation, through which we can realize and participate in the triune dispensing and the unique transmitting. In these three matters I believe that the Lord will have a way to carry out His economy in this consummated age.
I look to the Lord that He would show us that His triune dispensing is to continuously produce the materials, components, and constituents of the Body of Christ. After this, there is the need of the transcending Christ’s unique transmitting to put all the materials, components, and constituents together to have a constitution, which is the organism of the Triune God, the organic Body of Christ. This is the unique way for us to touch, see, realize, comprehend, and even participate in and enjoy both the constituents and the constitution.
From now on the goal among us for the Lord’s recovery should be just to humble ourselves, telling the Lord that we have been very poor in His recovery for many years. We have been distracted in many ways and affected by many things and have even been to some extent captured by these things. The Lord forgives us, and now His mercy with His grace still takes care of us. I believe that this conference has been a great caring of the Head for us as the Body.
Today the vision among us is very clear. Therefore, we must forget about the past and forget about what we know and have a new beginning with a renewed practice. We need to pray much for our spirit: “Lord, now I am clear. In such a crucial book as Ephesians, You unveiled to us Your triune dispensing and Your unique transmitting. At the same time You also unveiled to us how much You expect that we all could have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Thank You, Lord, that You inspired Your apostle Paul to pray for us. While he was ministering to us the threefold dispensing and the unique transmitting, he prayed; he inserted a prayer into his ministry. He prayed for us desperately, that our God as the Father would give to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation.”
The divisions and the confusions among God’s chosen people did not begin with us. If we read the Acts and the Epistles along with the book of Revelation, we will see a picture, a portrait, of the divisions and confusions that existed even before the end of the first century. Paul was martyred before A.D. 70. Before his martyrdom he wrote 2 Timothy. In that book we can see the confusion and division that existed at that time (1:15; 2:16-18; 3:1-9; 4:3-4, 10, 14-16). Not only so, even in Galatians and Philippians Paul shows us that at his time there were not only divisions but also rivalries. Some brothers were competing against Paul (Gal. 1:6-7; 3:1; 4:13-17; 6:12; Phil. 1:15-18, 28; 2:20-21; 3:2).
The situation that is among us today existed also in Paul’s time. I do not think that the degree of trouble in Paul’s time was lower than in ours. Today it seems that there is not a person who is doing evil things to the degree that Alexander the coppersmith did evil to the apostle Paul (2 Tim. 4:14). Therefore, we should not be disappointed with the present confusing and dividing situation. Rather, we should be very encouraged and very grateful to the Lord that in such an age He has visited us and brought us into the recovery and has been with us these many years. Furthermore, in this conference the Lord has shown us something further, deeper, higher, and richer in the book of Ephesians. What the Lord has shown us surpassed my expectation.
Through the six chapters in this book we have a clear sky to show us that in the entire universe there is a threefold dispensing of the processed Triune God — not the “raw” God, not the God who was only in His divinity in eternity past, but the Triune God who has been processed to dispense Himself in a threefold way. He came out of eternity with His divinity to enter into humanity, and He was even born of a human virgin. He passed through such an incarnation. What a process it was for Him as the almighty, infinite, eternal God to become a small man, even to lie in a manger and to grow gradually according to the principles of His creation! In His creation God ordained many principles. Human birth takes place according to God’s regulation, God’s ordination. In His birth as a man, He kept all those ordinations, and then He remained in a poor carpenter’s home for thirty years. After ministering for three and a half years, He willingly entered into death to visit Hades, and there He overcame death and put down Hades, and He walked out from that place and entered into resurrection. In His resurrection He accomplished a number of things. First, He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Second, He was willing to be born again with His humanity to be the firstborn Son of God, thus opening the gate so that the Father could have many sons with both humanity and divinity (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29). According to 1 Peter 1:3, in His birth He begot millions of God’s chosen people in His resurrection. Then He, with the Father’s divine economy, transcended all the oppositions in the universe. He transcended Hades, the human opposition on the earth, and the evil angelic opposition in the air. He transcended far above all to sit at the right hand of His Father, the Almighty in this universe (Eph. 1:20-21). Not only so, the Father subjected all things under His feet and gave Him a great gift, that is, to be the Head over all things to the church (v. 22). Now all that He accomplished in His transcending is to the church. The little word to in Ephesians 1:22 implies transmission.
All the constituents needed for the constituting of His organic Body were produced in the threefold dispensing of the Divine Trinity. In Christ’s unique transmitting, He put all these constituents together to form a Body. This Body is not merely a church as a gathering of called-out believers but an organic constitution, the organism of the Triune God. This organism is also the unique house of the Triune God (1 Tim. 3:15), and this house is both the household and the dwelling place of God (Eph. 2:19-22). The formation of the church as the Body of Christ was a great event on this earth and even in the entire universe. The people of the world do not have the ability to see this, but we have the capacity to see it, because we were born of Him and were born into His kingdom (John 1:12-13; 3:5).
People who work in education have found out that in a human being there is a great capacity to learn. Even a three-year-old child can understand many things. There is a hidden capacity in those who were born as human beings. In addition to our human birth, we have experienced a new birth. We must believe that in this new birth there is a hidden capacity. The only thing we need is to develop that hidden capacity. A small child needs a little stirring up to bring out the hidden capacity within him. So Paul prayed that the Father would give the dear saints a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Actually, the wisdom is there already. Paul’s prayer was just to stir up the hidden capacity so that we can understand God and His mysterious economy. No doubt the messages in this conference have stirred up our spiritual capacity, which we have by our spiritual birth. This is altogether the mercy of the Lord.
After you read the messages presented here, I would beg you to kneel down and pray: “Lord, I do not need anything today. I only need You. Grant me a favor by stirring up my spiritual capacity, which I have from my spiritual birth. Stir up my spirit with wisdom so that I can understand. Lord, forgive me; until today my understanding of You and of the things concerning You has been altogether natural. Thank You that through this conference You have opened the veil to show us something. I am here waiting on You. Lord, day by day grant me a spirit of wisdom and revelation.” I would encourage you to pray for this, dear saints, for at least one or two months.
In the past our vision depended too much on our natural concept, and our natural concept has been influenced by traditional Christianity, which does not care for the capacity to understand God’s economy, but it has done much to frustrate us, to distract us, and to bring us into darkness. We have been put into darkness by God’s enemy Satan, by the power of darkness. He has caused God’s holy Word to become dim without the light that we need.
Nevertheless, how I thank the Lord that today the Bible is a shining book to us! The Lord’s revelation still remains in His recovery. We need to worship Him for His oracle.
I urge you to go to the Lord with a praying spirit and tell the Lord, “Lord, I need a spirit of wisdom and revelation. I need to see much more of Your triune dispensing. I desire to see, dear Lord, that as the transcending One You are still carrying out a unique transmission.” Without this transmission Watchman Nee could not have been raised up. To the great surprise of the missionaries in China, a native Chinese stood up to speak for God. During his ministry Brother Nee was very much opposed, but no opposition ever overcame him. This was due to the transmitting of the transcending Christ.
In this transmitting there is the transcending power. This power raised Christ up from death and Hades and caused Him to transcend far above the human beings on the earth and the evil angelic powers in the air and to sit at the peak of the universe. This power also subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church. Today we are enjoying the transmitting of the Lord’s transcending power.
