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I. Christ’s prophecy on building the church
А. Building the church on this rock
B. The gates of Hades not being able to prevail against the church
II. The way Christ builds up the church
А. By the gifted persons and the perfected saints
B. By the ascended Head giving the gifts to His Body
C. The gifts to the church — some apostles
D. The gifts to the church — some prophets
E. The gifts to the church — some evangelists
F. The gifts to the church — some shepherds and teachers
G. For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry unto the building up of the Body of Christ
In the first twelve lessons, we have seen the vision concerning the church. In the next twelve lessons, we will see the building up of the church and our participation in her building up. We not only want to show you a heavenly vision of the church, we also want you to know how this vision can be accomplished. This lesson is concerning the first subject — the building up of the universal church, the Body of Christ, not the local churches. [The local churches are local — they are in the different localities and are plural in number. Today, on the whole earth, over the six continents, there are about eleven hundred churches in the Lord’s recovery. But the Body of Christ is unique in the whole universe. There is only one Body. All the local churches in all times and places are part of this unique Body of Christ.]
[The Lord prophesied in Matthew 16 that He would build His church, which is His Body, upon this rock. On the one hand, this rock signifies Christ; on the other hand, it signifies the revelation seen by the apostles. The Bible shows us that, on the one hand, the Body of Christ is built upon Christ Himself, with Him as the foundation (1 Cor. 3:11). On the other hand, it is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets (Eph. 2:20). The foundation of the apostles and the prophets is the revelation they have seen, which is the whole New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation.
The church is mentioned for the first time in the whole Bible in Matthew 16. Although there are several types in the Old Testament typifying the church, the word “church’’ is not found in the Old Testament. Therefore, in the Old Testament the church is a mystery hidden in God. None of the ones such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, or Isaiah knew about this. The Old Testament saints did not know why they were fearing and worshipping God and why God was caring for them; they only knew that the Messiah, the Christ, would come. They earnestly expected Him to come to establish the kingdom of the heavens on earth. They did not know that God wanted to obtain a church as the Body of Christ. In the New Testament, John the Baptist appeared, calling people to repent and to believe in the gospel. The Lord Jesus continued what John had preached, and as a result, Peter, James, John, and many others received it. Of these, the Lord appointed twelve as apostles and sent them out to preach the gospel, but none of them knew that all this was for the church. I believe by the time they came to Matthew 16, the disciples had been following the Lord for about two to three years. At that time the Lord brought them out of Jerusalem and the land of Judea, away from the holy city, the holy temple, the sacrifice, the incense, and the places full of religious atmosphere, to the region of Caesarea Philippi in the north, at the foot of a mountain by the border of the land of Judea. There the Lord asked them, “Who do you say that I am?’’ Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’’ (v. 16). This time he did not say foolish things; his sky was clear, without clouds. He received the revelation and saw that according to His ministry, the Lord Jesus is God’s Anointed for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, and that according to His person, He is the Son of God, the embodiment of God. Here Peter uttered some stunning words. Immediately the Lord told him that this was not revealed to him by man but by God the Father. Furthermore, the Lord said, “On this rock I will build My church’’ (v. 18). In this word the Lord showed Peter that it is not enough just to know Him as the Christ; Peter must also know that upon Him He will build the church. Christ is only the Head; He needs a Body, which is the church, to be His match. The Head and the Body cannot be divided; Christ and the church is a great mystery (Eph. 5:32). Not only must we know Christ; we must know the church as well.
It has now been nearly two thousand years since the time of Christ’s ascension. The greatest thing that has happened during this time is the producing of the church. What we are doing here today is to “stir up’’ churches. To say that we are building up the church means that we are “stirring up’’ churches. What were Peter and Paul doing? They were stirring up churches! What were the Western missionaries doing when they left their countries and kinsmen and crossed the ocean? They were stirring up churches! At present, Christ on the throne in heaven is sending His seven Spirits to enliven us. For what purpose? For the purpose of stirring up churches everywhere, until the whole world is so stirred up that it is filled with churches! The Lord said that the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole inhabited earth and then the end shall come. Today the end has not yet come, because the gospel has not yet been preached in the whole inhabited earth, and the whole earth has not yet been filled with churches.]
[In Matthew 16:18 the Lord continued by saying, “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it (the church).’’ The gates of Hades is the authority of Satan’s darkness; it is also the authority of death. However, it cannot prevail against the church, for the church is the Body of Christ, the Head, who sits on the throne in heaven. All authority in heaven and on earth is given to Christ. Since the church is His Body, the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church. This ascended Head has already been crowned with glory and honor on the throne (Heb. 2:9). He has also received authority from God the Father and has been made Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) and the Ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev. 1:5). Now He operates by His Spirit, which is the sevenfold intensified Spirit (Rev. 4:5; 5:6), to apply all that He has accomplished and obtained to us for the building up of His Body. This is the work of Christ in heaven. Heaven, where He is, is joined to our spirit. The spirit within us is linked to heaven. The book of Genesis in the Old Testament records the story of Jacob when he dreamed of a heavenly ladder in the wilderness. On the ladder there were angels of God ascending and descending (Gen. 28:12). The heavenly ladder is a type of the ascended Christ. The place where the ladder was set up was called Bethel, and it was the gate of heaven (Gen. 28:18-19). Hebrews 4:16 tells us that we can come boldly to the throne of grace. We are now living on earth. How then can we come to God’s throne in heaven? The key is the spirit mentioned in verse 12 of Hebrews 4. The Christ who is sitting on the throne in heaven is now also in us (Rom. 8:10), that is, in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). God’s dwelling place is this spirit. Bethel is the house of God, the habitation of God, and the gate of heaven. There Christ is the ladder, linking earth to heaven and bringing heaven down to earth. Since our spirit now is God’s dwelling place, this spirit is the gate of heaven. Here Christ is the ladder, joining us, the people on earth, to heaven and bringing heaven to us.
Sometimes when you wake up in the morning, you feel very weak. But when you call “O Lord Jesus,’’ immediately the ascended Christ will be transmitted into you like electricity, and you will be strengthened within. Sometimes you feel tired and do not want to come to the meetings. But as soon as you say softly within, “Lord!’’ something will start moving within you, and you will end up coming to the meeting. The more you come to the meetings, the more you will be joined to heaven, and the stronger you will become. All the tiredness will be gone. This is Christ bringing heaven to us within, enabling us to overcome Satan’s might of death.]
[There are two kinds of building up — one is by the gifted persons and the other is by the perfected saints. The building up of the Body of Christ by the gifted persons is under the Head’s supply and is done indirectly. The gifted persons do not build up the Body of Christ directly. Even Christ as the Head of the church does not build the church directly. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord told us that He would build His church, but He builds His church indirectly through His giving of the gifts to His Body. Then these gifts perfect the saints, and the perfected saints do the building work directly. The building up of the Body of Christ by the perfected saints is under the gifted persons’ perfecting and is done directly. Ephesians 4:16 says that the Body will build itself up in love because all the members build up the Body of Christ. They build up the Body of Christ by growing into the Head in all things (Eph. 4:15). The growth in life of each member of the Body added together equals the building up of the Body. The perfected saints also build up the Body by functioning out from the Head, causing the growth of the Body that the Body may be built up directly by itself (4:16).]
[The intrinsic building up of the church is by the ascended Head giving the gifts (Eph. 4:8-11). Ephesians 4:8 says, “Wherefore He says, Having ascended to the height, He led captive those taken captive and gave gifts to men.’’ We may appreciate the Lord’s coming down from the heavens, but we also need an uplifted appreciation of His ascension. In Ephesians 4:8, Paul points out that it is the ascended Christ who is able to give the gifts.
When Paul said that Christ “ascended to the height,’’ he quoted from Psalm 68:18. “Height’’ in this verse refers to Mount Zion (Psa. 68:15-16), symbolizing the third heaven, where God dwells (1 Kings 8:30). Psalm 68 implies that it was in the ark that God ascended to Mount Zion after the ark had won the victory. Verse 1 of Psalm 68 is a quotation of Numbers 10:35. It indicates that the background of Psalm 68 is God’s move in the tabernacle with the ark as its center. Wherever the ark, a type of Christ, went, the victory was won. Eventually, this ark ascended triumphantly to the top of Mount Zion. This portrays how Christ has won the victory and ascended triumphantly to the heavens.
In His ascension, Christ “led captive those taken captive.’’ The redeemed saints had been taken captive by Satan before being saved by Christ’s death and resurrection. We were captives under Satan’s hand through sin and death. But Christ defeated Satan, solved the problem of sin and death, and rescued us out of the hand of Satan. Then He led us to the heavens as His captives. He took these captives and made them gifts to men.
One of these gifts was Saul of Tarsus, who later became Paul, the apostle. He had been a captive of Satan and a top sinner. In First Timothy 1:15 Paul said that he was “the foremost’’ sinner. He was a big captive of Satan under sin and death, but one day Christ rescued him. He was on the way to Damascus to arrest those who called on the Lord’s name (Acts 9:1-2, 14). Then the Lord Jesus seized him and rescued him out of the hand of Satan. Saul was Satan’s captive, but he became Christ’s captive.
Saul of Tarsus had been opposing Christ and devastating the church. Suddenly he became a gift. Christ took this one and made him a gift by the name of Paul. He became a gift who could expound the Old Testament, who could preach the gospel, teach the saints, and prophesy. How could Paul become such a gift? He himself tells us with a parenthetical word in Ephesians 4:9-10: “Now this, He ascended, what is it except that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same who also ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things.’’
Paul was a wonderful writer. He wrote this portion in describing Christ’s death and resurrection to accomplish His full redemption and impart life to us. Christ first descended to the earth from the heavenly throne in the third heavens. He did this through the process of incarnation. He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He entered into death, and in death He descended further. In the second step of His descension, He descended into the lower parts of the earth. This refers to Hades, underneath the earth, where Christ went after His death (Acts 2:27). The first step of Christ’s descension was for His incarnation. The second step was for His redemption. His descension was the means to accomplish His all-inclusive, full redemption, which has saved us from sin, death, Satan, and the lake of fire. In the first step of His ascension, He ascended from Hades to the earth in resurrection. In His resurrection, He imparted life into us. His descension accomplished redemption, and His ascension accomplished the impartation of life. In the second step of His ascension, He brought us to the Father in the third heavens.
When He ascended before His disciples into heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9-11), they did not fully understand what was going on. They only saw Jesus ascending. But the Scriptures reveal that when Jesus was ascending, He was ascending with a train of vanquished foes. The Amplified New Testament renders “He led a train of vanquished foes’’ for “He led captive those taken captive.’’ When He was ascending, He was a returning General who had won the victory over Satan, sin, and death. He defeated all of His enemies, and He had many captives. He brought these captives with Him in a procession to celebrate His victory.
Peter and John did not see this when the Lord ascended before their eyes, but the angels saw a tremendous and great train of vanquished foes as a procession for the celebration of Christ’s victory. We were there in that procession; Satan was there; and death was also there. What a procession that was! The Lord then presented us, the redeemed saints, His defeated and vanquished foes, as a present to the Father. It is as though He said, “Father, here are the persons You have given to Me. They were dead captives of Satan. Now I have captured them; I rescued them out of the hand of Satan, out from under sin and death. I have also imparted My life into them through My resurrection, the first step of My ascension from Hades to the earth. Now they are not dead, but living presents. I give them all to You as a big, corporate present.”
This present included all of the redeemed saints. It included Peter, Paul, Martin Luther, John Nelson Darby, and Watchman Nee. I am honored to be included in this present. We were all included there in Christ’s ascension as a big, living present to the Father. The Father, no doubt, was so happy. He could have said, “I am so happy for My redeemed people. They were dead and captured by Satan. But My Son, through His death and resurrection, rescued them and imparted life into them, making them living.”
We all must realize that we have already been to the heavens. We were there with Christ, because He brought us, as His present, to the Father. He did not go empty-handed. He went to the Father with all His redeemed ones, including you and me, as a corporate present to the Father. The Father then gave us back to the Son as gifts for His Body (Psa. 68:18). Thus, through His descension and ascension, Christ rescued us, enlivened us, and made us gifts with His resurrection life.
Paul was such a gift. Sometimes I have wondered how Paul received such great revelations, such as the revelation in Ephesians 4. Undoubtedly, Christ spent some particular time with Paul. After he was saved, Paul went to Arabia and stayed there for a period of time (Gal. 1:17). No one knows what he did there, but, no doubt, during this time there was much contact between him and Christ. I believe the Lord used this time to constitute Paul into a big gift to His Body. When Paul returned from Arabia, he was able to preach and to speak wonderful things. That means he became a big gift to the church in the category of the gifted persons mentioned in Ephesians 4:11. This is why he was able to describe Christ’s death and resurrection in the marvelous way of verses 8 through 10.
We all should learn to preach the gospel in such a rich way as that portrayed in Ephesians 4. We may speak in this way to our unbelieving contacts: “I would like to tell you that our Savior descended in two steps. He descended from the heavens to the earth and then from the earth to Hades. In the first step of His descension, He accomplished incarnation; He became a man. In the second step of His descension, He entered into death and even went into Hades, dying for us to save us from sin, death, and Satan. As sinners, we were captives of Satan, but through the death of Christ we were forgiven and even rescued from Satan. Then the Lord ascended from Hades to the earth in resurrection. In His resurrection He imparted Himself into us as life. He accomplished redemption through His death and life-impartation through His resurrection. Then we were made alive. In the second step of His ascension, He led us as a train of vanquished foes to the third heaven to give us as a present to His Father.’’ Sometimes we should preach the gospel in this way when we go out to visit people.
During the time of the Roman Empire, when a general gained a victory, all his captives became a procession in the celebration of his victory. Eventually, some of these captives were put to death, and some were given life (2 Cor. 2:15-16). The ones in this procession who were put to death were Satan and his fallen angels, and the ones who were made alive were we, the redeemed saints. After we were presented to the Father as a present and the Father gave us back to the Son as gifts, the Son gave us all as gifts to His Body for its building up.]
[In 1977 I encouraged all of our young people to do their best to get a proper education. One young brother among us took my fellowship and went back to school. Eventually, he graduated with a Ph.D. in linguistics and specialized in Greek. In these past few years, he has rendered a great amount of help to me in helping us to improve, to revise, our present Recovery Version. I was bearing a heavy burden to revise our version, but my knowledge of Greek is inadequate for this task. This young brother, who took my fellowship twelve years ago to go back to school, has become a great gift to me. He has been like an arm or a shoulder to me. We all can be such gifts. Thank the Lord for the gifts given by the ascended Head to His Body for its intrinsic building up.]
[The ascended Head gave four kinds of gifts. The first class is the apostles (Eph. 4:11). These apostles receive the revelation of God’s New Testament economy concerning Christ and the church (Matt. 16:16-18; Gal. 1:11-12, 15-16; Eph. 3:3-4, 8-11; 5:32). First, they receive the revelation, and the revelation makes their spirits burning and causes them to forget about themselves. They then go out to preach the revelation that others may also be burned. These apostles also preach the gospel of Christ to save the sinners chosen and called by God, bringing them to Christ (Gal. 1:16a; Eph. 3:8; 2 Cor. 11:2). They do not preach the superficial gospel, one that tells people about going to heaven instead of hell; rather, they preach to others the all-inclusive Christ as the gospel. Furthermore, the apostles are able to establish local churches and to appoint in them the elders for leading, shepherding, teaching, and overseeing (Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 5:17; 1 Pet. 5:2). They are also able to determine doctrines, to release the truth, to perfect the saints, and to build up the Body of Christ (1 Tim. 2:7; Eph. 4:11-12). These are the four things that an apostle should do.]
[The prophets are the second class of gifts given by the ascended Christ (Eph. 4:11). The prophets are those who through the Lord’s revelation, speak for the Lord, speak forth the Lord, and speak the Lord into others. Sometimes they are also moved to utter some predictions. For the perfecting of the saints and the building up of the Body of Christ, they are second only to the apostles and are a very important class of people.]
[The evangelists are the third class of persons given by the ascended Head. They can preach Christ and the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel to save the desolate sinners, bringing them to Christ.]
[The shepherds and teachers are the fourth class of persons given by the ascended Head. According to the grammatical structure in Greek, the shepherds and teachers here refer to one class of gifted persons. The shepherds should know how to teach others, and the teachers should also know how to feed others. They are able to shepherd and teach the believers and are also able to feed the new ones in the same way that a mother feeds, shepherds, leads, and teaches her children.]
[The four classes of persons — the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers — preach the gospel to save others on the one hand. On the other hand, they raise up churches in the localities. Then they also feed, shepherd, and teach the saints. Furthermore, among these saints they speak for the Lord and speak the Lord into them. In this way all the saints are perfected. The meaning of perfecting can be illustrated by university students being taught by professors of different subjects. After four years of studying, they graduate and are able to do the same things that the professors do; they have all been perfected. Christ as the Head gave these four kinds of gifts to the church for the purpose of perfecting the saints that the latter may also be the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. Unfortunately this is not the case in the existing system of Christianity. It only trains some preachers to gather a congregation on Sunday for a service where one speaks and the rest listen. Most of them after listening for decades still have not received much perfecting.
In the Lord’s recovery, all the gifts such as the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers should do the work of perfecting. In other words, they should all do the work of training. They should be like the professors perfecting the students. In this way, after a few years, the saints will be perfected and will be able to do the work that they do. At present, the publications among us are very rich and numerous. There are at least four thousand different messages. If you would spend the time, these materials are very good to help you be perfected.] [If you would spend two hours every day for two years to read these Life-study Messages, you will be equipped. In four years’ time you will be able to finish all of these messages.
At the same time, you are in the church seeing how the apostles raise up churches, how they appoint elders, how they preach the high gospel, how they bring people into Christ to enjoy the riches of Christ, and how they determine doctrines. For example, someone asked me this morning about the difference between the denominations and the church. In a simple word, first, the denominations are denominated; they have divided the Body of Christ. The church is not denominated; it is one. All the believers, whether they are sprinkled or immersed, are in the church as long as they are saved. Second, the denominations do not have a definite ground. The church, however, has a definite ground which is also the unique ground. Here we stand on the ground of oneness in the different localities to worship God together and to build up the Body of Christ together. I believe that after five years many of you will be able to be apostles, preaching the gospel from city to city and from village to village, establishing churches, releasing the truth, and building up the Body of Christ.
Next are the prophets. The present atmosphere in the church meetings is that you are being trained to speak for the Lord. For example, the sharings after a message are mostly repetitions of words that you just heard. After speaking this way for a while, you will be able to speak for the Lord. Perhaps the first time you stand up you are afraid to speak, and you are scared. But as long as you keep practicing, your boldness will increase, and your voice will get stronger. Gradually you will not only be able to speak for the Lord, but you will also be able to speak forth the Lord and to speak the Lord into others. After the meetings, people may not remember much about the messages they heard. But they will feel that there is One following them all the time. The reason for this is that you have spoken the Lord into them. After you return home, do not only chat with your family; instead you must learn to speak the Lord’s word to your family, to speak forth the Lord, and to speak the Lord into them. In this way they will discover that you have changed, and they will also change through your speaking. This is to prophesy. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14 that you can all prophesy one by one (v. 31).
The evangelists’ perfecting of the saints makes every saint burdened with a spirit for the gospel. It cheers and warms up the gospel atmosphere for the saints that they would become burning to preach the gospel. In preaching the gospel it also helps them to speak to the point, not deviating from the subject. While they speak, the listeners’ hearts, mouths, and spirits will all be open and they will receive the Lord to be saved. The shepherds and teachers’ perfecting is like perfecting people to be mothers. Many brothers and sisters cannot feed people after they have been brought to salvation. They are like the mother who cannot nurse her child; thus the new ones do not receive much supply and teaching. Hence, we all have to be shepherds perfecting others, and we all have to learn. The more we do these things, the more we will improve, and the better we will become at doing them.
In the end, after this kind of perfecting, the saints will be able to be the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. Every member will be able to function and will participate in the work of the New Testament ministry, which is the building up of the Body of Christ, until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, and at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In this way we will no longer be babes tossed by waves and carried about by the winds of teachings. The whole church will grow into a mature man with the stature of Christ. This is the building up of the Body of Christ.]
