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John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” According to this verse, the real meaning of regeneration is to be born of the Holy Spirit in our human spirit. Verse 29 of the same chapter says, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” Christ is the Bridegroom, the One who has the bride, and the bride is the church of Christ. Then verse 30 says, “He must increase.” He, that is, Christ the Son of God, must increase. In verse 29 we have the bride, and in verse 30 we have the increase. This indicates that the bride of Christ is the increase of Christ. In John 3, therefore, we see the bride, the increase, and the regenerated spirit. If we read this chapter carefully, we will realize that all the reborn, regenerated, believers composed together are the increase of Christ to be a bride, a counterpart, to match Him. The new birth, the bride, and the increase are three main items in this chapter. By the new birth Christ is increased, and this increase is a corporate bride who will marry Christ as His counterpart to match Him.
In John 12:24 the Lord Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” In this verse much fruit refers to the many grains of wheat borne as fruit by the one grain of wheat. One grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, and when it grows up, it bears many grains. Originally, it was one grain, but after it dies and is resurrected, it becomes many grains. The one original grain is the Lord Jesus Himself, and the many grains are we, the Lord’s believers, who are the increase of the one grain. After dying and resurrecting, one grain becomes many grains. Thus, the one grain has been increased. The many grains are the increase of the original grain.
Ephesians 2:15 says, “That He might create the two in Himself into one new man.” The two refers to the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. Christ created the Jews and the Gentiles in Himself into one new man. The next verse tells us what the one new man is: “And might reconcile both [the Jews and the Gentiles] in one Body to God through the cross” (v. 16a). According to this verse the one new man is the one Body, the church. Many Christians have a wrong concept, thinking that the new man here is not one but many. However, there is only one new man in the whole universe, and this new man is not an individual man but a corporate man composed of all the believers together as one. Because this one new man is the Body of Christ, the church, each believer is only a part, a member, of the unique new man. Thus, according to this passage the church, which is the Body of Christ, is a new man.
Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “Put off...the old man...and...be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man.” If we remember what the new man in chapter 2 is, we can understand the right meaning of putting on the new man in these verses. Since the new man is the Body, the church, to put on the new man is to put on the Body of Christ, to put on the church as our living, to practice the church life. To put on the new man is not merely to put on something new of Christ. If we read the book of Ephesians carefully from chapter 1 through chapter 4, we will know that to put on the new man simply means to put on the Body of Christ, to put on the church as our living.
In order to have the church life, that is, to put on the Body of Christ, the new man, we need to put off the old man. The secret to putting off the old man and putting on the new man is to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. How much we put off the old man and put on the new man depends on how much we have been transformed by being renewed in the spirit of our mind (Rom. 12:2).
Colossians 3:9b-11 says, “You have put off the old man...and have put on the new man,...where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” In the new man there is nothing but Christ. There is no Greek or Jew, no circumcision or uncircumcision, no barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free man, but Christ is all and in all. Therefore, strictly speaking, the new man is Christ Himself. The Body of Christ, the church, is Christ Himself. This corresponds with 1 Corinthians 12:12, which says, “For even as the body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ.” This verse, using the human body to typify the mystical Body of Christ, indicates that Christ is the Body.
In the previous chapter we covered the first aspect of the realization of the eternal purpose of God. To realize the eternal purpose of God, we need to know Christ as our life. God’s eternal purpose is to work Christ into us, to have Christ wrought into us, and to make Christ life to us. The first aspect is for the second aspect. If we experience Christ as life, automatically we will have the church life; we will realize the life of the Body of Christ, the church. The more we experience Christ as life, the more we will desire to be related with other believers. If we love the world or live in sin, we will have no desire to see the believers or fellowship with the brothers and sisters. But the more we live by Christ, take Christ as our life, and experience Christ as life, the more we will desire to have fellowship with the brothers and sisters and to be related with other Christians. Therefore, the more we take Christ as our life, the more we will have the church life.
The church is not an organization. The church is the realization of Christ as life to us. If you do not live in Christ, and if I do not take Christ as my life, we may come together to form a church based on certain conditions and terms, and we may hold a conference to elect some leaders. However, the result will not be a church but a human, religious organization. A genuine church is Christ Himself realized and experienced by His believers. The more we experience Christ, the more we long to be related to others, and the more we live by Christ, the more we desire to be built up together with others. If everyone lives by Christ, there will be a common desire to be related to one another. We will come together in the name of the Lord and in the Lord Himself to have Christ as our center and as everything to us. Then we will have a new church as the realization of Christ. This church will be Christ Himself mingled with a group of believers as one. It will be an organism constituted of Christ and those who experience Christ as their life. In this way the church will be just Christ Himself.
The church comes into being by regeneration. One day the Holy Spirit entered into us, bringing Christ into us to regenerate us. This means that Christ was born once more, in us. Whenever a sinner receives Christ as his Savior, the Holy Spirit brings Christ into this person to be born once more, in him. In regeneration, not only are we born again, but Christ also is born once more, within us. From that day forward there is something of Christ in us. Hence, there is something of Christ in every regenerated person. This is sufficient for the new birth, for regeneration, but it is not sufficient for the church to come into existence. To have the church in reality, every regenerated one must deny himself, reject the old man, and live out Christ, allowing Christ to be expressed through him. Then the reality of the church will come into being.
Therefore, the church is Christ born within us and expressed through us. If Christ were to come down from heaven and stand among us, this Christ would not be the church. Only the Christ who enters into us and is born in us to be our life, only the Christ who lives Himself out and expresses Himself through us — only this Christ is the reality of the church. The church is Christ born into us and lived out and expressed through us.
The church is the increase of Christ. It is the bride who will marry Christ as His counterpart to match Him. God created Adam as a bachelor (Gen. 2:18). After a certain time, God caused him to sleep and took a rib from his side, and He built that rib into a woman who could be Adam’s bride to match him (vv. 21-23). Thus, the woman who was Adam’s bride was Adam’s increase. Adam was no longer a bachelor, but he and his bride became a couple. Eve was Adam’s increase, and this increase was a part of Adam, something that had come out of Adam. Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14), and Eve is a type of the church, which comes out of Christ (Eph. 5:31-32). Without the church, we may say that Christ is single, a “bachelor” without an increase. One day God put Christ to sleep on the cross, and He opened His side and took something out of Him (John 19:34). Both Adam’s rib and the water that flowed out of Christ’s side on the cross are types of the resurrection life of Christ, which cannot be broken or destroyed. When Christ was crucified, none of His bones was broken (v. 36). This indicates that Christ’s resurrection life is unbreakable and indestructible. The resurrection life of Christ that flowed out of Him on the cross becomes the Body of Christ, the church. Thus, the church is something out of Christ Himself and is the increase of Christ. When the Holy Spirit enters into us to regenerate our spirit, the resurrection life of Christ enters into us. At that very moment there is something of Christ in us. When the resurrection life of Christ is lived out and expressed through us, there is the reality of the church, the increase of Christ to match Him as His counterpart. The church is the increase of Christ and the bride of Christ.
We have pointed out that the church is the resurrected Christ as life being born into us, lived out from within us, and expressed through us. This Christ is the church, and this church is the counterpart, the increase, and the bride of Christ. In order to realize the genuine church life, we need to put off the old man, which is our self, our soulish life, by rejecting our mind, emotion, and will, and we need to put on the new man, which is Christ with the church and the church with Christ. To put on Christ with the church and to put on the church with Christ requires us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. Originally, our regenerated spirit is not the spirit of our mind. However, when we reject our self and deny the old life, this spirit expands into our mind and becomes the spirit of our mind. The element of the spirit spreads into our mind and renews it with a new concept. By such a spirit we are delivered from our old mind, our old concepts, and our mind becomes a new mind, a renewed mind, with a new concept. The church life depends on our putting off the old man and putting on the new man, having our mind renewed by the spirit. To be renewed in the spirit of our mind means that all our old concepts must be given up, and we must have an absolutely new concept; that is, we must have the mind of the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), a mind that is filled with our regenerated human spirit, which is mingled with the Holy Spirit (6:17), and is under the control of our spirit. By such a renewing, we put off the old man and put on the new man. This ushers us into the reality of the church life.
To apply this renewing, we may use the example of a brother who is clever at making money. He is reborn, regenerated, and he has the Holy Spirit within him, yet he still lives by the old man. Therefore, there is no possibility for him to have the church life. He may sometimes come to the church meetings and may also fellowship with the brothers, but whoever meets him has the sense that he is only a brother who is good at making money. After some time, certain brothers who are with him may become exactly the same as he is — good moneymakers. With such brothers there is no reality of the church life. However, one day this brother may have a turn to the Lord. He may realize that to be a Christian is not to live by the old man but to live by the new man, that is, by the regenerated spirit. Then he may learn how to reject his old man and how to live by the new man. As a result, whenever he comes to the church meetings and whenever we meet him, we sense that there is something of Christ in him. Because he is such a person, we desire to be related to him and to be one with him. Since this brother and we are in the same condition, with all of us there is the reality of the church life, because the reality of the church life is Christ Himself realized by us. We have the reality of the church life and are in the Body life because our entire concept has been transformed. The old thought, the old concept, and the old way of thinking are gone, and there is something new in our thinking. Our view of things is very different from what it was before. Thus, there is the reality of the church life because Christ is realized and experienced by us.
We are also the many grains of Christ. In order for many grains to become one loaf, the grains must be crushed and blended into flour. The church life requires us to be “crushed” so that we can be blended with others to become one loaf. We are many, yet we are one body, one bread (1 Cor. 10:17). Originally we were many grains, but now we are one bread. It is easy to speak of the church, but the church requires us to die, to be crushed and broken, and to lose our individuality. If we remain individual grains, we will always compare ourselves with others and be aware of the differences between ourselves and others. However, after a number of grains have been crushed and ground into flour, there is no longer any possibility of discerning which is which. All have become flour to be blended together and made into dough, which is then put in an oven and baked to become one loaf. The church life is Christ expressed through us as we are blended together as one. This oneness is the church life, the realization of the Body of Christ.
You may say that to be crushed and ground is too high a price. In buying anything, if you try to save money, you may suffer a great loss. You may pay five dollars for a piece of clothing and end up with something worth fifty cents. An article of clothing that costs fifty dollars may seem to you to be too expensive, but a person who knows clothing well may consider it very inexpensive. By paying fifty dollars, such a person may get a piece of clothing worth five hundred dollars. He paid more than you did, but he got more than he paid for. If we would pay the price to realize the genuine church life, we could never imagine what kind of gain we will have. The church life is an unsearchable, immeasurable gain.
If all the believers would pay the price to realize the church life, the whole world would be turned upside down. There were only one hundred twenty on the day of Pentecost, but consider the impact that they had. It is not a loss to pay the price to have the church life; on the contrary, it is a great gain. It is worth investing our whole life, even risking our whole life, for the gaining of the church life. The Lord today is looking for a group of people who will pay the price to realize the church life.
Question: Do you believe that a division exists between those who deny the self and those who do not?
Answer: Actually, the more we deny our self, the more we will be related with others, not only with those who deny themselves but also with those who do not deny themselves. Instead of separating ourselves from those who do not deny themselves, we will be sympathetic toward them. Division is due to different denominations, sects, and organizations. We must give up organization, denominations, and sects, but we must not give up the dear saints.
Question: In that case, do you feel one cannot experience a normal church life within a denomination?
Answer: It is impossible to have a normal church life in a denomination. Although I love all the Lord’s children, I must be honest with them before God. The matter of denominations is the most sinful thing. How much damage has been done to the Lord’s Body by denominations! Nevertheless, my ministry is to minister Christ to people, to help them to know Christ and to realize the genuine church life. If we love the Lord and take Him as our life, experiencing Him day by day, we will be outside the denominations.
Question: Should our children continue to attend a denomination in order to be taught the Bible?
Answer: The Lord’s children need to learn one thing, that is, to consider the Lord’s will and nothing else. We must do the Lord’s will regardless of everything. We should be assured that if we do the Lord’s will, the Lord will bless us and take care of our children. Sooner or later we will see the Lord bless our family. Our only consideration must be the will of the Lord, and we must be bold to act according to this will. Everything else will be taken care of by the Lord.
Question: In the past many have taken a similar stand to yours and called people out of the denominational way, but then they fell into the same error of sectarianism or denominationalism. How can we preserve ourselves from this?
Answer: In the past centuries quite a number of the Lord’s saints called people out of denominations. However, I am not calling people to leave the denominations; I am ministering Christ to them. When we live by Christ, something will happen. It is an empty thing simply to call people to leave denominations, and it does not work. Instead, we should minister Christ to people and help them to experience Him day by day. Christ will energize and strengthen them to go on, and they will be filled with Him. If they experience Christ in a practical way, they will certainly give up denominations. Yet for them to give up denominations is merely a small thing on the negative side. It is a much greater matter for them to live Christ that Christ may be expressed. We must pay our full attention to this positive aspect.
Question: If, as a group, we are experiencing the Body of Christ, what should our attitude and relationship be to other true, regenerated believers, who are our brothers even though they do not experience the Body?
Answer: Concerning all genuine, regenerated believers, we must be absolutely open to them. We should never think that we are different from them. They are the Lord’s children, and we are also; we are believers, and they are as well. Therefore, we should be open to them and endeavor to fellowship with them. If possible, we should help them and also receive help from them.
Today what we emphasize is not leaving the denominations but experiencing Christ. My attitude is not to pay attention to the matter of denominations but simply to minister Christ to others. As long as we experience Christ, the Christ whom we experience will do many things within us. This is something positive. Merely to leave the denominations and attempt to practice the Body life is empty, and it is not what we are seeking today. If we are not seeking and experiencing Christ as our life, and if it is not Christ in us who energizes us and makes us clear concerning God’s will, we should not leave our denomination. Actually, it is better to remain there. We must allow Christ to bring us out of all the hindrances and things that are foreign to the Body of Christ.
Furthermore, even our talk about the Holy Spirit may be unrelated to Christ. The Pentecostal movement began in England in the middle of the nineteenth century. When those in the Pentecostal movement speak of the Holy Spirit, it is not related to the experience of Christ in daily life. Thirty years ago in China there were five different branches of the Pentecostal movement: the Assembly of God, the Apostolic Faith, the Jesus Home, the True Jesus Church, and the Spiritual Grace movement. The Spiritual Grace movement was the most prevailing, and in a short time it swept through all of northern China, including my hometown and province. Day after day they spoke of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, but they simply did not know how to experience Christ as their life. Hence, this movement did not last long. We certainly do not oppose the Holy Spirit; indeed, we need the Holy Spirit. But we need to realize that the genuine experience of the Holy Spirit is for glorifying Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9); not only so, the Lord Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came, He would not speak from Himself but would glorify Christ (John 16:13-15). Today there is too much talk about the Holy Spirit and very little experience of Christ. I discovered the shortcomings of these Pentecostal groups by attending their meetings and spending many days with them. Apparently, in their meetings they were powerful, but as soon as they went home, the husbands lost their temper with their wives. When they prayed, “Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus. Hallelujah!” it seemed that the Holy Spirit was with them, but the reality of Christ as life was missing. Thus, I doubted whether in fact it was the Holy Spirit whom they were experiencing.
The problem is this: If we experience something of the Holy Spirit but do not go further to apprehend and experience Christ as our life, there will be an opening for the enemy to do things to damage the Lord’s work. Recently an Episcopal priest brought a certain revival into the Episcopalian church by helping people to experience the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. However, later someone in the inner circle of that movement admitted that they needed something more. The so-called experience of the Holy Spirit is just a beginning and should lead us to Christ. One brother has compared the situation among the Pentecostals to the time when Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant gave Rebecca many gifts for the purpose of leading Rebecca to Isaac so that she might be married to him. Regrettably, today’s “Rebecca” is satisfied just to have the gifts. A gift should bring people to its giver. Like Rebecca, we should not value the gift but should treasure our Husband, Christ. However, most Pentecostal believers are satisfied with gifts such as speaking in tongues and divine healing. They “play” with the gifts and forget the Giver. I observed and studied all these things. Not one of the five Pentecostal groups in China lasted very long, and I did not see anyone among them grow deeper in his spiritual life.
In fact, from its beginning in 1927 the Spiritual Grace movement lasted only ten years. During that time it swept through the whole of northern China. Not only was it short-lived; it also caused much damage to the preaching of the gospel because those in that movement went to extremes. Some of them, under the influence of being “full of the Holy Spirit,” left their families, homes, wives, and children in order to go to distant places to preach the gospel. Because they felt that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they did peculiar and even shameful things in their meetings. There were some who were called “holy jumpers” and others who were called “holy rollers.” We need to be impressed that the Holy Spirit is the One who bears witness to the Lord Jesus, who declares Christ to us, and who makes Christ real to us as our life. Whenever we experience the Holy Spirit, we need to turn ourselves to Christ. The more we experience Christ, the safer it is. Our urgent need today is to know and experience Christ and then to have the genuine church life. We need to be very general and not hold on to anything special. We must also be moderate and not practice anything that is extreme. With the Pentecostal experiences, some part is genuinely of the Holy Spirit, but a great part is of human emotion. After Pentecostal believers receive the experience of the Holy Spirit, they become emotional. Hence, their experience is a manifestation not of divine power but of human emotion. They mix emotional things together with spiritual things. In contrast, we need to be very moderate and general, and we need to learn to apply the cross to our old man. Then we will be saved from an emotional atmosphere, and we will be preserved in the genuine experience of Christ.
