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Scripture Reading: Luke 10:1-6; Heb. 10:24-25; Eph. 4:11-12; 1 Cor. 14:1, 3-5, 12, 24, 31, 39; Eph. 1:3-14, 19-23; 4, 4:16a, 30, 12; Rev. 1:5b-6; 5:9-10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rom. 15:16
I. Preaching the gospel and saving people by visitation — Luke 10:1-6.
II. Meeting in the new believers’ homes, nourishing and cherishing them, so that our fruit may remain — Acts 5:42; John 15:16.
III. Teaching and perfecting the saints through the small group meetings unto the New Testament work of the ministry unto the building up of the Body of Christ — Heb. 10:24-25; Eph. 4:11-12:
А. In the small group meetings the believers having mutual fellowship and intercession, mutual care and shepherding, mutual teaching and studying of the truth, and mutual instruction in the pursuit of the growth in the spiritual life, for the promotion of the preaching of the gospel, the care for the new ones, the conducting of the small group meetings, and all other kinds of service in the church life.
B. The small group meetings being the main part of the life and service of the church.
IV. Leading the saints to pursue and desire prophesying in the church meetings, speaking for the Lord, speaking forth the Lord, supplying the Lord to others, and speaking and listening to one another in mutuality for the building up of the saints and the church — 1 Cor. 14:1, 3-5:
А. This kind of prophesying being what every believer can and should do — vv. 31, 24.
B. This kind of prophesying being for the building up of the church, being the most excelling of all gifts, and being highly regarded and recommended by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 — vv. 12, 39.
V. The church is an organism as a mingling of God and man produced by the processed Triune God in His Divine Trinity — Eph. 1:3-14, 19-23:
А. This organism is constituted organically rather than organizationally — v. 23.
B. This organism is built up through the growth of the life of God rather than by works in the hands of man — 4:16.
C. This organism is one in the life of God and does not permit any distinction or separation — v. 4a.
D. All movements of this organism are led and promoted by the life that operates within it — v. 30.
VI. The revelation of Ephesians 4:11-16 must be recovered:
А. The gifts perfecting all the saints so that the latter may do the work of the New Testament ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ — v. 12.
B. The gifts being the joints of the rich supply in the Body of Christ, and the perfected saints being the each one parts that operate in their own measure in the Body of Christ — v. 16a.
C. The gifts as the supplying ones forming the connecting structure for the Body of Christ, and every functioning member becoming the compacting constituent in this Body; the two added together causing the Body of Christ to be joined, knit, and built up together — v. 16b.
VII. The revelation of 1 Corinthians 14 must also be recovered following the recovery of Ephesians 4:11-16:
А. The saints being perfected by the gifts should pursue and desire prophesying, speaking for the Lord, speaking forth the Lord, and supplying others with the Lord, that the church may be built — 1 Cor. 14:1, 3-5.
B. This kind of prophesying that is for the building up of the church and that excels over all other gifts is a matter of speaking and listening in mutuality — vv. 12, 24, 31.
C. This kind of prophesying that is full of speaking and listening in mutuality stirs up the spiritual organic function of the members of the Body of Christ; it edifies the saints and builds up the church; it has hitherto been replaced by the sermon meetings of one man speaking and all listening, which kill the spiritual organic function of the members of the Body of Christ; though this may edify the saints, it rarely builds up the church.
D. For the recovery of this kind of prophesying that stirs up the spiritual organic function of the members of the Body of Christ, we must struggle and strive to overturn the sermon meetings, which kill the spiritual, organic function of the members of the Body of Christ.
VIII. The recovery of the New Testament priesthood of the gospel:
А. All the saved believers of God in the New Testament are priests; together they become the universal priesthood — Rev. 1:5b-6; 5:9-10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9.
B. The main duty of the New Testament priests is to preach the gospel to lead sinners to be saved and to offer them up as spiritual sacrifices; this is why they are called the priests of the gospel — vv. 9, 5; Rom. 15:16.
C. The gospel preaching that depends on the speaking of one or two, though able to save sinners, kills the universal priesthood of the gospel, which makes all the believers priests of the gospel in preaching the gospel individually, changing the nature of the universal gospel priesthood of all the believers to that of the exclusive gospel priesthood of a few believers, thus opposing God’s New Testament economy and killing the spiritual function of all the believers as priests of the gospel.
IX. Whether it be in the small group meeting, in the prophesying in the church meetings, in the preaching of the gospel by visiting people, or in the care for the new ones, the principle is the same, we must make all the saints the members of the Body of Christ, with everyone working, everyone functioning according to his measure, for the building up of the organic Body of Christ.
Prayer: Lord, we worship You. We offer You our deepest thanksgiving. Lord, we have to praise Your holy name. We thank You especially for giving us this day, that all the elders, co-workers, and trainees on this whole island can be gathered together. Lord, may You rend the heaven and come down upon us. Open up the heaven to us, and grant us a clear sky and a bright vision. Remove all the coverings and clouds. Lord, may we be open, heart to heart and spirit to spirit, to You and to one another. Lord, open the heaven, and open up Yourself. Remove for us all the powers of darkness and all the veils so that we would have no coverings whatsoever. Lord, may this place be joined to heaven, and may heaven be joined to earth.
Lord, speak to us and present to us clearly the way that You want to take and the recovery You want to accomplish in us. May this day be one as spoken of by Paul, where nothing is held back from us that concerns the counsel of God. Sanctify the two meetings in the morning and the afternoon. Lord, fill every meeting with Yourself. Move among us that every one of us would feel in the depth of our being that this is Bethel, the place where heaven is joined to earth, and God is revealed to man. Lord, this is the straight and proper path, which we have consecrated ourselves to take, to turn to, to follow, and to walk in forever. It is the path of the righteous, which shines as the dawning of day until midday.
Lord, gain us. May You gain today what You have not gained during the past nineteen centuries. We would consecrate ourselves afresh, thoroughly, fully, corporately, unreservedly, and totally to You. In this last part of this century may You accomplish what You have not accomplished. We are willing, ready, and in one accord for this. Lord, we are all here. We confess our smallness, weaknesses, shortcomings, and our many mistakes. We were born in mistakes. We are even mistake itself. But Lord, You are our salvation. We have You and possess You. Today we would give ourselves completely to You. You cooperate with us, and we are one spirit with You.
Lord, we ask again that You may complete what You have not completed in the last nineteen centuries. Whatever You have not recovered, whatever is left out, be it great or small, deep or high, may You recover it point by point among us. Not only may it be recovered today, but may it be recovered until You come, even until eternity, that You would gain what You are after.
Praise and thank You that Your desire was revealed to man over nineteen centuries ago. It has been written down clearly by Your servant, the apostle Paul, and now every one of us can see, read, and understand. May You touch us, even touch the deepest part of our being so that no one among us would have any reservation, and everyone would be gained by You. Lord, glorify Your name. Shame Your enemy. Glorify Your people. Bless Your church and bless every saint so that all would be built up into a priesthood of the gospel. Amen.
My burden today is to fellowship with you concerning our experience and the achievements that the Lord has given us during the past four and a half years.
We know that we began speaking of the new way here in Taipei in October 1984. From that time until now it has been exactly four and a half years. When we first began to take this way, we said that this is a new way. We did not have any experience concerning this new way, and we were also lacking in a clear vision concerning it.
At the same time, we pointed out a series of matters related to how Christians should meet, preach the gospel, serve God, and work for God. From the time that the apostles passed away until today, Christians during the past nineteen centuries have been debating these four things. Because these four matters were very much related to the practical move and work of Christians, the debates became more and more heated. It even stirred up strife and hatred among brothers. Until today the problems have not been resolved.
We know that as far as the Lord is concerned, everything in the universe was complete as soon as it was created. Nothing in the hands of the Lord needs advancement. But everything in the hands of man requires learning. This is because we cannot create. God requires no learning; hence, He requires no advancement. But human beings are different. Even to acquire fluency in a language requires a long period of time. From this we see that man is not a creator; rather, he advances through learning.
When we study church history, we find the same principle there. The word overcome is found in the epistles of the aged apostle John before the apostles passed away. To overcome is to be recovered. It means that something that was there originally was lost due to failure. There is the need to retrieve it. When the aged John wrote Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, he wrote seven epistles to the seven local churches. At the end of every epistle he ended with the exhortation for overcomers (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21). This is a recovery.
We see that before the end of the first century, the Lord’s recovery began. Thereafter, history shows us that, century by century, the recovery continued on. At times it was dim, but it was gradually becoming stronger and stronger. This went on until the 1500s, when Brother Martin Luther was raised up in Germany. He inherited the items of recovery from the past and culminated all the Lord’s recoveries during the preceding sixteen centuries. But this does not mean that the recovery was completed; rather, it continued on. Not long afterward, the national church to which Luther belonged became a dead religion. This also became the general condition of Protestantism at that time. That is why the Lord told the church in Sardis, “I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and yet you are dead...I have found none of your works completed before My God” (3:1-2). At that time the whole of Protestantism was in a state of half completion and near death.
In the seventeenth century the mystics, who emphasized the inner life, rose up from among the Catholics. In the eighteenth century Brother Zinzendorf from the southern part of Germany began the recovery of the church life and the church practice. These were great advances and progressions in the Lord’s recovery. However, these were not enough. The Lord had to go on in His recovery. In the nineteenth century the Lord raised up a group of brothers in Great Britain. They went further in the recovery of the church life, but in certain aspects they were still a failure. Because of this the Lord could not go on at that time anywhere in the Western world.
In the beginning of the twentieth century the Lord came to the Far East and raised up a young Chinese brother by the name of Watchman Nee. Initially, the help he received was inherited from the Brethren. But after ten years he discovered that what he had received was not that complete. As a result, he had a turn, even many turns. For example, in 1938 he published the book The Normal Christian Church Life. In 1948, when he was conducting a training on Mount Kuling in Foochow, he shared that at the time of the publication of The Normal Christian Church Life, he only saw the line of Antioch. But by 1948 he had gone on to see the line of Jerusalem. Hence, he turned from the line of Antioch, which was a “rethinking,” to the line of Jerusalem, which was a “re-rethinking.” From this example, we see that the Lord’s recovery is progressive. There have been many improvements.
Our God is a God who calls. He does not need to change, neither does He need to improve. For us, however, this is not the case. When we were raised up to follow the Lord and to receive from the Lord, we received things step by step. Not only did Watchman Nee have a rethinking, even Brother Paul had rethinkings. In 1 Corinthians 7:8 he told the Corinthians, “I say to the unmarried and to the widows, It is good for them if they remain even as I am.” However, when he wrote 1 Timothy at an old age, he said, “I will therefore that younger widows marry” (5:14). The reason is that Paul’s word in 1 Corinthians represented his wish at the early stage of his ministry. In 1 Timothy he was advising the young widows according to his experience. This shows us that everyone has to learn; everyone has to rethink and has need of improvement.
In 1984 I went back to Taiwan to introduce the new way. The first three years there were spent testing and experimenting. One may say that we were researching in the laboratory. We spent a lot of time and effort investigating. During the last year or more, the Lord has opened to us vision after vision.
The first vision that the Lord has shown us is that the church is an organism produced by the processed Triune God. Fifty years ago we had the term organism. But the light then was not as clear. Now we see that the church is the Body of Christ. This organism is the outflow of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in His processes. This is the greatest light in the first chapter of Ephesians. It shows that the Body of Christ is an organism of God.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Verse 14 says, “And the Word became flesh.” The Father was God who was in the beginning. One day He passed through a process to become the flesh. Originally, He was in eternity having nothing to do with creation. But one day He was conceived in a creature’s womb, and after nine months was born as a man. However, this Son is both God and man. He is a God-man. This is not all. He lived a human life for thirty-three and a half years. In His childhood He experienced the life of an exile, escaping to Egypt with His parents. At the age of twelve He went with His parents to Jerusalem to attend the feast. The wisdom of His words at the temple amazed the listeners (Luke 2:41-47). Gradually He grew up. From the age of twelve to thirty, He was a carpenter (Mark 6:3). This was not a comfortable process. It was not until He was thirty years of age that He came out to fulfill His ministry of preaching the gospel and saving sinners, which He did for three and a half years.
Eventually, He was crucified on the cross. From man’s point of view He was killed by man, but from God’s point of view He went voluntarily into death. He gave up His own body and soul-life. He said, “No one takes it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again” (John 10:18). He walked into death in great stride and descended into Hades, thus destroying death. Then He came out of death, entered into resurrection, and ascended from earth to heaven. More than ten disciples saw this ascension (Acts 1:9). On the day of Pentecost He as the Spirit was poured out from heaven (2:1-4).
The Triune God went through all these processes. The end result of these processes is the Body of Christ. This is like a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies producing many grains. Eventually, the many grains become a loaf of bread. We all know that among all the things created by God in the universe, the most wonderful thing is our body. It is wonderful in that it is organic. For example, man sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, and speaks with his mouth. All these show that the body is organic. These are symbols of the Body of Christ. This Body is an organism of the Triune God. It does not come about by the Triune God through creation; neither does it come about by the Triune God calling it into being all of a sudden. It is produced by the Triune God through many processes.
There are twenty-three verses in the first chapter of Ephesians. Verses 3 through 6 speak of the Father’s selection and predestination. Verses 7 through 12 speak of the Son’s redemption and our becoming the predestinated inheritance in Him (v. 11). Verses 13 through 14 speak of the Spirit’s sealing and pledging for our foretaste of the rich inheritance of God. The conclusion of chapter 1 says that the Son rose from among the dead, ascended into the heavenlies, transcended above all, had all things subjected under His feet, and became Head over all things to the church (vv. 20-22). The words to the church denote a kind of transmission. All that Christ the Head has attained and obtained are now transmitted to His Body, the church. Paul does not stop there. He continues in verses 22 and 23, “The church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” This verse is a footnote to chapter 1, explaining how the processed Triune God produced a result, which is the church. This church is the embodiment of the Triune God. It is also the Body of Christ.
We see that the church as an organism is the expression of the processed Triune God. Anything concerning the church must be in an organic sphere. Anything that is a deviation from this organism or an addition to it is not the church. The church is an organism as the mingling of God and man produced through the processed Triune God in His Divine Trinity.
Ephesians 4:11-16 reveals that the ascended Head gave many gifts in His ascension to the church. Some are apostles, some are prophets, some are evangelists, and some are shepherds and teachers. All these are for the perfecting of the saints.
We know that there is a very famous evangelist in America. For forty years he has been doing the work of mass evangelism, but he never perfects anyone. Although his work is great, there is no one to succeed him. If during these forty years he would have perfected others to do the work of evangelism, then many would have been perfected. Man is unwilling to do this because man sees only what is close to him. He does not have a long-term view. He considers the big gospel campaigns more convenient than the training and perfecting of people. Furthermore, in the end trainings do not necessarily perfect very many people. Hence, everyone takes the convenient and avoids the difficult, choosing the benefits of the readily accessible while neglecting the long-term view. As a result, year after year the necessary perfecting has been lacking. This is contrary to God’s economy.
In the New Testament we can see the example of the Lord Jesus perfecting others. He only functioned for three years in His ministry. At the beginning He continually trained Peter, James, and John, bringing them to the high mountain, transfiguring Himself before their eyes, and revealing Himself to them. Later, these three went on to perfect others, and eventually there were twelve disciples following the Lord. After the Lord went to the cross, He continued to train the disciples by His death and resurrection and by His invisible presence. Eventually, He gained one hundred twenty. This was how the Lord perfected people.
Concerning the apostle Paul, he tells us in Acts 20 that after he preached the gospel in Ephesus, he remained there for three years, teaching each one with tears night and day from house to house (vv. 20, 31). Colossians 1:28 also shows us that Paul warned and taught every man in all wisdom so as to present every man full-grown in Christ. Although Paul was such a great apostle, he had to go from house to house to perfect the saints one by one so that they would all be able to do the work of the New Testament ministry in building up the Body of Christ. This is the second vision that we saw.
The Lord went on to show us that 1 Corinthians 14 is a chapter on prophesying. The prophesying mentioned in this chapter is universal. It is not restricted to a few people. Verse 31 says, “You can all prophesy one by one.” When the whole church gathers together, and all prophesy, those unbelievers who enter will be convicted by all, examined by all, and will say that God is really among you (vv. 24-25). This is the culmination in 1 Corinthians 14 of everything concerning meeting, gospel preaching, working for the Lord, and serving God.
We cannot be hasty in teaching the brothers and sisters how to prophesy. You cannot teach a kindergartner to write essays. First, he must go to primary school and practice writing. Furthermore, he must learn to compose sentences. Only after he has learned to compose sentence after sentence will he be able to write essays. After we gain the new ones, we must first have home meetings to nourish and cherish them. After they have grown up, we should bring them to the small group meetings. In the small group meetings there is the mutual teaching and learning of the truth and the pursuit of the growth in life. Whenever anyone speaks the word of God based on the experience of life and the knowledge of the truth, the result is prophesying.
A priest of the New Testament is a priest of the gospel. The Old Testament priests were priests of bulls and goats. They specialized in the offering of bulls and goats as sacrifices. The turn of the priesthood from the Old Testament to the New Testament happened in John the Baptist who was born a priest. He was the only son of his father who was a priest. According to the custom, he should have worn the priestly garment, eaten the priestly food, and grown up in the temple. But he went to live in the wilderness, wearing camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey (Matt. 3:4). He exhorted men to repent. If any men repented, he would bury them in the Jordan River (vv. 1, 6). Everything about him was wild, including his food, his clothing, his dwelling, his preaching, and his work. Notwithstanding, he was the first one to turn from the Old Testament priesthood to the New Testament priesthood. From that time on, it was no longer a matter of offering up bulls and goats for sacrifices. Rather, it has become a matter of offering up saved sinners in Christ as sacrifices. John the Baptist was the first priest of the gospel in the New Testament. All New Testament believers should be like him, going out to preach the gospel that calls for repentance, baptizing the believing ones, and offering them up in Christ to God.
First Peter says, “You yourselves also...being built up...into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God” (2:5). Romans also says that one should “be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God, in order that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit” (15:16). The fact mentioned in Romans 15:16 confirms the vision seen by Peter in 1 Peter 2. Paul became a spiritual priest, a gospel priest, offering up to God spiritual sacrifices, which are the sinners saved through his preaching. Hence, every New Testament believer should be a priest offering up the saved sinners as sacrifices. If a New Testament believer has not preached the gospel and does not lead sinners to be saved, he is a priest who fails in his function.
According to our natural concept, we think that inviting our friends, ushering, counseling, record taking, and similar activities during gospel campaigns in the past were our services and were functions of the priests. Actually, these are just works of the Levites. They were not works of the priests. Although many famous preachers can conduct gospel campaigns and save sinners, their way is contrary to God’s New Testament economy and kills the spiritual function of the believers as priests of the gospel. We see from the New Testament that the Lord continually perfected others and sent them out. First, the twelve were sent out, and then the seventy were sent out. Furthermore, they were sent “into every city and place where He Himself was about to come” (Luke 10:1). I believe that their going out was surely not for the Levitical work but for the preaching of the gospel, the saving of the sinners, and the work of the New Testament priests of the gospel.
Therefore, we have to see that the gospel meeting in Christianity today with one or two preaching, though right in goal, is wrong in means. The reason for this is that it has changed the nature of the universal gospel priesthood of the believers to that of the exclusive gospel priesthood of the few. All the believers wait until the gospel giant comes and then participate in Levitical services. After the gospel campaigns no one preaches the gospel anymore. This is not the way to preach the gospel in the New Testament. The New Testament reveals that every saved person is a priest preaching the gospel. Hence, we conclude that there are indeed many ways to preach the gospel and that all these ways do save people. But this does not mean that every way will make each believer a New Testament priest of the gospel. This is the light and revelation we have received recently from the Lord.
If this had been the way we led the church forty years ago, and we had established this tradition among us, the ones saved through us would have become priests of the gospel long ago. Soon after they were saved, they would have preached the gospel to lead sinners to be saved. The revelation is open to us today in order to show us that the preaching of the gospel should arrive at God’s goal and complete God’s economy. The economy of God today is for every saint to be a priest of the gospel.
Since last summer the Lord has shown us four great visions in succession. First, the church is the Body of Christ, which is an organism that issued from the processed Triune God. It comes into being neither accidentally nor by His creation. Second, the emphasis in the service of all the gifts is not on the works but on their perfecting of the saints to do the works. We must perfect the saints to be able to do whatever we are able to do. Third, there is the need to help everyone to grow so that all can prophesy for the Lord. Today the Lord does not speak through one or two persons in the church. Rather, He speaks through everyone. Only when every member prophesies will the church be built. Fourth, gospel preaching must be done by everyone personally through visiting others in their homes. It should not be done by calling big gospel campaigns. If there are only gospel campaigns, believers will be degraded to serve only as Levites, and only a few will then be able to serve as the exclusive priests of the gospel. The spiritual function of all the believers as priests of the gospel will be killed. These four visions are what I want to fellowship and communicate to all of you elders and co-workers at this time.
I came back here this time to do the work of perfecting. I am here to perfect you to do what I am doing. This is like the parents in a family teaching the children with the hope that they will grow up properly. This is what Paul meant when he said to the Thessalonians that he was like a nursing mother cherishing them (1 Thes. 2:7) and a father exhorting them (v. 11). The result of his perfecting was to present the believers full-grown. This morning I lay this outline before you with the hope that you would take it home and fellowship much about it. You can have all the elders come together with the seeking brothers and sisters to get into these points. These are all crucial points concerning how we should meet and serve in the coming days.
