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In this chapter we will consider how man’s natural concepts become veils when he reads the Bible.
Almost everyone brings his concepts and many expectations with him when he reads the Bible. Even though everyone hopes to see light in the Bible, hardly anyone is fully emptied, without any concepts, when he reads it. All our concepts and expectations are veils and distractions to our reading of the Word.
Whenever we read the Word with our concepts, we are no longer simple; instead, we are like a sheet of paper that has various designs printed on it, which makes any new words written on that piece of paper difficult to discern. If someone tries to print some words on that piece of paper, surely the words will be unclear. Likewise, when we come to the Bible with our own concepts, it becomes difficult for us to see anything. As long as we come to the Word with our concepts, we will not see any light, even though we may read it for a considerable period of time. Instead, we will continue to inject our concepts into the Bible and miss its true meaning.
Apparently, we are reading the Bible; actually, we are reading ourselves. None of us may have the intention to read our concepts into the Bible, but we cannot deny that such is the fact. The concepts that we bring with us when we read the Holy Bible have become veils to us. Consequently, we have seen or received little in our reading of the Bible, and the Bible has become a veiled book in our hands.
Suppose a person wears a pair of eyeglasses with green-colored lenses when he reads a book with white pages. He will not receive the white color into himself; rather, he will project the green color onto the paper and perceive the paper as green. I have contacted many people regarding Bible reading, and in every instance I have come away with the impression that man often does not receive the Bible into himself but reads his opinions into the Bible. A person may genuinely intend to read the Bible; however, because that one is wearing a pair of “colored eyeglasses” and is bringing along an array of “colored” concepts, he will always receive his colored concepts no matter how much he reads the Bible. Thus, rather than receiving the Bible into him, he continually reads his concepts into the Bible.
Some may ask, “Why is it that I have always read the Bible but have received no revelation and vision?” The answer is that such persons always read themselves. In other words, they are completely covered by their concepts, and they read their concepts instead of reading the Bible. This is the same as a person wearing a pair of eyeglasses with colored lenses and thus always seeing the color of the lenses on the object that he is looking at. This will happen every time.
There are serious disputes in traditional Christianity concerning baptism by immersion and baptism by sprinkling. I also had strong arguments with others concerning this truth over twenty years ago. Those who insist on baptism by sprinkling immediately see that sprinkling is the most proper way whenever they read the Scriptures. Even though the original “color” of baptism in the Scriptures is not sprinkling but immersion, when such people have the Bible in their hands, the “color” of baptism becomes sprinkling. Whereas the Bible plainly states that to be baptized is to be buried (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12), these believers still stress sprinkling. This is the same as a person perceiving a white book to be green because he looks at the book with eyeglasses that are tinted green. This example illustrates clearly that man’s concept is a thick covering that prevents him from seeing the true nature of the Scriptures.
Many brothers often say that they do not understand what they read in the Word. In the sense of having no concepts to veil them, they are blessed if they can genuinely read the Word with a heart that is without understanding. However, few co-workers or responsible brothers read the Word without any prior understanding. When they read the Scriptures, they always bring with them a great deal of understanding; consequently, they read all their concepts into the Scriptures. In such cases, they are not reading the Scriptures but their concepts. If the co-workers and the responsible brothers read the Word and actually receive the Word into them, the work among us will be revived, and it will change completely. The greatest problem in our reading of the Bible is that we always bring in our concepts, which prevent us from receiving light through our reading.
In our daily reading of the Bible, how much revelation have we received? Although the Bible is full of revelation, it is possible to read the Bible daily without receiving any revelation. This situation is similar to that of a miner who has found no gold, even though he has been digging in a rich gold mine for many years. According to my observation, when the saints speak in a Bible-study meeting concerning what they gained through their reading of the Word, almost everything that they speak is something that they already had within them. In other words, they do not receive the revelation in the Scriptures; rather, they use the Scriptures as a confirmation, pretext, or basis for something that was already within them. They might have thought that they received a word from reading the Bible; actually, that word was previously within them. For instance, a brother who has been expecting his wife to be subject to him will naturally pay attention to the teaching concerning wives being subject to their husbands when he happens upon Ephesians 5 in his reading of the Bible. Furthermore, one who believes that elders should not lord it over the younger ones but support them will be impressed with such a thought when he reads 1 Peter 5. This illustrates that most people do not receive revelation when they read the Bible; instead, they find words in the Bible to confirm their concepts or ideas.
A certain believer once testified that he read through the texts of four psalms, Psalms 58 through 61, but was not touched by any verse until he came to Psalm 62:1, which says, “My soul waits in silence for God alone.” When I heard his testimony, I thought it strange that even though there are many precious words in those psalms, none touched him except the portion “My soul waits in silence for God alone.” Eventually, I realized that he was touched only by that verse because he had that concept within him. Although I dare not say that what that brother spoke was not God’s word to man, I can say that to a great extent he was touched by that word only because he already had such a concept in his mind; he did not receive it out of a simple, pure, and clean mind.
Another brother was touched concerning the Lord Jesus referring to Himself as being meek and lowly in heart in Matthew 11. This brother said, “Oh, the Lord is meek, yet I am rough and harsh; He is lowly in heart, yet I am proud.” He was impressed by that word because he already had such a concept within him. Since he hoped to become meek and lowly in heart, when he read a verse concerning being meek and lowly, the concept that was already within him was stimulated. Actually, he did not receive a revelation from the Bible. Rather, the Bible drew out a concept that existed within him; that is, he projected his concept into the Bible.
The examples above show us that reading the Bible is not an easy task. It is extremely difficult to ask people to read the Bible without having any concept veiling them so that they are able to see a revelation that is not already in them. God encounters a great problem in us in the matter of our reading the Bible. Certainly, God cannot cause a stick or a stone to understand the Bible; He can cause only us, thoughtful people, to understand the Bible. However, our thoughts turn out to be veils and coverings to us. For this reason the Bible in our hand cannot give forth its light; no matter how hard we may try when reading the Bible, we can see only our old concepts. This is a basic problem in our Bible reading.
If we genuinely desire that the Bible in our hand will shine light as God’s expression and revelation, we must see that all our concepts are incompatible with God’s revelation. In God and in His Word there is only the unique concept—that God desires to be life to man in His Son. We must see this concept, drop our concepts, and take God’s concept as ours; only then will the Bible be able to give light to us, and only then will it be God’s utterance, revelation, and manifestation to us. Otherwise, the Bible will remain closed to us, and we will be unable to see its true meaning no matter how much we read it, because our concepts will change its meaning.
I wish to emphasize that the Bible has only one central revelation—God in His Son desires to be life to man. When we see this revelation, accept it as our concept, and thereby reject all our natural concepts, the Bible will become open; it will shine, and it will speak to us.
Whenever we read the Scriptures, we need to pay attention to the lines of life and living and let go of all other lines. The line of life concerns God in His Son being our life, and the line of living concerns our living by God as life. All that the Scriptures reveal are related to these two lines.
One who genuinely knows the Scriptures will see clearly that the entire Scriptures are a portrayal of a process of life and growth, in and through which many glorious things occur. The Scriptures portray how God, who was in eternity, entered into time in order to enter into man by becoming man’s food and man’s life so that he may live and grow before God. We emphasize that the tree of life in Genesis 2 is the controlling vision of the Bible because God in eternity entered into time to be the tree of life for man to take Him in so that man can live and grow by God as life. The result of such a growth and living is the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation as a manifestation of glory and honor produced and supplied by the tree of life and the river of water of life within the city.
These lines of life and living run throughout the Bible and can be observed from its beginning to its end. If we read each book of the Bible independent of the other books, we may not see the tree of life, the river of water of life, or the glory of God in some of the books. However, if we read the Bible with all the books connected together, we will be able to see the line of God becoming our life and the line of our living by God as our life.
We must see that all of God’s work, including His creation of the heavens and the earth, His healing of sicknesses, and His casting out demons, is uniquely for the purpose of man to enjoy God as food. Everything that God does for man is toward that goal. Moreover, man’s living should be man’s enjoyment of God’s life. All of man’s work and behavior before God by God’s life are related to man’s living. Nevertheless, man’s works are not his living but the issue of his living. Man’s living is his enjoyment of God’s life, and because man lives by enjoying God as his life, his works are the issue of his enjoying God. In other words, our living before God and all our works by God’s life are considered the aspects of our living.
The entire Bible is a portrait of the two lines of life and living. On the one hand, the Bible is a record of God doing a work in order to enter into man and become his life; on the other hand, it is a record of the kind of living and work that man will have when he lives before God by God as life. The life aspect comes from God, whereas the living aspect issues from man. Whatever comes from God is related to life, and whatever issues from man is related to living. The entire Bible is a record related to these two lines.
Our reading of the Bible must be restricted, regulated, and governed by the two lines of life and living. Otherwise, our mind will indulge in wishful thinking, which may result in being impressed with all manner of strange things in our reading of the Word. I once met someone in Shanghai who could find many verses to prove that the idols in paganism refer to Jehovah in the Bible. Surprisingly, many saints listened with great interest while he spoke such things. I met another person who interpreted the locusts in Revelation 9:3 as the airplanes in modern times and the statement “There was hail and fire mingled with blood, and it was cast to the earth” in Revelation 8:7 as airplanes dropping bombs. These two examples illustrate that man’s interpretations of the Bible are rich in variety and can be incredibly strange. Hence, our mind must be governed by certain lines when we read the Bible.
The lines that should govern and direct our Bible reading are the lines of life and living. These two lines concern God being life to man and man living before God by God Himself as life. Reading the Scriptures can be likened to driving a train on railway tracks with only the two lines of life and living constituting the proper tracks. By remaining on those tracks, we will not only be able to move forward but will also be kept from being “derailed.” However, if we do not read the Bible according to these two “rail tracks,” we will be “derailed,” and there will be an “accident.”
Taking other lines as the “rails” for our Bible reading will cause us to be easily led astray. This may create great problems that not only delay us but also hurt others. We must see that God desires to be life to man in the form of food, and since the Bible is God’s revelation and expression, its main content concerns God coming to be our life and our living before God by taking Him as our life. All other items in the Bible are secondary.
Just as a tree has not only its trunk but also many branches and leaves, so also the Bible has not only its main content but also many supplemental items. All the branches and leaves of a tree branch out from the trunk at different locations. As far as the existence of the tree is concerned, the trunk is primary, and the branches and leaves are secondary. The tree will continue to exist if many of its branches and leaves are cut off, but its trunk must not be cut off, or the tree will die. Likewise, it does little harm if we do not understand the locusts and the hail from the sky recorded in Revelation. However, if items such as the throne, the Lamb, the seven Spirits before the throne, and the river of water of life proceeding out of the throne (4:2; 5:6; 1:4; 22:1), which are considered the “trunk,” are removed, we will suffer a significant loss. Actually, if these items are removed, the book of Revelation becomes empty. In other words, it is of no great harm to cut off some of the branches and leaves of a tree, but the trunk as the base of its existence must not be cut off. Thus, whenever we read the Bible, we must grasp the trunk—the two lines of life and living. Moreover, we should let these two lines govern, regulate, and restrict our Bible reading. In this way we will be saved from wild imaginations or from our mind roaming all over whenever we read the Bible.
I believe that this brief word will make us clear concerning a great problem in our reading of the Bible. If we desire to receive benefit from our reading of the Bible, we must learn to deny and reject all our natural concepts, we must be pure, and we must be simplified to the extent that our only concept is that God in the Son desires to be our life and that He will lead and teach us to live before Him by Himself as life. This concept should be our unique concept and governing view whenever we read the Word. We should refuse and reject anything that is beyond this view or does not match this view. Only in this way will the Bible shine upon us, and only in this way can we absorb the fatness in the Bible.
