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Scripture Reading: John 1:12-13; 3:6b; Gal. 1:16a; 2:20a; 4:19; Eph. 3:16-17a, 19b; 5:30
Thank the Lord that we can have this conference. We are all happy because at this time we have representatives from the churches in all the six continents of the world. We all have to praise Him that there are brothers here even from Africa. It is not a small thing that we are meeting here together. We are not only joyful in our heart but also leaping in our spirit because the Lord has brought us to be here together from different localities, nations, and tongues all over the earth. This is not merely a doctrine to us; rather, it is a reality. Politicians, educators, and other professionals in the world have tried their best to unite the peoples of the world, yet they have never succeeded. Today in Christ we do not have to do anything, yet people from the six continents are gathered in one place. Hallelujah!
Since the time the brothers decided to have this conference, I have been seeking the Lord unceasingly as to what He wants to speak at this time. In these past few months I have been looking to the Lord and seeking to know what the Lord wants to say to all His churches on the earth at this time. However, up to two weeks ago I was still unclear. Then thirteen days ago, on the Lord’s Day, something happened. Near the place where the meeting hall of the church in Anaheim is located, there is a Pentecostal group with a comparatively large congregation. This group, which has been actively opposing the Lord’s recovery in these few years, may be considered the birthplace, the source, of the opposition to the Lord’s recovery on the whole earth today. They have tried their best to destroy the Lord’s recovery by their writings and actions. This is because since the church came to the city of Anaheim, our number has grown quite much within just two to three years, and also because we built a meeting hall that in America can be regarded as noteworthy. Both these factors have virtually become a threat to them; thus, they oppose us actively. Thirteen days ago, on a Lord’s Day evening, they spent two and a half hours in a conference specifically to propagandize against us. Over five hundred brothers and sisters among us attended that meeting and recorded their words of opposition against us in those two and a half hours. The next morning the co-workers came together and wrote down the opposing words from their tapes and looked at the points that were against us. Immediately, ten of the brothers picked up the burden to take the sixteen points opposing us and write a refutation for each one. These were published in a newspaper. I was not among the ten brothers, and there was no need for me to speak anything. Praise the Lord! However, from what the brothers were relating and then writing about, I became clear within as to what to speak in this conference. It was through this opposition that the Lord told me what He wants to speak in this conference.
Why? It is because every single point of their opposing words in those two and a half hours concerns our subjective experience. We say, “God and man are mingled,” but they say, “This is heresy. God is God, and man is man. How can you say that God and man are mingled? Man is too small and too low. How can man be mingled with God? By saying this, you are advocating that man can evolve into God.” They use the term evolution—evolving into God. This is an extremely blasphemous word. They say, “The local church teaches this heresy, saying that man can be uplifted, can progress, and can even evolve into God.” Brothers and sisters, do you realize that this is an extremely great opposition and that it is a great contending against the truth? According to the truth, can man be mingled with God? Does the mingling of man with God mean that lowly man evolves and evolves until one day he becomes God? The opposers say, “This Witness Lee came from China to tell us that we will evolve into God. Isn’t this heresy?” They speak in such a seemingly plausible way.
Nonetheless, this kind of opposing word is just a “paper tiger” that can be flattened by a single strike. We have to say that it is not that we are evolving into God, but it is God who humbled Himself to come into our spirit. John 1:1 and 14 say, “In the beginning was the Word,...and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory...), full of grace and reality.” This was His first step. Then verse 12 says, “As many as received Him,...those who believe into His name.” The receiving here is not like having a very loving heart to receive brothers and sisters hospitably into your home. Do you receive the Lord Jesus like this? No. Here, to receive simply means to take in.
What does it mean to receive? I would like to give you a demonstration. Suppose I give you a glass of water. You do not take this glass of water back to your home to be displayed; rather, you drink the water. This is to receive. When the water in the glass comes into you, then you have received the water. In exactly the same way we receive Jesus. Where do we receive Him? We receive Him into our whole being.
The opposers say, “How can you receive Jesus into you? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the Triune God are clearly three separate persons. The Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is just like a dove. Jesus is the Son who is sitting high above on the throne in the third heaven. How can you receive Him into you? It is not Christ who is in you; it is His representative who is in you.” I have believed in the Lord and have been saved for fifty-two years, and I have also read many Christian books. However, I have yet to read a book saying that Christ’s representative is in us, that today He is in the heavens and not in us, and that if we say that He is in us, this is a heresy. I know that some of the brothers and sisters here were pastors and theologians. Surely you did not hear this kind of saying either. This is truly a new saying by the opposers.
The Bible tells us, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name” (v. 12). Does it speak of becoming people of God? No! It speaks of becoming children of God. There is too great a difference between becoming God’s people and becoming God’s children. We may be the people under a king, but we may not be his children. What does it mean to be children? Children are born of their father; the father’s life and nature and what the father has and is are all in the children. We are the children of God. We are not only the people of God; that is too outward. We are also the children of God, and we have the divine nature in us.
However, the opposing “experts” say that the statement, “We have the divine nature in us,” is heretical. They say, “We do not have the divine nature in us at all.” In saying this they completely negate the word in 2 Peter 1:4: “He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature.” In other words, they have overthrown all the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures. They think that Christ does not live in us, that we do not have the divine nature, and that it is unimaginable to talk about the mingling of God and man. All that they care for is the outward and objective relationship with God; they have totally annulled and overthrown the inner and subjective relationship with God. The opposers exposed their evil roots in the two and a half hours of opposing.
Please consider this. We have received into us this One who is the incarnated God and thus have the authority to become children of God. We have the divine life and divine nature in us. Are we then mingled with God or not? If you say that we are not mingled with God, how can we have the life and nature of God within us? We say that we are the children of God, having the same life and nature as God. But the opposers say, “By saying this you are making man God. You are deifying man.” Therefore, when the brothers were writing the rebuttals, the burden came to me, and I felt that this would be a great chance, a golden opportunity, to release all the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures.
After the brothers wrote the rebuttals, we had a conference in Anaheim. I did not say much. I gave only a short declaration at the end, telling everyone that the opposing speakings were due to man’s blindness and ignorance. I gave an illustration on the platform: Suppose that a man is here. If you look at him from the front, there are seven openings: two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and one mouth. However, if you look at him from the back, there is not even one opening. The opposers are like those who look from behind. Because they have no light, after groping for a long time, they cannot find even one opening. Therefore, when I tell people that a man has seven openings, they say that I speak heresy. This is to be blind and ignorant. Would you say that a man has no openings at all or that he has seven openings? You have to say that both are true.
All the truths in the Scriptures are of two sides. In the universe there is a basic principle that nothing can exist without two sides. A sheet of paper has two sides. One side is full of writing, whereas the other side is blank. Only the blind will say that there is only one side. Those who can see will say that there are two sides. There is heaven, and there is earth. There is above, and there is below. There is inside, and there is outside. There is left, and there is right. There is front, and there is back. These are the two sides. Nothing can exist with only one side; anything that exists has two sides. Every truth is of two aspects. Yes, Romans 8:34 says, “It is Christ Jesus...who is...at the right hand of God.” Yet verse 10 of the same chapter says that Christ is in us. There are two sides. You have to see that, on the one hand, Christ is in the heavens, and on the other hand, Christ is in us. When you need to breathe, you do not have to consider whether there is any opening on the back of your head. All you have to do is breathe with your nose. Yes, Christ is in the heavens, but when I enjoy and contact Christ, He is in me.
The reason the opposers dare not say that Christ is in them is that according to their traditional concept, the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit, and these three are completely separated. Therefore, they cannot say that Christ is in them. If they say that Christ is in them, that is to admit that Christ is the Spirit, because Christ can be in us only by being the Spirit. However, even up to now, they have been opposing the statement, “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). They say that this Lord refers not to Christ but to God. Since they are reluctant to admit that the Lord is the Spirit, they dare not admit that Christ is in us. Nevertheless, whether or not they admit this, we do know that today the Lord is the Spirit and that He is in us. As the Spirit, He is like the air. We just need to say, “O Lord! O Lord!” and we will feel that we are full of fresh air within. This is the Spirit, this is life, this is our enjoyment, and this is our Christ within us. Today Christ is not only in the heavens but also in us. This is subjective, not objective.
In the Scriptures there are more subjective doctrines than objective doctrines, and more subjective truths than objective truths. This is why the subject of our conference this time is “The Subjective Truths in the Holy Scriptures” or “The Subjective Viewpoint in the Holy Scriptures.” For the sake of helping you all understand the subjective viewpoint in the Scriptures, I will point out some items.
The first item revealed in the Scriptures is God. Concerning God, there are two sides in the revelation of the Scriptures. There is the objective side, and there is the subjective side. Objectively speaking, first, God is God. He is the God who is high above in the heavens with glory and majesty. As such, He is outside of us and is completely objective to us. Second, He is our Creator. All things in heaven and on earth were created by Him, and we also were created by Him. He is our Creator, and we are His creatures. Third, He is the sovereign Master. There really is a sovereign Master in the universe. Fourth, He has become our Redeemer. We sinned and became fallen, and He came to redeem us; this also is objective. Fifth, He is our good Shepherd, and we are His flock. The shepherd is outside of the flock. The shepherd loves the sheep, and the sheep also love the shepherd. Nevertheless, to the sheep, the shepherd is objective. Sixth, He is our Master. He owns us, and we serve Him. Our relationship with Him is like that of a servant to a master. All these items concern the objective aspect of what God is.
However, in the Scriptures there is also the subjective aspect concerning God. First, God is our Father. This is subjective because He has given us His life and nature. Second, He is the life-giving Spirit. As the Spirit, He enters into us just like air. This is also subjective. Third, He is our life. If He were outside of us and merely objective to us, there would be no way for Him to be our life. It is only by coming into us to live in us subjectively and to be mingled with us that He can be our life. Fourth, He is light. In the Scriptures this light is called the light of life: “The life was the light of men” (John 1:4b). This is not an objective light outside but a subjective light inside. Fifth, He is our breath. Sixth, He is our living water and food to be taken into us. All these are subjective.
Christianity has fallen very deeply into the tradition of religion. In their concept they think that God is too great, too majestic, too glorious, and too transcendent. They say that, on the one hand, we must honor Him, and on the other hand, we must humble ourselves to prostrate before Him as we worship. When we say that He is our living water and our food to be taken into us, they consider this altogether a blasphemy against God and an insult to God in that we lower God and exalt ourselves. Therefore, the opposers in America say that I came from China to teach heresy there. They say, “We have a hymn of praise that says, ‘How great Thou art.’ However, this certain Mr. Lee comes and changes our hymn to, ‘How small Thou art.’” Yes, God is so small to the extent that we can eat Him. You cannot eat a big cow unless you slaughter it and cut it up into small pieces. After going through a process, the cow can be conveniently eaten. Is the cow big or small? It was a big cow, but now it has become small pieces. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life...which comes down out of heaven...so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (6:48, 50, 57). Is this heresy, or is this the truth? This is the truth. Nevertheless, the opposers grope blindly only from behind and are not willing to take a look at the front. If only they would be willing to come to the front, they could see seven openings with just a glance.
I am not merely telling you about fighting the battle for the truth in America. I want to show you that even though you have been saved, edified, and nurtured in a local church, I know for a fact that even up until tonight in your religious concept, you still consider Jesus Christ as the Lord of all, the great Lord, who is high above. Within you there is not much enjoyment of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, I would like to ask you, “How much of Jesus have you eaten today?” I am not asking you how many times have you prayed and how many times have you meditated. I know that some of you enjoy meditating, and I also believe that some of you like to listen to messages and dislike the way the church meets today. However, we know that in order to enjoy our food and its flavor we cannot be too concerned about manners. Suppose you are invited to a feast, but you dare not move or make any noise; you just eat slowly. This kind of eating is only a half enjoyment; it is not the full enjoyment. However, if you eat with big mouthfuls, saying, “It’s delicious! It’s delicious!” this kind of eating is full of enjoyment. Perhaps you think, “Brother Lee, this speaking is for a three-year-old child from the countryside.” I do hope that you would all become three-year-old children from the countryside. Just be simple and come to enjoy Christ. Get rid of your religious concepts. Today the Lord Jesus will say, “Foolish child, I already humbled Myself through incarnation, I died for you on the cross, I even entered the tomb, and I resurrected from the dead to become the life-giving Spirit. Today I am just like the air to you. Don’t make Me so great. I have been so great from eternity; I have been in My greatness long enough. I don’t want to be so great any longer. Today I want to become small to enter into you.”
In Isaiah 66:1-2 the Lord seemed to say, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool for My feet. What else do I desire? I am looking for those who are poor and of a contrite spirit. I want to enter into them. They are the place of My rest. I have been in heaven long enough. I desire to come into man.” Read the Bible again to see whether our God wants to stay on the throne in heaven or wants to come into us. If you bow down to Him again, He would say, “Forget about it! I have had enough of your bowing. Rise up, rise up. How about taking two bites of Me and drinking two mouthfuls of Me?” If you say, “Lord, I dare not eat You or drink You,” the Lord may say, “You have been poisoned by religion. Satan has poisoned you with the poison of religion in that apparently you are worshipping Me, yet in reality you are far away from Me, and you dare not contact Me. I don’t want your worship. I want you to eat Me. I desire to come into you and live in you.”
I am here proving that today you and I need to turn from the concept of worshipping a great and high God to the enjoyment of the lowly and small Jesus. Hallelujah! Yes, He is the Lord of all, the most high God, yet today He has become the life-giving Spirit. The Greek word for spirit is pneuma, which also means “breath.” If your tire has no air, that means it is without pneuma. Our Lord, the dignified and high God, is our breath, our air. Do not try to revere Him by putting Him so high. He is high enough; tens of thousands of angels bowing down to Him are enough for Him. He needs us to eat Him day by day and even moment by moment. This is the subjective experience, the subjective viewpoint, in the Scriptures.
From the Scripture verses used in this chapter we can see that Christ not only gave us authority to become children of God, but He also lives in us. “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Upon hearing us say that Christ lives in us, the opposers say, “Don’t you know how great Christ is and how small you are? Can such a small person like you contain Christ?” However, this is what Galatians 2:20 says: “It is Christ who lives in me.” Not only so, 4:19 says, “I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.” We have to thank the Lord and say, “Lord, I am such a small man, yet You live in me wholly, and You will be formed in me.”
Furthermore, Ephesians 3 says, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith” (v. 17a). The complete Christ is making His home in our heart. He is not only our life and our food; He also indwells us. Our heart is His home; He lives and moves in us. He has become our person, and we have become His dwelling place. How subjective this is! These are the subjective truths and the subjective viewpoint in the Scriptures.
Traditional Christianity does not see this, and some in it even oppose this. However, we do not oppose this; rather, we are enjoying it. “O Lord! Thank You! Not only are You in me as my life, but You, as a whole entity, live in me. You will be formed in me, and You will make home in my heart. My whole being is Your dwelling place.” What will be the issue of the Lord’s living in us in such a way? The issue will be that we are “filled unto all the fullness of God” (v. 19b). This is God and we, we and God, completely united and mingled. We are filled with all the fullness of God, and we are the expression of God.
The opposers say that this is to create gods and to teach that man can evolve into God. They say this due to their blindness and ignorance. Nevertheless, today we know for a fact that our Lord lives in us. I hope that every one of the saints in the Lord’s recovery will testify and say, “I know for a fact that our great and high Lord, the Lord of all, is my life, my breath, my living water, and my food. He lives in me to be my everything.”
There are two sides to the truths in the Scriptures. Yes, on the objective side, He is the Lord in heaven, who is above all and who is dignified and great with majesty and glory. However, on the other side, this Lord is actually in me, speaking to me, fellowshipping with me, walking with me, as well as supplying, supporting, and comforting me all the time. When I am empty within, He fills me. He is truly my life within, and He is my inward supply.
Every one of us has certain religious concepts. Without being taught, we know that God is the greatest and the highest One. Today the most difficult thing is to get rid of the religious concepts. You need revelation to see that this Lord today is also the life-giving Spirit. As the breath of life, He is in us to be our life, our supply, our strength, and even our person. Paul says, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21); he also says, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This is not to evolve into God; rather, this is a glorious transformation. Christ lives in me; hence, to me to live is Christ. Thank the Lord! This is subjective.
I will now give you another example, and it is concerning both the objective and subjective aspects of the church. Objectively speaking, what is the church? As a child, I was born, raised, and educated in Christianity. In Sunday school I heard many lessons, which all taught that the church is a hall for worship, having a cross and a steeple on top of the building. I think that even today some of you may still have the concept that the meeting hall is the church, and when it is time for the meeting, you say, “Let’s go to church.” When people ask you where your church is, you say, “It’s on Such-and-such Road.” Later in my Christian life I met with the Brethren. They were much improved; they told people that the church is not a chapel with a steeple, that the Greek word for church is ekklesia, which means “an out-calling,” and that church refers to the gathering of the called-out ones. Hence, the gathering of the called-out ones is the church. At that time I very much appreciated this kind of utterance and thought that it was very right. However, gradually I realized that these called-out ones quarreled with one another when they met together. Can you say this is the church? This kind of gathering of called-out ones is the flesh, not the church. This kind of understanding is too objective.
Then what is the church subjectively? The church is the temple of God and the house of God; moreover, it is the household of God. In Greek the word for house refers even more to the household. We are the family, the household, of God. A house is lovely because of the members in the household. The church is not the empty house of God but the household of God. Not only so, the church is the manifestation of God in the flesh. The Lord is in us as our person, and every one of us is filled with Him. Whenever we come together, some may praise the Lord, others may say Amen, and still others may call on the Lord. This is God being expressed from within us. This is subjective, not objective.
Furthermore, the church is the Body of Christ. He is the Head, and we are the Body. I can say that my head is Witness Lee, and my body is also Witness Lee. Not only is the Head Christ, but the Body, the church, is also Christ. This does not mean that we evolve into God. What this means is that we who were fallen have become children of God and members of Christ through regeneration and transformation. We are not only the gathering of the called-out ones but also the Body of Christ. He is the vine, and we are the branches. Every branch is the same as the vine in substance, life, and nature. The life of the vine is the life of the branches, the substance of the vine is the substance of the branches, and the nature of the vine is the nature of the branches. When we say that the branches and the vine are one, it does not mean that we make the branches the vine. The oneness is something subjective.
Moreover, the Bible also says that the church is the bride of Christ. The first bride was Eve, who came from a rib taken out of Adam. Therefore, Eve was bone of Adam’s bones and flesh of Adam’s flesh. This typifies the church being produced through the blood and water that flowed out of Christ’s pierced side. We are a part that came out of Christ; we are bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. We are members of His Body. Last, the New Testament says that the church is the one new man. How subjective these truths are!
These are all subjective truths in the Scriptures, which include regeneration, transformation, and the mingling of God and man. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” We are not only mingled with the Lord but are also one spirit with Him. God is Spirit, and today we are one spirit with Him. Is this evolution? Absolutely not! This is the glorious salvation of God. We have been saved to such a high position—we have been put into God to become one spirit with Him. We all have to leap and say, “Hallelujah! Oh, how glorious! I am one spirit with God!”
What we have covered so far concerns God and the church. Now we come to our Christian experience, which also has two aspects: the outward and the inward, the objective and the subjective. The outward, objective aspect includes being redeemed and forgiven. We were sinful and filthy, but God has forgiven us, and the precious blood of the Lord has cleansed us. Thus, we have been justified, reconciled to God, and accepted by God. Furthermore, we have been sanctified positionally, and we are now here being taught. Everything from our being redeemed to our being taught is objective.
All these are correct, and we do acknowledge that there is this aspect in the Scriptures. The opposers say that we throw the Bible aside and do away with this aspect, but we can testify that we are being taught the objective aspect every day. Yes, I am here releasing the subjective truths, but I absolutely admit, and you would agree, that I am also teaching here. If there were no one teaching here, you would not know that there are subjective truths as well as objective doctrines in the Scriptures. We are daily being taught in the meetings. I was saved for twenty years, but I never heard of transformation. You also did not know about the matter of transformation until you came to the meetings in the Lord’s recovery. Besides, it was also not until you came to the Lord’s recovery that you found out how we, the regenerated ones, should exercise our spirit and live according to our spirit. How can people say that we have no teaching among us? We are full of teaching.
However, what is the use of mere teaching? Maybe you understand what transformation is, and you also know about your spirit, yet afterward you go back home to entertain yourself and sleep as usual. You have the doctrine but not the reality. Therefore, there is still another aspect to consider—the subjective aspect. First, we have been regenerated. Second, we have the Lord living in us. Third, not only have we been sanctified positionally, but we are also being sanctified dispositionally. Fourth, we are being transformed. Fifth, we are being conformed to His image. Sixth, we are being built up together. Then one day the body of our humiliation will be transfigured and will be conformed to the body of His glory. All these items are not objective knowledge or words; rather, they are subjective experiences.
Thank the Lord that today we are here not only being taught but also being transformed and conformed. This time when I came back to Taiwan, I saw that you all have grown a little. I am so happy that not only those in Taipei are growing, but those in Southeast Asia are also growing. Thank the Lord that all are growing. Among us, not only do we have doctrines, but we also have life; not only do we have knowledge, but we also have growth. We are here being transformed day by day. This is all according to the subjective truths.
The subjective viewpoint truly exists in the Scriptures. This subjective viewpoint tells us over and over again that God is not only the God who is high above. Rather, He is in us today to be our breath of life, our living water, and our nutritious food. He does not want to be merely high and great. Rather, He desires to come into us to be our enjoyment. The more we enjoy Him, the more joyful He is. He is in us; He is one spirit with us; we have His life, nature, and essence. Our life, nature, and essence are exactly the same as His. This is not our evolution into God. This is His salvation—to work Himself into us and put us into Him so that we can become one spirit with Him. These are the subjective truths and experiences in the Holy Scriptures.
