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In this chapter we are consummating the series of messages on the Triune God’s revelation and His move. We have adequately seen God’s revelations from the facts in the New Testament. Now we are on the visions and God’s move.
The revelations of the New Testament begin from the incarnation of Christ. The incarnation of Christ is God becoming a man. These revelations continue through His human living on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. Through this process the early disciples saw the historical facts of Christ’s work, but they did not have the revelation. They saw Jesus Christ as a man manifesting God in His humanity, but they did not see the revelation of God in His economy.
Today many Christians who read the four Gospels know only the stories. They see the facts, but they do not know the intrinsic spiritual significance, the revelation. Is the Bible just a book of facts to you? Or have all the facts recorded in the Bible become revelation from God to you? The intrinsic revelation of the birth of Christ is God becoming a man and God being brought into man. We need to see the difference between the revelations and the historical facts recorded in the Bible.
At the time of Christ’s resurrection, the early disciples got to see the intrinsic spiritual significances of these things, which all became revelations to them. On the day of resurrection, they realized that the buried Christ was gone, and they began to enter into the intrinsic revelation of what they had seen in His earthly life. They were with Him for about three and a half years and saw Him doing many things, but they did not understand the intrinsic significance of His doing. But on the day of resurrection, the situation changed. The resurrection opened their eyes.
Christ indicated that the disciples would receive revelation on the day of His resurrection in John 14:20: “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” In occurs three times in this verse. The Son is in the Father, we are in the Son, and the Son is in us. The disciples did not know this before the Lord’s resurrection. But “in that day,” the day of resurrection, they knew it. In a general way, in that day means “in resurrection.” This is not just a matter of the actual day but a matter of the fact. In resurrection the disciples would realize that the Son is in the Father, one with the Father; that they are in the Son, one with the Son; and that the Son is in them, one with them. These three parties are altogether mingled as one. Many Christians believe in the Bible, but how many realize that Christ is one with the Father, that they are one with Christ, and that Christ is one with them? This one revelation can revolutionize all of Christianity.
After His resurrection Christ stayed with the disciples for forty days (Acts 1:3). The main thing He did in those forty days was to bring them into the spiritual realization of the revelations of what He had done from His incarnation to His resurrection. On the day of Pentecost, Peter would have even more realization that Christ was in him as the One who is in the Father and the Father in Him. The preposition in is meaningful to the uttermost.
Peter, James, and John were Galilean fishermen called by the Lord to follow Him. They followed Christ and saw many things but understood nothing. Then the Lord told them that He was going to die and be resurrected on the third day (Matt. 20:17-19). James and John, though, were concerned about sitting on His right and on His left in His coming kingdom (vv. 20-21). They and the other disciples did not understand what the Lord meant concerning His dying and resurrecting.
But on the day of Pentecost, Peter was clear. He had not only the revelation but also the vision. The vision is that we have to go to proclaim all the revelations, and Peter did this for many years. Peter’s doing was the move of God. He saw not only the revelation but also a vision, a scenery in this universe. Then he was motivated to start preaching. From that time this fisherman from Galilee became the first preacher of Christ.
God began to move on the day of Pentecost because all the early disciples were motivated. All of the one hundred twenty could preach Christ and prophesy concerning Christ. They all became “crazy,” like drunkards (cf. Acts 2:12-17). A drunkard knows only how to talk ceaselessly. The one hundred twenty on the day of Pentecost were like this. They were talking ceaselessly about Christ as the very God. If we do not talk to people about Christ, this means that we have not seen either the revelation or the vision of what God is doing in the universe. But I hope that we will see the scenery of what God is doing in this universe and begin to talk ceaselessly about Christ to others. Then we will be in God’s move. God is moving, but if we do not join this moving, God has no way to move. After seeing the revelation and the vision, we begin to move, and our move is God’s move. When we move, God moves.
One day I saw a vision that all the revelations I had seen should be preached in the United States. In 1958 I was invited to visit England and Denmark. As I was passing through the United States, I received a vision that the Lord’s recovery with all its truths should come here. From that day I was looking to the Lord concerning His move to the United States. Eventually, I got into this move and came here.
After the forty days, before Christ went to the heavens, based upon what He had shown the disciples as revelations, an issue came out, that is, the vision. In this vision Christ first charged His disciples to go out, based upon what they had seen, to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:45-47). At the end of His stay with the disciples, He charged them to be His witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8), and then before His ascension He charged the disciples to go and disciple the nations and teach them all that He had commanded them based upon the revelation that all authority had been given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18-20). After His ascension into the heavens, on the day of Pentecost, the first thing He did as the initiation of God’s move on the earth to establish the churches was to pour out the Spirit of power (Himself as the consummated all-inclusive Spirit) upon the disciples (Acts 2:1-4, 17, 33). This was God’s move, but His move was going on with Peter’s move and with the move of the one hundred twenty.
The revelations in the Lord’s earthly ministry began from the incarnation and consummated with His resurrection. Then He ascended, and that began another ministry, His heavenly ministry.
After the Lord showed the early disciples the revelations of His earthly ministry, based upon which He presented them a vision for His move, they joined the Lord with His first move for the carrying out of His New Testament economy in raising up the church in Jerusalem among the Jews (8:1). The first thing accomplished in God’s move with Peter’s move was to set up a church in Jerusalem. This was altogether new to the Jews.
Based upon the same revelations and visions, the Lord, through the Jews’ persecution in Jerusalem, moved most of the early believers to bring the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and even Africa through the eunuch of Ethiopia (Cush, eastern Africa), in the Lord’s move (vv. 1, 4-5, 26-39). The Lord raised up a persecution by the Jews to drive all the Jewish believers out of Jerusalem. Eventually, one of them even met a eunuch from Ethiopia, and through him God’s move went to Ethiopia.
Based upon the same revelations, the Lord gave the vision to Peter that the Lord wanted him to move on together with Him to spread His New Testament economy to the Gentiles as a beginning from the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion (10:1-33). From the Jews the Lord moved to the Gentiles through Peter. The Lord showed Peter a vision, but Peter hesitated. Peter, of course, was a Jew, and he told the Lord that from his youth he had never eaten anything unclean. But in the vision from the Lord, the Lord told him, “The things that God has cleansed, do not make common” (v. 15). Peter had to contact the Gentiles with the gospel to follow God’s move. Then God would move in his move. The church was raised up in the house of a centurion of the Roman Empire, Cornelius. This was the Lord’s move accomplished by His move within Peter’s move.
Then the Lord gave a further vision to the apostle Paul and the other four prophets and teachers in the church in Antioch that they should go, in moving together with the Lord for the carrying out of His New Testament economy, to evangelize all of Asia Minor. Paul and his co-workers did this by three gospel trips (13:1—14:28; 15:40—18:22; 18:23—21:17). Through those gospel trips Paul evangelized Asia Minor and established churches in city after city.
By the Lord’s move shown in the above four points, the Lord covered Asia and Africa and initiated His church among the Gentiles.
The Lord gave Paul a further vision, the vision of the Macedonian call (16:6-10), to direct his gospel trip from Asia to eastern Europe. Then he evangelized eastern Europe, leaving Illyricum not touched (Rom. 15:19). Then by his fourth gospel trip he covered Rome through his Roman exile. Paul had a gospel trip by being exiled. In his exile he did not consider himself a prisoner. Rather, he considered himself a preacher of Christ, a spreader of Christ, a spreader of all the things he had seen as revelations and visions from God. God was sovereign, putting him into exile. Eventually, that exile became Paul’s last gospel journey. By this he brought the gospel more strongly to western Europe, leaving Spain not touched, although he expected to cover that land, which, according to the map at that time, was considered the uttermost part of the earth (vv. 24, 28).
All the saints should be motivated by the Triune God’s revelations and visions to join with Him for His move to accomplish His New Testament economy on the earth. Today almost all the countries of this world, except the Muslim countries, have been evangelized. Nearly every place is filled with Christians. Since this is the case, what are our revelation and our vision today? Our revelation and vision have been greatly uplifted in the last three years because we have seen the high peaks of God’s revelation. These are mainly concerning God becoming a man so that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. This is the center of the high peaks of the divine revelation among us.
Today our vision is to go to tell the high-peak truths to the Christians. This is what we have been doing in Russia for the past few years. We need to enlighten those in Christianity with the high peaks of the divine revelation. There is a hot market for these high peaks today. Wherever we go today, we will be greatly welcomed if we can speak these high peaks.
All the groups in Christianity have been stranded on their own sands, like a boat stranded on sands in shallow water. The Catholic Church is stranded on their sands of superstitions. Most of the Protestant churches are stranded on the sands of superficiality. They are not deep; they are too shallow, on the surface. Nearly all the Protestant churches are stranded in their kind of lukewarm theology.
Many seeking Christians, dear brothers, in the denominations are seeking something higher, deeper, and richer than what they have heard and possess. They are tired of shallow things. If we tell them the high-peak truths, they will wake up. At first, they may oppose, but gradually they will find the truth. Then what shall we do? We have to learn the high peaks of God’s present revelation and learn to speak these things. We have to go, and we have to speak. I believe that the high peaks of today’s revelation will become the hottest market among today’s Christians.
Of course, to do such a high mission work, we have to be prepared to encounter all kinds of difficulties. But I took Psalm 84:6 as a blessing in these kinds of hardships: “Passing through the valley of Baca, / They make it a spring; / Indeed the early rain covers it with blessings.” The valley of Baca is the valley of tears. The ones mentioned in Psalm 84 passed through a way full of tears, sufferings, but they made it a place of springs. The brothers who went to Russia can testify that they took a pathway through the valley of tears, but their stay there for the past four years has made Russia a place of springs with the early rain of blessing. I would encourage all of us to pick up this high commission: to go out with the high peaks of the divine revelation and with God’s up-to-date vision to move with God for His high peaks of the divine revelation that will consummate His eternal economy.
In this series of messages we have seen the Old Testament and the New Testament facts. Then we have seen the revelations based upon the Old Testament facts and the new revelations based upon the New Testament facts. We have also seen the visions with God’s move in the Old Testament and the New Testament visions with God’s move in the New Testament. This move consummates many things on this earth through the Lord’s heavenly ministry to establish many churches and to build up the Body of Christ. But many have been stranded on the sands of superstition, superficiality, and lukewarm theology. How can this situation be rescued? The only way is for us to see the high peaks of God’s revelation and to see that God’s vision in the New Testament is to bring forth all these high peaks of God’s revelation to all the Christians.
