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We are foolish if we study the truths in the Bible without using the Life-study messages and the New Testament Recovery Version. If we want to study the inward and outward filling of the Holy Spirit, it is even more necessary for us to use the Life-study messages and the footnotes in the New Testament Recovery Version.
Acts 2:4a says, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Footnote 2 of this verse clearly indicates that the word filled in Greek is pletho. Pletho, which is also used in 4:8, 31; 9:17; 13:9; and Luke 1:15, 41, and 67, refers to being filled outwardly. According to its usage in Acts, the Greek word pleroo indicates the filling of a vessel within. This word is used in 2:2 to describe the wind’s filling of the house. Pletho indicates the filling of persons outwardly. This word is used in verse 4 to describe how the Spirit filled the disciples outwardly. The disciples were filled inwardly and essentially (pleroo) with the Spirit for their Christian living (13:52); the disciples were filled outwardly and economically (pletho) with the Spirit for their Christian ministry. The essential Spirit filled the disciples inwardly by coming into them (John 14:17; Rom. 8:11); the economical Spirit filled the disciples outwardly by coming upon them (Acts 1:8; 2:17). Every believer in Christ should experience both aspects of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Even Christ as a man experienced both aspects. He was born of the Spirit essentially for His being and living (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20), and He was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry and move (3:16; Luke 4:18). The essential Spirit was within Him, and the economical Spirit was upon Him.
Acts 13:52 says, “The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Footnote 1 of this verse shows us that the Greek word pleroo, which is translated “filled,” refers to being filled inwardly. This infilling by the Holy Spirit is essential, meaning that it is for life rather than for power. The fact that this verse links being filled with the Holy Spirit to being filled with joy, which is a matter of life, proves this.
Acts 6:3 says, “Brothers, look for seven well-attested men from among you, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” Footnote 1 points out that the Greek word translated “full” is pleres. The way that this word is used in this verse and in 6:5; 7:55; 11:24; and Luke 4:1 shows that it is the adjective form of pleroo. Being full of the Spirit is the condition of one who has been filled with the Spirit inwardly and essentially, as mentioned in Acts 13:52. This filling is a matter of life, not work.
If we study the footnotes for the above verses in the New Testament Recovery Version, we will clearly see the distinction between the Greek words pleroo, pletho, and pleres, and we will understand the difference between the inward and the outward filling of the Holy Spirit. I cannot stir up all the saints to study the truth in depth, but I urge all of you full-time trainees to do this. If you do not study the truth in such a way, your function in serving the Lord will be greatly reduced. I would even encourage those of you who are elders to serve the Lord full time. By serving the Lord full time, you will have time to study the truth so that when you teach others, you will be able to do so properly. If you do not have the time to learn the truth, how can you teach others?
Our shortcoming is that we do not study the truth in depth. In fact, this is the weakness of Christianity as a whole. In Christianity the knowledge of the truth is truly poor. Many think that they understand the truth quite well. Actually, they understand only the historical councils and creeds of the early church. During the lawsuit over the book The Mindbenders, the opposing party questioned me five mornings a week for three weeks. They had prepared to question me concerning one hundred and nineteen items, but eventually they could question me concerning only nine of them. That was truly the best defense of the truth.
One of the questions that the opposers asked me concerned what I said at the end of one of the messages in the Life-study of Genesis. In that message I said that the local churches are today’s “ark” (msg. 29). They thought that they had found my fault and strongly declared that my speaking was completely nonsensical. After their lawyer questioned me, however, he himself agreed that I was able to give a detailed explanation of what I had said in the Life-study of Genesis. In answering their question, I spoke about Abel, Enosh, Enoch, and then Noah and said that God has a particular work in each age. I told them that God’s work during the age of Abel was for men to receive His redemption and to serve Him according to the way of His redemption. In the age of Enosh God had another work. His work in the age of Enosh was for men who had received His redemption to realize their vanity and emptiness so that they would call on the name of Jehovah to receive His riches. In the age of Enoch God had a further work. His work in this age was that men would not only call on His name and receive His riches but that they would also learn to walk with God and never leave Him. When it came to the age of Noah, God had an even further work. His work in the age of Noah was that men would not only walk with Him but that they would also build an ark.
I told them that our God has been progressing from one age to the next and that in principle His special move, His special work, in the present age is to recover the church, that is, to build up the local churches. I explained to them that this is why I used a figure of speech to say that the local churches are today’s “ark.” I told them that this is why I spoke of the ark as a type of the local churches. My explanation left them speechless and exposed their lack of the knowledge of the truth. Over the course of three weeks their mistakes were exposed one by one, and they could not fight back. Their last question was whether or not I agreed with the doctrines that The Mindbenders identifies as orthodox doctrines. Most Christians know the orthodox Christian doctrines; however, The Mindbenders said that only the teachings given by Jesus Christ to the twelve disciples when He was on the earth are orthodox. I told them that this was altogether wrong. If the teachings given by Christ to His twelve disciples were the only orthodox teachings, then Paul’s fourteen Epistles, which constitute a great part of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, would not be counted as orthodox, because Paul was not one of the twelve disciples, and Paul never heard any of the messages spoken by Jesus Christ when He was on the earth. I further explained that this understanding contradicts what the Lord Jesus said in John 16:12-13—“I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality; for He will not speak from Himself, but what He hears He will speak; and He will declare to you the things that are coming.” In these verses the Lord Jesus clearly said that He did not tell the disciples all the truths and that when the Spirit came, He would declare more truths to them. When the Spirit came, He surely declared many truths to the apostle Paul. This is why the fourteen Epistles written by the apostle Paul were included in the New Testament and are publicly recognized as orthodox.
The day after they questioned me about this matter, all of the main responsible ones among them examined the questions and answers given during the depositions. Soon after this they accepted the settlement agreement, and we won a complete victory.
Today’s Christian theological seminaries teach theology but do not touch the deep truths of the Bible. They touch only the superficial things related to the Bible, such as the number of books and authors of the Bible, how many years it took for the Bible to be written, and where each book was written. They teach only shallow matters, such as the creeds and decisions made by the councils, biblical history, and biblical geography.
Regardless of whether you have been saved many years or you have only recently been saved, most of you probably do not know that the truths in the Lord’s recovery are the cream of all the truths in the Bible. In Christianity you cannot find the expressions transformation, enjoying the Lord, dispensing, or economy. All these truths are foreign to most of the believers in Christianity. They are ignorant of these high-peak truths, yet some were so foolish as to attack us. This is the pitiful condition of today’s Christianity. The truths among us are truly abundant. This is why you need to exert effort to get into them. You are the most blessed group of people in this age. You have graduated from college, forsaken your future, given up everything to pursue the Lord, and put all your time and energy into the Lord’s recovery. For this reason I will do the best I can to help you.
Between Brother Nee and I, we have spent more than sixty years to study the truth. He began to pursue the truth in 1920, and in 1922 he began to publish periodicals that expounded the truths of the Bible. He carried out his ministry for thirty years until 1952. In 1952 Brother Nee was imprisoned. He remained in prison for twenty years until he went to be with the Lord in 1972. When I was in mainland China, a few brothers and I were under Brother Nee’s leadership. In 1949 Brother Nee sent me to Taiwan, and for the past thirty years since 1950 I have been publishing books in Taiwan. Over the past sixty years in the Lord’s recovery we have dug out nearly all the truths in the Bible—Brother Nee in the first thirty years and I in the last thirty years. I dare not say that we have dug thoroughly, but I can say that we have opened up the treasure stores, the mines, of the truths in the Bible and have put them before you. There is still much more for you to dig. If the Lord would give me the time to do so, I would rewrite the footnotes in the New Testament Recovery Version and conduct a life-study of the entire Bible once more. It is a pity that I do not have the time. Nevertheless, I praise and thank the Lord that Brother Nee and I have opened up the riches of the Bible to you. Now you need to dig deeper. We put our whole being into the study of the Word in order to get into its depths. You must dig into the Bible in the same way.
Understanding the truths of the Bible requires the learning of languages. The original language of the New Testament is Greek, and the original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew. It would be good for you to exert some effort to learn these two languages. Moreover, although you are probably quite proficient in understanding and reading Chinese, your mother tongue, you most likely encounter difficulty when you are trying to express the truth. This shows two things—that you are deficient in the skill of writing and that your knowledge of the truth is still vague. Moreover, in the recovery we often speak the truth in English. Thus, if you have not adequately learned English, your understanding of the truth will not be precise. Therefore, I hope that you would have sufficient knowledge of languages and of writing.
Yesterday I fellowshipped with the saints who serve in the bookroom. I said that in 1952 and 1953 I began to conduct trainings here. These trainings went on for ten years, with at least four months of training per year. Although so many were trained, no one has pursued and made adequate progress with regard to languages and writing. As a result, not one can write something that is weighty. This should serve as a warning to us. Thus, I am here to encourage the younger generation to exert effort to learn languages and to learn to write. When I began to serve the Lord in 1932, I felt that there was a lack in my learning. Therefore, I asked someone to buy me an Interlinear Greek-English New Testament in Shanghai so that I could study Greek by myself. I truly hope that in the Lord’s work you would not be average persons. Instead of being average, you should be learned ones. To speak in worldly terms—since you have decided to be in this trade, you need to look like one who is in this trade and be an expert in this trade. Do not follow the condition of Christianity. I do not despise those who are in Christianity, and I have no intention to condemn them, but the Lord’s work and His move have been hindered due to their shallowness. The Lord needs us to clear the way so that He can move on. If you would be desperate to learn, the Lord would have a free way among you to carry on His work.
All of Christianity in America was shaken up due to the lawsuit. This was not an ordinary matter, and there have not been many lawsuits in the history of Christianity. I hope that you all would read the “Statement of Decision” that was issued at the close of the lawsuit over the book The God-Men. This statement has to do with the content of our contending for the truth.
The lawsuit also caught the attention of Dr. J. Gordon Melton, the chief editor of The Encyclopedia of American Religions. This encyclopedia has a very good standing in Christian society and even in American society in general. Dr. Melton studied our truths and felt that they were fundamental and even worthwhile for Christians to read through. He then voluntarily published a book to testify on our behalf. This was more than we ever expected. I had never seen Dr. Melton’s face and I had never exchanged letters with him, yet he still recommended me. He said that I am the most outstanding teacher in the local churches and that my theology is altogether based on the Brethren theology, which is the most orthodox theology. Today Christians all over the world recognize that the Brethren theology is the best theology of all orthodox theology. What Dr. Melton said was absolutely right. We have been much influenced by the Brethren truths since the early times. Their theology is in the marrow of our bones. Hence, when our writings are published, they naturally bear the Brethren flavor.
The more effort you exert to know the truth, the more advantageous it will be to you. Any effort you exert to learn the truth will never be wasted effort. You are all blessed because the publications in the Lord’s recovery are very rich. They include all the fundamental truths of the Bible. Thus, there is no need for you to try to collect riches from the writings of others. I dare not say that our speaking is complete, but I would say that there is surely no lack of truth for you to study in our books. The footnotes in the New Testament Recovery Version alone can almost serve as a compass for all the truths among us. Concerning the matter of the filling of the Spirit, for example, all you have to do is read the footnotes for Acts 2:4; 6:3 and 13:52, and you will be clear. To know the meaning of transformation, you just need to look up the footnotes for 2 Corinthians 3:18. I hope that you would deepen your efforts to learn the truth.
In addition to studying the truth, you also need to pursue life, and in pursuing life, you should carefully read two books—The Knowledge of Life and The Experience of Life. The introduction to The Knowledge of Life and the preface to The Experience of Life clearly point out that although many saints have pursued life over the past two thousand years, no one has been able to clearly explain the various stages of spiritual life and the points that one should know to progress along the path of life. In these two books I present these matters in a scientific way. Many of the points contained in these books cannot be found in any of the books of Christianity. No one has ever spoken concerning the three lives and four laws or regarding the nineteen points of the four stages of the spiritual life. Therefore, you have to endeavor to get into these two books and to pursue, stage by stage, the four stages of the spiritual life.
I am worried that the saints in the churches may think that our current emphasis is on preaching the gospel and on the small groups, that our focus is on propagating and gaining increase, and that we are neglecting the matter of life. This is wrong. I hope that you would all experience life in a solid way and realize that everything in the universe has its laws and principles. Science searches out the laws and principles of the universe. For example, the law of human reproduction is contained in marriage. Without marriage, humans cannot reproduce. Therefore, God created our first ancestors as a couple so that they would be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:27-28).
Anyone who abides by the law of propagation will reproduce, but this does not mean that what they produce will be acceptable. Lot and his daughters illustrate this point. They abode by this law and had two children—Moab and Ammon (19:30-38). However, the Moabites and Ammonites were not permitted to enter into the holy congregation of Jehovah for ten generations (Deut. 23:3). This shows us that we cannot care only for the fulfillment of the law of propagation and neglect the principle of life. Lot and his daughters acted according to the law of propagation, but they did so in violation of the law of morality. Their way of propagation did not care for the principles of life and human ethics. This was altogether wrong.
I say this to warn you. You must not focus only on propagation and increase while neglecting the law of life. We have led many people to salvation, but are they people of the holy congregation, or are they Moabites and Ammonites? When you go out to work on the campus and to preach the gospel, you cannot care only for the law of propagation and not care for the proper procedure. In my view our campus work is somewhat leaning toward the way of the world. What is the proper procedure of propagation? The proper procedure is as follows: first, we must endeavor to preach the gospel, and second, we must use the small groups. If you do these two things and you do not take the worldly ways, you will have propagation and increase.
We should not criticize others. We should simply exercise strict control over ourselves. We should not fulfill the law of propagation yet violate the principle of life. It is possible to carry out the law of propagation when seeking increase but violate the law of the spiritual life. If we do this, we will have results similar to that of Lot. We may bear children, but these children will not be able to enter into the holy congregation and will be condemned. In the past many evangelists have saved thousands of people, but in principle many of the ones they brought forth may have been “Moabs” and “Ammons” who were not permitted to enter into the holy congregation of Jehovah. Today we have to carry out the law of propagation that God has ordained, but we also have to care for the principle of the spiritual life. Therefore, we need to be those who are orthodox, and our way should be proper. The proper way is to labor on and build up the small groups. This way is different from the way of Christianity.
Many denominations and Christian groups fulfill the law of propagation, yet they do so by utilizing many human methods. For example, they use social activities to attract people and to bring them in. Some groups even use rock music. To do this is to violate the principle of the spiritual life. Because they violate this principle, few of those who are saved by them are in the holy congregation. Of course, among them there are also “Ruths” who receive the Lord’s special mercy to seek after Him and to choose Christ. These ones have turned and have entered the holy congregation. My intention in fellowshipping with you about these matters is not to criticize people. My hope is only that you would understand that even though some denominations and Christian groups bring people to salvation, this does not mean that their principle of life is right or is approved by God.
Thirty years ago our rate of increase was very rapid. In five or six years we had a one hundredfold increase. There are only a few groups in the whole world that have ever had this rate of increase. This was thirty years ago. Within the last fifteen years, however, many groups have surpassed us in their propagation and level of increase. Nonetheless, just because they are ahead of us does not mean they do not have any problems. When a person is running on a racecourse, he will be disqualified if he violates any of the rules. With propagation and increase, however, there is more involved than merely being disqualified, because there is also the question of the children who are begotten. Lot made a mistake, but if he had not begotten any children, he would only have been “disqualified.” However, because he begot Moab and Ammon, he also brought harm to the people of Israel. Today many individuals and groups care only for their goal but not for their means or for the principle of life. We cannot be this way.
Today we need to care both for the goal and for the means. Our goal is propagation, and our means is life. I believe that when we care for our means in carrying out the law of propagation, we will definitely have increase. Thirty years ago we took care of these two aspects, and we produced the proper result. Thirty years later we are still for the law of life—we do not love the world, we do not touch sin, we break bread, and we pray in a devout and timely way. However, in the aspect of the work, we have not been carrying out the law of propagation. We have not labored, and we have not had the small groups. We simply “submitted to the will of the heavens,” and “let nature take its course.” The result is that our propagation stopped. Therefore, today we not only need to care for the principle of life, but we also need to carry out the law of propagation. We cannot bring forth children by violating the law of life and committing “incest.” Begetting children is right and necessary, but we cannot do it by any means that we choose without caring for the principle of life.
It is impossible to hear the truths that we have among us anywhere in Christianity. This is because they do not have this light, and they lack this revelation. This proves that we have received the Lord’s mercy and are particularly blessed. Since this is the case, you have to seize the opportunity to be one who is strong and pure for the testimony of the Lord’s recovery. The way of the Lord’s recovery is far-reaching, and the future of the Lord’s recovery is very broad. Even though the principle of life limits us, I believe that by being under it the Lord’s recovery will expand and spread to all the continents of the earth. This will prepare a way for the Lord to gain His bride and will give Him a way to come back.
The situation in today’s Christianity is that although multitudes of people have been saved, few have entered the holy congregation. How then can the Lord come back? Even though propagation is good and increase is necessary, we still need to ask, “How are children being born? Who gave birth to them? Were they born of Lot and his daughters or of Abraham and Sarah?” You have to consider my words as a serious warning. When we carry out the law of propagation, we must be under the principle of life. For this reason we must have the knowledge of life, and we must also have the genuine experience and growth in life. Then we will avoid Lot’s mistake and avoid producing descendants in an improper way.
