Search
Scripture Reading: Rev. 1:13-18; 2:4, 7, 14-15, 17, 20, 24, 26, 28; 3:12, 20
Christ is the wonderful One. By reading Revelation, especially the first three chapters, we can see what a wonderful One He is. In chapter 1 we see Him as the Son of Man. He is the Son of Man, but He is not only the Son of Man. Let us read this description of Him: “In the midst of the lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girded about at the breasts with a golden girdle. And His head and hair were as white as white wool, as snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire; and His feet were like shining bronze, as having been fired in a furnace; and His voice was like the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; and His face shone as the sun shines in its power. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead; and He placed His right hand on me, saying, Do not fear; I am the First and the Last and the living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am living forever and ever; and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (vv. 13-18).
In this description of Christ, we see that His hair is as white as snow. And His garment is a long robe reaching to His feet. This is something that covers His whole body. His eyes are like flaming fire, and His face is like the shining of the sun. There is no night with Him. Within His mouth there is a two-edged sword, and His two feet are like shining bronze. Have you ever seen such a one? Yet He is called the Son of Man. According to the Bible, His garment is a priest’s garment. In the Bible all the priests wore long robes (Exo. 28:1-2, 4-5). Here His girdle is not at the loins but at the breasts. When He washed the feet of the disciples, He girded His loins. Now His girdle is on His breast. It is quite meaningful. This means that His work is over, but He still has a heart of concern. What is He concerned about? He is concerned about the churches.
In the Old Testament the priests did four main things. They offered the sacrifices, arranged the bread of the Presence, dressed the lamps, and burned the incense. To dress the lamps included two things. First they had to fill the lamps with oil, and then they had to snuff the wick. To snuff the wick means to cut off the burned part of the wick. We know that the sacrificial work of Christ was accomplished on the cross. Now He is not at the altar but among the lampstands. He no longer needs to offer the sacrifices, but He does need to dress the lampstands by filling them with oil and snuffing the burnt wick. He still has a heart of concern to care for all the shining lampstands. He is the Priest to supply the oil and to snuff the waste. He is doing this today among the churches. The main point here is that Christ is revealed as such a priestly person caring for the churches.
After Revelation 1 Christ is revealed in chapters 2 and 3 as so many things. But in His speaking to the churches He is especially revealed as the tree of life and the hidden manna. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God...He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and to him I will give a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it” (2:7, 17). Both the tree of life and the hidden manna are just Christ Himself. As the Priest with the heart of concern, He is among the churches, but as the tree of life and the hidden manna, He is the food for the overcomers. Christ as such a wonderful person has at least two aspects. The first is the priestly aspect. Today He is our High Priest, walking among the churches, supplying the oil and snuffing the waste to make all the churches shining. Hallelujah for such a person! The second aspect is that He is the supply to all the individual overcomers. He is the tree of life and the hidden manna for the overcomers to eat. “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat.” It is not to learn but to eat! We must eat Him as the tree of life and the hidden manna. He is the priestly person taking care of His shining churches, and He is the life supply to all the overcomers. While He is walking among the churches, He is feeding us. We can eat Him as our life supply.
Such a Christ is revealed to us as the Son of Man. He really is the Son of Man, and He will be such for eternity. He is the mingling of divinity with humanity. He is a man, but this man is very ancient. He is ancient, but He is not old. His white hair does not signify His oldness but His ancientness. He is eternally ancient. He is the One in the beginning without a beginning: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” (John 1:1, 14). This is the Son of Man. He was in the beginning that did not have a beginning. Jesus, the man of Nazareth, is ancient. This is God Himself. In the Bible He is called the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:9, 13, 22). He is the Son of Man, yet He is shown to be the eternal God.
This God-man is also a priest. He has all the virtues with no shortage whatsoever. Suppose His priestly garment were short, exposing His feet and legs. This would indicate that He lacks some virtues. However, His long robe signifies that He is short of nothing. In the Bible a priest should not be exposed in any part (Exo. 20:26). All parts of his body must be clothed. Clothing in the Bible means righteousness (Isa. 64:6; Rev. 19:8). This means that we have been justified by the righteous God; we can stand in the righteousness of God. This God-man has human virtues that are sufficient to cover His whole being. This is indicated by His long priestly robe. He is fully qualified to be a priest. But now He is not a priest at the altar in the outer court. That work is over. Now He is in the Holy Place, taking care of the lampstands.
This wonderful Christ is also the shining One. His face is like the shining of the sun, and His eyes are like flaming fire. His two feet are also like shining bronze. This means that He has passed through all kinds of testing. He was tested and He was burned. Every step He took on this earth was tested. He passed all the tests, and now He is qualified to test others. He does not test us by His opinion but by His two feet. From His head to His feet, He is a shining person. When we come into His presence, there is no darkness. Instead, we are under the absolute shining. Nothing can be hidden or concealed in His presence. Everything is exposed. Do you like this kind of Christ? Our brother John was frightened to death. We should not forget that the apostle John was the one who leaned on His breast when Christ was on earth (John 13:23). At that time there was no burning and shining, but in Revelation 1 John fell at His feet as dead. In the church life everyone needs to have such an exposure. Sooner or later, whether it is this year or next, we will be in His presence and have an exposure that will frighten us to death. We will see that whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we do cannot stand His testing. Then we will fall down at His feet as ones dead.
Why will we be so exposed in His presence? It is simply because we are short of eating. We are undernourished. In reading chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, we see the concept of degraded Christianity. This religious concept is altogether a matter of teaching. There is the teaching of Balaam, the teaching of the Nicolaitans, and the teaching of Jezebel (2:14-15, 20). The word teaching is mentioned twice and teaches once. What is religion? Religion is something composed of teachings upon teachings. The more teachings there are, the better religion it is. The degraded churches only care for teachings. But the concept of the living Christ who has such a care for the churches is to give His dear ones something to eat.
In all seven epistles to the churches there are three promises of eating. There is one in the first epistle concerning the tree of life. There is one in the middle concerning the hidden manna. There is also a promise of eating in the last epistle. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me” (3:20). This is a promise of feasting. Some Christians only use this verse halfway. They speak of the Lord knocking at our heart’s door, wanting to come in. If we will open the door, He will come in. This is all that they say. It is right, but it is only half of the verse. What about the other half? When I was in Christianity, I listened to this message concerning the Lord’s knocking many times. I never heard anyone say that when Jesus comes in, He will feast with us. They do speak about the coming in, but they forget about the feasting. But the coming in is for the feasting! Jesus did not say that when we open the door in answer to His knocking, He will come in and feast by Himself. He said that He would feast with us. The first two promises were concerned just with eating, but in the last promise there is the feasting together with the Lord. This is wonderful!
The Lord Jesus told John that He is the living One. He is not only the ancient One but also the living One. He has passed through death. He was dead, but now He is living forever and ever! He is shining, and He is also living. To be living not only requires life but also the life supply. If I did not eat anything in the last seven days, I would not be so living. But since I have been eating three good meals a day, I am quite living and energetic. My energy comes from my eating. In the seven epistles the concept of religion is doctrine and teaching. But the concept of the living One is eating and feasting. It is not teaching but the tree of life and the hidden manna. The tree of life is in the Paradise of God. This is just God’s dwelling place. Today, on the earth, God’s dwelling place is the church. The tree of life is in the church, and it is Christ as our food and life supply.
Where then is the hidden manna? In typology, the hidden manna was in the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is also the church. In the church life Christ is our hidden manna. He is really hidden. All those outside the church simply do not know what we are doing week after week. They also do not know where we get our energy to have meetings almost every night as well as many mornings. Our energy comes from the hidden Christ. When we come into the church, we enjoy something hidden, the hidden manna. Christ today is the hidden manna, not for teaching but for eating.
Jesus said that to him who overcomes He will give to eat of the tree of life. Nearly all Christians have misinterpreted the meaning of the word overcomes. Most think that this means we must overcome our temper, our family problems, our self, our flesh, our weak points, our sin, the world, and even Satan. But according to the context, to overcome is not to overcome all these things. Here it means that we must overcome the degraded situation of Christianity. In the church in Ephesus, the first love was lost. Therefore, we must overcome the losing of our first love. We must pray, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. I love You first, and I love You the best. My first love belongs to You. O Lord Jesus, I give the priority of my love to You.” When we look at today’s Christianity, we do not see such a love. Hence, we must overcome this kind of degradation. Then we will obtain the reward, which will be to enjoy Christ as the tree of life. To him who overcomes the situation of the church in Ephesus, Christ will give to eat of the tree of life. The first love will bring us to the tree of life. There is a kind of exchange. When we give our first love to the Lord Jesus, He will give us to eat of the tree of life. Our love is His enjoyment, and the tree of life is ours.
To overcome the degraded situation in the church in Pergamos is to overcome all kinds of teachings. In this church there was this kind of teaching and that kind of teaching. This is something we all must overcome. Almost all those in the church life must overcome teachings. Even now I am concerned that some of the dear ones among us still hold on to some kind of teachings. Of course, some will say that we should not hold on to the wrong teachings, such as the teaching of Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans. These are certainly wrong, devilish teachings. However, they continue to say that we must hold on to the right teachings. But how do we know that the teachings which we hold are right or wrong? No person will hold on to a teaching that he knows is wrong. If I have a false twenty-dollar bill, surely I will not keep it. If I do, it means that I think it is genuine, though it is false. Sometimes the counterfeit money looks better than the genuine. Only the experts can discern that it is false. How can you discern whether the teaching you hold is right or not? It is really difficult. Therefore, we must forget the paper money and take the gold. This is the divine wisdom. As long as we hold the gold, we can never be cheated.
In the same way, I do not care that much for teaching. I am so much for the living Christ. As long as I have Christ, I have the real gold. Please do not talk to me about teaching. Teaching is always a bait, and with the bait there is a hook. We must be careful about teaching. I am afraid that many of you are still not off the hook. You have been hooked for years with your teachings, but how much Christ do you have? Some dear Christians think that they are so right and scriptural, yet they are so dead. They have been hooked for over twenty years, and they are still hooked. They have not been freed from teaching. Immediately after I was saved, I was hooked by teachings for seven and a half years. One day while I was walking on the street, the Lord stirred within me to show how dead and unfruitful I was. I had much knowledge from the types and prophecies, but I was dead. I repented to the Lord and asked for His mercy. It seemed that I had gotten off the hook. But the little hook was still in my throat. It has taken me twenty-five years to fully get off this hook. But today I can say that I am free. “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).
Praise the Lord, I am liberated! I have been liberated from the hook of teaching! Now I would ask, “How about you?” If you have been liberated from the hook of teaching, you will never say I do not like this or that teaching. You are free from this hook. To care for the teachings means to care for the hook. I fear that nearly all Christians are hooked. On the day you were saved, there was something living, bubbling, and transparently wonderful within you. Then you thought you had to “go to church” to learn more about the Bible. There the pastor helped you study the Bible and learn all the right teachings. He may also have recommended that you go to Bible school or seminary. Then you graduated in a dead way. You were hooked by all the dead teachings; you have been distracted from receiving the help of life. May the Lord have mercy upon us all!
While ministering in a certain place, a young man studying at a seminary came to speak to me. He asked if I believed in the Triune God. I told him that I believed more than he. Then he asked if I believed in the rapture. I asked what kind of rapture he was talking about. There is the pretribulation, posttribulation, and midtribulation rapture. Poor Christianity! There is no ministry of Christ as the rich gold. They only have the dead teachings and doctrines. After this young brother had asked me a few questions and I did not satisfy him, he said, “Goodbye Mr. Lee; I’ll see you in heaven.” I called him to come back and sit down. He wanted to see me in heaven, but I wanted to see him here. I thank the Lord that He saved this young brother from the snare of teaching.
Nearly all Christians in this country have been killed by the teachings, doctrines, and knowledge of the Bible. The first year I came to minister in this country, I was invited to three different groups. Everyone was utterly dead. I told them that Christ today is the living One and that they did not need the dead teachings. What they needed was the living Christ! All of them rebuked me to my face. Immediately after I finished speaking, they came to tell me that my teaching was wrong. I assured them that whether I was doctrinally wrong or not, they would see one day that they are short of Christ. That was the end. They never invited me again. Instead, I became famous among them as a preacher of heresy. They sent out a paper saying that none of their groups should invite me. When I read it, I was happy. I did not need to minister the living Christ to such a dead place. It is just a waste of time.
Jesus said, “I am...the living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am living forever and ever” (Rev. 1:17-18). Therefore, He can be the tree of life to us. He is Someone germinating and energizing all the time. He is the living fruit. He is the tree of life that grows and the hidden manna that supplies. Eventually, He became a feast to all who will open the door to Him. The religious concept is teaching, but the living Christ’s concept is that we may eat of Him. Not long ago I gave a message on the eating of Christ. The next day while I was fellowshipping with the leading ones in an adjoining room, I heard the saints singing, “Wholly, Wholly, Wholly.” I thought they were singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” but when I came out, I heard them sing,
I was so happy with that song. Eventually, it says that in the Lord’s recovery we only know to eat. We do need to go back to the beginning, for in the beginning there was the tree of life. Christians have become degraded, going down into the bottomless pit of teaching. But we are rising up to go back to the beginning to eat the tree of life. In the Lord’s recovery there is only the eating of the tree of life.
In Revelation 2:17 the Lord says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and to him I will give a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.” When I was a young Christian, I could not understand what this meant. Years went by until I began to understand that in the New Testament a stone is for building. When Peter first came to the Lord, the Lord changed his name. “Jesus said, You are Simon, the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is interpreted, Peter)” (John 1:42). Then Peter tells us in his first Epistle, “As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good. Coming to Him, a living stone, rejected by men but with God chosen and precious, you yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (2:2-5). In these verses Peter tells us that we need to long for the guileless milk of the word in order that we may grow into precious stones to be built up together as a spiritual house.
A stone is for building. For the Lord to give the overcomers a white stone means something for the building. We originally were a piece of clay, but by eating Christ as the hidden manna, we are transformed into a stone good for God’s building. When we come to the end of the Bible, we see a city that has a wall built up with precious stones (Rev. 21:19-20). This is why in the promise to the overcomers in the church in Philadelphia, the Lord says that they will be a pillar in the temple of God: “He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name” (3:12). In the previous promise the Lord only gave us a stone. We were not built in yet. But here the stone has become a pillar, which will never go out. How can someone come to the church and yet leave? It is simply because he has not been built in. Once we are built in, even if we want to leave, we cannot. The building does not allow us to go. We can never go out. The pillar also bears the name of God. This means that this pillar is filled with God. It is something of God. It also bears the name of the New Jerusalem, because it is a part of the New Jerusalem. The final name it bears is the new name of Christ. This means that this pillar is a transformation of all the elements of Christ. It is altogether something new. It is the mingling of God with man as a part of the New Jerusalem. It is a part of God’s building, and it is the expression of the transforming Christ.
When we put all the seven epistles together, we see that it is by eating Jesus that we will be transformed into a stone for God’s building. By eating Jesus we will be built in. By eating Jesus we will be transformed to have His divine elements as our very element. By eating Jesus we will become a part of God’s building, the New Jerusalem. By eating Jesus we will become His expression, bearing His new name. This is what it means to overcome. We must overcome the present situation of degraded Christianity. How can we do this? First of all we have the Son of Man as our High Priest caring for the churches by filling them with oil and cutting off all the oldness. Then we have this living One as our life supply. He is the tree of life and the hidden manna for us to eat so that He might be assimilated into our very being. This will transform us into stones for God’s building. Eventually, we will be a part of the building. This is what the church life should be like today. We must see that the church life is absolutely nothing doctrinal but something in the living Christ. All the churches must be in the presence of this living person. Every member in the church must eat Him as the tree of life and as the hidden manna so that they may be transformed into stones for God’s building. This is the way the Body-Christ is produced.
