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Scripture Reading: Col. 1:25-27; Eph. 1:20-23; 3:17a, 19b; John 14:23; 15:5; Rev. 2:7, 17; 3:12, 20; 1:4, 11-12, 20
Prayer: Lord, thank You for this gathering. You know the darkness of this age. You know how much we need light from You. Grant us the light from within. Open our eyes and open up the situation—the situation of today’s world, the situation among today’s Christians, and the situation of Your recovery. Lord, we claim the cleansing of Your precious blood. We thank You for such a covering, which protects us from the enemy’s attacks. Lord, be with us. Show us Your way. We are not content with knowledge. We want to see. Grant us a view, a vision. We thank You.
God created the universe, the earth, and mankind. So whatever mankind’s situation is on this earth must be under God’s sovereign control. He had a purpose from the very beginning. In order to fulfill that purpose, He created the universe and mankind. We know that the heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man has a spirit to contact, receive, experience, and enjoy God (see Zech. 12:1).
We all need such a clear view from which to consider the world situation. The newspapers are not written from such a viewpoint. Historians do not have this view. They have studied mankind’s situation. They have done research and perhaps even gotten doctoral degrees. Yet they do not know why mankind is on this earth.
I have spent over half a century in the Bible, in spiritual things, and in the church life. I have also been a student of world affairs since 1925. In that year I read a magazine, an authority on international affairs, which was published in Shanghai. It came out monthly, giving the Chinese people news concerning their country and the world. In it I read of the different pacts and treaties between China and other nations. From the very first issue that I read, I was stirred up to take note of world affairs. That was the year I entered college. From that time on, I have kept informed of the world situation by reading the international news in the newspapers.
The Lord is living and purposeful. His first move was to create the universe. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). But what is His ultimate move? Some might answer that, according to Bible prophecy, before too long the Lord will come back to judge the world. Yes, this is in the Bible, but it is a doctrinal way of speaking; to speak in this way indicates a lack of light.
Recently, I have had to work in my yard to change the dirt. The soil was clay, and the water did not drain. Even the most hardy plants were not growing well. I have had to spend much time to replace the soil and replant the shrubbery, but this was not my ultimate move. I also spent time cleaning up the yard and pruning some of the trees. But these were not my ultimate move either. My ultimate move is to come here and give you a message concerning God’s ultimate move.
To say that the Lord Jesus will come back to clear up things on earth is true, just as it is true to say that I cleared up my yard. But clearing up things is not His ultimate move, just as it was not mine. God’s ultimate move is to work Himself—Father, Son, and Spirit—into us and to become our life, that we may live Him out and express Him as His Body, the church.
When did this ultimate move begin? It began with the incarnation of Jesus. A virgin named Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit coming upon her. This was the beginning. This is also the beginning of the New Testament. God entered into mankind. Then a little child was born in the manger at Bethlehem. Isaiah 9:6 tells us that the child was the mighty God. He was also the Son given; this Son of the Trinity was called the Father. Mysterious!
When He was about thirty, He came out among the people. He was like a great magnet, drawing others after Him. As He walked along the seashore of Galilee, He saw Peter and Andrew fishing and John and James mending their nets. When He called, “Come after Me,” they dropped their nets, left what they were doing, and followed this One, a carpenter (Matt. 4:18-22). What attracted them? I do not know, but there must have been something unusual about this young man for them to leave everything and follow Him.
They spent three and a half years together. As the disciples stayed with Him, they realized more and more how wonderful, excellent, and precious He was. Then one day He told them that He was going away. He would be crucified and raised again on the third day (16:21; 17:22-23). They could not understand. Though they had the Old Testament, prophesying His death and resurrection, they did not have the light. Though they had the words right from His mouth, they did not have the light.
On the last night before His crucifixion He told them that He was going away. He would be gone a short time in order to prepare the way to bring them all into the Father. He went on to say, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (John 14:23). They could not understand. Surely they were the best representatives of today’s Christians. Yet they did not know or understand what the Lord was talking about.
In John 15 He went on to speak of Himself as the vine and the disciples as the branches. “Abide in Me and I in you,” He told them (v. 4). If you had been there, would you have understood what He meant? What kind of a vine can He be? How could I be a branch? Abide in Him? How could I get into Him to abide in Him? He abide in me? How could He get into me?
Humankind had never heard such words. In human culture there had never been such language. But now there was coming into being a new culture. None of those there knew the language of the new culture. Crucified and resurrected after three days: here was something new in history. Then He would come back. The world would not see Him, but the disciples would. In that day they would know that He was in them (14:19-20). The Father would send the Spirit of reality who abode with them and would be in them (vv. 16-17). Did they not know that He was in the Father and the Father was in Him? To see Him was to see the Father. His words were not from Himself; His speaking was the Father’s working (vv. 9-11). What language was this? It was the language of a new culture being formed. Though the disciples had not experienced this culture, the language was there describing it.
What the Lord said happened. He went to the cross, died, and then was resurrected on the third day. That very morning some of the women discovered something new in this culture. The One who had been buried was no longer in the tomb; it was empty. He talked with these women. Many exciting things happened that day. By evening, when the disciples met together, they were afraid. Suddenly, with no knock on the door, this Jesus was there standing in their midst (20:19). “Peace be to you,” He said. They must have been shocked. Then He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Pneuma” (v. 22). He entered into them and never left. He was now one with them. When they went fishing, He was there.
After fifty days, Pentecost came. While the disciples were together, He poured Himself out upon them (Acts 2:1-4). Now He was not only within them; He was upon them as well. They were baptized into one Body. They acted in a “crazy way.” They had everything in common (v. 44). When we are crazy, we do not care for our own things; others can take whatever they want of ours. When we are sober, we know what is ours. “This is my refrigerator. You have no right to open it. This is my bread. You may not help yourself to it.” At Pentecost the disciples were beside themselves. “Here, take whatever you like. Help yourself to whatever you would like to eat or drink.” But, such an attitude does not indicate that they were spiritual. Communal living is childish, although many Christians like to copy that. In China there was a group called The Jesus Family. Those who joined them had to sell everything and put every cent into the common account. This does not mean very much; it is not the Lord’s move. Before too long, quarreling arises. Some get too much food; others get too little. In a short time the communal life in the book of Acts was over. The Holy Spirit did not care for that.
Even the apostle Peter was not clear about God’s ultimate move. I say this because in his writings and messages he gives no hint of it. He does not tell us that Christ lives in us. Perhaps his best phrase is that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).
Besides the Lord Himself in John 14:23 and 15:4-5, only Paul clearly and strongly tells us that Christ is our life, that He lives in us, and that He even makes His home in us. Colossians 1:25-27 says, “Of which I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations but now has been manifested to His saints; to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Paul says that he was commissioned to complete the word of God. This completion is the mystery that Christ lives in us.
In Ephesians Paul prays for the believers “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts...that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (3:16-17, 19). What language is this? It is the language of the new culture, a culture never before heard of in the world’s history. In the first chapter Paul tells the saints that this dear One who will make home in them has been raised from the dead, uplifted to the heavens far above all, and made Head over all things to the church; all things have been subjected under His feet (1:20-22). He is Head not only for the church but to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23). Here is a new language. Even after more than nineteen hundred years most Christians still do not understand it.
If you ask Christians about Christ making His home in their hearts or about the church as His Body being the fullness of Him who fills all in all, many will wonder what you are talking about. They have heard of hell and the heavenly mansions. They understand joy and peace. But the language of Paul is foreign to them. This is a heavenly, eternal language, describing something new in human history.
The Bible clearly tells us what God’s ultimate move is. God’s ultimate move is to have Christ as the mystery of God enter into us as our life. Then we become His living members and together form His Body, which is the very fullness of the One who fills all in all. We do not understand this in an adequate way, but this is what is in the Bible. This is Paul’s completing ministry, telling us that Christ is God’s mystery and Christ has become our life; that we are the church, which is Christ’s mystery (Eph. 3:4-6); that the church is the Body. No other writer of the Bible besides Paul tells us that the church is the Body of Christ.
But Paul’s ministry was damaged. Even before his death, a decline had set in. Different teachings came in. Thus, Paul wrote in 1 Timothy about holding the mystery of the faith (3:9). What is the mystery? “Great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh, / Justified in the Spirit, / Seen by angels, / Preached among the nations, / Believed on in the world, / Taken up in glory” (v. 16). This was Paul’s declaration to bring the degraded Christians back to his completing ministry.
Later, God raised up the oldest apostle, John, and gave him the mending ministry. (We have already published three series of messages on this, called The Heavenly Ministry of Christ, The Completing Ministry of Paul, and The Mending Ministry of John.) John’s Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation were all written around A.D. 90. These last books of the Bible were written to mend the broken net, the broken completing ministry.
What was the way to mend? It was to say the same thing. We have already mentioned John 14 and 15, where the Lord Jesus said that He and the Father would make Their abode with us and that He would be in us and we in Him. He also said that we may eat Him as the living bread (6:51) and live because of Him (v. 57). In his Epistles John tells us repeatedly that God dwells in us (1 John 3:24b; 4:13, 15-16).
Then in Revelation the Lord Jesus Himself promised, “To him who overcomes...I will give to eat of the tree of life” (2:7); “To him who overcomes...I will give of the hidden manna” (v. 17). He promised eating of the tree of life and of the hidden manna and feasting with Him (3:20). He also promised, “He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God” (v. 12). A pillar is for building. Thus, the eating of Christ is for the building. At the end of Revelation, that is, at the end of the entire Bible, what will there be? A built-up New Jerusalem with the throne, the river of life, and the tree of life growing along the two sides of the river. This is a clear picture of the coming consummation of God’s purpose. This is God’s ultimate move. We all have to see this.
Some Christians say that they follow Christ, not Paul. What can this mean? Such preaching will be largely limited to these points: Christ is the Son of God; He became a man, lived on this earth, then died on the cross for our sins; He was buried, then arose from the dead, and is now on the throne; He is our Redeemer and Savior, soon to return to take us to heaven; by believing in Him we have forgiveness of sins and are children of God; while we are on this earth, we have to improve our behavior in order that our lives may glorify God.
At best, Christian teachers today just encourage people to love God and to go out to win souls. They do not realize that the fourth Gospel was written by John to mend Paul’s broken ministry. How could they say they follow Christ? If they follow Christ, they should follow His word in John 14 and 15. They also should follow His word in Revelation: “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” (2:7). This is Christ’s word. But it seems that in their Bible the book of Revelation is missing. In their theology they do not have the seven Spirits. Nor do they have Christ in resurrection becoming the life-giving Spirit and indwelling us.
Although many Christians appreciate the Nicene Creed, it has some defects. These two main points are clearly stated in the New Testament: (1) Paul’s Epistles tell us that Christ in resurrection became the life-giving Spirit indwelling us (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Tim. 4:22); (2) John’s writings tell us of the seven Spirits for the seven golden lampstands (Rev. 1:4, 11-12, 20). But the Nicene Creed did not cover these two things. Many Christians believe that this creed, made under Constantine the Great, is scriptural and fundamental. However, it neglects what Paul tells us in his completing ministry, that Christ lives in us that we may all become His Body. It ignores what John tells us in his mending ministry, that Christ lives in us to be our food, the tree of life, the manna, even a feast, that we may become a lampstand.
In the Scriptures only Paul tells us that the church is the Body of Christ; only John tells us that the church is a lampstand. To be the Body and to be the lampstand both depend upon the eating of Jesus.
These Christians who claim to follow Christ but not Paul remind me of the primitive missionaries who went to China. What message did these missionaries mainly have? Only “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!” They had no hymn about Christ making His home in my heart. They had no hymn saying that Jesus, after resurrection, became a life-giving Spirit to live in me to be my life that I might be His member and all of us might be His Body, the church, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
I hope that some hymns could be written, saying that Christ is now the life-giving Spirit, even the seven Spirits, in me to make me His living member; this I know because the Bible tells me so!
A popular Bible teacher has said that since these two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, are not here now, there is no reason to be concerned about them. He did not realize that these two trees are here within us more than they were in the garden of Eden. In the garden they were outside Adam; today they are within us. Is not the tree of life in you? Is not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in you? Paul says, “Christ [who is the real tree of life] lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Paul also says, “If what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7:20). Who is this sin? It is Satan in our flesh (vv. 17-18) who is the real tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If the tree of life is not in you, how could you have the law of the Spirit of life? If the tree of knowledge is not in you, how could you have the law of sin and of death (8:2; 7:21)? Do you see the blindness, the ignorance, the superficiality, of most of today’s Christian teachings?
What is the Lord’s ultimate recovery? The initial recovery was in the time of Martin Luther. What is the ultimate recovery? Is it to recover the communal life? Is it to recover the washing of feet? Foot-washing is in the Bible, but foot-washing is not the Lord’s ultimate recovery.
The Lord’s ultimate recovery is the same as the Lord’s ultimate move. That is, He wants to recover Christ, the mystery of God, becoming the indwelling Spirit to infuse, impart, the Triune God into the tripartite man, thus making us who believe in Him members of His Body for His expression. This Body is expressed locally as the lampstand, which becomes His testimony, the testimony of Jesus.
The ultimate move of God has been lost sight of. Now the Lord is going to recover it. Three to four hundred years ago some matters were recovered by the Puritans, but the points were not as great as what Zinzendorf and John Nelson Darby saw. The Brethren saw something great, but they became centered on doctrines and were killed by the letter of the Bible. What the Lord is going to recover is simply this: Christ as the mystery of God to live in us as the indwelling Spirit, making us His members so that we may become the church, the mystery of Christ, as the Body to express Him. This expression is the lampstand.
After the Lord recovers this, He will have completed what He intended to do. This is as far as God went while Paul was on earth. How could He recover more than this? God is now recovering this last item among us: Christ in you, the hope of glory, making us all His living Body.
If you see this, you will never be led astray. Nothing will distract you. It is because I have seen what the Lord’s ultimate move is that I have been kept in the recovery over half a century. I have been kept, not because the churches were always wonderful, not because the co-workers were always pleasant. What has held me is my seeing of the Lord’s ultimate recovery from the very first day I started on this way. In the twenty years I have been with you, I have never changed my tone. If the Lord grants me another twenty-five years, I should be able to finish the Life-study of the entire Bible. Then you will see that all the Life-studies are on the same subject: the two great mysteries, the mystery of God (Christ) and the mystery of Christ (the church). All of you need to see this. Do not be preoccupied with anything else. Focus instead on this ultimate move of God.
In the past two centuries God sent the finest spiritual missionaries to China. Hudson Taylor was one; his experience of John 15 was rare. Another was Mr. Woodbury, who set up a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Shanghai around 1920. In the years after that, spiritual seekers realized that that was the most spiritual mission that went to China. One medical student he helped was a Dr. Lee, who became an outstanding spiritual native. He knew the cross and the resurrection life. Then there was also Miss M. E. Barber, who helped Brother Watchman Nee. Through her we became acquainted with the spiritual writings from the West. How could we have been in a faraway, backward country and still have gotten to know spiritual books that even some of you are not familiar with? It was through these top spiritual persons.
In 1927 Brother Watchman Nee began to write The Spiritual Man. In this book he has many translations from the writings of others. In the preface of the first Chinese edition Brother Nee indicates this. It was more than fifty years ago that Brother Nee translated these spiritual writings into Chinese and made them available to us. Neither Brother Nee nor I had been to the Western world, but by the Lord’s sovereignty we went to English-speaking colleges. We read in English the history of the church, the biographies and autobiographies of the spiritual giants of the past, and the central themes of the great writers.
When Paul was still Saul, before he was called to the completing ministry, he had been taught the Old Testament at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). I am grateful for what I learned from the great Brethren teachers on the Old Testament and on prophecy. Many of the messages I have given on the tabernacle and on the Ark were based on their teachings. Though their teaching was just in a doctrinal way, it was correct. After all these years I have gained some experiences. I do not like to teach the types in a doctrinal way but rather to apply them to our experience. However, we owe much to the Brethren teachers; we are standing on their shoulders.
If such missionaries had not been sent to China, how could we have become Christians? Less than two centuries ago the blood of Christ’s Body flowed to China and produced new cells. Now it has flowed back to the Western world. I am sorry to say that due to pride, many Christians refuse to take what has come back. But thank the Lord, many have taken it.
The Lord raised up Great Britain and used her for more than two centuries to spread the gospel and the spiritual teachings. Now, however, America has come into the lead.
Until five hundred years ago, this continent lay hidden, a virgin land. Why did God preserve this continent for so long? No historian has said this, but my answer is that God arranged this so that America would be preserved for His ultimate recovery. About 1500 the Lord exposed this new continent to the people of Europe, who were the most advanced. At that very time, there were many thoughtful persons who loved the Lord. They wanted to be free in their thinking about spiritual things. The Catholic Church and the state churches, however, were persecuting them. Even in England some thoughtful persons who loved the Bible were burned at the stake by the Church of England. Thus, many lovers of the Lord aspired to come to the new land. As time went on, many came, and eventually, a new country was founded.
The United States is different from any other country. It is constitutional and democratic. It offers freedom of speech and of religion. This is why we can speak so freely here. Because of its good foundation, Americans are generally frank and open to new things. It does not matter to them who offers them something; he may be Chinese or Indian or Black. As long as what he offers is better, they will take it. This is not so with Britain, France, or any other leading countries. America is different. It is a melting pot, melting not only different peoples but different cultures as well. America takes the best things of different cultures. If I were in other countries, I might not be received so well. But here, even though I am opposed, close to ten thousand have accepted the Lord’s recovery. The way I speak English does not bother them. Americans care for the facts. Is any other country like this? The United States is extraordinary.
Through two world wars God put down Britain and raised up the United States. If the United States had not intervened in World War I, it is doubtful that Britain and France could have won. After that war, Britain and France formed the League of Nations in order to restrict Germany. The United States was not a member. In World War II the United States was mainly responsible for the defeat of Germany in Europe and of Japan in the Pacific. Roosevelt proposed that all the different peoples, even though small in number, be given their freedom. There would be no more colonies. Britain had to agree. Then the United Nations was formed in San Francisco. Its headquarters were set up in the United Nations Building in New York with the help of the United States.
Gradually, after these two world wars, the whole world came under the influence of the United States. The only exception is Russia, Gog and Magog; this fulfills what the Bible says. They resist God and preach atheism. Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great statesman, but he made mistakes. One was to recognize Russia, when all the other nations had been refusing to have diplomatic relations with her. This he did in 1933. Then, during the Second World War, he sent supplies to Russia to help defeat Germany. Russia should not have been given this much help. The United States should have let Germany and Russia exhaust each other. As it was, Russia became stronger because of this mistake and became a problem to the United States after the war. The Marshall Plan, which helped the Western European countries recover from the war, was rejected by the Soviet Union. She did not want help for herself or her satellites, because she feared interference in her internal affairs. Roosevelt made a third mistake by signing the secret Yalta agreements, which further spread Russian influence. But God is sovereign.
Just in these last few days the newspapers have reported that China’s premier has been upheld in his plan to continue China’s ties with the West. We might imagine that a Communist country like Red China would side with Russia against the free world, but the policy it is adopting will serve instead to isolate Russia. They have also sent envoys to contact India and Pakistan concerning the isolation of Russia.
Until some twenty years ago Russia had no access to the oceans. Now she has expanded her navy and has a free way on the Pacific Ocean. She has gotten the use of Qui Non Bay in Vietnam, where there is a huge naval base built by the United States during the Vietnam War; now it has fallen into Russian hands. This is why America’s Seventh Fleet is needed in the Pacific to safeguard the free world’s interests.
These recently reported moves, which will further isolate Russia, are part of the world’s ultimate situation. The raising up of America as the top nation is also part of this final stage. If you are familiar with world history and have seen the tendencies of mankind, you will surely agree that there is no possibility of another nation being raised up to succeed the United States. What other country could it be? In Europe? In Asia? In Africa? In Australasia? This situation of the United States in the lead and Russia increasingly isolated is the ultimate situation. Its purpose is the carrying out of the Lord’s ultimate recovery.
Israel has been re-formed. Jerusalem is in Israeli hands. Though in many aspects Israel is ready for the Lord’s coming back, the church is not. Can the church be prepared in Catholicism or Protestantism? I can see no evidence that it can. I have not heard of any book or person of spiritual weight coming out of America or Europe these past twenty years. The situation in the world and the condition of Christianity are like puzzle pieces. If you fit them together, you will realize that the Lord’s move today is the recovery. He will use this last world situation, that is, the supremacy of the United States, for the spreading of the recovery. No other country is so central, so convenient, and so prevailing as the United States. The U.S.A. is so good for the Lord’s recovery and so good for the spreading of the recovery.
All that is needed is our faithfulness. We all have to be faithful; we all must seek after Him. We must treasure this time in which we live. We must treasure the vision of the recovery, and we must treasure our responsibility. Just forget about everything else. Rise up and stand for the Lord’s recovery. This is the ultimate time for God to accomplish His purpose to bring the Lord back.
