Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:20-21, 23; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; Eph. 4:30; 2 Cor. 4:16
In this message I would like to give a further word regarding the proper way to receive and to use the book of Proverbs.
The Bible was breathed out by God through more than forty different persons. The sequence of the sixty-six books of the Bible was arranged by God. According to this sequence, God put Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs together and placed them immediately before the prophets.
There are two ministries in the Old Testament: the ministry of law, represented by Moses, and the ministry of the prophets, represented by Elijah. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs are placed at the end of the section of the law, just before the prophets. Do these books belong to the law or to the prophets? I would say that they belong to the section of the law. In particular, Proverbs may be considered a subsidiary, or a helper, to the law.
Solomon, the writer of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, was the last writer in this section. God raised him to the highest peak of humanity. What he was, what he had, and what he did were unparalleled. It is hard to believe that eventually he became degraded to the uttermost. These three books were written by Solomon, the last two after his degradation, repentance, and return to God.
Of these three books, the first is on wisdom; the second, on vanity; and the third, on satisfaction. Proverbs is on the real wisdom, and Ecclesiastes is on the real meaning of the human life under the sun, which is vanity of vanities, a chasing after wind. Song of Songs is the satisfaction of satisfactions. Apart from Christ, there is no satisfaction in the whole universe. The unique Christ, the embodiment of God, is the unique satisfaction not only to man but to the entire universe, which has been made subject to vanity (Rom. 8:20). The fact that the creation is now subject to vanity means that everything under the sun is vanity. Today God is embodied in Christ, and Christ is realized as the compounded, sevenfold, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, who is the consummation of the processed Triune God. This indwelling One is our subjective satisfaction.
We may know the position of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs in the Bible, but we may not know the way to take the book of Proverbs. Proverbs gives us wisdom to be a proper person and to do the right things. But for whom is this wisdom given, and how should this one use it? Is the wisdom in Proverbs for the fallen man? The Old Testament does not reveal the proper way to take the book of Proverbs because the divine revelation had not progressed to this extent at Solomon's time. Solomon did not receive very much of the divine revelation. Rather, he wrote Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs according to his observations of humanity and of the universe and according to his experiences of falling away from God, of repenting, and of returning to God.
To use the book of Proverbs properly, we must know God's economy. God's economy is that God became man so that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead to produce the organism of the Triune God, the Body of Christ, which consummates the New Jerusalem.
A great part of God's economy is His redemption. Redemption indicates that something is wrong, requiring a rescue and a remedy. Redemption is needed because after God created man for the fulfillment of His economy, the subtle one, Satan, came in to seduce man from the line of God's economy to sin. Man fell into sin, and sin as the sinful nature of Satan was injected by Satan into man's nature. As a result, the God-created man became sin, poisoned by Satan.
How does God carry out His redemption to rescue fallen man? None of the traditional theological systems provide a clear and adequate answer to this question. The answer can be found only through a careful, thorough, and detailed study of the Bible.
To understand the Bible is not easy. We have spent more than seventy years to study the Bible. The Bible is like a big jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces scattered throughout it. We need to put all the pieces together in order to have the complete picture. Brother Nee read through over three thousand classical Christian books on various subjects and collected many precious items, or "pieces," from them, which he passed on to me. During the past seventy years we have been putting together the pieces of this great "puzzle." Now we have a picture of the whole Bible, and we can see in a detailed way how God's redemption is related to His economy and how His redemption is carried out.
The Bible shows us that man has become fallen and needs to be redeemed. In God's redemption the first part is to terminate, to destroy, the fallen old man.
The second part is to rescue what was created by God, the God-created humanity. Something remains of the humanity created by God, and God is not willing to give it up. He created it, and although it has become fallen, He will maintain it and bring it back to Himself. Thus, in His redemption, God, on the one hand, destroys what is fallen and, on the other hand, rescues what was created by Him.
In the third part of His redemption, God uplifts the redeemed God-created humanity. Sometimes when a certain thing which we have made becomes lost and damaged, we find that thing and repair it, making it better than it was originally. This is what God has done in His redemption. He made the man created by Him better than he was in the beginning. This means that God uplifted the redeemed humanity by dispensing Himself into it.
The God-created humanity was very good, but it did not have anything of God's nature. It was only human, without divinity. After this humanity became fallen, in His redemption God destroyed the fallen part, rescued the God-created part, and then dispensed Himself into this redeemed humanity.
At this juncture we need to point out that, according to the Bible, God's redemption includes not only death but also resurrection. Without resurrection, God could not bring back to Himself the lost created man. To bring back the lost God-created man is actually to resurrect the God-created man. In resurrection God used His own life, nature, and element as the substance to uplift the redeemed created man. Furthermore, in resurrecting the dead humanity, God put Himself into man. Now this man is regenerated and uplifted, having all that God is within him. The entire God has entered into this resurrected, regenerated, and uplifted man. This man is what the Bible calls the new man (Eph. 4:24).
God's intention is no longer with the old man. In the sight of God, the old man has been finished, terminated, and thus he no longer exists. In His redemption God's eyes are always on the new man. We all need to see this.
God's redemption is according to His economy. In one sense, God's redemption has already been accomplished, but the application, or the practice, of God's redemption requires a long process. In the view of God's economy, we became fallen in Adam six thousand years ago (Rom. 5:12); Christ as the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8); and we were regenerated through Christ's resurrection almost two thousand years ago. This is the view according to God's economy.
Nevertheless, it takes time in God's economy for us to experience the redemption in Christ's death, in Christ's resurrection, and in the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit. We were sealed by the Spirit when we were saved initially, and this sealing will proceed until the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). Redemption here does not mean to redeem our spirit or our soul but to redeem our body. Our body still remains unredeemed. Redemption in its entirety was accomplished by God in an instant, but in practice and application redemption is still not finished.
When I believed in the Lord Jesus, I experienced His redemption in His death, but at that time I did not know redemption through resurrection. Then I began to love the Lord, to seek after Him, and to love the Bible. I studied the Bible for many years and eventually learned that redemption is not only through His death; it is also through His resurrection. Without Christ's resurrection God as life could not germinate us from death (1 Pet. 1:3).
After my initial salvation, through more than seventy years I have learned one lesson: to follow the Spirit, to walk in, according to, and with the Spirit, to be in the Spirit and with the Spirit, and to be mingled and mingling with the Spirit. I am still learning this. In recent months I have often confessed, saying, "Lord, I am sorry that I did not do this according to Your Spirit. O Lord, forgive me. When I spoke to my wife, I did not speak according to Your Spirit." I have not finished learning this lesson.
In the last step of His redemption, God will redeem our body at the fullness of the times. At Christ's coming He will transfigure our body (Phil. 3:21). That will be the completion of God's redemption.
We have not yet been fully redeemed, but we are on the way. On the one hand, the Bible says that we have been redeemed (1 Pet. 1:18-19). On the other hand, it says that we have been sealed by the Spirit until the day of redemption. Romans 8:23 says that we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan in ourselves, eagerly awaiting sonship, the redemption of our body. When others ask us if we have been redeemed, we should say, "Yes, I have been redeemed, yet I still need to be redeemed." Even if we have been redeemed in our spirit and our soul, we are still waiting to be redeemed in our body.
When Paul received an abundance of revelations, having been caught away to the third heaven and to Paradise, God was concerned that he might become proud (2 Cor. 12:1-7). Therefore, Paul was given a thorn in his flesh by a messenger of Satan. This was permitted by God, and it was a real perfection to Paul, who had not yet been purified and could have become proud. Thus, God purified him, perfected him, by an affliction in his body. This is God's economy. Our God is omnipotent, yet for us He has to be very patient and do things slowly.
Second Corinthians 4 tells us that "though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day" (v. 16). Day after day our outer man is decaying, being consumed, and our inner man is being renewed. This indicates that it is not easy for God to renew us. This cannot be accomplished just by our prayer. God needs to use His "therapy" to renew us.
Now we can see the place of the book of Proverbs in God's economy. According to His economy Proverbs should not be used to build up the old man. The big proverbs, like nuggets, and the small ones, like gems, are not for us to build up our old man, to cultivate our self and our natural man. Rather, they are for us to build up our new man. It is for this purpose that they are useful. While we are still living in this body, we need Proverbs to give us instructions on how to live rightly in so many aspects, in order to build up our new man.
