In the previous chapter, we saw that the Body of Christ is the organism of the Triune God, not an organization of human beings. We also saw that the organic building up of the Body of Christ is the increase of the Triune God in the believers for their growth in Christ. In this chapter we want to see more concerning this organic building up. For the organic building up of the Body of Christ, we need to serve in an organic way by ministering Christ to others. Furthermore, the Body of Christ is built up organically through the members of the Body feeding on the milk and food of the holy Word and through the saints being perfected by the gifts.
To build up the Body of Christ, the church of God, is to minister Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, essentially to people for their growth into Christ. Christ in His essence is Spirit, and we must be filled up with this Spirit, the very essence of Christ. When we are filled up with this essence, we are full of Christ. We have to exercise our spirit where this essential Christ is. This essential Christ is in our spirit. Exercising our spirit is like the exercise of our joints in our physical body. When we exercise our joints, this promotes the circulation of the blood in our body. When we exercise our spirit, Christ as the very spiritual, divine essence circulates within us. When we speak with the exercise of our spirit, we minister Christ into people. When people listen to us by exercising their spirit, they receive the essence of Christ into their being. Our ministering of Christ into others causes the increase of the essence of Christ within them for their growth in Christ. The increase of the essence of Christ within the saints of a local church is the growth of this local church, and this is also the organic building up of this local church.
I would like to illustrate the difference between the inorganic and the organic way of serving. Let us say that there is a brother who has a problem with an elder. The inorganic way to talk to this brother is to act as a middleman to negotiate with him and advise him. We might say, “The church should have elders. Without the elders, the church would be a mess. Furthermore, every one of us is human and no human is perfect. If we put a demand on a brother that he should be perfect, this demand is impossible to fulfill. Even the Apostle Paul was not perfect. The only perfect human being is the Lord Jesus.” This fellowship sounds very good, but it is inorganic. Seemingly, I may do a marvelous job at bringing the two parties together in peace, but I may do this apart from life.
If I know the organic way of service, I would talk to this brother differently. I would say, “Brother, we all have Christ living within us. We should not live by ourselves. Even more, we should not live by our flesh. We should live by Christ as our life, and He is in our spirit. We have to walk according to Him.” In my talk with this brother, I may not even touch the problem that he has with the elder. My speaking to him will minister life to him. When he receives my word and brings this word to God, the Lord will have the room in him, the place in him, to move and to operate. This will change his entire being, including his attitude and his relationship with the elder. Thus, his problem with this elder will be solved organically. Both the brother and the elder will grow in Christ. This growth is the increase of God in them and the organic building up of the Body of Christ.
We need to consider this fellowship and pray over it. I hope that in the church life we will only have the organic way to help the saints to grow. We should not use any inorganic way, even if it is the best way. The inorganic way is to arrange and to organize, but that does not issue in the growth of the Body of Christ. We always have to learn how to exercise our spirit to follow the indwelling Christ. Then God will increase in us more and more, and we will grow in God’s increase. Then the church will be built up organically.
If we go out to teach others in a doctrinal way, they will only get a lot of biblical knowledge. They will grow in the knowledge of the Bible but not in the essence of Christ. Their objective knowledge concerning Christ may be increased, but the essence of Christ Himself within them will not increase. To merely teach ethics and not to minister Christ is the sickness and the deficiency of today’s Christian work.
The ethical teachers of Confucius in China taught the Chinese to grow in their knowledge of morality. When I was young, I heard Christians say that the Bible teaches the same ethics as Confucius’ teaching. Confucius teaches that wives should submit themselves to their husbands and that the children should honor their parents, and the Bible teaches the same thing. The Chinese were taught to honor their parents for thousands of years. According to my thinking, there was no need for the missionaries to come to China to teach us what we already knew. Both the people in the West and in the East have been governed by this kind of ethical teaching. Actually, this ethical teaching is not the proper Christian teaching. The proper Christian teaching ministers Christ not only in knowledge but also as people’s life and life supply. Christian teaching ministers Christ into people essentially to cause people to gain more and more of Christ every day.
For the organic building up of the Body of Christ, the elders need to shepherd all the dear saints who have problems. In my ministry when I was young, many couples came to me with marriage problems. In my fellowship with them, I frequently gave them principles that govern the proper marriage life. When they tried to put these principles into practice, however, they did not work. Later, I became very ill with tuberculosis. In my sickness, the Lord showed me that the work that I had been doing was in vain because the teaching that I gave the saints was in the sphere of ethical teaching. I opened up to the Lord for Him to show me what was wrong with my service. According to my concept, the Word merely told us that the husband should love the wife and the wife should submit herself to the husband. I tried to teach the married saints principles in this realm. The Lord showed me instead that I needed to help all the saints by nourishing them with Christ. I had to learn how to minister Christ to them.
After the Lord showed me this, I dealt with the saints in a different way when they came to me with their problems. I helped them to realize that Christ is our life and our life supply and that we have to feed on Him, enjoy Him, and be nourished with Him. Then I asked the saints to pray with me. In this way I helped them to receive the life supply. This was similar to adding fertilizer and water to a tree. This life supply helps the saints to grow. In their growth they build themselves up in their Christian life, and this building up overcomes all their problems.
Much of the Christian work today is ethical. Some Christian workers are deep in philosophy and logic, so their teaching is philosophical. Too many Christian teachers are teaching people ethically. They may not know much about Confucius, but actually they are doing work in the principle of Confucius. Very little of Christ is ministered. Paul said in Romans 15:16 that he was a minister of Christ Jesus to the nations. A minister of Christ Jesus is one who serves people with Christ. He ministers Christ into others. The ministry is not a matter of ethical and philosophical teachings.
I have shared much concerning the home meetings and the group meetings, but according to my observation, it is difficult for me to see the saints practicing these meetings according to the nature of my teaching. We mostly take care of the home meetings and the group meetings in a natural way, not in the way of ministering Christ to serve the saints with Christ Himself as the life supply. A Christian worker should minister Christ Himself as the life-giving Spirit into the saints to be their life supply. He must help the saints learn to enjoy the Lord and be nourished by the Lord so that they can grow. This is the way to build up the believers, and this will build up the church. If we minister Christ to the saints, the saints in our locality will grow to build themselves up, and the totality of their being built up will be the organic building up of the Body of Christ.
This realization of ministering Christ to others revolutionizes our work. It changes the very nature and essence of our work. After I received this realization of ministering Christ to others according to the principle of the tree of life, I learned to deal with the saints’ problems in an organic way. When they came to me with their marriage problems, I would fellowship with them in this way: “We all realize we have Christ in us. We also know that our old man, whether good or bad, was crucified with Christ. When we are living with our spouse, are we living by ourselves, or are we living by Christ? Do we deal with our spouse under the cross?” In this kind of fellowship, I brought them into the living of Christ’s life under His cross. This fellowship is organic because it helps people to get themselves more into Christ, especially in the matter of living together with one another. Before I learned this lesson, I may have helped certain couples, but I did not help them get themselves into Christ in their living with one another. They may have changed their behavior, but they were still in themselves. They were not in Christ in living with one another. Once I fully learned the lesson of ministering according to the tree of life, my fellowship with them would bring them into Christ in the matter of dealing with one another.
We must grow up into Christ, the Head, in all things so that the Body of Christ can be built up organically. There is only one unique way that can build us up to face any kind of situation. This way is to get ourselves, in all things, into Christ under the cross. This is the organic way. To build up the church organically is to live Christ under the cross. In many things we have to learn one thing—to live Christ under the cross. Then in all things we are crossed out, and it is not us but Christ who lives in us. As long as we live Christ under the cross with anyone and in anything, we are getting ourselves gradually in everything into Christ. By this way, we take Christ as the Head, and we annul ourselves in our headship. A brother who is quarreling with his wife may say, “Please tell me—who is the head? You or me?” If the husband is growing up into Christ, the Head, in all things, he would not remind his wife that he is the head and that she should be under him. When we live a life of getting ourselves more and more into Christ, the Head, we would say, “Lord, I am not the head. You are the Head.”
The organic building is to live Christ under the cross. To live according to Galatians 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”—is organic. The building up of the Body of Christ is in such an organic condition and situation. Today it is difficult to see saints living in such a way. There are many Christians who have never heard messages concerning living Christ under the cross. We should not blame them, but we have heard many messages on living Christ. Where is the living of Christ under the cross in our daily life? In the real situations of our daily life, do we live Christ? Where is the fact of the living of Christ among us? It may be that we mostly have only the doctrine of living Christ, not the reality. The organic building up of the Body of Christ takes place when some take the lead to live Christ under the cross. When we have the reality of living Christ under the cross in our living as our spiritual fact, the saints will receive the help from us when we teach them. When we all live Christ under the cross, spontaneously the increase of God is among us. This increase of God is the growth of the Body, and this growth is the organic building up of the Body of Christ.
We need to be people filled with the essence of Christ Himself. It is not enough for us merely to have the knowledge concerning Christ. We need more of the person of Christ essentially. The increase of the Triune God within the believers is the growth of the Body of Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God. This growth, this increase, is the organic building up of the Body of Christ. In the past we did not experience very much of the organic building up of the Body of Christ. We need to have Christ growing in us day by day. We should not exercise ourselves in ethics. Day by day we need to exercise our spirit consciously, purposely, and intentionally to receive Christ essentially more and more. We need to have Christ added to us and increasing in us day by day.
The last verse of Hymns, #203 says:
We’re Thy total reproduction,
Thy dear Body and Thy Bride,
Thine expression and Thy fullness,
For Thee ever to abide.
We are Thy continuation,
Thy life-increase and Thy spread,
Thy full growth and Thy rich surplus,
One with Thee, our glorious Head.
I wrote this hymn soon after I came to the United States over twenty-five years ago. This indicates that the light concerning the growth of the Body came to us years ago. We may have many books of the ministry on our bookshelves, but I wonder how much of Christ we actually have in the practical church life. In the Lord’s recovery, ethics may be more prevailing among us than Christ. Unconsciously, we may be living ethics and not living Christ. The organic building up of the Body of Christ is a crucial “missing” among us. This is why there is the need of the Lord’s advance in His recovery today. I hope that after reading this fellowship, we will purposely abandon ethics and take Christ. We should not care for ethics. We should only care for Christ. When we live Christ, we have the highest ethics. Christ Himself is the highest ethics in the entire universe. He is the highest peak of all the mountains of ethics. We should not live by ethics, but live Christ.
We should not exercise our knowledge to consider how to be ethical and moral. Let us forget about that. Every day, beginning in the morning, we need to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord by calling, “O Lord Jesus.” We need to tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, I love You.” I read something many years ago about John Nelson Darby that touched me deeply. He was over eighty years old, and he was staying in a hotel alone. He knelt down beside his bed and said, “Lord Jesus, I still love You.” This story impressed me to the uttermost. After his many years of experiencing Christ, he would say, “Lord Jesus, I still love You.” When we rise up in the morning, we should say, “Lord Jesus, I love You. Lord, especially today, I like to love You more than ever.” When we say this, our whole being will rise up, not with ethics but with Christ. When I minister to the saints in this way, I build up the churches organically. Such an organic ministry carries on the organic building up of the Body of Christ.