The first three major points of the advance of the Lord’s recovery today are the priesthood of the gospel in the New Testament, the organic building up of the Body of Christ, and the perfecting of the saints by the gifts. In this chapter we come to the last major point—the prophesying for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ.
According to our knowledge, 1 Corinthians 14 is a chapter that has not been properly touched by Christians in a practical way throughout the history of the church since the time of the early church. Actually, it is a very simple chapter. This chapter exhorts us to desire earnestly to prophesy. Thank the Lord that there is such a chapter in the Bible. It expresses the apostle’s desire for all of us to prophesy. Verse 1 says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” Then verse 39 at the end of the chapter says, “Therefore, my brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy.” In verse 4 Paul says that “he who prophesies builds up the church.” Then in verse 12 he says, “So also you, since you are zealous of spirits, seek that you may excel to the building up of the church.”
We have to consider what it means to prophesy. According to our natural concept, to prophesy is to merely predict, or foretell. This concept is prevailing in the Pentecostal movement. In 1963 some Pentecostal believers “prophesied” that there would be a great earthquake in Los Angeles and that the entire city would fall into the ocean. Of course, such an event did not take place. In 1964 some “prophesied” again that there would be a great earthquake, but nothing happened. The meaning of prophesying has been spoiled by the Pentecostal teaching and practice. When those in the Pentecostal movement talk about prophesying according to 1 Corinthians 14, they talk about it in a wrong way.
The truth concerning prophesying is a big problem to many expositors and students of the Bible. What does it mean to prophesy? We must admit that prophesying does convey the thought of foretelling, predicting. Most people, whether Christians or non-Christians, understand prophesying in this way. But we all have to see that prophesying in chapter fourteen of 1 Corinthians is not used in this sense at all. The interpretation of prophesying as predicting does not fit in the context of this entire chapter. Prophesying in 1 Corinthians 14 is not in the sense of predicting, foretelling, but in the sense of speaking for the Lord, speaking forth the Lord, to dispense Christ to people.
Even in the Old Testament, to prophesy is not mainly to predict. The book of Isaiah the prophet has sixty-six chapters, and most of these chapters are not predicting but are speaking for the Lord. Of course, Isaiah’s prophesying also includes foretelling, but mainly his prophesying in the book of Isaiah is his speaking for the Lord and speaking forth the Lord. Chapter one of Isaiah, in which he rebuked the people of Israel, is a chapter of his speaking for the Lord. The main denotation of the word prophesy both in Hebrew and in Greek is to speak for the Lord. When we speak for the Lord, even if we do not foretell, our speaking is the genuine prophesying. To prophesy is to speak God into people.
First Corinthians 14:3 says, “But he who prophesies speaks to men building up and encouragement and consolation.” Building up is for the church, encouragement is for the believers, and consolation is for the saints’ spiritual welfare. Building up, encouragement, and consolation are not foretelling or predicting. These items indicate that to prophesy is to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord. Some thoughtful people may wonder how we can interpret 1 Corinthians 14:3 in this way since this verse does not say directly that to prophesy is to speak for the Lord and to speak forth the Lord. Instead, it says that he who prophesies speaks to men building up, encouragement, and consolation. We need to realize, however, that building up, encouragement, and consolation are Christ Himself.
To speak building up is to speak Christ. Without Christ, how can we build up the church? To speak building up equals to speak Christ. Paul is a marvelous writer. He did not say directly that to prophesy is to speak Christ. If he just said this, people might understand Christ in a general way as being our Savior and our Lord. Instead, Paul said that to prophesy is to speak building up. To speak building up is something deeper. This building up is the building up of the Body of Christ, which is the church. With what can we build up the Body of Christ? Can we build up the Body of Christ with our learning or our ability? Surely not. We can only build up the Body of Christ with Christ.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 that we build up the church with gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12). Gold, silver, and precious stones signify the three main characteristics of the Triune God, and the embodiment of the Triune God is Christ (Col. 2:9). Therefore, to speak building up is to speak Christ as the very material with which the church is built up. The Triune God is the building material of the church in three aspects. The church is built with God the Father in His divine nature as the gold, with God the Son in His redemption as the silver, and with God the Spirit in His transforming work as the precious stones. Gold, silver, and precious stones signify the Triune God in His three main characteristics as the building material for the building of the Body of Christ.
If the Triune God were not embodied in Christ, He could not be the materials with which we could build the church. The Triune God is the processed Triune God. He is not the “raw” Triune God. Before incarnation, God was “raw.” This is similar to saying that a fish is raw before it is cooked. The cooking of the fish is the processing of the fish for us to eat. To be processed is to be cooked. Our God is the Triune God. He is not “raw” but processed. John 1:14 records the first step of His process. The first process the Triune God passed through was incarnation. In eternity past the Triune God was merely divine. With Him there was nothing human, but one day He entered into the womb of a human virgin and stayed there for nine months. This divine conception was a process for the divine God to become a human being. From that time, He was a God-man. Before this conception He was only divine, but after His human birth, He is not only divine but also human. He is not only God but also a man.
After He was born, He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. He was the unique God-man, a man living with God and God living in man. He lived in Nazareth in a carpenter’s home for thirty years in His process of human living. After passing through human living, He passed through the process of death. In one sense, He was crucified by others, but in another sense, He gave Himself to be crucified. John 10 tells us that He laid down His life by His own decision. He had the authority to lay it down and the authority to take it again (vv. 11, 17-18). If He had not made the decision to walk into death, who could have put Him on the cross? When Judas came with a band of soldiers to seize Him, Peter took a sword and cut off the right ear of the slave of the high priest. He then told Peter, “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11). This shows that He made the decision to walk into death.
After His crucifixion, the Lord took a “tour” of Hades. First Peter 3 tells us that He went to the “spirits in prison” to proclaim His triumphant victory (vv. 19-20). He walked through the process of death, walked out of death, and entered into resurrection. Resurrection was another process that He passed through. In resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In resurrection He also appeared to His disciples. His body was a visible, touchable body, yet He suddenly appeared in the room where the disciples were, without entering through a door (John 20:19). His body was a resurrected body, a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44), and a body of glory (Phil. 3:21). Then He breathed Himself into His disciples (John 20:22) to remain in the disciples’ spirits. After breathing Himself into them, He appeared to them at times and disappeared. He did this for forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3) to train the disciples to enjoy His invisible, indwelling presence.
Through resurrection He entered into another process, ascension. He brought His disciples to Mount Olivet and ascended before them to the third heaven (Acts 1:9). According to Ephesians, Christ ascended with a train of His defeated foes (Eph. 4:8). All of us were conquered and carried to heaven by Christ in His ascension, and Christ presented us to the Father. The Father then gave us back to Christ as gifts (Psa. 68:18), and Christ gave us as gifts to His Body for its building up (Eph. 4:11-12).
In His ascension, as a man in resurrection, He received the lordship, the headship, the authority, and the kingship. He was the Lord when He was God, but as a man He was not the Lord before His ascension. Passing through the processes of death and resurrection, He entered into the process of ascension, and in His ascension God made Him, a man, the very Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). The Christ is the One who carries out God’s great commission of accomplishing God’s New Testament economy. He was made by God the Father the very authority of the universe and the very Savior of God’s chosen people (Acts 5:31). As the authority of the universe, He can manage the entire universe for the advancement of His gospel. Without His managing of the universe, we could have never been in a position to hear the gospel. Eventually, Christ poured Himself out on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:16-18, 33), and that pouring out formed the church. From that time, He has been both within the church and upon the church. He became the very constituent, element, and material for the building up of the church. The church is built up with such a Christ.
Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God passed through step after step from incarnation to ascension. These steps were His processes. Now in His ascension as the very embodiment of the Triune God, He is no longer the “raw” God. God has now been fully processed. The processed God in His divine Trinity has become the building material of the Body of Christ. The Triune God is altogether embodied in Christ, so Christ is actually the building material of the Body of Christ. When we speak building up for the church, we actually speak Christ. When Paul says that to prophesy is to speak building up, we have to consider what this means. We need the entire Bible to explain this building up. Paul indicates that to prophesy is to speak Christ, but He does this in a mysterious, hidden, and secret way.
First Corinthians 14:3 also says that to prophesy is to speak encouragement. While I am speaking, I may realize that some of the audience is discouraged. Therefore, I have to speak encouragement to them to stir them up. When I speak encouragement to the saints, I speak Christ. Who or what can encourage us? Many times we get deflated, disappointed, and discouraged. A better job, a bigger car, or a Ph.D. cannot provide real encouragement. On this earth nothing is encouraging. Instead everything is rather discouraging. The way that we Christians are taking is a way which the world discourages. The tide of this world is going downhill, and we are going against the current, the tide, of this world. As Christians we are not going downhill but, uphill. While we are going uphill, everything is fighting against us. Our relatives, friends, and classmates may discourage us. Even some of our brothers in Christ are not encouraging us but discouraging us.
If we take the way of going downhill, the world will encourage us to go downhill. Our relatives may encourage us not to go to the church meetings so often. They may tell us that we were too hot a few years ago, but that now we are acting properly by not attending so many church meetings. Two years ago we may have been going uphill, but today we are going downhill. Our mother, father, and relatives may highly appraise this. Everything in this world encourages us to go downhill, but when we are going uphill, everything is against us. Everything in this world becomes a kind of discouragement to us. Therefore, in every Christian meeting there is the need of encouragement. In the meetings we need to speak Christ as encouragement. To say that we are speaking Christ is too general, but speaking encouragement is to speak Christ in a particular way. Christ Himself is the unique encouragement.
The elders in the church need encouragement every day. Christ is the encouragement to the elders. To be an elder is not an easy thing. Many elders can testify that they receive more discouragement than encouragement. For the church life, for the building up of the Body of Christ, we need encouragement every day. Discouraging matters may come to us, but we should always exercise to call “O Lord Jesus!” Calling on the Lord can bring us out of our discouragement into the heavenlies. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul refers to Christ hiddenly and mysteriously. To build up the church is the goal of God’s economy. For this building up we must experience Christ as our encouragement every day. Christ is not only the material, the constituents, for the building up of the Body of Christ but also the encouragement for the building up of His Body. To prophesy we need to speak Christ as encouragement.
Christ is also consolation. He is the only One who is a consolation to us. Consolation implies more than comfort. To be consoled is to be comforted in the depths of our being. Christ Himself is our consolation. When I speak consolation, I am speaking Christ as consolation. As long as we have building up, encouragement, and consolation, we can build up the Body of Christ. When Paul tells us that to prophesy is to speak building up, encouragement, and consolation, he means that to prophesy is to speak Christ as these items.
To prophesy is to speak to men Christ in every aspect. This is based upon the entire teaching of 1 Corinthians. This book presents Christ in many aspects. First Corinthians teaches that Christ is “theirs and ours” (1:2). This means that Christ is our portion, and we have been called by God the Father into the fellowship of this portion (v. 9). The fellowship of this portion is the enjoyment of this portion. Chapter one goes on to tell us that God has put us into Christ and made Christ wisdom to us from God. This wisdom comprises three items—righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (v. 30). Righteousness is for our past to be justified by God; sanctification is for our present to live a holy life; and redemption is for our future to have our body transfigured, redeemed. First Corinthians teaches us to participate in Christ as everything to us. We need to understand 1 Corinthians 14 based upon this realization. To speak building up, encouragement, and consolation is really to speak Christ as our enjoyment. We enjoy Him as the building up of the church, as our daily encouragement, and as our constant consolation. Thus, to prophesy is to speak for Christ, to speak forth Christ, and to speak Christ into others, to dispense Christ into others as everything.