The Lord has led us to the focus of the new way and the central point of our change in system, that is, the central purpose of God’s economy regarding the meetings of the believers. If we get through in this matter, our change of system will be successful, and the new way will be opened to us. I believe that since the Lord has begun this good work, He will surely complete it. In these few years the Lord’s changing of the system among us has been active but not rushed. We have been very cautious and have considered, studied, and experimented in many aspects. We are viewing this change of system from the central point of God’s New Testament economy. God has also led us to see in the past few years that this economy, which is the highest revelation, is the focus of the New Testament. There is a central purpose in God’s economy, and there must be a means for this central purpose to be accomplished. The means is the meetings of the believers.
Christians are those who meet all the time. They have a communal characteristic. They are not like butterflies, which fly individually. Rather, they are like bees, which gather together. Many Christians, however, have been meeting continually for decades and still do not know the purpose of their meetings. Most Christians think that the purpose of going to a meeting is to worship God, to learn the truth, and to receive some spiritual benefit. But according to the revelation of the Scriptures, the central purpose of the believers’ meeting is two-sided. On one side it is to build up the believers in spirit (Rom. 14:19; 15:2; 1 Cor. 14:3), and on the other side it is to build up the Body of Christ in the spirit (1 Cor. 14:4; Eph. 2:22; 4:12, 16). The central point of our change in system and our taking the new way is to carry out this central purpose.
The first aspect of the central purpose is to build up the believers in spirit. Here the spirit refers to our human spirit. The word build is often rendered as edify in the Chinese Union Version, but in Greek this word implies building because the root of this word in Greek means “house.” When edification is mentioned, people generally do not think of the building of a house. Rather, they think of a person who does not have much education and who needs more education and further study, or they think of someone who is not sensible and who needs some enlightening that he may be edified. Generally, people have a broad understanding of the word edification. However, in the Bible edification denotes building up.
When we are going to build something, the first thing we need to do is to prepare the materials. Without the materials there cannot be any building. We must first prepare bricks, stones, wood, steel, and cement for the building. Paul said that he had laid the unique foundation and that we must build upon it with proper materials such as gold, silver, and precious stones and not with improper materials such as wood, grass, and stubble (1 Cor. 3:10-12). The first purpose of our meetings is to build up one another. It is not to adjust one another’s mistakes, which is merely edification, but to build the gold, silver, and precious stones—the essence of the Triune God—into one another.
Gold, silver, and precious stones are the proper materials. Gold signifies the divine nature of the Father with all of its attributes, silver signifies the redeeming Christ with all of the attributes and virtues of His person and work, and precious stones signify the transforming work of the Spirit with all of its attributes. Hence, to build with gold, silver, and precious stones is to build with the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Suppose that today we heard a message through which the divinity of God the Father as gold, the redeeming element of God the Son as silver, and the transforming element of God the Spirit as precious stones were not built into us. The message we heard would be empty and vain, and we would be built with improper materials such as wood, grass, and stubble. Every time we meet, we must use the proper materials, which are the Father’s nature, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s transformation work as gold, silver, and precious stones, to build up the believers and one another.
In Romans 14:19 Paul told those who were living the church life, “So then let us pursue the things of peace and the things for building up one another.” The “things of peace” and “the things for building up” are the things that keep the oneness of the Body of Christ and that minister the Triune God to our fellow members. You may minister the golden nature of the Father into me through the Word, I may minister the silver element of the Lord Jesus in His redemption into you, and another may minister the transforming element of the Spirit as precious stones into us. As a result all of us are mutually built up. For this reason we must maintain the peace. Peace enables us to live the church life together without debating, opinions, quarreling, or murmuring. In this kind of peaceful atmosphere you can minister God to me, I can minister God to you, and everyone can mutually minister the Triune God to one another.
If we want to minister the Triune God to one another, it must be done by speaking, speaking not ordinary words but the words of the truth. This requires our learning. We may be very capable of speaking funny and humorous things, but when we are asked to speak in the meeting to minister God to others, we may be silent and not know how to speak. This is why we prefer not to speak in the meetings, because once we speak, we expose ourselves. For example, before a person speaks, people may think that he is quite good, but once he speaks, he immediately exposes himself. This is our problem. If everyone sits properly in the meeting and neither prays nor speaks, then of course we must rely on the preacher to speak by himself. However, does this kind of meeting build up others? We may know a few things and may have gold, silver, and precious stones in us, but we may keep all the things that we have gained inside, refusing to take out even one of them. Then where is the building?
From the very beginning when Brother Watchman Nee brought to us the way of the Lord’s recovery, he showed us a clear vision that we all have to speak in the meetings. But very few among us have spoken until now. The general situation is that no matter what kind of meeting we have, there is always one person speaking while everyone else listens. Even the so-called fellowship meeting is arranged beforehand. With this kind of situation, how can we build up others in the meetings? In August of 1948 we started our work in Taipei, and during the first few years there was a trend toward an increase in the number of saints. But after 1958 the number stopped increasing, and the meetings were not living. The reason for this was the lack of the spirit. Therefore, in 1960 we began to speak on the exercise of the spirit, the use of the spirit, and the release of the spirit. Then in 1961 we spoke on this more emphatically. At that time very few or perhaps even none of the saints used and exercised their spirit. Then I personally wrote some hymns related to this matter and had everyone sing them. Later I went to the United States and started the work there. The Lord gave me the clear guidance that I had to begin with the spirit. Hence, our beginning in the United States was successful. At that time people were calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading the Lord’s word. These matters are related to the spirit.
However, this produced a side effect. There were some more refined people such as university professors and company managers who, after joining our meeting, said, “We have no way to join your kind of meeting. We who do business or teach are busy for five or six days a week, and on the Lord’s Day we want to be more relaxed. We want to go to a quiet chapel to have a Sunday service for relaxation. There they have a choir that sings and a pastor who preaches. Even though we may not understand what the choir sings or what the pastor preaches, these things are not bad and give us peace in our hearts. Your kind of meeting in which you are calling, ‘O Lord’ and ‘Amen’ all the time is not quiet. Moreover, you also force me to speak. I am a boss in a company, and if you ask me to stand up to speak and I am not able to do so, I will lose my face. I will not attend your kind of service. Instead, I will go to a tall and magnificent chapel with a quiet atmosphere.”
Some who had successful careers in society said, “Today is the age of science, and everything is scientific. Doctors should be scientific doctors, lawyers should be scientific lawyers, and pastors should be scientific pastors. Only those who have learned how to be a pastor should preach in the meetings. It is not scientific to ask us who have never studied theology to speak.” Apparently this sounds reasonable, but where is the building? A person who does not believe in Jesus or attend the Sunday service in a chapel looks one way, but after he believes in Jesus and has been attending the Sunday service in a chapel for thirty years still looks the same. Why is this? This is because the Triune God does not have the opportunity to add Himself into him. The Lord’s Day meeting in Christianity makes man attend a service but does not add the Triune God into him. Hence, in principle all the meetings in Christianity, including ours, have lost the goal of the meetings, which is to build up the believers with the element of the Triune God.