We have seen that God’s intention is to give the gifted persons—the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers—to perfect the saints that all the saints may participate in the work of the building up of the Body of Christ. These gifted persons perfect the saints to be what they are. This is similar to the professors in a teachers’ college who perfect their students to become teachers like they are. A local church may be likened to a teachers’ college, and the gifted persons are like professors teaching different courses. They perfect the saints to be what they are—apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. The gifts’ perfecting of the saints results in a proper local church.
The New Testament tells us that all the believers are priests (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). In order to help us understand the perfecting of the saints, we need to look at the type of the priesthood in the Old Testament. To serve in the priesthood, a priest had to be of age. When a person was twenty-five, he could be an apprentice in the priesthood (Num. 8:24). This apprenticeship lasted for five years until he was thirty years of age (4:3). Then he was considered a full-grown man and was fully qualified to be a priest.
The priests were perfected to do mainly four things. First, they were perfected to offer the sacrifices (Lev. 6:8—7:38). They had to learn how to offer the burnt offering, the meal offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the peace offering, and the other offerings. They had to learn how to work at the altar. The altar typifies the cross. We must help people to offer Christ as their sacrifices at the cross. We may say that offering the offerings equals preaching the gospel.
Second, the priests also had to learn how to enter into the Holy Place to display the showbread (Lev. 24:5-8; Exo. 25:30). They had to take care of this every day. The showbread signifies Christ as our life supply. As the New Testament priests, we should learn how to display Christ as the showbread to all of God’s worshippers. We have to help the saved ones by showing them how to enter into the Holy Place to enjoy Christ as their life supply. That means that we also have to learn how to dispense Christ into people as the life supply.
Third, the priests took care of the lampstand in the Holy Place (Lev. 24:1-4). They trimmed the wicks and filled the lamps with oil to make the lampstand shine brightly. As the New Testament priests, we should do the same thing. We have to learn to be filled with the Spirit as the oil, and we must minister Christ as the divine light with and in the Spirit to the saints. This is to make Christ as the light shine with the Spirit. We have to help the saints to realize and enjoy Christ as their divine light, shining within them with the sevenfold Spirit. To minister such a Christ with the sevenfold Spirit to the saints is to perfect them.
Fourth, the priests had to burn the incense (Exo. 30:6-8). Burning the incense signifies getting into the presence of God and talking to God. We converse with God to enjoy God’s presence, the Triune God Himself. As the New Testament priests, we must learn to fellowship with God in prayer, and we must be able to perfect the saints to do the same thing.
The priesthood perfects the saints to present Christ as the offerings, the sacrifices, at the brass altar, the cross. It perfects the saints in ministering Christ as the life supply and in displaying Christ as the shining light, as the lampstand with the seven lamps, the sevenfold Spirit. It also perfects the saints to present Christ to God at the golden incense altar as the all-inclusive incense that they may converse with God. The saints need to be perfected to fellowship with God in a conversational way to enjoy His presence, to enjoy the Triune God Himself. We need to be perfected to take care of these four major items of the priesthood, and we must perfect others to do the same thing. The gifted persons need to perfect the saints in these aspects. All the believers need to learn these four things.
The New Testament uses the word “priesthood” to refer to the priestly office (Heb. 7:12) and to the priestly body, the corporate body of priests (1 Pet. 2:5, 9). The Old Testament priesthood was a corporate body of priests with the high priest as their head. In the New Testament, we also are the priesthood in the sense of a priestly body. We are not separate, individual priests serving God. We serve God as priests in a corporate way. We believers are a corporate body of priests with the High Priest, Christ, as our Head. Christ as the Head of the church is the High Priest with all His saints as priests to form a priesthood. The corporate priesthood with Christ as the High Priest bearing all the people of God on His shoulders with strength and on His breast with love in the presence of God is the church life (Exo. 28:9-12, 15, 17, 21, 29-30; Heb. 7:24-26). The entire church is on the breast and on the shoulders of the Head of the priesthood.
Such a church life needs four classes of gifted persons—the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers—to perfect all the saints to do the same thing that they do. Can we see such a scene in today’s church life? By the Lord’s mercy, we may have a little bit of perfecting work among us in each of the four major aspects typified in the priesthood, but we must admit that we are short of the perfected and perfecting priestly services. We do not have the reality of Ephesians 4:11-16 among us in a definite way. In the Lord’s recovery, we are short of the services of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. This is why I have the burden to do my best to help all the saints in all the local churches realize where we should go. Ephesians 4:13 uses the phrase “until we all arrive.” Paul included himself and all the serving apostles and gifted ones in saying that we all have to go on to arrive. Our having to arrive indicates that we are traveling on the way. We need to be like the runners in an Olympic race. We have to strive, to struggle, to run the course until we arrive at the goal. By the Lord’s mercy, He has given us a vision of His desire to build up the Body of Christ. The Lord has brought us into His recovery and put us on the course. We are running this course. We are on the way, and we have a goal. The goal is the full expression of Christ on this earth.
We have seen that there is the need for the gifted persons to perfect all the saints. In this chapter we want to go further to see the saints’ direct building of the Body of Christ. The building up of the Body of Christ is through the gifted persons’ perfecting of the saints. Then the perfected saints do the direct building of the Body of Christ.