Suppose you have already taken this way to study the incarnation of Christ in the writings of Paul; you have already spent time to pick up all the verses related to this point, and have put them together with much prayer. The second point for your study is the human life of Christ in Paul’s books. If you study in this way, when someone brings up the matter of the human life of Christ, you will immediately have a good collection of all the points in Paul’s books. If you were asked, you could give these points without thinking. For example, you might make reference to the aspects of Christ’s human life on this earth unveiled in Philippians 2:5-8. Not only the four Gospels but also the writings of Paul unveil to us the human living of Christ.
Actually, it would be hard for you to understand what is narrated in the four Gospels without Paul’s interpretation. It would not be so easy for us to understand that the life portrayed in the Gospel of Mark is the living of a slave without Paul’s word in Philippians 2 telling us that the human living of Christ is the living of a slave. Here is an indication that Paul’s ministry was not one of setting up new things or strange things, but it was rather a ministry of developing what had been set up already. A portrait had been set up in Mark, but it needed some interpretation, some development, of the definition of that portrait. This is the way for you to get into these matters.
What there is for you to develop is as large as the ocean. Brother Nee and I have done only a little. There is no need for you to get into another field. To do that would be to take the wrong way. The Lord’s recovery cannot be compared to a university with many different schools and many different majors. Rather, the Lord’s recovery is like a unique school with one field and only one major, and the major is Christ for the church. In the Lord’s recovery there are no other majors, and all of us need to concentrate our study in this one major.
You should not consider that you prefer to say something new and to open another school in the Lord’s recovery with something different from what was set up by Brother Nee and followed by me. To do so would mean division. There should be only one major in one school with deeper studies that go further and further, on and on.
Without boasting I can tell you that it is absolutely right to say that I follow Brother Nee. He laid the foundation for the recovery, and I surely follow him. However, in Brother Nee’s time in the messages concerning God’s desire, he went only as far as to use the term God’s plan. The term God’s economy had not been touched at all yet. The concept of God’s economy was brought in after we went to Taiwan. It is a further study and development of the same thing.
In addition, in Brother Nee’s time the Lord showed us that Christ is the Spirit, but it was not until after we went to Taiwan that the Lord pointed out to us that the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. According to my memory in all our messages before 1950 such a point was never touched. Again, this point does not differ, but it goes on.
Furthermore, I can testify that Brother Nee emphasized the Spirit to the uttermost, but he never stressed the matter of the seven Spirits particularly. The point concerning the seven Spirits was not touched in a thorough way until 1969 in Erie, Pennsylvania. This point, however, was not touched in a way that differs from Brother Nee’s teaching, but rather in a way that goes on to build something further upon the same foundation.
It is true that I have been following Brother Nee all the time but I have never invented any new major, and I have never set up any other school. Before I contacted Brother Nee and became a co-worker under him, I had a good Christian work of my own in North China. If you knew the situation there at that time, you would realize that there was a big opening for my work in all of North China. Apart from some in my hometown of Chefoo, there was not one adequate Bible teacher there. Chefoo was well-known as a center for Bible teaching in all of North China mainly because of the Brethren assembly there, which I attended for seven and a half years. Nevertheless, according to my opinion, the kind of works they had might not have been up to the standard of what God was enabling me to do.
Before I went to Shanghai to join the work with Brother Nee, I was invited to dinner with the leading pastor in our city. At that time he made a special request that I not set up our group as a church, but that we keep our hall and teach the Bible there six evenings a week, from Monday through Saturday. Then on the Lord’s Day he wanted me to close that hall, and he assured me that I would be invited and welcomed by all of the denominations in Chefoo. He even told me that I would be exalted to the uttermost, and that many people would benefit from my teaching. Of course, I could not consider doing such a thing.
By the Lord’s mercy I was given the ability to teach the Bible in a very adequate way. Even before I went to Shanghai to join Brother Nee in his work, I had expounded the Song of Songs. Of course, at that time I did not know much about Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church, but I might have become an expert in teaching typology, prophecy, and the dispensations of the Bible. If I would have simply taught these things, I could have become an expert in North China in teaching the Bible in this way. Also, there was a big opening for me to do this. Nevertheless, by the Lord’s mercy, after I contacted Brother Nee, I began to see that God’s way is not in typology, nor in prophecy, nor in biblical dispensations, but in Christ as the Spirit and as life for the church. When I came into such a vision, I absolutely dropped everything else and simply followed Brother Nee.
I dropped everything to the uttermost to follow Brother Nee. Whatever he spoke, I spoke. Whatever he taught, I taught. Whatever he preached, I preached. I am one hundred percent in tune with him. Some people have said in a somewhat accusing and mocking way that I imitate Watchman Nee. However, to me it is marvelous to hear others say this. They are absolutely right to say that I imitate him. In my gestures, my way of expression, the terms I used, even in the accent and how fast or slow I spoke, I simply imitated Watchman Nee in every way. I consider it glorious that I could imitate such a servant of the Lord who had the heavenly vision concerning the Lord’s move on earth.
By the Lord’s mercy, I was studying in Watchman Nee’s field all the time. He was my professor, and I was his student. We were in the same major. How could you be a student under a professor who is teaching in one field with one major and be studying in another field with another major, trying to make yourself different from your professor and more significant than he is? How could this be?
I believe this illustration of a major field of study is very good. We are all in one school, in one field, with one major. The only difference between the professor and the students is that the professor is now teaching them. They may go on from him, but they should not go away from him. It is right and proper for them to go on to build up the same thing higher and higher, richer and richer.
How I thank the Lord for this way. If I had not followed Watchman Nee but had remained in my own ability to teach the Bible in my own way, I believe I could have gained a name for myself, but that would have been the end. All that would have come of that teaching would have been merely a name for myself. I would have missed the Lord’s way and His rich blessing in His own way, and my teaching would not have been a part of God’s New Testament ministry.
I would strongly encourage all of you to keep yourselves strictly in the same major and persevere there. You should not think differently, but go on further in the same major. No need to say in the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, even in the fourteen books of Paul you could dig out a number of points concerning the incarnation of Christ and concerning His human living.
Third, you need to study all the points concerning the death of Christ. This is a vast subject that needs much study. Then you need to study all the points concerning Christ’s resurrection and the points concerning His ascension.
Then you need further study to cover all the points concerning the person of Christ. In this study you will see that His person eventually consummates in the life-giving Spirit. Furthermore, you need to develop this item, the life-giving Spirit, in Paul’s books. If you spend two years to study the other items, His incarnation, His human living, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His person, you need to spend more years to study Christ being consummated in the life-giving Spirit. In addition, for this point you need to study the human spirit.
Another major point in the study of Paul’s Epistles is the church. Under this subject you need to study the producing of the church, the nature of the church, including the life, the essence, of the church, and the building up of the church. You need to study the function of the church and also the different titles of the church. We need to realize, brothers, that to cover even the points we have already mentioned adequately may take nearly ten years.
Sorry to say, brothers, I am afraid that you have taken an easy way. Because we have spent so much time together, and because you have been under my training for years, it is easy for me to say a frank word of love to you. Sometimes you use my messages to constitute a message for you to give. That is wonderful, but because you take an easy way in doing it, you cannot make your message interesting. Your presentation of the Life-studies in this way does not stir up the people’s interest. Therefore, you turn away from the Life-studies to other things in order to attract a crowd.