In this chapter we want to go on to see the organic building up of the Body of Christ revealed in Ephesians 4:13-16. In order to understand these verses thoroughly, we must read them very attentively and carefully. Verse 13 says, “Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” To “arrive” indicates that we have to go on. Without going on, there will be no arrival. Therefore, we all have to go on until we arrive at three things. First, we need to arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God. The faith refers to what we believe in, which is mainly the redemptive work of Christ, the completed work of Christ. The full knowledge of the Son of God refers to the person of Christ. The oneness is of the completed, redemptive work of Christ and of the wonderful person of Christ. Second, we need to arrive at a full-grown man. Third, we need to arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Verse 14 says, “That we may be no longer babes tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error.” In this verse there are the wind and the waves. The storms on the sea come from the wind and the waves. Verse 15 says, “But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ.”
In verse 16 we need a crucial correction in translation that is more accurate according to the Greek. Verse 16 can be translated: “Out from whom all the Body, joined together and knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” In our body there are the joints and all the parts. The joints are joined together, and all the parts are knit together. The joining refers to the joints, and the knitting refers to all the other parts.
In order to understand verse 16 adequately, we must see the subject and the predicate. “All the Body” is the subject, and the predicate is “causes.” The basic sentence of this verse reads this way: “All the Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” In between the subject “all the Body” and the predicate “causes” there is a long adjective phrase that modifies “all the Body.” All the Body is joined together and knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in measure of each one part. Out from the Head, all the Body causes the growth of the Body.
The predicate “causes” is modified by three prepositional phrases that act as adverbs: “out from whom,” “unto the building up of itself,” and “in love.” All the Body causes the growth of the Body from what source? Out from the Head. All the Body causes the growth of the Body unto what purpose? Unto the building up of itself. All the Body causes the growth of the Body in what way? In love. The sentence could read this way: “All the Body, out from the Head, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”
Furthermore, all the Body causes the growth of the Body by being joined together through the rich supply of all the joints and by being knit together through the operation in measure of each one part. Through the rich supply of the joints and through the operation in measure of each one part, the entire Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:16 talks about the organic building up of the Body. The building up of the Body takes place by the Body causing itself to grow. Through the supply of the joints and the operation of each one part in its measure, the entire Body is joined together and knit together. Then the Body works by causing itself to grow for the purpose of the building up of itself in love as an organism. Ephesians 4:16 is the unique verse in the Bible that tells us how the organic Body of Christ can be practically built up in the organic way.
In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus said, “On this rock I will build My church.” We need to see what the rock is in Matthew 16:18. Many Christians would say that the rock is the living Christ. That means that Christ will build the church upon Himself. Strictly speaking, this is a wrong interpretation. The rock does not refer to Christ directly. It refers to the revelation of Christ received by the apostles. In Matthew 16 the Lord asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (v. 15). Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). Then the Lord told Peter that he was blessed because flesh and blood had not revealed this to him but His Father in the heavens (v. 17). Peter received the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This revelation of Christ is the rock upon which He builds His church.
This corresponds with Ephesians 2:20 which tells us that the church as the house of God is being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone. According to 1 Corinthians 3:11, the foundation is Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, however, says that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Furthermore, in Ephesians 2, Christ is not the foundation but the cornerstone that joins together the two walls, one of the Jewish believers and the other of the Gentile believers. The foundation is the revelation concerning Christ received by the apostles and prophets. This implies that the Lord Jesus would not build up His church directly. He builds up His church through the apostles and through the prophets.
In Ephesians 4 we are told that the very Christ who is building up His church gave many gifts. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers for the purpose of perfecting the saints. The Head does not build the church directly. He only gives the gifted persons for the building up of the church. Even the gifted persons, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers, do not build the church directly. They perfect all the members and the members do the building work directly to build up the Body of Christ. This is clearly revealed in Ephesians 4:16. After all the members have grown up into the Head in all things, out from this Head the entire Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love. This growth is caused by the Body being joined together through the rich supply of the joints and being knit together through the operation of each part. The real building is by each one part. The Body is built directly by all the members, not by the gifts or by the Head directly.
Ephesians 4:16 is the unique verse in the Bible that shows us how the organic Body of Christ is directly and practically built up. It is built up by each member. Based upon this revelation, we can say that the traditional way of meeting and serving in Christianity is absolutely wrong. We must see that the Body of Christ is built directly neither by the Head nor by the gifted persons but by all the members. The Body of Christ is built up organically by each member directly, but these members can do very little without being perfected. The perfecting is needed. Today in Christianity where is the perfecting of the believers? Many preachers speak every Lord’s Day, but who is being perfected to do the work of the ministry? We also need to consider our situation in the Lord’s recovery. The Lord’s recovery has been in the United States since 1962. Within these twenty-six years, how much perfecting work has been going on among us? Who among us has been perfected? I am so burdened to see the Lord’s desire accomplished among us that I do not care for the cost that I have to pay. I have seen something, and I have received a burden from the Lord to tell His people that we must drop the old way because with it there is not much perfecting of the saints.
The Body of Christ is not organically built up by the Head directly. Ephesians 4 tells us clearly that the Head gives the gifts—the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. He has done His work. He is sitting on the throne in the heavens waiting to see what these gifted persons will do. Paul did a marvelous job of perfecting the saints, and he provided a pattern for us of the way a gifted member should live and work. I have repented to the Lord very much for not perfecting the saints more in my ministry. My burden from the Lord is very heavy in this matter.
We must see that the enemy of God hates this! I have been speaking for the Lord for fifty-six years, and I have never been attacked as much as I have within these last two years. This opposition is altogether illogical and unreasonable because it has not been originated by any person. It has been originated by the adversary of our God, Satan. He works through people to frustrate God’s desire for the organic building up of the Body of Christ. In Paul’s last Epistle, 2 Timothy, just before his martyrdom, he said that all Asia had turned away from him (1:15). All of Asia had rejected his ministry. This rejection of Paul’s ministry, which is the New Testament ministry, is something instigated by God’s enemy, Satan. I have prepared myself that at my going to the Lord my ministry may suffer the same thing as Paul’s. All of Asia including the church in Ephesus forsook Paul’s ministry, but Paul was still joyful. He told his young co-worker Timothy to be empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus (2:1).
Brother Nee told us in his book Church Affairs that to have the traditional meeting on Sunday morning is according to the custom of the nations. Second Kings 17:8 in the New American Standard Bible says that the children of Israel sinned against the Lord by walking in the customs of the nations. According to the customs of the nations means according to the way of worshipping the idols. Brother Nee also told us that it is hard to take away the habit of meeting in the way of one person speaking and the rest listening. He said that we all need to push until such a habit and practice is pushed out of the way. The traditional way of meeting and serving annuls the functions of the members of Christ and does not develop the members. Therefore, there is no direct, actual, and practical building up of the Body of Christ. The Head has given the gifts, but regrettably many of the gifts have been abused to build up a big congregation, a big facade for a show. A congregation may be built up, but what members have been perfected to do the direct building of the Body of Christ? In locality after locality, the Lord desires to see all the saints perfected to be the living, functioning members of the organic Body of Christ.
We must endeavor, strive, and struggle to tear down the old, traditional way. Some have the concept that the new way is preaching the gospel by door-knocking. This is a wrong realization and concept. The new way is not mainly to preach the gospel by knocking on doors, but it is the building up of Christ’s organic Body directly by each one of the saints. If the Body of Christ is not being built up by each saint directly, we are in the traditional way. We need the gifted persons to perfect the saints to do this direct building work. The gifted ones need to go to the homes of the saints to sit down with them and teach them mouth to mouth. We saw from Acts 20 that Paul stayed in Ephesus for three years. He perfected the saints by teaching everything concerning God and His economy publicly and from house to house with tears. Who is doing this work among us today? The gifted ones need to go from house to house to perfect the saints with tears.
Some have criticized the way of visiting people by knocking on their doors to preach the gospel. They say that this way does not work. The reason it may not work is that after getting people baptized, they are not cared for adequately and properly. If a mother delivers a child and then neglects the child without giving him the proper care, can that child live? If we baptize someone and then go visit him twice a week with much prayer and labor, this new one can be nourished, raised up, and perfected. We baptized thousands and thousands of people in Taipei, but we found out that it is not so easy to raise them up. A child can be delivered within a short time, but mothers spend years to raise up a child properly. Even if the mother is sick, she still has to take care of her little one by nourishing and cherishing him. We need to take care of the new ones that we baptize as if we were caring for our little babes.
Paul bore the burden of the church all the time. In 2 Corinthians 11:28 he said, “Apart from the things which are not mentioned, the pressure upon me daily, the anxiety for all the churches.” “Anxiety” means anxious care. The care for the church was upon Paul’s heart. This is why Paul called for the elders of Ephesus to come to him at Miletus when he was on his way to Jerusalem. Paul was so burdened for the perfecting of the saints. We need this perfecting work in the Lord’s recovery today. Without the perfecting of the saints, there cannot be the growth of the Body. The growth of the Body is the building up of the Body. A little babe grows gradually by being nourished and cherished all the time.
Because of the Lord’s burden to have the building up of His Body, I would not count the cost to see this worked out. Sooner or later, the Lord Jesus, the Head, will do something. He is sovereign. He is on the throne. He is the One that directs the entire universe. He will do something to fulfill these two portions of the Word: 1 Corinthians 14 and Ephesians 4. I believe the time that He will take to accomplish this will not be too long. This is the end time. These two portions of the holy Word are not in vain. They will be fulfilled. Some of the ones who are very close to me feel unhappy that I am working so much. They warn me that I am over eighty and that I could die at any time. They advise me to take care of myself better. I would like to do this, but Someone within me will not let me go. I have to speak forth the Lord’s burden in these days.
It is encouraging to see the Lord’s working in Taipei. The saints there are in the transition from the old way to the new way to fulfill 1 Corinthians 14:26 by Ephesians 4:11-16. They are in a transition from one world to another world. They are growing, and they are under the joining and the knitting. They are in the experience of the Body causing the growth of the Body unto a direct building up of itself in love.
When I visited Korea recently, I told the young people there to rise up to drop the old way and pick up the new way to be the gifted persons. I told them that even though they were young, they could be the gifted persons to do the work of perfecting others. I encouraged them that maybe after five years, thousands of young people would be perfected, and they all would do the work of the ministry to build up the Body of Christ organically and directly.
If we take this new way, this scriptural way, the so-called pastors will be unemployed. There will be no clergy and no laity. Instead of being pastors in the traditional way, we have to be little perfecters, laboring like the Apostle Paul did. The gifted persons should not speak to build up a congregation as a facade in order to make a name for themselves. The gifted ones need to go to the homes of the saints to perfect them. If a person labors by visiting the homes of the saints, in a sense he will be unknown because he does not display himself. There will not be a facade of a large congregation because the church will be scattered in all the small homes of the saints. Because the church life is basically in the homes, there will not be a display of a big congregation, but the One on the throne will see His Body under the proper, direct, organic building up. This kind of building up makes Him happy.
I hope that we can be impressed with the vision of the organic building up of the Body of Christ. The Lord will change us and altogether revolutionize us if we see this vision. Once we see this vision, we will have to give ourselves up for it. My desire is to both live and die to the Lord to see this vision, His heart’s desire, carried out. On this earth there is the need of many young ones to be the perfecters. First, we have to be perfected by someone and by the Spirit through the Word. Then we need to learn how to perfect others to do the work of the ministry to build up the Body of Christ. Those of us who have seen the vision will be burdened to sacrifice ourselves as martyrs so that the Lord will have a way to fulfill Ephesians 4 for the purpose of having the building up of His organic Body through each saint speaking Him. We can all prophesy one by one. When all the saints are perfected to prophesy, to speak Christ, there will be meetings all over the earth that are full of mutuality according to 1 Corinthians 14:26. Then the traditional way of one person speaking and the rest listening will be fully pushed away. Every attendant in the meeting will be a speaker, building up the Body of Christ.