The essential, crystallized significance of the Body of Christ is that the Triune God is constituted with His chosen and redeemed people to become a constitution, a constituted entity. Unless we see this crystallized, essential significance of the Body of Christ, there will be no way to carry out what we are trying to do in the church today. If we see this essential significance, there will be no problem whatever.
In the New Testament it is not a matter of the oneness of the church; oneness is not something of the church but of the Body. The Lord’s prayer for the believers in John 17 was concerning the Body. He prayed, “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given to Me, that they may be one even as We are....That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us” (vv. 11b, 21). The believers can have this oneness only by being in the Holy Father, in the Holy Son, and in the Holy Trinity.
The oneness that the Lord aspired for and prayed for in John 17 corresponds with the oneness of the Spirit in Ephesians 4:3-6. We must see that the church is the Body of Christ, which is a constitution, an entity constituted with the Triune God and His chosen and redeemed ones. In this Body there is the reality of oneness. The genuine oneness is not of the church but of the Body; the real oneness is the organic oneness of the Body. In a locality, this oneness is called one accord. Without the oneness of the Body, there is no possibility to have one accord in the church.
The one accord is first mentioned in Acts 1. The one hundred twenty had become one in the Body, and in that oneness they continued steadfastly with one accord in prayer (v. 14). If the church in Taipei alone is in one accord, that is still not oneness, because oneness is of the Body. If you are in one accord only in the church in Taipei and do not care at all for the other churches, that kind of one accord is a small sect.
Prior to the recent turmoil in the Lord’s recovery, a certain leading one claimed that their “nucleus” had something that the churches in Taiwan and other places did not have. Not only the churches in other localities were excluded from the “nucleus” to which he referred, but even the local brothers and sisters were excluded; only a small number were included. This kind of one accord is a big division. That leading one was building up a so-called one accord, but in the end his building produced a big division. That was because he did not see the Body. If we see the Body, we cannot bring in any division.
I would like to refer to the pattern of Brother Nee. First, Brother Nee’s study of the Word gave me a deep impression and changed my study of the Word. Second, he confirmed that I needed to give up my occupation and serve the Lord full-time. That was in 1933. At that time, I had a serious struggle for a total of three weeks, from August 1 to 21, in which I was considering whether or not to give up my occupation and serve the Lord full-time. Then in September I received a letter from him which briefly said, “Brother Witness, concerning your future, you should serve the Lord full-time. How do you feel? May the Lord lead you.” The letter was mailed on August 17, which was exactly the time when I had the most serious struggle before the Lord. Brother Nee and I did not have much correspondence with each other, and he was not aware of my struggle. Therefore, I felt that I should go to see him. Later, when I went to Shanghai and stayed in his home as a guest, I asked him about this matter. He said that at the time he wrote the letter he was returning from England on a ship sailing on the Mediterranean Sea. While the sea was calm and unruffled, he was considering before the Lord concerning the work in China. It was at that time that he had the feeling to write me that brief letter. Through that letter we were built together more than we were ever built before.
Four months after I arrived at Shanghai, one day Brother Nee came and told me, “Brother Witness, we the co-workers here in Shanghai all feel that you should move your family here to stay.” He wanted me to bring this matter before the Lord. When I brought this matter before the Lord and prayed about it, the Lord used Acts to show me that there was only one flow of His move on the earth; there should not be two flows, two sources, of His move in China. Thus, I moved my family there, and since then I have been in this flow.
Third, Brother Nee truly knew Christ and the Body. His work was not for himself at all; he did not have his own work. He never put any church he established “in his pocket.” Brother Nee was the pioneer, and I am a follower. Thank the Lord, he truly was an excellent pattern to me that enabled me to still be ministering here today. I was used very much by the Lord. The church in Chefoo was established through me, but I did not keep the church in Chefoo “in my pocket.” When Brother Nee’s ministry was suspended, I was used by the Lord considerably to restore the church in Shanghai, but whatever I did, I was always in fellowship with Brother Nee. Later, I went to Taiwan. Today you can also testify that I have never put the churches in Taiwan “in my pocket.” Neither Brother Nee nor I carried out our own work; rather, we carried out the work of the Lord’s recovery. The Lord’s recovery is for the building of the Body of Christ.
Because the Lord’s recovery has spread widely in the United States, some condemned me of controlling. Most of you brothers are from Taiwan. Who among you can prove that I controlled you? From 1984 to 1989 I received a burden from the Lord to go back to Taiwan to study the way for the Lord’s recovery to go on. However, a small number of people had a wrong concept and thought that I was keeping the whole church in my hands, so they began to start rumors and cause disruptions. Their concept was altogether natural, and they did not see the Body. After my five-year stay in Taiwan I left them a training that has produced several hundred full-timers, who then went to the villages and established dozens of churches. Is that training in my hands today? In whose hands are the churches in Taiwan today?
Thank the Lord, after I returned to the United States in 1989, I decided to have a training in Anaheim. The Lord’s recovery was stabilized within five or six years. The Lord also confirmed this training. After the war in the Persian Gulf, immediately there was a reminding within me, saying, “Why not go to start the work in Russia? That land with a population of 350,000,000 has been under the hands of the Communists for seventy years and is now opened. Why not go there?” That was in April of 1991. Then in May, during the Memorial Day conference, I declared that we would go to Russia. In October of the same year, over thirty people went there. Most of them were produced by the training in the United States. Now that they are in Russia, even if I wanted to control them, it is not possible. Forgive me to say this: A great number of churches have been under my care, but not one church was kept in my hands.
Anyone who has a vision today can be clear at a glance that neither Brother Nee nor I carried out our own personal work; our work is the work of the Lord’s recovery for the building of the Body of Christ. I say this with the hope that you will be influenced by me. I was greatly influenced by Brother Nee, and I hope that you will also be influenced by him. In March of this year eight brothers were needed for the release of the word in the international blending conference in Indonesia. They came and asked me, “What shall we do there?” I told them that they should go there to do the work in the Body and that they should not be as they had been in the past, each one doing his own work, each one having a little region that had become a mountain fortress, and each one as a result becoming a feudal prince building his own fortress and occupying his own mountain top.
This is the reason that I have called several urgent meetings for the elders and co-workers since 1984. I called the urgent meetings because I observed that among us there was an inclination toward division. I released a series of truths that were later printed in several volumes (see Elders’ Training, Books 1—11). You all should read these books. I said that the age of feudalism is over and that we should no longer do the work of feudal princes. The co-workers should go out, but they should never do the work of building fortresses, the work of the feudal princes; they should only do the work of the Lord’s recovery. If we all do the work of the Lord’s recovery, there will be the one Body. If only three or five people who are of the same mind go out to work in a small region, the outcome is not oneness or one accord; rather, that outcome creates division. This is the very reason for the turmoil in recent years.
If we look back, what did Brother Nee accomplish, and what have I accomplished? All that we have done is left here for the Lord to show grace to His children; the work that we have done is the Lord’s recovery. I hope that we all can see this. We must see the Body of Christ and be very clear concerning this vision. This vision must become our governing and controlling vision. We must do the work of the Lord’s recovery under this vision. The work of the Lord’s recovery is the work of His economy, the work of the Body of Christ.
In the early days of the church in Taipei, we were subdivided into four to five halls. In a certain hall several people would be joined together in one accord to do their own work. Their one accord included only those who were joined to them and excluded all the other halls. As a result, their hall became a small fortress with themselves as feudal princes. If a local church does not care for other local churches, that is a fortress under a feudal prince. Anyone who does the work of the fortress and the feudal prince will not have a long-lasting spiritual life. Although Brother Nee passed away over twenty years ago, today we still see his ministry remaining here to minister to the churches for their going on. We all must see the Body and do the work of the Body. All our problems, whether in the church or in our personal life, are due to our lack of seeing the Body. Even our wrong attitude toward our wife is due to our not knowing the Body. Knowing the Body changes not only our church life but also our attitude toward our spouse.
Whether you are doing the work of the fortress or the work of the Lord’s recovery does not depend on me but on you. Do you work in your locality merely to guard your hall, merely to work on your district meeting, or merely for the locality where you are? We should not have feudal princes among us; we should have only one Head, who is Christ, the Head of the Body. What we are doing today is the work of the Body of Christ. Christianity is full of fortresses: the Catholic Church is a big fortress; the Presbyterian Church and the Baptist Church are also fortresses. Every small free group is a small fortress. We cannot see the Body of Christ among them.
We need to see that the Body of Christ is not the oneness in a locality but the oneness of the Body, the oneness of the Spirit. There are thousands of local churches, but the Spirit is one. In the Body we need to keep the oneness of the Spirit; in the church and among the churches we need to be in one accord. This is the genuine oneness.