We must see that in order to have the church, the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the bride of Christ, death is necessary. We must allow God to operate on us; this is to experience the cross. To be conformed to His death, as mentioned in Philippians 3:10, is to be made the same as the form of Christ’s death, that is, to take Christ’s death as the mold of our life. In our daily living of the church life, the life of the Body of Christ, we need to be conformed to His death. Hymns, #631 is a short hymn consisting of only three stanzas, but almost every line is a new utterance. Stanza 2 says,
If I’d have Christ formed within me,
I must breathe my final breath,
Live within the Cross’s shadow,
Put my soul-life e’er to death.
It is only in this way that Christ can be formed in us. Such a hymn has the practical experience as well as the fact and the truth.
What we have been speaking is the utterance and expression given to us by the Lord. Traditional theologians in Christianity say that we should not create new terms lightly. They say that it was all right for the church fathers to create expressions such as the Triune God, but we should not create any more new expressions lest we stir up trouble. This is due to their ignorance of the truth and their deficiency in experience. Language is a product of culture. If a certain thing exists in a certain culture, there is a definite term in that culture to express that thing. Stanza 1 of Hymns,#631 says, “If I’d know Christ’s risen power, / I must ever love the Cross.” The Chinese translation of the second line reads, “I must ever love the mold of the cross.” “The mold of the cross” is an expression created by us, but actually it is not, because it is based on what Paul says concerning our being conformed to the death of Christ. The Lord’s death on the cross is an accomplished fact. Paul, after receiving this revelation, saw the application of the fact and therefore wrote the truth of being conformed to Christ’s death in Philippians 3:10. Later, many saints, such as Madame Guyon, one of the inner-life people, A. B. Simpson, and Mrs. Penn-Lewis, all saw this truth and experienced this fact. In these years since we have seen something of the Lord and have received from the saints who were before us, we have found out that there is the need to have a new vocabulary to express the truths which we have seen.
Stanza 3 says,
If God thru th’ Eternal Spirit
Nail me ever with the Lord;
Only then as death is working
Will His life thru me be poured.
These are words from the human race, but they are utterances in the divine culture. This is the new language in the new culture that is incomprehensible to those who are not saved and to those who have no experience. They may appreciate the poetry of this hymn, but they do not understand its content or know what it means when it says, “If no death, no life.” This is the language of the heavenly kingdom that can be understood only by the saints who live the heavenly life.
Today if we want to have the church life and experience the Body of Christ, we must experience the cross and death. Take the family life as an example. The biggest problem between a husband and wife is that they always have different opinions, ideas, and ways. It is strange that among the couples, a slow one usually is matched with a quick one. It is seldom that both are quick or both are slow. Since one is slow and the other one is quick, the slow one complains about the quick one, and the quick one cannot stand the slow one. Sometimes the husband is sick and wants a drink of water, yet after a long time the wife still has not come with the water, and the husband fumes for being kept waiting. Not only has sickness caused the husband to become thirsty, but the waiting has also caused him to experience death. This is the problem with being slow. On the other hand, being quick also has its shortcomings. Some people clean the table after a meal by hastily removing all the bowls and chopsticks, yet the table is not clean and is still very messy. They wash the bowls quickly, but the bowls are not clean. They draw the water quickly, but the water is not hot enough. We have many such incidents happening in our family life. The secret to solving these problems is,
If I’d know Christ’s risen power,
I must ever love the Cross;
Life from death alone arises;
There’s no gain except by loss.
If there is no death, there is no life; if there is death, there is life. If we sing this hymn and experience the death of the cross, there will be no problems.
We should not just speak about the objective doctrine of the cross and the Spirit; we must have the practical experience. Sometimes the elders in the church argue over a certain matter that is brought up because they all have their own views. The Chinese have a saying that since we all have different views, we need to be broad-minded and forbearing. But how we can be broad-minded? We have to prepare ourselves, saying, “I have died, so I have no opinions, no views, no ways.” I speak this from my own experience. When I first served as an elder, I also felt that I should be more yielding, but regardless of how much I tried, I could not make it. The northern Chinese have a saying that some people carry a club at their side to bully others into yielding, but they continue to hit them after they have yielded. People who behave in this way are truly unconscionable; they feel that they are the only ones of importance. We often consider that this is the way we are treated in the church coordination. As a result, we may go home with no appetite for eating, and after a period of time begin to have ulcers and even tuberculosis. Hence, the following lines in Hymns, #477 are excellent:
The Cross on Golgotha,
Will never save thy soul;
The Cross in thine own heart,
Alone can make thee whole.
Our opinions are a sickness that can be cured only by the cross. When the cross comes into us, we are finished and have no more opinions.
In 1933 Brother Nee brought me into the co-workers’ meetings in Shanghai. Because I was of the younger generation, even the youngest, I learned some tremendous lessons there. Quite often, instead of asking the other brothers, Brother Nee would ask me, “Brother Witness, what is your view concerning this matter?” Usually I just smiled and said, “Brother Nee, whatever you say, I will do; I have no opinion.” After a long period of time, Brother Nee knew what my answer would be. Afterwards, we worked together for eighteen years, but he would not ask me anything because he knew that it was useless to ask, since I would do whatever he said. I behaved like this not only with Brother Nee but also with the other co-workers. I would always do according to whatever they would say.
I have given the following illustration: Three elders have decided to go from Taipei to Keelung, but they argue a great deal about how to get there. It takes an hour to get there by car, but after a long time they have not started their trip because they are arguing, and no one is willing to give in. If they would have stopped arguing, they could have already arrived at Keelung. Such things have happened frequently in the church. Often the elders would argue even to the extent that they have delayed the important affairs of the church, yet all they care about is just to argue. In the co-workers’ meetings someone may disagree with something but not speak up during the meeting; then after the meeting they criticize. I saw such things happen again and again. Therefore, I often say in the co-workers’ meetings that if you have something to say, say it openly and not behind someone’s back. Some of the elders’ wives are very knowledgeable concerning the matters fellowshipped among the elders because their husbands like to bring those matters home to discuss with them. The elders are somewhat reserved when they argue in the meetings, but when they go home, they break loose and pour out everything. Consequently, their wives know everything, and even their children hear things and are affected. Such things happen repeatedly because of the shortage of the experience of the cross.
On the other hand, even though we do not argue or fight, if we do not remain in the Spirit through death, whatever we do, we are not the church; rather, we are merely a social organization. What is the church? As those who have received grace and love, we have been redeemed by the Lord and have been enlightened by Him to see that we need to die that He may live in us. The Spirit lives when we have the cross in us. Moreover, when we have such experience daily, what is lived out is the church. This is not merely the church in fact or the church in doctrine; it is the church in experience. If we check with ourselves seriously in this light, we will see that very few churches are genuine churches in experience. Who is living in the shadow of the cross day by day and putting the soul-life to death moment by moment? Without such a living, how can there be the genuine church in experience?
Dear brothers, if we see this, there will be no problems at all. Neither exhortation nor rebuke works; the only thing that works is to help everyone to know the cross and the Spirit. He who sees this has more death, and he who has more death has more life. “Life from death alone arises.” There can be life only through death.