In order to experience death and resurrection we need to know the Spirit who is so wonderful. He is the consummated Spirit, the Spirit compounded with God and man, with the person of Christ, divinity, humanity, death, resurrection, the effectiveness of death, and the power of resurrection. Hence, this Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ with a bountiful supply (Phil. 1:19). He is the all-inclusive Spirit, the life-giving Spirit, and the indwelling Spirit in us. Furthermore, in Revelation, due to the church’s desolation, God has intensified His Spirit sevenfold; therefore, the Spirit is also the sevenfold intensified Spirit. Only this Spirit is the “good medicine” that heals our sickness.
Today the Triune God has been consummated as the Spirit through various processes. The Spirit is the very Triune God, the aggregate of the Triune God. He humbled Himself not only to come into us but also to abide in us, make His home in us, and build in us. Ephesians 3:17 says that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith that we may be rooted and grounded in love. Furthermore, in John 14 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (v. 23). Make an abode denotes building; this is to build God into man as man’s dwelling place and to build man into God as God’s dwelling place. Thus, God and man have a mutual dwelling place.
What we have been fellowshipping here is not being taught by anyone in Christianity. Even very few among us understood these things three to five years ago. I have been speaking these things for thirty years. Thank the Lord, today by His mercy I am glad to see some results. On the one hand, the Lord’s recovery has spread to the whole earth with churches raised up in a great number of places. On the other hand, there is definite harmony in the Lord’s recovery. Since Brother Nee’s time, we have rarely seen the co-workers among the churches moving together in harmony. However, after I came back from Taiwan to the United States in 1989, from the time we began to have the training here in Anaheim to this day, I can testify that we have had a group of co-workers here who are truly in harmony. This harmony depends on our knowing the cross and the Spirit. The co-workers visited different places through the invitations of the churches and have thereby blended the churches as one. This is a good phenomenon. Now the churches around the globe all have the desire to be blended together. There is definitely such a trend of blending in the Lord’s recovery.
In conclusion, we need to see that God Himself went through five major steps—incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—to produce the church. None of the five major steps is simple. God Himself becoming flesh was not a simple matter. To God, it was not simple to experience human living. He was God yet He lived in a man on the earth to have the human living for thirty-three and a half years. He also passed through death and then resurrected and ascended to heaven. Without passing through these processes, God could not produce the church. Likewise, we cannot have the church in experience today unless we pass through death and resurrection with ascension. Consider the situation of many so-called Christians today. Where is the genuine church? We need to be on the alert.
From Brother Nee to this day, at least ten rebellions have occurred in the Lord’s recovery. At least three have taken place in the days of my ministry, and six or seven took place during the time of Brother Nee’s ministry. The rebellions are due to not knowing the flesh, the cross, the Spirit, and resurrection. Brother Nee and I worked together for eighteen years; the Lord can testify that we never spoke a joking word with each other. Furthermore, the two of us truly did not have opinions. Only those who know the cross and the Spirit can behave in this way. If there is no death, there is no life; only by death can there be life.
The earth itself remains unchanged, but the means of transportation are constantly being improved. Today transportation is becoming more and more convenient. Whereas in the past it would take at least two days and two nights to travel from Chefoo to Shanghai, today it takes only one day to make a trip between the United States and Taiwan. In addition, the telephone, telegram, fax, and other machines are very convenient for the fellowship among the churches. This is God’s doing in order that His chosen ones among the nations may become a corporate God-man, one Body. We need to be governed and controlled by this vision and see clearly that what we are doing is not the work of one local church but the work of the one Body.