One of the most damaging items in Christianity is the clergy-laity system. In Revelation 2:6 the Lord said, "But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." The root word for Nicolaitan in Greek is composed of two words—niko and laos. Niko means conquer or above others, and laos means laity. The Nicolaitans must have been a group of people who esteemed themselves to be higher than the common believers. They formed a clergy to rule over and conquer the people with the excuse that the people were mere laymen who did not know the Bible.

The Nicolaitans are the so-called experts, the clergy who form a hierarchy. This system has been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and has also been retained by the Protestant churches. Today in the Roman Catholic Church there is the priestly system, in the state churches there is the clerical system, and in the independent churches there is the pastoral system. Many pastors are even designated with the title Reverend, to show that they are in this special class of clergy.

Revelation 2:6 speaks of the works of the Nicolaitans, and 2:15 speaks of the teaching of the Nicolaitans. This clergy-laity system caused the church to become the religious system of Christianity, which is another religious age. Paul needed to be delivered from Judaism, the religious age at his time. Today we need to be delivered from Christianity, the religious age in our time.

I am sharing this to help us realize that the history among us has been one of coming completely out of Christianity without compromise. It is a shame that some so-called co-workers among us have tried their best to compromise. They say that between the denominations and the local churches there is a gap, and they consider themselves as the bridge to bridge the gap. This was a suffering to Brother Nee, and today this is a suffering to me.

Since 1927, just two years after I was saved, I began to be delivered out of the present evil age, the age of Christianity. Some have told me that I should not say that Christianity is degraded. But according to Revelation 17, the religious system of Christianity is a great prostitute. Verse 5 calls this great prostitute "Babylon the Great, The Mother of the Prostitutes." We need to be delivered from this mother and from her daughters, who are the prostitutes. Since the Mother of the Prostitutes is the apostate Roman Catholic Church, the prostitutes, her daughters, should be all the different sects and groups in Christianity who hold to some extent the teaching, practices, and traditions of the apostate Roman Church. We need to be delivered out of this present evil age. We have to come out of Christianity and come back to the Body of Christ. The pure church life has no evil transmitted from the apostate church.

Because of our standing for the pure church life, others have been offended. But what can we do? Paul said in Galatians 1:10, "If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a slave of Christ." If we were men-pleasers, we would not suffer persecution as Paul did. The history of the Lord's recovery is a history of coming out of and being outside of the present evil age. We have burned the bridges between us and Christianity, but some among us have tried to build a bridge to bring us back. We need to burn all the bridges. There should be no bridge between the local churches and Christianity. Everything should be after its kind. The denominations are after their kind, and the local churches should be after their kind. We should be what we are without compromise or pretense.

I am afraid that in the coming years, if the Lord delays His coming, some subtle ones will be used by the enemy again to try to bridge the gap between us and Christianity. We need to maintain such a gap between us and Christianity. The wider this gap is the better because it is a gap between us and the present evil age. Thank the Lord that Brother Nee was a pioneer ahead of us to come out of Christianity into the pure church life to accomplish God's will to have the Body of Christ. He suffered for this his entire life. He was even imprisoned by the Communists for the last twenty years of his life. There was a rumor saying that he was released, but this is a lie. He died in prison in his faithfulness to the Lord. There was no change with him. He was a real martyr. He was martyred for the church and the churches. He was really delivered from this present evil age.

Many of those who praise Brother Nee today would actually oppose him if he were here. The scribes and Pharisees excused themselves by saying that if they had been in the days of the prophets, they would not have participated in the deeds of their fathers, who murdered the prophets. The Lord Jesus exposed them by saying that although they built the graves of the prophets, they were witnesses to themselves that they were the sons of those who murdered the prophets (Matt. 23:29-31). Then He went on to say that, in the same way, they would kill and persecute the prophets sent to them (vv. 34-35). Brother Nee was persecuted and opposed because he came out of the present evil age to accomplish God's will to have the organic Body of Christ. Our history is a history outside of the present evil age.