What does it mean in a practical way to build with gold? Suppose a certain brother contacts you for fellowship. This brother is humble, kind, and loving. However, you realize that he is natural and that all his virtues are natural. It will not help to give him doctrine by saying, “Brother, you are natural. Your virtues and your behavior are all natural.” Instead of speaking to him like this, you need to minister to him in such a way that he realizes that his virtues are natural, something obtained from birth, and that they do not contain anything of the element of God. Look to the Lord for His leading and for utterance that you may know how to minister to him in the proper way. Eventually, this brother will be helped to see that there is not anything of the nature of God in his good virtues. He will realize that his love, kindness, and humility do not contain the divine gold, but are simply the wood of his natural humanity. Before we can minister to others in this way, we must have adequate experience ourselves. Then we shall be able to minister the gold, the divine nature, into the saints. After a brother has been ministered to in this way, he will begin to condemn his natural virtues. Whenever he is humble or kind in a natural way, he will say, “This is my natural virtue. I condemn it because there is nothing of God in it.” This understanding, of course, is altogether different from that found among most Christians today. Religion encourages believers to develop their natural virtues. But for God’s building we need gold; we need the divine nature added into us.
Silver signifies the redemptive work of Christ. We also need to understand this in an experiential way. The more genuine experience we have, the more we shall know what is true gold and what is true silver. If we seek the Lord, we shall eventually come to realize that, no matter what we may be like in our natural being, we are fallen. There is a sinful element even in our goodness and love. This indicates that we are altogether fallen. Whatever we are and whatever we have is fallen in nature and needs God’s redemption.
According to the New Testament, God’s redemption first terminates us. When Christ died on the cross to redeem us, He terminated us. Whatever Christ terminates, He also redeems, brings back to God. Thus, being brought back to God comes after termination. Furthermore, whatever Christ terminates and redeems He then replaces with Himself. Redemption, therefore, involves termination, being brought back to God, and being replaced with what Christ is. This is a proper, adequate, and complete definition of redemption according to the New Testament.
When Christ redeems us, He terminates us, brings us back to God, and then replaces us with Himself. This is Christ’s redemptive work. We have seen that all that we have and are is fallen. But now that we have been terminated and brought back to God, the work of replacement is taking place within us. Christ as the life-giving Spirit has come into us and is gradually replacing us with Himself. This is the reason Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” In this one verse we see the three matters of termination, replacement, and being brought back to God.
If we have the adequate experience of Christ’s redemption, in our contact with the saints we shall impart the reality of redemption to them. In this way silver will be added to them. This is what it means to build with silver.
This kind of building will gradually eliminate death from the church life. Every local church is troubled by death, which comes from gossip, negative talk, and even from the natural virtues. How can this death be swallowed up? It can be swallowed up only by the building with gold and silver. Whenever you minister gold and silver to the saints, the negative germs within them are killed, and the saints are nourished in a positive way. The silver is a divine antibiotic to kill all germs. Then, spontaneously and automatically, death will be swallowed up by life. Life includes gold and silver, the nature of God and Christ’s redemptive work.