When you receive your basic revelation for the first time, you realize that the Bible is living. For example, you may see that Christ is your holiness, with emphasis on the word is. Christ is your holiness; it is not a matter of Christ making you holy. It is not Christ giving you His holiness but Christ becoming your holiness. Your eyes are opened to see that your holiness is not a work but Christ Himself. Your holiness is a person, just as your righteousness is a person. Your righteousness is not the sum of fifty or more things that you do. Christ is your righteousness. God has made Christ your righteousness. Your righteousness is a person. This is a basic revelation: Christ is your righteousness. He is your holiness. Your righteousness is a person, and your holiness is also a person. This is a glorious vision. After two months an occasion may arise for you to take up the ministry of the word. You have to tell the brothers and sisters that Christ is your holiness, and you have to show them the difference between holiness as a thing and holiness as a person. However, you must remember that you cannot count on the revelation you received two months ago. You need to ask the Lord again, “Lord, what should I say?” Only after the Lord has shown you the need to speak such a word will you have the ministry of the word. Every time God wants you to speak such a word, He has to shine once again upon the revelation you received. You have to see the same thing all over again, and you have to see it like you have never seen it before. It has to become something new in you. You are enlightened within, and you see the meaning of Christ as your holiness. When this happens, you can go to the brothers and sisters and preach to them about Christ as holiness.
What is a revelation? A revelation is a seeing of what is in Christ. The Bible is full of Christ, and revelation enables us to see all the things that are in Christ. Christ is our holiness; this is a fact. It is recorded in the Bible. But the first time we see it, it is new to us. When a man sees something by revelation, it is brand new; nothing in the world seems as new as it. It becomes vibrant with the power of life; it is fresh. Revelation is always new; it makes old things new.
We wish to point this out: Revelation not only makes the letters living, turning old things into new things and converting what is objective into something subjective; it actually makes the subjective things altogether new once more. A basic revelation turns all the objective things in Christ into subjective things in man. Before a man receives such a basic revelation, everything in Christ is objective to him. Once he receives such a revelation, all the objective things become subjective to him. But this does not mean that once this word is opened up, the job is finished. It does not mean that this one opening will supply a man with what he needs for the rest of his life. Even if we have received a revelation, we need a fresh revelation from God every time we minister the word and serve others with Christ so that the old things can once again be new.
We must remember that spiritual things have to be nurtured in the environment of revelation. God intends that all the things of Christ and concerning Christ be living in us. He intends that all these things be nurtured through revelation. His revelation can make the old things continually living in us. All the things of Christ have to be kept alive continually by revelation. Once revelation is removed, spiritual things no longer are living. You may think that you saw something in the past and that this vision qualifies you to say something today. But you will find out that you cannot give anything to others. The same is true with preaching the gospel. It is easy to remember that the Lord is the Savior and that your sins are forgiven. Sometimes you touch something when you preach the gospel. At other times, the more you speak, the less boldness you have; you feel like a dried-up bottle of glue. Clearly one speaking is with revelation, whereas the other is without revelation. Only things that are kept in the realm of revelation are living, fresh, powerful, and full of life. We must bear in mind that all spiritual things become dead the minute they are separated from revelation.
Today when we minister the word to men, we should not depend on our memory. We should not think that we are free to speak the same things again just because our past experiences and past speakings are still intact in our mind. Even though it worked for us the first time, it will not work for us this time. We may speak the same thing again, but afterward, we feel that something is wrong, that what we said was not the right thing. We feel that we are, in fact, quite far from the thing that we were speaking about; we do not touch that thing at all. Revelation is distinctly different from teaching. Man always has a wrong concept that he wants to be a teacher. We must see that doctrine and teaching are useless by themselves. We should never think that the ability to speak is all that matters. We may be able to speak, and others may appreciate our speaking, but we can be our own judge; within we know that something is wrong. We should bear in mind that many people receive help ignorantly. We should not congratulate ourselves just because others say that they have received help from us. Some may say that they have received help, but in actuality they have not received anything. We know within whether our speaking was on the mark or off the mark, old or new, dead or living. As we are speaking, if the Lord’s revelation is with us and God’s mercy is upon us, we will touch reality; there will not be a feeling of estrangement. We will be in touch, and the things we say will be living to us. As long as we have the assurance that the things in us are living, we are all right. We must forever remember that we need a fresh revelation from God every time we fulfill the ministry. This is what it means to have the ministry of the word.
First Corinthians 14 covers the subject of prophesying. All the prophets can prophesy and speak. But “if something is revealed to another sitting by, the first should be silent” (v. 30). Suppose there are some prophets, and one of them has a word to say to the brothers. While he is speaking, another also receives a revelation. He may say, “Brother, let me speak.” The one who is currently speaking should let him speak, because the one who has received the revelation is the freshest; he has the most life and power. This is why he should be allowed to speak. Although all are prophets, the one who has received the latest revelation is the living one. It is possible that on this particular day, no one else has that word; only this brother knows this word because he has the revelation. Therefore, the rest should allow the one with revelation to stand up to speak. Our service in the ministry of the word is based on the revelations we continually receive. If we do not have continual revelations, we cannot serve properly as a minister of the word.
We should never presume that a message that once contained God’s speaking will always contain His speaking. We should never presume that a message that once brought about repentance will always bring about repentance. This is impossible. The same message delivered in the same manner does not guarantee the same result. Only the same anointing will produce the same result. Only the same revelation will produce the same light. The same word may not produce the same light. How easy it is for a spiritual thing to become dead in us! It can easily become as dead as stagnant water in us. The ability to deliver the same message that was delivered three years ago does not mean that we have the same light that we had three years ago. Today we need to have the same revelation we had three years ago. Only then can we preach the same message we preached three years ago. Ministry of the word does not depend on the words we have spoken in the past, but on the new revelation we have acquired in the present.
The biggest problem with the church today is that many people think that they have many messages to give. They think that if they repeat the same message again and again, they will have the same result again and again. But this is impossible. It is a fundamental error to pay attention to doctrines rather than revelations. Even if a person spoke Paul’s or John’s very own messages, it would not work, to say nothing of repeating his own message. Only the same revelation will produce the same result; the same words will not produce the same result. Hence, the ministry of God’s word is not a matter of word but of revelation. We do not serve on the basis of word but on the basis of revelation. We must remember that the ministry of God’s word is the ministry of God’s revealed word. We must differentiate between doctrine and revelation. What God said yesterday and the day before is doctrine; what He says today is revelation. What we remember is doctrine; what we see is revelation.
We know that the ministry of the prophets involves things for today and the future; it does not involve things of the past. The ministry of the prophets unveils God’s desire today and in the future. This is why the Bible calls such men seers or prophets. A prophet is a seer; he is one who sees. In the Old Testament many prophets spoke prophecies. But some prophets did not really speak prophetically; rather, they proclaimed God’s will for men in their times. When Nathan went to David, he foretold a little concerning the latter’s wife and children. But Nathan primarily expressed God’s thought; he was expressing God’s heart concerning certain things that were happening then (cf. 2 Sam. 12:7-15). In the Old Testament the highest expression of the ministry of God’s word was the prophesying and preaching of the prophets. If anyone wants to be a minister of God’s word, if he wants to have the highest degree of ministry, he has to know what God wants today and what He wants for the future. He must have God’s present-day revelation. He cannot remain in the old words or even words of the recent past. Many people can only hold on to what they saw in past years or past days. They do not have the present-day revelation. These ones cannot be ministers of the word.