Today there are two main things that we have to do on the positive side. First, we have to proclaim a pure, high, and complete gospel. “Pure” means without mixture. Today the gospel preached in Christianity is mixed and impure. This reminds us of the parable the Lord Jesus spoke to us in Matthew 13, about a woman taking leaven and hiding it in the meal (v. 33). We know that the meal is Christ Himself, but today’s Christianity takes leaven and mixes it with teachings concerning Christ, thus confusing the pure truth of Christ.
Furthermore, the gospel preached in Christianity today is too shallow. They preach merely things like the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from hell. These are certainly correct, but they are too shallow. We all know that the growth of any creature requires an outer skin and also an inner content. For example, in order for a baby chicken to grow up, it must have feathers and skin on the outside so that muscle can grow on the inside. Today the gospel preached in Christianity is a “skin-and-feathers gospel,” which speaks only about the brevity and sorrow of human life and how believing in Jesus results in not going to hell, having a better living, and receiving blessings and peace in the human life. These are all too shallow and cannot make known God’s eternal economy, His eternal plan.
In preaching the gospel, the first thing we speak about is the mystery of human life and the meaning of human life. What is the meaning of human life? It is to be a vessel of God to contain God within us. We need to be persons who contain God, who are filled with God, and who take God as life, that we may become God’s expression and God’s declaration. This is full of light. This is a part of the pure and high gospel.
Second, we need to lead people to come to the full knowledge of the truth. There are many books among us that have messages concerning the truth. When a new one is saved, we should set up a meeting in his home, of which our main purpose is to lead him to come to the knowledge of the truth. First Timothy 2:4 says, “Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” God desires all men to be saved and completely enter into the ministry of the truth. In short, God desires all men to be saved and also desires each of them to understand the truth.
We are here not criticizing but using facts as an illustration. Today we do not hear much truth in Christianity. The saddest thing is that in the chapels in the United States we hear of nothing but marriage, careers, or other things such as raising children, none of which is the pure and deep truth. The Lord has shown us and entrusted to us that we should speak the pure and deep truth. In Matthew 28, when the Lord Jesus had passed through death and resurrection, He came back in resurrection into the midst of the disciples and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (v. 18). In heaven or on earth, all authority has been given to Him; He is the Lord of heaven and earth. Therefore, He sent out the disciples with this authority and said to them, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (v. 19). This is to baptize them into the Triune God.
The Lord Jesus also said, “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age” (v. 20). On the surface, Christianity keeps this word, but if you go deeper, you will discover otherwise. I was born into a Christian family. I was a fourth-generation Christian according to my mother’s side of the family. From childhood I never attended a school run by the Chinese; I always attended schools run by the Americans. I attended worship services from my youth, and the schools also forced us to attend them. I am quite clear about the whole condition of Christianity. The gospel and the truth they preach are very simple. Some of the Lord Jesus’ words spoken in the Gospel of Matthew, for example, are not simple, but Christianity applies them in a simple way. For instance, in the Gospels the Lord said, “Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). He also said that we should love one another (John 15:12) and that we should be humble, so that whoever wants to become great among us shall be our servant and slave (Matt. 20:26-27). Christianity does not apply words such as these in a proper way.
John 14 through 16 speaks of the mystery of the Triune God—how the Triune God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, how the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son, and how the two are one. Furthermore, the Father and the Son, who are two yet one, are realized by the Spirit. This realizing Spirit has entered into us to abide with us, revealing to us all the reality of the Triune God within us—from the Father to the Son to the Spirit—that this reality may become our experience. Since my youth, I have never heard this kind of deep message in Christianity. However, in Matthew the Lord Jesus said that we should observe all that He has commanded us. The Lord also said, “Abide in Me and I in you” (John 15:4). The Lord was telling us that He, the Lord, lives inside of us through the Spirit as His reality. Therefore, the Spirit’s coming and being inside of us is the Lord’s being inside of us. Now the Father and the Son with the Spirit come together to us to make an abode with us. This means that the entire Triune God comes into us to abide with us (John 14:23). This is a deep truth in the Bible.
In addition, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 speak of the decree of the kingdom’s constitution, which is also extremely profound, crucial, and practical. However, these truths have become veiled mysteries among today’s Christians. No one understands them, and no one speaks about them.
In the last days of this age, the Lord has raised us up and given us a twofold commission: on the one hand, we are to dispose of everything negative, and on the other hand, we are to preach to people—not in part but in full—the pure, high, and complete gospel. This preaching is not done through inviting a spiritual giant to do the speaking; that is not according to the Bible. The Lord wants us to go. We all know that the first time God came to man with the gospel was in Genesis 3. When man fell, he hid himself out of the fear of God. At that time, God did not call to him from the heavens, but He Himself came to the garden of Eden and called toward the place where Adam and Eve were hiding, saying, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:8-9). God was the first to go to someone’s “door” to pay him a visit. Four thousand years later God Himself became flesh, put on a physical body, and came among men as a man to go to men’s doors to pay them a visit. He went to the door of Zaccheus, and He went into the house of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10). He also paid a visit to the Samaritan woman beside the well (John 4:1-42). During His three and a half years of preaching, He did much work of visiting, never doing anything by calling people to organize a meeting or inviting people to a meeting. For many years the precious truth among us has not been able to be spread because our practice is contrary to the principle in the Bible. Therefore, we need to go against our former practice, no longer inviting people to come but going to where people are.
Thirty years ago in Taiwan we saw a group of medical people who went out to give injections. They all rode bicycles, and on the bicycles was the sign, “Injections in Your Home.” Not long ago in the United States the business of “food delivery” began, which specializes in delivering food to people’s homes. Today our preaching of the gospel and the truth is not inviting people to our “restaurant” but delivering food to their homes. Not only do we need to know people’s situation, but more importantly we need to preach to them the pure, high, and complete gospel. Then little by little we can teach them the pure, high, and complete truth. In this way the Lord will be able to gain a proper church prepared as His bride so that He can come back to marry us. This is our commission today.
(A message given in a conference on February 1, 1987 in Taipei.)