Prayer: Lord, for the accomplishment of Your economy, You need us. But for us to fulfill it, we need You all the more. Lord, without You, we are just vanity. Be gracious to us, and give us further words tonight. Lord, may we all have open fellowship one with another. Lord, may You release Your words among us and even in us. Amen.
Tonight I want to fellowship with you some practical words. After four years of studying the new way, the Lord has brought us through four steps.
First, the Lord has shown us that His Body is an organism. It is something of life, by life, and through life. It is entirely organic and has absolutely nothing to do with anything organizational.
Last summer, the Lord showed us that the Body of Christ is an organism and it is produced by the processed Triune God. If we read Ephesians chapter one carefully, we will see that from the processed Triune God the Body of Christ is produced. All that Christ has attained is transmitted to the church. The incarnation of Christ, His human living, death and resurrection, ascension, and His transcending over all things are transmitted to the church. Hence, verse 22 says, “And He subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church.” After the church is produced, verse 23 continues on to say that the church “is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” From this we see that this church is the Body of Christ.
Second, we must recover the condition of Ephesians 4:11-16 and 1 Corinthians 14. Ephesians 4 speaks of the gifts perfecting the saints for the work of the New Testament ministry, which is the building up of the organic Body of Christ. This must be recovered not only because it is the Lord’s word and therefore must be fulfilled but also because without this it is impossible for the Body of Christ to be built on earth and for the bride of the Lord to be prepared. At the same time, the Lord has shown us that everyone has to prophesy in the church meeting (1 Cor. 14:24) that all the saints may learn and be encouraged. In this way, the church will be built.
In the New Testament, Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 14 are two chapters that occupy a special place. One of these chapters mentions the building up of the Body of Christ; the other chapter mentions the building up of the church. In the New Testament, you cannot find another passage like these two chapters which speak so definitely concerning the building up of the Body of Christ and of the church. The Lord Jesus did say in the Gospels that “on this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). But this word is very general. It is not clearly explained. Ephesians 4, however, is different. It presents and points out to us the whole blueprint. First Corinthians 14 mentions the building up of the church five times. This chapter can be considered as being specifically for the building. The key to building is nothing other than prophesying. The Lord spoke such definite words through Paul. This word must be fulfilled, and the Lord’s church must be built up practically.
Recently, the Lord has further shown us the New Testament priesthood of the gospel. The New Testament priests are a priesthood. The priesthood is not something that belongs to a few people. Rather, it is universal and belongs to all the believers. Every New Testament believer is a priest. Moreover, they are not priests individually; rather, they form a priesthood. The word priesthood is a strong word in the New Testament. It is also a word that is difficult to translate. The Chinese Union Version did not translate it properly. This word is used twice in 1 Peter chapter two, in verse 5 and in verse 9. Verse 5 says, “Into a holy priesthood” and verse 9 says, “But you are...a royal priesthood.” The Chinese Union Version translated this only as “holy priests” and “royal priests.”
The priests are for the offering and managing of sacrifices. Without sacrifices, there is no need to have priests. The Old Testament priests offered bulls and goats as sacrifices. What then do the New Testament priests offer as sacrifices? First Peter 2:5 says “to offer up spiritual sacrifices.” What are these spiritual sacrifices? Hebrews chapter thirteen says that praise is one kind of sacrifice to God. Good works and material giving are also sacrifices. But these are not the main sacrifices. The main sacrifices are the sinners saved through our gospel preaching. These sinners were originally in Adam and apart from Christ. But after they are saved and transferred into Christ, they become sacrifices offered to God.
Every saint should be God’s priest of the gospel and should do the work of preaching the gospel. This is truly a great light. Formerly, some said that door knocking is good but that there is not just one way to preach the gospel. Today, we see clearly that if you do not use the proper, biblical way to preach the gospel, you may bring in sinners, but you have acted contrary to the principle of God’s economy. For example, some famous evangelists have preached the gospel and brought thousands to salvation. But their way does not render much help to the accomplishment of God’s New Testament economy. On the contrary, it has annulled the organic function of many Christians in preaching the gospel. If during the past forty years they would have acted according to what is recorded in Ephesians chapter four in perfecting the believers to do the work of preaching the gospel, perhaps today there would be over a million believers in America that had been perfected by them, who would all be able to do the work of preaching the gospel. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
The biblical way demands that every believer, that is, every member of the Body of Christ be living. Is there a body that has only a few members moving while all the other members are not moving? This can never be unless that body is paralyzed. However, the Christianity that we see today is indeed in this condition. The Body that God has prepared for His Son, Christ, has been paralyzed by Christianity. This is why, I believe, the Lord has opened our eyes to see that the Body of Christ is a living organism, that we may learn to sympathize with His desires. He is indeed sick of the situation in Christianity which paralyzes the Body.