Prayer: Lord, thank You for Your move among us, and even for Your move within us. Lord, we believe this recovery is Your testimony at the end of this age. Lord, we thank You for the environment. Oh, we thank You for arranging everything that we could come together. O Lord Jesus, in this dark age You have captured us, and You have put us together to come together all the time for Your Word. Lord, we believe tonight You are one with us. Lord, You know we do have a desire to be really one spirit with You. We do have a standing to believe that You are really one with us, even one with us in this matter of training. Lord, we do consecrate this Training to You, and we offer ourselves to You anew. Lord, thank You for such a new start. Thank You that You have gained so many saints in this area who are seeking after You. Lord, we thank You that You have opened up Your Word so much more than ever before. Lord, we trust You for this year’s Training. Do grant us to have a good start, a glorious new beginning. Lord, come again to visit every one tonight and reach every one and touch every one and grant every one Your grace. Lord, this is all that we need. Anoint every one. Anoint every part of the Training Meeting. Rescue this meeting out of any forms, any rituals. We like to get out of any forms, any rituals, and just to be in the spirit. Oh, do cover us. We again realize that this is a fighting for Your recovery and for Your testimony, so hide us and fight the war for us. We trust in You. Thank You Lord, in Your precious name, amen.
To begin this meeting, I would like to ask a question: What is the top revelation in the Holy Word? We know that the Bible has sixty-six books and that they were written over a period of at least sixteen hundred years. These sixty-six books cover a lot of things from eternity past to eternity future. They cover creation, salvation, and many other things. Bible students and Bible teachers have picked up a lot of subjects from the Bible, but we all have to see that the Body is the top point. Among all the thousands of words in the Bible, the Body should stand out to us. The biggest word in the Bible is the Body.
You have to realize that the most missed and neglected and lost point in the Bible is that the church is the Body of Christ. Many of you came from the background of Christianity. I don’t have the confidence that you ever heard an adequate teaching concerning the Body while you were there. I was with the Brethren assembly for seven and one-half years. They were very famous fifty years ago for knowing the Bible. Every week I went to five of their meetings. I never heard one message concerning the Body, but I heard many messages concerning ten horns and four beasts. I never heard one message teaching me that Christ has a mystical Body—that besides His personal body, He has a mystical Body.
After the war at the end of the 1950s I came to this country. I heard a lot of talk about the Body. I heard terms such as Body life and Body ministry. I went to visit all those who were talking in this way. I discovered that nearly no one knew what they were talking about. At least there was no Body. Today the most missed item of the revelation in the Bible is this one thing—the Body.
In the last two years we have stressed very strongly that Paul’s ministry is the completing ministry to complete the divine revelation. Suppose you remove not all the writings of Paul, but only Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians from the Bible. Then you could realize the Bible has a big gap. If you took away some other books you might not feel that there was such a big gap, but Paul’s writings are the completion of the divine revelation. You have to realize that this completing ministry is altogether focused on the Body. Even in these four books if you take away Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 1 and 4, and Colossians 1 and 2, you take away the chapters concerning the Body of Christ from Paul’s writings. From this you can see the top point, the ultimate point, of God’s divine revelation, the Body.
Have you ever considered what is the top item produced by God in this universe? The heavens were produced, the earth was produced, man was produced, and even thousands of items were produced. God worked in creation, and God has been working through all the generations. God is still working, and we don’t know how long His working will last, but eventually what will be the ultimate item that comes out of God’s working? We have to see it is the Body. You have to be deeply impressed that what will ultimately come out of God’s working through all the centuries and all the generations will be a Body. Who is the Head of this Body? Christ is the Head. What will come out is just the Body. The Body is the ultimate item of God’s continual working, so the Body is the top point of God’s entire revelation. You have to realize that not only has this matter been missed in Christianity, but even among us in the Lord’s recovery we couldn’t see too much actuality of the Body. If you go to the Christian book stores and pick up different expositions on Romans, you will see that one may stress justification and another may go on to say something about sanctification, but it is hard for you to get one exposition on Romans which stresses the Body adequately. Some expositions may have taught something concerning the government in chapter thirteen, but they haven’t said much concerning the Body in chapter twelve.
What about 1 Corinthians? When I was young I learned that some Christians appreciated a book written by one of the Brethren teachers on 1 Corinthians. That book mainly said that 1 Corinthians solves ten problems among the believers. Although this book talks a lot about these ten problems, it doesn’t talk about a particular positive thing, that is, the Body in chapter twelve. By reading chapter twelve carefully, you could see that two-thirds of that chapter is occupied with the Body. Today many teachers and expositors of the Bible talk a lot about other points, but they don’t talk about the Body. Why? Because it is surely easy to see divisions or fornication or law suits or marriage and so forth. But it is hard for people to apprehend the Body. Of course a lot of books were put out concerning the physical body of the Lord Jesus shown on the table. Many of these were written especially against the heretical teachings of the Catholic Church which say that that piece of bread becomes the actual physical body of Christ. But not many of the good writers talk about the other aspect of the Lord’s body. One aspect of His body is His physical body; the other is the mystical Body. Very few have paid adequate attention to the mystical Body of Christ. When I was young I saw all the so-called holy communions in Christianity. I would say that of the people who partook of the “holy communion” not one out of one hundred realized that the loaf also signifies the mystical Body of Christ. Rather they simply realized that the loaf signified the physical body of Christ broken on the cross for us.
It is so good that we can see what is the top thing in the Bible, the Body. But the question is: How could we sinners become the Body of Christ? It is not that difficult. We may use the example of a denture. Even the very best denture is not a real part of the body; rather, it is an artificial part and may be considered as foreign matter put into your body. How then can all the parts of your body be your body? Anything that is in your body must be organic. Recently, one young sister received a kidney transplant. Her brother’s kidney was removed from him and transplanted into her body. That was not the fitting of a denture. Transplanting the kidney into the sister’s body was something altogether organic.