In the previous chapter, we saw the crucial need for the Spirit and the Word in the organic building up of the church. In this chapter we want to see that we need to cooperate with the Lord to save sinners and to cherish and nourish the newly baptized ones for the organic building up of the church.
I am burdened for this matter of saving sinners because, generally speaking, many of us do not know its real significance. According to the thought of many, to save sinners is merely to rescue them from hell so that they may go to heaven. Although it is correct to say that to save sinners is to rescue them from eternal perdition, this is not God’s central thought, His eternal intention. The entire Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, unveils that God’s heart’s desire is to build up a Body for Christ. God desires to gain a Body for Christ. Christ is the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9), and He needs a Body for His expression that God may also be expressed in Christ. The thought of rescuing sinners from hell that they may go to heaven is natural and traditional. We are burdened to save sinners for the building up of the Body of Christ. To save sinners is to regenerate fallen people that they may become members of the organic Body of Christ.
In order to save sinners, we have to visit people where they are (Luke 10:1-6). We have to visit people to disciple them. The Lord told us in Matthew 28:19 to go and disciple the nations, baptizing them into the Triune God. There are many debates among Christians concerning the way to baptize people, but we need to see that when we baptize people, we are baptizing them into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The name denotes the person, so we are immersing people into the very person of the Triune God.
We may preach the gospel and baptize people according to our natural thought and concept. Hymns, #921 in our hymnal says:
Rescue the perishing,
Care for the dying;
Jesus is merciful,
Jesus will save.
The thought in this hymn is that the pitiful sinners need to repent. Though they are slighting Jesus, He is waiting for them. He is merciful and will save them. This hymn is very good in the thought that the sinners are perishing and we need to rescue them, but the divine revelation conveyed in this hymn is too low and too shallow.
To save sinners is to minister Christ in His riches to people. Paul told us in Ephesians 3:8 that he was given grace to preach the unsearchable or untraceable riches of Christ as the gospel. Paul’s gospel was not doctrinal teaching or theology. Paul’s gospel was the untraceable riches of Christ. Paul preached a person, and this person’s riches are untraceable. Our gospel to the nations must be the unsearchable riches of Christ.
To save sinners is also to beget them as children of God that they may become the members of the organic Body of Christ (1 Cor. 4:15; Rom. 12:5). They are enemies of God, and you have to beget them that they may become children of God. Your begetting them causes them to have a great change of life, change of nature, and change of character. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “For though you have ten thousand guides in Christ, yet not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” Paul begot the Corinthians to make them children of God. When someone is begotten by us through the gospel, he is regenerated.
When we are preaching the gospel to people, is our intention to beget them? Do we preach the gospel with the understanding that we are going to make people members of the organic Body of Christ? We may have had only the intention to rescue the perishing, fallen sinners. The Lord’s gospel is not to invite sinners to go to heaven, but the Bible does tell us that we are going to make sinners God’s children. When they become God’s children, they become living members of the organic Body of Christ. We need a vision from the heavens to see what it is to save sinners. Then our understanding and our view concerning the preaching of the gospel will be revolutionized. We are not preaching the gospel to save sinners into heaven but to make them the living members of the Body of Christ. Our concept should be changed.
To save sinners is to bear fruit (John 15:16a). In John 15 the Lord told us that He is the vine tree and that we are His branches. He also said that as the branches of the vine tree, we have to bear fruit. To bear fruit is to have an overflow of the inner life. If the branches enjoy the rich supply of the inner life juice, the inner life juice will have an issue, and this issue is fruit. If the branches are very dry, they will not be able to bear fruit. The branches’ bearing of fruit is the impartation of the life from within them. Do we have the thought that our preaching of the gospel is a dispensing of the life element within us to someone else? This truth is not according to our natural concept. To preach the gospel is to impart, to dispense, the very inner life from within us to others for their regeneration.
We all have to build up a habit of preaching the gospel in the prevailing way revealed in the Scriptures, not in our natural way. The prevailing way to preach the gospel is to disciple the nations and baptize them into the Triune God, to minister Christ in His riches to the nations, to beget sinners, making them children of God that they may become members of the organic Body of Christ, and to bear fruit for the glorification, the expression, of the Father.
The Lord has shown us that He desires to build up His organic Body in the organic way. For this organic building He needs an increase. We can gain this increase by begetting the sinners to make them living members of the organic Body of Christ. In the past, our rate of increase was very low. Furthermore, because our concept was too low concerning the preaching of the gospel, the concept of the ones whom we brought to the Lord was also low. We did not have the concept that the preaching of the gospel is for the organic building up of the organic Body of Christ. Neither the preachers nor the saved ones have the proper concept of preaching the gospel for the organic building up of the Body of Christ. When people get saved through our preaching of the gospel, we should be full of joy that they have become living members of Christ’s organic Body. The Lord desires to build up His organic Body, yet there is a shortage of material. The building is going on, but there is not much material with which to build. We bring sinners into the building by regenerating them. They are grafted into Christ and made alive to be the living members of the Body of Christ. The organic preaching of the gospel is a practical part of the building up of the Body of Christ.