In the recent turmoil, some began to teach different things other than God’s economy (1 Tim. 1:3-4). They were teaching that the local church should he autonomous. This wrong teaching comes from G. H. Lang’s book The Churches of God. In the spring of 1988, certain ones worked together to spread this book. How can the local churches of the Body of Christ be autonomous? Just as no part of our human body can be autonomous in relation to the other parts, none of the churches of the Body of Christ can be autonomous in relation to the other churches.
The ones who took the lead in the recent turmoil also taught that after the apostles established the churches and set up the elders, they kept their hands off of the churches and elders which they established. This is a wrong and different teaching. The Bible tells us that Paul established the church at Ephesus. Then he visited the saints there and wrote letters to them for their perfecting. Acts 20 tells us that Paul once stayed with them for three years and that he taught them publicly in the meetings and from house to house day and night with tears (vv. 20, 31). Surely Paul did not keep his hands off of the churches which he established or the leading ones whom he appointed. In his book entitled Church Affairs, Brother Nee pointed out that the workers need to give help to the elders by teaching them and training them, based upon the apostle Paul’s example (pp. 14-16). For some to say that the apostles should keep their hands off of the churches and the elders means that they have not seen the Body of Christ.
Actually, the ones among us who rebelled were bothered because they wanted to achieve something. This meant that they wanted to be somebody in the recovery. We have been selected by God and called out by God from the world, and we have given up everything for Christ. We do not want to be somebody or to achieve something for ourselves. To us all things other than Christ are dung, dregs, rubbish, and dog food (Phil. 3:8).
We need to be the overcomers, the ones who overcome all the negative things. The Lord has been delayed because He still needs some who will pay the price to be His overcomers. He told us clearly that He would come quickly. Of course, to Him one thousand years is like one day (2 Pet. 3:8). But still the Lord has not come back, because we have delayed Him. He needs the overcomers to carry out the economy of God to have a Body and to destroy His unique enemy. This is exactly why the book of Revelation was written.
First, we need to see the economy of God. Then we have to see the Body of Christ. Strictly speaking, what God is seeking after is a Body for Christ. The twenty-three verses of Ephesians 1 issue in the church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. Christ as the One who fills all in all needs the church to be His fullness for His complete expression. Christ is not only the all-inclusive One but also the all-extensive One because He fills all in all. Such a Christ needs a Body as His counterpart for His expression.
Ephesians tells us clearly that the church, the gathering of God’s called-out ones, is not an organization but an organism, the Body of Christ. We have to see this. The Body is universally one. It has only one God who is of three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Ephesians 4 reveals that all three have been constituted into this organism.
On the one hand, the Body is a constitution, but on the other hand, it is a building. This building is not by stones or bricks which cannot grow. This building is by the increase of the organic Triune God in the believers who grow up into Christ the Head in all things (Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15). The Body is constituted with the Triune God and is built up by growing (v. 16). We all have to grow into our Head, Christ, in everything. Ephesians 4:16 says that the Body builds itself up by growth. All of the Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.
If we see the Body, we will not be able to make any trouble in the recovery. We will not be concerned about who is wrong or who is right. Actually, if we make trouble, we are automatically wrong. We have been forced to quarantine certain divisive ones who have caused trouble among us. Anyone who knows the Body would never do the things which these ones have done and are doing.
Turmoil after turmoil has transpired because of our not knowing the Body. The only remedy that can cure us of this kind of illness is the seeing of the Body. When Brother Nee taught about the Body he said that with whatever we do, we have to consider how the churches would feel about it. When we do something, we must not forget that we are members of the Body, and the Body is not only a local church. The local church is not a “local body”; if it is, it becomes a local sect. The Body is the Body of Christ, constituted by the Triune God with all the believers on this earth, with all the local churches.
Both the ministry and many churches in the recovery made a decision to quarantine certain divisive ones. Some did not accept this decision and have even joined these divisive ones. They have disregarded the feeling of the Body. How we behave ourselves depends upon the degree of our seeing of the Body.