THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Epistle of Paul to Romans
Message Five—A Laboring Priest of the Gospel of God

Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:9; 15:16, 29; 16:25-27

I. “That I might be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God, in order that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit”—Rom. 15:16:

A. Paul’s being a laboring priest of the gospel of God to minister Christ to the Gentiles was a priestly service to God, and the Gentiles whom he gained through his gospel preaching were an offering presented to God—1 Pet. 2:5:

1. By this priestly service many Gentiles, who were unclean and defiled, were sanctified in the Holy Spirit and became such an offering, acceptable to God—Rom. 15:16; 16:4-5.

2. These Gentiles were set apart from things common and were saturated with God’s nature and element, and were thus sanctified both positionally and dispositionally; such a sanctification is in the Holy Spirit—6:19; 15:16.

3. Based on Christ’s redemption, the Holy Spirit renews, transforms, and separates unto holiness those who have been regenerated by believing into Christ—3:24; 12:2; John 3:15.

B. Paul is a pattern of the priesthood of the gospel; in the Epistle to the Romans, which concerns the gospel of God, he tells us how sinners can be saved and justified by believing in the Lord, how they advance in Christ by being sanctified and transformed, and how they present themselves to God as living sacrifices so that they may become members of the Body of Christ to live the church life, expressing Christ corporately and awaiting His coming—1 Thes. 2:1-12; Acts 20:17-36; Rom. 1:16-17; 3:24-26; 12:1, 4-5; 13:11.

C. The New Testament service ordained by God is that all believers are priests to serve God with the offerings that He desires—Rev. 1:5-6; 5:9-10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9:

1. As priests of the gospel of God, we offer saved sinners, as parts of the enlarged and corporate Christ, to God as sacrifices—Rom. 15:16.

2. The offering of the believers to God is in three steps:

a. Those who preach the gospel offer the newly saved ones to God as spiritual sacrifices—v. 16; 1 Pet. 2:5.

b. After the new believers grow and begin to understand what it is to be a believer in Christ, they are encouraged to offer themselves to God as a living sacrifice—Rom. 12:1.

c. As the believers continue to grow unto maturity, those who labor on the believers present them full-grown in Christ—Col. 1:28.

D. In order to function as priests of the gospel, we need to see that the gospel of God includes the entire book of Romans; this Epistle shows us that when we preach the gospel, we make sinners the sons of God and members of the Body of Christ, and we help them to grow so that they can be active members in the practice of the Body life in the local churches—1:16-17; 3:24; 5:10; 8:16; 12:2, 4-5.

E. The service of the priesthood of the gospel is the service of the church as the Body of Christ; the focus of our service is to save sinners and offer them to God, and the goal of our service is the building up of the Body of Christ—15:16; 12:4-5; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Eph. 4:11-12, 16.

II. “God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son”—Rom. 1:9:

A. The spirit in Romans 1:9 is not the Spirit of God but Paul’s regenerated spirit—John 3:6:

1. Christ and the Spirit are with the believers in their regenerated human spirit—2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16.

2. In Romans Paul stresses that whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we do toward God must be in this spirit—2:29; 7:6; 8:4-6, 9, 13; 12:11.

3. Paul served God in his regenerated spirit by the indwelling Christ, the life-giving Spirit, not in his soul by the power and ability of the soul—Phil. 3:3.

4. In order to serve in our spirit, we must sense the spirit, know the spirit, discern the spirit, and be burning in spirit—Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11; Heb. 4:12.

B. The apostle Paul served God in the gospel as well as in his spirit; the way to serve God involves service in the spirit inwardly and service in the gospel outwardly—Rom. 1:9; 15:19-20; 7:6; 12:11.

C. Our service to God in the gospel concerning His Son is related to the three sections of the gospel of God in Romans—redemption, life, and the Body:

1. In the first section we should help the saints to know what redemption is, to know that the cross has dealt with every problem between us and God, and to know that in Christ we have been forgiven of our sins, justified by God, reconciled to God, and accepted by God—1:16-17; 3:24-26; 5:1, 9-11.

2. In the second section we should help the saints to know that Christ as the life-giving Spirit is in us as our life, mingling Himself with our spirit as one spirit, and that now we may eat Him, drink Him, enjoy Him, be filled, saturated, and permeated with Him, and be saved in life and reign in life by being sanctified, renewed, transformed, and conformed to His image—vv. 10, 17; 6:19, 22; 8:9-11, 29; 12:2.

3. In the third section we should help the saints to know the Body, to live in the Body, to coordinate together as members of the Body, and to realize that spirituality is a Body matter and that our spirituality must be measured by the Body and be tested by the Body—vv. 4-18.

D. The Greek word rendered “serve” in Romans 1:9 means “serve in worship”; Paul considered his preaching of the gospel a service in which he worshipped God:

1. The worship of God is our service to God, and this worship includes all positive matters between us and God, such as contacting God, praying to God, looking unto God, waiting on God, having fellowship with God, and working for God—Matt. 6:9, 33; John 4:23-24; Phil. 4:6, 20.

2. In the book of Revelation we see a special line—the line of worship—4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 9:20; 11:16; 13:4, 8; 14:7,11; 15:4; 16:2; 19:4, 20; 20:4; 22:9:

a. God needs our worship, but Satan fears our worship of God, wants worship, and is seeking worship—Matt. 4:8-10; Rev. 4:10; 5:14; 13:4.

b. We should seek to give special worship to God, because Satan is getting worship for himself more and more—7:11; 13:4; 22:9.

c. If we live according to our spirit, God will gain our worship, but if we live according to the soul, Satan will gain our worship—Rom. 1:9; 8:4.

3. The worship that satisfies God the Father—worship in spirit and truthfulness—is the worship in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity by our drinking and flowing the water of life in resurrection—the fountain, the spring, and the river—John 4:14, 23-24; 7:37-39; Exo. 17:6; Psa. 36:8-9; 1 Cor. 10:4:

a. The Samaritan woman worshipped God in her spirit by drinking of Him as the living water to quench her thirst; thus, God was worshipped by her in a genuine way—John 4:7-14, 23-24.

b. Throughout the centuries, only a small number of Christians have worshipped God in spirit by drinking of Him as the living water—Matt. 15:9.

c. God in Christ as the Spirit conies to us as the living water for us to drink; when we drink of Him as the water of life, we worship Him in a genuine way—John 1:1, 14; 4:10, 14, 23-24; 7:37-39.

d. We urgently need to enter into the real worship of God in spirit by drinking Him as the living water—4:10, 23-24.

4. Genuine worship is realized in the Body of Christ; worship in the New Testament is a corporate matter, and apart from the Body, it is difficult to have genuine worship— Rom. 1:9; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:3-4, 16-17; 12:12-13.

E. The more we serve and worship God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son, the more we will enjoy the fullness of the blessing of Christ, and the more we will offer praise to God—Rom. 15:29; 16:25-27.

F. “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel, that is, the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery…to the only wise God through Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen”— vv. 25, 27.

 

Ministry Excerpts:

ALL THE NEW TESTAMENT BELIEVERS BEING PRIESTS TO SERVE GOD

The New Testament service ordained by God in the Scriptures indicates that all New Testament believers are priests to serve God (Rev. 1:5-6). The priests are those who serve God. Everyone who serves God, anywhere and at any time, must be a priest whose special profession is to serve full time before God. Although he serves full time, he still labors for his livelihood, working with his own hands to minister to his own needs. Paul was the top and best serving one of God in the New Testament. He also held the job of tent-making, laboring and working with his own hands. He not only ministered to his own needs but also took care of the needs of his co-workers. Therefore, on the one hand, we serve God exclusively, and on the other hand, we also have a way to make a living. We should not allow others to worry about us because of our serving the Lord.

THE PRIESTS OF THE GOSPEL OF GOD

Almost everywhere in the entire New Testament, God speaks concerning how to be priests of the gospel of God, how to serve God. Paul called the New Testament priests the priests of the gospel (Rom. 15:16). They are priests, yet they are gospel preachers, priests who specialize in the gospel. In the Old Testament the priests specialized in taking care of the sacrifices. By this we can see that the priests of the gospel, mentioned in Romans 15:16, are those who specialize in taking care of the gospel. In Greek, the phrase a priest of the gospel has a further meaning; it denotes not only a priest of the gospel, but a laboring priest of the gospel. In other words, the New Testament priests of the gospel should be laboring priests of the gospel—not priests who are content or at leisure, but priests diligently striving and laboring. They are priests who diligently labor in the gospel of God. Paul was such a priest of the gospel of God, and we too should be such.

BEING BUILT UP INTO GOD’S HOLY PRIESTHOOD

According to the New Testament, there are at least seven aspects related to being priests of the gospel of God. First, these priests are built up into God’s holy priesthood. The priests of the gospel of God do not serve alone or individually; they are built up into a priesthood. We know that today any kind of successful work in human society must be a work that is carried out by an organized group. It is difficult for individuals to have a great success; the achieving of a great success depends on the effort of an organized group. The priests in the Old Testament did not serve individually; they carried out their duty group by group. They all belonged to the house of Aaron; they were sons of Aaron formed into a body of priests. Luke chapter one tells us that when Zachariah the priest went to serve God, he served in the priestly body according to the order of his course. When we preach the gospel in the church today, we also should realize that the whole church constitutes a priesthood of the gospel.

In Greek, one word is used for priestly duties or priestly work and another for priestly body or priesthood, but in English the two words are treated as one. Therefore, in reading the English Bible, it is often difficult to tell what the particular word denotes. What is referred to both in 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 is the priesthood, not the priestly duties. Today in the church, we, the priests of the gospel, should be built up together to serve in coordination as a body of priests. Do not consider this a small thing. If we preach the gospel without any building up, but in a very individualistic way, our gospel will never be powerful or effective. For the preaching of the gospel to be both powerful and effective, we must be built up together and coordinated together.

In church history it is difficult to find one Christian body that has not been divided. It is not easy for us to be coordinated and built up in the church, for although we have been regenerated in our spirit, we often do not speak or walk in our spirit. If we want the church of the Lord to be blessed, first we must learn the lesson of coordination. We should learn to be upright and not crooked, to obey the Lord, and to be built up with others into a holy priesthood.

TELLING OUT THE VIRTUES OF THE ONE WHO HAS SAVED US
OUT OF DARKNESS INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT

Second, the priesthood of the gospel should tell out the virtues (such as love, grace, and forgiveness) of the One who has saved us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). To tell out His virtues is to tell out what He is in His attributes. Our telling out to people in this way is our preaching of the gospel. To be the priests of the gospel of God is to tell out the virtues of what He is, to tell out how He has saved us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

CARRYING OUT THE STEWARDSHIP OF THE GRACE OF GOD
IN GOD’S ECONOMY

Third, the priests of the gospel of God should carry out the stewardship of the grace of God in God’s economy (Eph. 3:2; 1 Cor. 9:16-17). As the New Testament priests of the gospel, we have a stewardship, and our stewardship is the economy of God. Every time we go out to preach the gospel, we are carrying out our stewardship in God’s economy to dispense Christ’s salvation and life to others.

MINISTERING TO OTHERS THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST AS THE GRACE OF GOD

Fourth, the priests of the gospel should minister to others the unsearchable riches of Christ as the grace of God. This is to dispense Christ to people.

OFFERING UP SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES ACCEPTABLE TO GOD, THAT IS, OFFERING UP THE SAVED SINNERS AS MEMBERS OF CHRIST

Fifth, after we dispense Christ to others, there will be a result. Others will receive and believe in the Lord, and we will baptize them into the Triune God. Thus, the sinners whom we save become the spiritual sacrifices that we can offer up to God for His acceptance, and they also become members of Christ to constitute the Body of Christ (1 Pet. 2:5; Rom. 15:16b). After a sinner is saved and baptized through us, he becomes a lamb of the Lord to be offered as a sacrifice to God, and he also becomes a member of the Body of Christ to constitute the Body of Christ.

As priests, we must offer sacrifices. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament are types of Christ. Therefore, what the Old Testament priests offered were types of Christ; we may say that they offered Christ in type. But what the New Testament priests offer is Christ Himself, because the sinners whom we save are members of the Body of Christ, and they thereby constitute the Body of Christ. Therefore, in God’s eyes what we, the New Testament priests of the gospel, offer is Christ. In the Old Testament, what was offered were types of the individual Christ, whereas in the New Testament what is offered is the reality of the corporate Christ. Therefore, what we offer is more and higher than what was offered in the Old Testament. Whenever we gain one person by preaching the gospel, we should rejoicingly offer him on the altar as a sacrifice to God and as a member of Christ’s Body. When all the members are added together, they constitute the Body of Christ. Therefore, what we offer is the corporate Christ.

BEING CHOSEN AND APPOINTED BY GOD TO BEAR REMAINING FRUIT

Sixth, we have been chosen and appointed by God to bear remaining fruit (John 15:16). It is not difficult to bear fruit, but to bear remaining fruit requires effort. At the time of fruit bearing, a farmer must be busier than in ordinary times. For example, he must prevent the birds from coming to eat the fruit. In like manner, to bring forth children is easy, but to nurture them is difficult. According to my observation, the number of baptized ones among us is not small; there are many baptized ones everywhere. However, at the end of the year, when we take a count, not many remain. The reason is that after people are baptized, there is a lack of care and there is not much nourishing. For this reason, after people are saved, we need to spend time to nourish them and to care for them. If we do this, after half a year or a year, they will be solidly in the church.

THE LIVING OF THE PRIESTS OF THE GOSPEL OF GOD

Being Revived Every Morning

In order that we may be the New Testament priests of the gospel, we must have a living that matches our priesthood. To be a certain kind of people, we must have a certain kind of living. To be the priests of the gospel, we must have the living of the priests of the gospel. First, we need to be revived every morning. Psalm 119:147 says, “I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy word.” Morning is the beginning of a day; in the morning everything is fresh. If we desire to enjoy the Lord’s fresh supply, like the psalmist, we need to rise early to call on the Lord and to look to His word—to eat, drink, and enjoy Him through His word. You do not need to spend too much time or read too many verses; two or three verses a day are sufficient. At the same time, do not skip in your reading. Rather, read book by book. The best way is to start with the books that are easy. Books such as the Gospel of John, Romans, Galatians, and Philippians are very good material for morning revival. Read two or three verses every morning. Then, on Saturday go back to review the verses for the previous five days, and try to put your impressions and feelings together and arrange them so that they become the contents of your prophesying in the Lord’s Day meeting. (The Up-to-Date Presentation of the God-Ordained Way and the Signs Concerning the Coming of Christ, ch. 4)

WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Old Testament Worship Being a Matter of a Physical Place

When the Lord Jesus was on earth, one day He intended to go from Jerusalem to Galilee. John 4:4 says that “He had to pass through Samaria.” I have studied the map and found out that from any point of view, there was no need for the Lord to pass through Samaria. There were many ways to get from Jerusalem to Galilee. But the Lord said that He “had to.” The reason for this is that He had the burden to visit that detested, immoral, yet God-chosen woman living in Samaria. She had had five husbands already. In this passage we see the wisdom of the Lord. He came to visit her in a different way than He visited Zaccheus in Jericho. There He stayed at the house of Zaccheus and saved him. But here the Lord Jesus did not do this. He came rather after midday and waited for the woman by the well where she drew water. This was the most suitable place. He could talk to the woman in the bright daylight. From this we see the full wisdom of our Lord Jesus.

About the sixth hour, the Samaritan woman came to draw water. The Lord said to her, “Give Me a drink” (John 4:7). The Samaritan woman answered, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask me for a drink…?” (v. 9). After the Lord answered her, she asked some more questions. In the course of the conversation, the woman knew that the Lord Jesus was different, that He had the living water with Him. She began to ask of the Lord, “Sir, give me this water so I will not thirst” (v. 15). If we were to have answered that woman, we would have said, “Confess your sins and then you can drink the living water.” But the Lord Jesus was not as foolish as we are. He answered in a wise way, “Go, call your husband and come here” (v. 16).

The Lord wanted her to get her husband before He would give to her the living water. The woman was most afraid of being asked concerning this matter. Immediately she said, “I don’t have a husband” (v. 17). This is to lie by telling the truth. The Lord Jesus did not deny her words. He only said, “You have well said, I don’t have a husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; this you said truly” (vv. 17-18). The woman did not confess her sins. But the Lord Jesus pointed out in detail all her sins. The woman was very surprised. She was also very clever. Immediately she turned the subject from the drinking of living water to religious worship. She said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (vv. 19-20). She was very clever. She turned from the five husbands to the matter of worship of God, from being a sinner to being a religionist. This shows that many zealous worshippers of God are also sinners and evildoers behind the scenes. The Lord Jesus then opened her heart and said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father” (v. 21). The Lord wanted to show her that the age had changed. The Old Testament was over, and the New Testament had come.

The New Testament Worship Being a Matter of the Human Spirit

The Lord Jesus continued speaking to her, “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and reality; for the Father seeks such to worship Him” (v. 23). The Old Testament worship depended upon a physical place. But the New Testament worship does not depend upon anything physical. Neither does it depend upon any place. Rather, it depends upon the human spirit.

If we worship God only according to a place, there is still the possibility of committing sins. But if we worship God according to our spirit, we cannot sin. This is because the major part of the spirit is the conscience, and the conscience will not allow us to sin. For example, a thief may have stolen from the bank last night. Yet today, on Sunday, he may still go to attend church services in the morning. This is because his concept is that of a physical place. He is worshipping God in a chapel. But if he turns to his spirit to worship God, he cannot rob the bank anymore, for his conscience will not allow him to do this. This is also why we have to change from the old way to the new. It is not merely a matter of method but a story of inward nature.

In the Old Testament, people worshipped God in one place. As long as the place was right, there could be worship. But in the New Testament it is not a question of place but a question of the human spirit. The spirit is the true part and the central part of a person. This organ has to be right. Furthermore, our spirit lies within our heart. If our spirit is right, our heart will be right. Today, in the new way, our preaching of the gospel, our meeting in the homes and in the small groups, and even our prophesying in the district meetings are not changes in outward methods. Rather, the need for outward changes comes because of the change in inward nature. If our meetings and gospel preaching are all by one man speaking while all listen, we are not according to God’s New Testament economy, and not all the saints will be able to be priests of the gospel. If we do not change the old way and take the new way, our meetings and service will all be outward. They will not be in the spirit. Everything will be a matter of method. Nothing will be in reality. Hence, everything of the new way is not a matter of place, form, method, or procedure, but a matter of reality in the spirit.

Those in the Old Testament Worshipping God in the Temple,
but Those in the New Testament Worshipping God in Christ the God-man

In the Old Testament, man worshipped the God in the temple. In the Old Testament age, when a man wanted to worship God, he had to go to the temple. But the New Testament worship is not in the temple. Rather, it is in Christ because God is in Christ.

Today, although our God is the same as the one that the Jews worshipped, there is a difference in age, and there is also a difference in form. The God that the Jews worshipped then was only God; He was not man. He had only divinity; there was no humanity. But in the New Testament, the God that we Christians worship is both God and man. He is a God-man. When we worship God today, we are worshipping such a One. All who are not worshipping this God-man are not worshipping God. Today, God is an incarnated God, a God that is mingled with man. When we worship Him, we are enjoying not only God, we are enjoying Man as well. This is marvelous.

During the three and a half years when the Lord Jesus was fulfilling His ministry on earth, sometimes He was in Galilee, far away from Jerusalem. But sometimes He went to Jerusalem and was even found near the temple there. In the temple, there were rows and rows of priests serving God properly and according to the regulations of the Old Testament. But Jesus was not there. Perhaps He was in a little cottage beside the temple. There we see a group of Galileans, some sitting and some standing. There are even some tax collectors and harlots. All these are lowly Galileans. At this time, was God being worshipped in the temple, or was Jesus being worshipped? Do we go up to the temple, or do we go to a little cottage to worship God?

We can see clearly that at that time, God was in that little house. This is because Jesus was there, and God was inside Jesus Christ. The most difficult point we encounter when we preach the gospel to the Jews is that they still think that God is in the temple. They do not believe that God is in Jesus Christ. We have to tell the Jews that God left the temple two thousand years ago. Today you cannot find God outside of Christ. You must go to Christ. When you are in Christ, you will find God.

In the same principle, today when we worship God, we should not be attracted by beautiful cathedrals. We are seeking Christ, and we are worshipping Christ. We go to the place where Christ is. This is the New Testament worship. Originally, we were meeting in big meeting halls with pianos and dignified sermons. Later, we were led to have home meetings and small group meetings. Four or five families now meet together in homes. Some homes look alright. But other homes are quite uncomely; the chairs are broken, the benches are crooked, and there is no separation between the kitchen and the dining room. As a result, some brothers and sisters find such meetings impossible to take. They are not willing to come to this kind of meeting.

However, we have to see that to worship God in the New Testament, we have to find where Christ is. Do not despise a place that appears ragged, for Jesus may be dwelling there. Today, His name is not yet the glorified Christ. His name today is called Jesus of Nazareth. Hence, we all have to see why we must change this old way. The old way suits our natural human concept. But in the Bible, God’s ordained way matches His economy. For this reason, we must return to the New Testament and worship and serve according to the New Testament. Only then will we satisfy God’s desire. (The New Testament Priests of the Gospel, msg. 4)