THE FORTH PART: THE PATHWAY OF THE LORD’S RECOVERY

God-Ordained Way
Message One—Being a Model of the Corporate God-man Living
to Bring In a New Revival

Scripture Reading: Hab. 3:2a; Hosea 6:1-3; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:10, 1:19-21a; Rev. 3:7-13, 11:15

I. The Lord’s move today is for His people to enter into a new revival; Habakkuk 3:2a speaks of revival—”O Jehovah, revive Your work / In the midst of the years”:

A. Among God’s elect there has always been an aspiration to be revived; although we may not realize it, such an aspiration has been within us through all the years of our Christian life—Hab. 3:2b; Hosea 6:2; Rom. 8:20-22.

B. In the eyes of God, one person among His elect represents the whole; this means that Habakkuk and we are one in the unit of God’s elect; thus, when Habakkuk prayed for revival, we also prayed; such a prayer is an everlasting prayer—Hab. 3:2.

C. A revival is the practice, the practicality, of the vision we have seen.; we also pray that God would give us a new revival—a revival which has never been recorded in history”—Hab. 3:2a.

II. We must receive the Lord’s mercy to be His overcomers who bring in a new revival to turn the age in the Lord’s present recovery by arriving at the highest peak of the divine revelation, by living the life of a God-man, and by shepherding people according to God in the vital groups for the building up of the Body of Christ, the preparation of the bride of Christ—Hab. 3:2a.

III. Although in the Lord’s recovery we have so much vision, every brother and sister still needs to ask the Lord for a new revival; this revival is the God-man life—Hab. 3:2a; Hosea 6:2:

A. When we think of ourselves as God-men, this thinking, this realization, revolutionizes us in our daily experience—Gal. 2:20.

B. The living of a God-man is the living of a man who lives God and expresses God—John 6:57a; 14:9-10.

C. The Lord Jesus is the first God-man, and we are the many God-men—Rom. 8:29:

1. Christ lived a human life not by His human life but by the divine life to express the divine attributes in the human virtues—Luke 1:35; 10:25-37.

2. Because Christ is our life and our person, we should live a human life by the divine life for the expression of divinity in humanity—Col. 3:4.

3. To live the life of a God-man is to deny the self, take up the cross, and live Christ for the expression of God—Matt. 16:24; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a.

D. The divine Spirit and the human spirit are mingled within us so that we can live the life of a God-man, a life that is God yet man and man yet God—1 Cor. 6:17.

E. Every brother and sister needs to ask the Lord for a new revival; this revival is the God-man life. “I hope that the elders and the co-workers in every locality will create an environment in the church to nurture the saints to be God-men to live an overcoming life” (The Issue of the Union of the Consummated Spirit of the Triune God and the Regenerated Spirit of the Believers, p. 88).

IV. If we practice living the life of a God-man, which is the reality of the Body of Christ, a corporate model will be built up, a model living in the economy of God; this model will be the greatest revival in the history of the church to bring the Lord back—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21; John 14:19:

A. The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living, a mingling living, in the eternal union of the regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite God-men with the Triune God in the resurrection of Christ—cf. Lev. 2:4-5.

B. The reality of the Body of Christ is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but do not live by their life, but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes are expressed through their virtues—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:10; 1:19-21a; Rom. 8:4.

C. “If among us there is, if not in full at least in part, such a living, the reality of the Body of Christ is among us. This is the high peak of the recovery in the local churches like Mount Zion in the city of Jerusalem. Such a mingling living as the reality of the Body of Christ will consummate ultimately in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God’s increase and expression for eternity” (The Practical Points concerning Blending, p. 37).

D. We need to become a corporate model, the reality of the Body, a people who live the life of a God-man; such a model will be the greatest revival in the history of the church to bring the Lord back—Matt. 16:18; Rev. 19:7-8.

1. We need a model; I do not mean that only some individuals should become a model. I mean that we need a corporate model, a Body, a people who live the life of a God-man—Rom. 12:4-5; 14:7.

2. Since we have seen such a high peak of the divine revelation, we need to put into practice what we have seen; our practice will have a success, and that success will be a new revival—the highest revival, and probably the last revival before the Lord’s coming back.

V. The new revival will be the means for the Lord to end this age and to bring in the kingdom age—Hab. 3:2a; Hosea 6:2; Rom. 8:20-22:

A. The reason that the Lord has not closed this age is that He is still waiting for a group of overcomers to live in His Body in resurrection to be the means for Him to usher in His kingdom age—Rev. 2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-27; 3:5, 12, 21.

B. The corporate living of the God-men—a living that is the reality of the Body of Christ—will end this age and will bring Christ back to the take, possess, and rule over the earth with these God-men in the kingdom age—11:15; 20:6.

C. We can enter into a new revival by living the life of a Godman: “We should all declare that we want to live the life of a God-man. Eventually, the God-men will be the victors, the overcomers, the Zion within Jerusalem. This will bring in a new revival which has never been seen in history, and this will end this age” (Life-study of First and Second Chronicles, p. 28).

 

Ministry Excerpts:

THE NEED OF A REVIVAL IN THE LORD’S RECOVERY TODAY

What kind of revival do we have today? In other words, what kind of model has been raised up among us? As a rule a revival should always be the practice of the vision we have seen. However, from the time I came into the recovery I have been watching over the situation. From Brother Nee’s time until today, for seventy-two years, our practice has never come up to the standard of our vision that we have received of the Lord. Brother Nee stressed two things: Christ as life to produce the church and the church as the Body of Christ to express Christ. But, sorry to say, it was not only the outsiders who did not know these things; even among Brother Nee’s co-workers, who were my contemporaries, very few have fully entered into the realization of these two matters. Not to mention the matter of the Body of Christ, they did not even see the matter of Christ as life to us. They stressed matters such as leaving the denominations, baptism by immersion, head covering, and the way to practice the Lord’s table. In 1934 a letter came to me from Brother Nee saying that our emphasis was not on leaving the denominations, on baptism by immersion, on head covering, or on the practice of the Lord’s table. He added that from that day forward, whoever preached and taught only those four things was not our co-worker. He said that the vision we had received from the Lord concerned Christ as our life to produce the church, not as an organization but as a Body, an organism, to express Christ. This, he said, is what we have seen, and this is what we should preach and teach. Brother Nee wrote these words twelve years after the beginning of the recovery in China in 1922.

From the time that I began my ministry until today I have put out many books concerning the vision that we have seen. Through all the years, in mainland China, in Taiwan, in southeast Asia, and in the West today, in our practice we have never come up to the standard of what we have seen.

THE HIGH PEAK OF THE DIVINE REVELATION

In the past ten years the Lord has shown us His economy. According to my study of church history and the biographies of many saints, I would say that before 1984 God’s eternal economy as the very reality and the center of the Bible was never seen by God’s people so fully as today among us. To my knowledge, no other book has pointed out that God’s eternal economy has Christ as its center and reality, with His Body, the organic Body of Christ, as the organism to the Triune God.

Today we have come to this high peak of God’s divine revelation. I would even say that we have probably reached the highest peak of the divine revelation in the entire Bible. This is the divine revelation discovered by the believers through the past twenty centuries. According to my knowledge, the first divine revelation discovered by the church fathers was the revelation of the Triune God.

Centuries later Martin Luther made a further discovery. Luther saw the matter of justification by faith (Rom. 3:28). He discovered that salvation is not by works but by faith. After this, many other students of the Bible made further discoveries. However, before us, no one ever discovered God’s economy with Christ as its centrality and universality and all its reality. It was not until the last ten years that we put all these things together to have a full picture of God’s economy. This is the highest peak of the divine revelation.

IVING THE LIFE OF A GOD-MAN ACCORDING TO
THE HIGH PEAK OF THE DIVINE REVELATION

Since we have seen such a high peak of the divine revelation, we need to put into practice what we have seen. Our practice will have a success, and that success will be a new revival—the highest revival, and probably the last revival before the Lord’s coming back. As I said in the previous chapter, we need a model. I do not mean that only some individuals should become a model. I mean that we need a corporate model, a Body, a people who live the life of a God-man. From today our practice should be to live the life of a God-man by realizing the power of the resurrection of Christ to take His cross as He did, to be crucified, to be conformed to His death, every day to live another One’s life (Phil. 3:10; 1:21; Gal. 2:20). Our life, our self, our flesh, our natural man, and our everything were already brought to the cross by Him. Now we are living Him, so we should remain in His crucifixion to be conformed to the mold of His death every moment in every part of our life. That will cause us to spontaneously live Him as the resurrection (John 11:25). This is the living of a God-man.

This should be and this must be our church practice from today onward. If not, we are practicing something in vain. Our practice is not merely to have a church life in which everything is according to the Bible, a church life in which we baptize people by immersion, forsake the denominations, practice head covering, and have the Lord’s table, absolutely according to the Bible. Some have come into the recovery because of these practices. They appreciate our family life, the church meetings, and the way we train our young people. However, these things should not be the goal of our practice. The goal of our practice should be to live the life of a God-man. This is the goal we should reach.

Our practice is not to live the life of any kind of natural man, good or bad. Our practice is to live the life of a God-man. A God-man is a man who is regenerated and transformed to be one with God, taking God as his life, his person, and his everything. Eventually, this one becomes God in His life and His nature, but not in His Godhead. This is a God-man. In the recovery today we should practice to live the life of such a God-man. This life is a life of crucifixion by and in and with resurrection. It is a life in which I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but He who lives in me (Gal. 2:20). Yet when He lives in me, He lives with me, with the result that I live with Him (John 14:19). He lives with me, and I live with Him. We two live together in the way of mingling, a mingling of God and man.

The highest family life, marriage life, and social life come out of such a life. This life is the life of the church and the life of the Body of Christ. Such a life is the reality of the Body of Christ. Such a life, like that of Jesus Christ in His thirty-three and a half years on the earth, saves us from all negative things, from small things and big things. In our marriage life it saves us from separation and divorce. In the church it saves us from opinion, division, despising, criticizing, and murmuring. In this life there is no criticism, no despising, no partiality, no division, no dissension, no opinion. In such a life we live the life of a God-man. With Him everything is new, everything is heavenly, and everything is divine, divinity mingled with humanity.

Wherever there is division, there is spiritual fornication, idolatry, self-glorification, and self-exaltation. Without self-exaltation, there could be no division. Living the life of a God-man saves us from all these negative things. To live such a life is to live Christ (Phil. 1:21), the very model of the God-man life.

Dear saints, this is my burden. We all need to live such a life—the older ones and the young ones, the brothers and the sisters, the elders and the common saints. If we do, we are faithful to what we have heard. Then the Lord will have not a model only by individuals but a model by a group of us. This is the model that the Lord needs to show to today’s Christianity, a model of what His church should be.

If we live such a life, surely we will go out to contact people for the preaching of the gospel. A vital group is a group of this kind of people. The vital groups should not be practiced as a formality; they should be groups of people who live such a life. Our living the life of a God-man will save people, edify others, and build up the local churches even to the building up of the Body of Christ.

If we practice what we have heard, spontaneously a model will be built up. This model will be the greatest revival in the history of the church. I believe that this revival will bring the Lord back.

In conclusion, I would encourage you to try faithfully to practice living a God-man’s life by contacting Him through calling on His name, pray-reading His living word, praying unceasingly, not quenching the Spirit, and not despising prophesying. May the Lord bless us with Himself as the life-giving Spirit that we may touch Him in the mingled spirit by these life practices. (The Practical Way to Live a Life According to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures , msg. 5)

REVOLUTIONIZED BY REALIZING
THAT WE ARE GOD-MEN

When we think of ourselves as God-men, this thinking, this realization, revolutionizes us in our daily experience. For example, a brother may be unhappy with his wife. But he remembers that he is a God-man, and immediately his attitude is changed. Then he will desire to be a God-man husband.

We need to understand that to be a part of mankind is to be something negative. In God’s view mankind is a negative term referring to fallen man. As believers in Christ and children of God, we are not mankind—we are God-man kind. To realize this is to be changed, even revolutionized. When we realize that we are God-men, we will say, “Lord, You are the first God-man, and we are the many God-men following You. You lived a human life, not by Your human life but by God’s divine life to express Him. His attributes became Your virtues. You were here on this earth dying every day. You were crucified to live. Lord, You are my life today and You are my person. You are just me. I therefore must die. I need to be conformed to Your death. I have to be crucified to die every day to live a God-man’s life, a human life yet not by my human life but by the divine life, with Your life and Your nature as my constitution to express You in Your divine attributes, which become my human virtues.” This makes us not just a Christian or a believer in Christ but a God-man, one kind with God. This is the highest point of God’s gospel.

PREACHING THE TRUTH THAT GOD BECAME A MAN
THAT MAN MAY BECOME GOD IN LIFE AND IN NATURE AND LIVING THE LIFE OF A GOD-MAN TO BRING IN A NEW REVIVAL AND TO END THIS AGE

According to this gospel we were fallen, yet Christ died for us. If we believe in Him and receive Him, we will have the eternal life to be the sons of God. Christians today admit that all the believers in Christ are the sons of God or the children of God, but they do not dare admit that the believers in Christ are God. At the end of this age, we are teaching and preaching the truth that God became a man in order to make man God, the same as He is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. It is a great blessing to hear this truth. After hearing that God wants a group of God-men, how can you be content to be anything else? What do you want to be? Do you want to be a typical Chinese or a typical American? Do you want to be merely a Christian or a believer in Christ? We should all declare that we want to live the life of a God-man. Eventually, the God-men will be the victors, the overcomers, the Zion within Jerusalem. This will bring in a new revival which has never been seen in history, and this will end this age. (Life study of Chronicles, ch. 4)