THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Ministry of Paul
Message Two
The Central Vision of Paul’s Completing Ministry
Scripture Reading: Col. 2:2, 9; Eph. 3:4, 17-19; 5:32; Rom. 9:21, 23; Phil. 2:13; Col. 1:12; Rom. 12:5
I. The central vision of Paul’s completing ministry concerns Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ; this is the great mystery of Christ and the church—Col. 1:25-27; 2:2; Eph. 3:4; 5:32:
A. God is a mystery, and Christ, as the embodiment of God to express Him (Col. 2:9), is the mystery of God.
B. Christ also is a mystery, and the church, as the Body of Christ to express Him, is the mystery of Christ—Eph. 5:32.
C. This mystery is God’s economy, which is to dispense Christ, as the embodiment of God, into God’s chosen people in order to produce a Body to be the increase of God’s embodiment in Christ, that God may have a corporate expression—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 3:8-9.
II. The central vision of Paul’s completing ministry is God in us as our contents, Christ as the mystery of God, and the church as the mystery of Christ—Gen. 2:7-9; Eph. 3:17-19:
A. Man is a vessel to contain God—Gen. 2:7-9; Acts 9:15; Rom. 9:21-24; 2 Cor. 4:7; 2 Tim. 2:20-21:
1. We must learn to turn away from all considerations of our behavior and care only to be filled with God.
2. God is illustrated in the Bible as food, water, and breath; we must take Him in and be filled with Him, just as we take in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe—John 6:35, 57; 4:10, 14; 7:37-39; 20:22; Lam. 3:55-56.
B. Ephesians 4:6 reveals that the Father is not only over us and through us but also in us; God is housing Himself in us.
C. Ephesians 3:19 says, “That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God”:
1. To be filled unto all God’s fullness means to be filled unto all that God is; the fullness of God implies that the riches of what He is become His expression.
2. All that God is should be our contents; we should be so filled with Him that we become His fullness, His expression—vv. 14-19.
D. We must see that God in resurrection through Christ has entered into us as the Spirit, is now indwelling us, is one with us, and has made us one spirit with Him-self; as His vessels, we should be filled with Him, and whatever we do must be an expression of Him—1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17.
III. The mystery of God is Christ as the embodiment and manifestation of God, making God so real and enjoyable to us—Col. 2:2, 9; Rom. 9:5:
A. Christ is everything to the believers—1 Cor. 1:9; 15:45b; Eph. 3:8; 2 Cor. 4:6-7; John 8:58:
1. Christ is the God-allotted portion to the saints—Col. 1:12; 2:6; 1 Cor. 1:2.
2. Christ is our life—John 14:6a; Col. 3:4; Rom. 8:2, 4, 6.
3. Christ is the hope of glory—Col. 1:27; Eph. 1:18b; 4:4b; Rom. 8:19, 23-25.
4. Christ is our necessities and our enjoyment—John 8:12; 6:51, 57b; 1 Cor. 10:4; John 20:22; Gal. 3:27; John 15:7a; Col. 2:16-17; Matt. 11:28.
5. Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom to us—1 Cor. 1:24, 30.
B. Christ is everything to the church:
1. Christ is the Head of the Body—Col. 1:18.
2. Christ is the Body of the Head—1 Cor. 12:12.
3. Christ is the foundation stone—Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 3:11.
4. Christ is the living stone, the cornerstone, and the topstone—1 Pet. 2:4, 6-7; Eph. 2:20; Zech. 3:9; 4:7.
5. Christ is all the members of the new man—Col. 3:10-11.
C. God wants us to realize that in Christ the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—has passed through a process involving incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—John 1:14; 14:9-11; Col. 1:15; 1 Pet. 1:3; Acts 2:33, 36; John 1:8; 2:4.
D. As the life-giving Spirit, the Lord is waiting for people to receive Him by believing into Him—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17; John 1:12-13; 3:15.
IV. The mystery of Christ is that the Triune God through death and in resurrection is mingling Himself with us, making us the living members of His organic Body:
A. The central vision is the vision that Christ, the expression of God, has become the life-giving Spirit so that He may impart Himself into us as our life to make us the living members of His Body to express Him organically—1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 12:5.
B. The Lord is recovering Christ as life and everything to us and the church as His Body, His fullness—Col. 3:4, 11, 16; 2:19.
C. The Lord wants a church composed of believers who are infused, filled, and saturated with Himself to be His Body for His expression; eventually, this living Body will become Christ’s loving bride, who will prepare the way for His coming back—Eph. 1:22-23; Rev. 19:7-9.
D. We should not care for insignificant things or be distracted by doctrines or practices; instead, we should care to become a living testimony by having the Triune God dispensed into us to make us members of His organic Body to express Him— Eph. 3:6, 19b, 21.
E. We need to see the church as the mystery of Christ in the following aspects:
1. The church was mysteriously chosen and predestinated in Christ by God the Father before the foundation of the world—1:3-5.
2. The church was mysteriously redeemed in the Beloved after the foundation of the world—vv. 6-12.
3. The church was mysteriously sealed with the Holy Spirit and received the Holy Spirit as the pledge at the time of its redemption—vv. 13-14.
4. The church mysteriously becomes the universal new man, as God’s kingdom and God’s house, and is being built up as the habitation of God—2:15, 19-22.
5. The mysterious life union of Christ and the church is the great mystery in the universe—5:32.
6. The church, which is joined to and mingled mysteriously with the Triune God today, is a miniature of the New Jerusalem and needs to take the holy city as its highest standard and matchless hope in everything—Rev. 21:2.
Ministry Excerpts:
COMPLETING THE WORD OF GOD
Very few Christians have seen Paul’s completing ministry. This term, the completing ministry, is based upon Colossians 1:25, where Paul says that he was commissioned “to complete the word of God.” To complete the word of God means to complete the revelation of God. No doubt, the King James Version’s rendering of complete the word of God as “fulfil the word of God” has somewhat obscured the real meaning.
Without Paul’s writings, the revelation of God is not complete. If his fourteen Epistles, from Romans through Hebrews, were taken from the Bible, it would no doubt still be a marvelous book. Think how wonderful Genesis is! How great a book Exodus is! Yet without Paul’s Epistles we could not have had the wonderful life-studies on Genesis and Exodus. Why? Though Genesis and Exodus are admirable, without Paul’s writings they lack completion.
The Completion of the Word of God Being the Mystery
Notice the two verses that follow Colossians 1:25 about the completing of the word of God: “The mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations but now has been manifested to His saints; to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (vv. 26-27). Grammatically speaking, the mystery is in apposition with to complete the word of God. The completion of the word of God is the mystery. This mystery, which was hidden but is now manifested, concerns “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Well, you may wonder, does not Matthew tell us about Christ? And is Christ not the subject of the other Gospels? Surely every book of the New Testament is about Christ. None of these books except Paul’s, however, say that Christ is God’s mystery. Matthew deals with the mystery of the kingdom of God, but it does not present Christ as God’s mystery. Mark and Luke make no mention of this matter. Even in John’s Gospel the word mystery is not to be found. It does occur in his Revelation, but it is not as clearly mentioned as in Paul’s Epistles. Only Paul uses the word mystery for Christ and for His Body.
The Source and Issue of This Mystery
Christ is a mystery. What is the source of Christ as a mystery? It is surely God. Both the Jews and the Muslims claim to know God. They are of a similar origin in that their faith is based on the Old Testament. (The Muslim text, the Koran, is largely an imitation of the Old Testament, with some changes.) The God in whom the Jews and Muslims believe is the God of the Old Testament. In the New Testament our God is the God in Christ and through Christ. To be a Christian is to come into Christ and through Him into God. God is embodied in this Christ. The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Col. 2:9). God’s entire being is embodied in Christ. My body is the embodiment of me; if you want to find where I am, you will find me in this body. Similarly, our Christ is the embodiment of God. If anyone has a God who is apart from Christ, he must be like a Jew or a Muslim. God, then, is the source of this mystery.
What is the issue of this mystery? This mystery comes out of God and issues in the church, including all the believers of Christ. In the whole universe this is the mystery! Without such a word the Bible is not complete. This completion of the word is this great mystery: Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ. These two comprise the mystery of the ages. They are unfolded to us in Paul’s completing ministry. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Completing Ministry of Paul”, ch. 10)
THE CENTRAL VISION OF THE APOSTLE PAUL’S COMPLETING MINISTRY
The central vision of the apostle Paul’s completing ministry is God in us as our contents, Christ as the mystery of God, and the church as the mystery of Christ. We must lay aside our natural concepts, whether religious, ethical, devotional, spiritual, holy, or pious. Even the concept of having a good meeting or a strong service must not be our goal. The meetings and the service must come from the source; the church life is the issue.
CLEAVING TO THE CENTRAL VISION
The Lord’s recovery is the central vision. In 1970, after the successful migrations, we began to pay attention to the spread of the recovery and became somewhat negligent of the central vision. The recovery was off, for which I have very much repented to the Lord. By His mercy He cleared things up and brought us back to the right track. The Lord has rebuked me and charged me not to do much to encourage the spreading of the recovery or to gain an increase in numbers. I am not opposed to these, but I have been charged not to be concerned about them. Let the recovery grow in life. Spontaneously there will be a spreading and a proper increase, both issuing from life, not from our doing. “Little one,” the Lord pointed out, “when I was on the earth, I did not do anything to spread My work. All I did was sow Myself as life into a small number. Eventually, in Acts 1, I had only one hundred twenty. Not many.” It seems unbelievable that after the Lord’s labors for three and a half years all that He reaped was a mere one hundred twenty. The Lord asked me, “From all your efforts to spread and increase, where are the one hundred twenty? After you go, where are the one hundred twenty? Who will carry on the Lord’s recovery on the right track? Without the one hundred twenty, as soon as you go, everything will be off. The recovery will become a part of the pitiful history of Christianity, a repetition of its doing so many things that are scriptural and spiritual yet without Christ. If you could gain the whole world as your increase, what would that mean?”
I recently talked with the brother visiting from Taiwan. From now on, I fellowshipped with him, the work there should not pay much attention to the spreading or the increase. All your efforts must be directed toward getting the one hundred twenty. Otherwise, in ten years everything will be gone, lost because of the increase. There are already a good number in Taiwan, twenty-three thousand in the church in Taipei alone; perhaps on the whole island there are forty thousand. How many of these can be counted among the one hundred twenty? If we do not take care of this, our work will be empty concerning the central lane of God’s economy. Instead of recovering, we will be drifting back. The more spreading we have, the more we drift back to a repetition of Christianity. I am happy that there are so many, but if they do not see the central vision, my happiness is futile.
We need some faithful ones to rise up and say, “Lord, here I am. Show me the central vision as You did with the apostle Paul.” I hope you younger ones, especially those who are in their twenties, will do this. Then after ten years you will be valuable to the Lord’s recovery. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Completing Ministry of Paul”, ch. 11)
GOD BEING OUR CONTENTS
God Wanting a Container
When Paul refers to God, he of course says that God is the Creator (Rom. 1:25), but this is not his central point. The Old Testament has already told us this. Let us consider Romans 9:23-24: “In order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory, even us, whom He has also called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles.” Here we are called vessels. God has chosen us to be His vessels, vessels of mercy unto glory. This implies and indicates that God wants to be contained; He wants a container for Himself.
Man is a vessel. First, our body is a vessel. Every day we fill it with food, water, and air. Day by day we eat, drink, and breathe. We eat probably three times a day, besides snacks. We drink more times a day. In addition, we are continuously breathing. Whatever else we are doing, we keep breathing. Without it, we graduate from living! By eating, drinking, and breathing we fill ourselves. Our outer man, then, is a vessel.
Man Being a Vessel to Contain God
Our inner man is also a vessel. God has created us as vessels to contain Him. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us,” Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:7. From verses 5 and 6 we know that the treasure is God Himself in Christ, who has sown Himself into us, the earthen vessels. These verses are familiar to us, yet we do not live as those who have God as their contents.
Seldom does the thought cross our mind that we are a vessel to contain God. All too often, however, we entertain the thought that we must behave rightly, courteously, humbly, and inoffensively. Day after day we are sorry not to be more obedient to our parents, more pleasant to our classmates, and kinder to our sister or brother. We may think along even more spiritual lines, about getting up early for morning watch or spending more time to read the Bible. Such thoughts are commonplace to us. But how about the thought that we are vessels to contain God? Does this thought occur to us? We may obey our parents and love our sister but not have God contained in us. If so, we are like an empty box, trying to please others but apart from God. It is not only the unbelievers who are on the wrong track. It is not only other Christians who are off. We who are in the Lord’s recovery are also often off the track. Whenever we think in terms of loving others or being kind, without realizing that we were ordained to contain God, we too are missing the mark. We must learn to turn away from all such considerations of behavior and care only to be filled with God.
God is illustrated in the Bible as food, water, and air. We must take Him in and be filled with Him just as we take in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Over these past twenty years a number of hymns have been composed among us that speak of eating and drinking Christ and of breathing God in. The thought in these hymns is missing from other Christian hymnals. To some people the thought of eating God is rough and unacceptable. We cannot blame them for thinking this way; they are short of revelation.
We have been not only created by God, then, but also chosen by Him to be vessels of His mercy. And not only are we vessels of mercy; we are also vessels prepared unto glory. It is only Paul’s writings, of all the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, that convey the thought that we are vessels to contain God. In the next chapter we will cover how this God could be contained in us. From Romans 8 we will see how God must be the Spirit and that this Spirit must be the Spirit of Christ. Then God can be in us as our contents.
Being Filled unto All the Fullness of God
Ephesians 4:6 says, “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” The Father is not only over us; He is not only through us; He is also in us. This preposition in does not mean merely with; it means that God is within us. God is housing Himself in us, as Paul writes elsewhere. The Chinese translation of this verse says that He dwells in us.
Ephesians 3:19b says, “That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.” To be filled unto all God’s fullness means to be filled unto all that God is. This fullness dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Through His indwelling, Christ imparts the fullness of God into our being. This makes us God’s expression. The fullness of God implies that the riches of what He is become His expression. When the riches are in Him, they are His riches; when they are expressed, they become His fullness. All that God is should be our contents. We should be so filled with Him that we become His fullness, His expression.
To become God’s fullness is in a category entirely apart from being kind and humble. These past three years I have several times repented for being outwardly blameless while I was not filled with the Lord. “Lord,” I have prayed, “forgive me. I failed You today. I enjoyed being with that brother, but I was not filled with You. I loved certain ones, but I was not filled with You. I helped the church, but I was not filled with You. I talked to the elders and they were helped, but I was not filled with You. Forgive me for all the good things I did apart from You as my contents.” We all need to become aware of this distinction between being good and being filled with the Lord. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Completing Ministry of Paul”, ch. 10)
CHRIST BEING THE MYSTERY OF GOD
In Colossians 2:2 Christ is called the mystery of God. Such a term indicates something incomprehensible and inexplicable. God is a mystery; He cannot be defined. Since the mystery of God is Christ, if we want to understand God, we must understand Christ. If we want to receive God, we must receive Christ.
The Embodiment of God
Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Christ is the embodiment of God.
God
Romans 9:5 says of Christ, “Who is God over all, blessed forever.” This Christ who is the mystery of God and the embodiment of God is God. He is the very God. Paul clearly states this in this verse. Can Christ be separated from God? No more than you can be separated from yourself. Theologians may say that He is God the Son but not God the Father or God the Spirit. They may have such a concept, but that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says that He is God over all. It does not say that He is only God the Son; that is an interpretation.
In Exodus 3:2 and 6 the Angel sent by Jehovah was not only the God of Abraham but also the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He was not only God the Son (the God of Isaac); He was also God the Father (the God of Abraham) and God the Spirit (the God of Jacob). He is the Triune God. He cannot be separated into God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. You may have such a teaching, but it is not scriptural.
We must know this Christ. He is God, the very Triune God.
A Life-giving Spirit
This One first took the step of becoming flesh (John 1:14). In the flesh He was the Lamb of God, dying for our sins to accomplish redemption. Then in resurrection He took the second step: as the last Adam, He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Paul tells us that Christ is God Himself, the very Triune God; then he also tells us that He became a life-giving Spirit. Notice this word became. Christ took the initiative to pass from one stage to another. First, He was in the stage of the flesh; after resurrection, however, He entered into the stage of the Spirit. He became a Spirit to give life to us.
There are those who claim that I have destroyed the three divine persons of the holy Trinity. The truth is that the opposers have neglected or chosen to ignore what the Bible clearly teaches of the Trinity. While privately acknowledging that, according to Isaiah 9:6, Christ is called the Father, they dare not say this publicly because it goes against tradition.
The Spirit
“The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17-18). No word is clearer than this: the Lord is the Spirit. Still the opposers argue that the Lord here refers to Jehovah, not to Christ. Who is Jehovah? He is Christ in the Old Testament. In the New Testament Jehovah is Jesus. Who is the Lord in verse 18, whose glory we are beholding and reflecting? Surely it can be none other than the glorious Christ, into whose image we are being transformed “even as from the Lord Spirit.” Here is a compound title, Lord Spirit.
The Spirit cannot be separated from the Lord. In verse 17 we are told that the Lord is the Spirit; then we have the term Spirit of the Lord. The first part of the verse indicates that the Lord and the Spirit are one; the second part, that They are two. This is our understanding because of language. An electric current is electricity; there is no electric current apart from electricity. In the same way, the Spirit of the Lord is simply the Lord Himself. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Completing Ministry of Paul”, ch. 11)
THE CHURCH BEING THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST
Christ is a mystery. While He is abiding in you, He is still seated on the throne. When He comes to you, He comes with both the Father and the Spirit. When one comes, all three come. This is what triune means. We cannot explain the Godhead. But then, there are things about electricity that we cannot understand either; nonetheless, when we turn on the current, we can utilize its power. The Triune God cannot be fully understood. He is called Wonderful (Isa. 9:6) for this very reason. He is a totality of wonder, a mystery impossible to comprehend. This is true more than ever, now that He has gone through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. There is divinity in Him. There is humanity in Him. There is human life in Him. Who can understand such a One? This is the very One who is within us to be our contents. Some may say that our teaching is heretical, but it is altogether according to the divine revelation in the Bible.
The Indwelling to Produce the Body
What is the issue of God’s entering into us? It is the Body of Christ. This is also mysterious. To have the church as the Body of Christ, as Ephesians 1 tells us, involves Christ’s resurrection, His ascension, and His headship. It was the divine power that raised Christ from the dead, uplifted Him to the heavens, and made Him Head over all things to the church. The Body of Christ is produced by His ascension and headship.
If the church were simply an assembly of Christ’s believers, there would probably be no need for so many factors to be involved. But for the church to be the Body of Christ is not a simple matter. Even for us to have a physical body is not simple. Yes, we can have false teeth and artificial limbs, but to organically produce a member of the body is another matter. Perhaps a transplant is the best modern medicine can do.
Who can make us dead human beings part of Christ’s living Body? The crucified, resurrected, ascended Christ can! We are not like false teeth; we are organically part of the Body. The Creator could create us as human beings, but without passing through a process, even He could not make us organically part of the Body of Christ. He first had to be incarnated, crucified, and resurrected in order to be qualified to make us the living members of His Body. Creative power was not adequate. It took Jesus Christ—the incarnated, crucified, resurrected One, the One who has been made Head over all—to accomplish this. Because He is now within us, we have become organically members of His Body.
Living Members of an Organism
We are also members one of another. The arm and the shoulder, as joint members, are related organically to each other. The building up of the Body is the growing together of the members. The hand is built with the arm and the arm with the shoulder. The relationship is not mechanical like a robot. We do not function in the church like robots, regulated and controlled by the elders. Do we function in the meetings because we are told to by the elders? Do we come to the Saturday morning service because they have told us that we should? We are not parts of a mechanical being but living members of an organism. This living organism is being produced not by a creative act but by the qualified Christ. Whatever He has gone through, whatever He has obtained and attained, whatever He has entered into, is all for the producing of His Body. Ephesians 1:19-23 makes this clear.
In Ephesians 4:4-6 it is clear that the Body is wrapped up with the Triune God: “One Body and one Spirit, even as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” There is one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father. All three of the Godhead are blended with the Body. Just as we cannot separate the three of the Godhead, neither can we separate the church as the Body from the three. They are blended together.
Hallelujah that the divine Spirit, having passed through so many processes, has become one spirit with us! Christians like to hear about miracles. Surely this is the top miracle: that God has gone through so much and has accomplished so much that He is fully equipped to be blended with us! What a state we are in! We are the living members of the organic Body of Christ.
A Living Body, Not a Robot
Now I think differently. That kind of knowledge is helpful only to a robot. A mechanical man is programmed to know just what to do. A living person, in contrast, is not quite sure. He does not know what is best for his situation. He does not know what to do, but he is living! Suppose you are asked how we baptize people and whom we accept at the Lord’s table. If you have a ready answer to every question, you are acting like a robot. If you simply reply, “We have no way. We just walk according to spirit,” they will press you further. “Do you mean the Holy Spirit?” When you explain that you are referring to the mingled spirit, they will ask, “What? Mingled spirit? What is that? We want to know how you have the Lord’s table. Do you use leavened or unleavened bread? Do you have wine or grape juice?” If you say, “I have nothing to tell you. We simply seek to walk according to spirit,” you can be sure that they will be through with you.
Is not today’s Christianity made up of robots? Look at the pitiful robots belonging to the Catholic Church, the small robots following the big ones. There are cardinal robots and archbishop robots. Is the Lord’s recovery like this? I am concerned about this question. We must not make the saints robots.
The Body is an organism. We are organic members of this organism, not robots. Read again the description in Ephesians 4:12-16. The Body is built up directly by every member. Verse 16 says, “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”
When will the Lord gain what He is after? There is a groaning in me about this. Not only is there a lacking of the Body life; even the meaning of the words is misunderstood. Nonetheless, the Lord has His way. The way is organic. It is by life, and life is through death and resurrection. We all need to see this central point of Paul’s completing ministry. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Completing Ministry of Paul”, ch. 12)