THE CRUCIAL POINTS OF THE MAJOR ITEMS OF THE LORD'S RECOVERY TODAY
Message Five
The Eternal Life
Scripture Reading: Matt. 7:13-14; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rev. 22:1-2
I. The way of the Lord's recovery is the way of the eternal, divine life; we need to know the intrinsic essence of life in the Lord's recovery—Psa. 16:11; Jer. 21:8; John 1:4; 10:10b; 14:6; 1 Cor. 15:45b:
A. The intrinsic essence of the Triune God is the eternal, divine life—God the Father is the source of life (John 5:26), God the Son is the embodiment of life (1:4), and God the Spirit is the flow of life (4:14b; 7:38-39a).
B. The intrinsic essence of the New Jerusalem is the eternal, divine life—God the Father is the light of life (Rev. 21:23; 22:5), God the Son is the tree of life (v. 2), and God the Spirit is the river of water of life (v. 1).
C. God builds the church to prepare the bride of Christ for the building of the New Jerusalem by the eternal, divine life, the resurrection life—the flowing, transforming, and building life— Gen. 2:22; John 19:34; Psa. 36:8-9.
II. The eternal life, the life of the Triune God, is dispensed into the tripartite man to save the believers subjectively in this life through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification—Rom. 5:10b; 8:2, 10, 6, 11:
A. First, this life was the divine life in the Spirit—v. 2.
B. Second, it became the life in our spirit through regeneration—v. 10.
C. Then from our spirit it saturates our mind for the transformation of our soul, to which our mind belongs, and becomes the life in our soul—v. 6.
D. Eventually, it will permeate our body, ultimately issuing in the transfiguration of our body, that is, the redemption of our body—vv. 11, 23; Phil. 3:21.
III. The unique way for the daily life of God's people and for their fellowship with God and with one another is the divine life flowing in the divine nature—Rev. 21:21b; 22:1-2; 1 John 1:3:
A. The street of the holy city is pure gold, symbolizing the divine nature, and the river of water of life proceeds in the middle of the street—Rev. 21:21b; 22:1.
B. Where the divine life flows, there the divine nature is as the holy way by which God's people walk; and where the holy way of the divine nature is, there the divine life is flowing—2 Pet. 1:4; John 7:38-39a.
C. The street connected to and coming out of the throne is a "fellowship street"; the divine fellowship brings God to all His redeemed people in order to bring them back to Himself as their throne for His golden administration within them—Rev. 21:18b; 22:1-2; 21:21b; cf. Ezek. 1:22, 26; 1 Kings 10:18.
D. When we walk and move in the divine nature of God, we are brought under God's golden administration to enjoy the flow of life and the supply of life—Rev. 22:1-2.
IV. We should live according to the principle of the tree of life, the principle of dependence, not according to the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the principle of independence—Gen. 2:9, 17; Rom. 8:6:
A. That God is our food, signified by the tree of life, means that we must depend on God continually; the tree of knowledge indicates independence.
B. Knowledge or religion means to be good and to do good, to worship God or to work for God, without having the living presence of God—John 5:39-40; 15:5b.
C. In the eyes of God, the greatest sin is independence; independence is a spiritual insulation, disconnecting us from the life of God—Eph. 4:18.
D. We must learn to depend on the Lord continually, living constantly in direct contact with God—2 Cor. 1:12; Heb. 11:8; Matt. 6:28; cf. 1 Kings 7:17-19; S. S. 8:5a; cf. 2 Chron. 16:12; Isa. 50:10-11.
V. In our service to the Lord, we must reject our natural enthusiasm, natural strength, and natural ability; our service must be life flowing out of us as a ministry of life to others—John 7:38; 2 Cor. 3:6; 1 John 5:16a:
A. We must be burning in spirit with the fire of God's life; we should not serve with strange fire, signifying the natural enthusiasm not dealt with by the cross and not in resurrection—Exo. 3:2; Luke 12:49-50; Rom. 12:11; Lev. 10:1:
1. Strange fire in the priestly service, a sin of presumption, causes death before God—9:24; 10:1-2.
2. The offering of strange fire might have been related to the drinking of wine; drinking wine signifies the overenjoyment of the worldly, natural, or physical, material things—vv. 8-9.
3. When the priests are drunk, they lose the discernment of holiness and are unable to teach God's people—vv. 10-11.
B. Our natural strength and ability need to be dealt with by the cross to become useful in resurrection for our service to the Lord—Phil. 3:3:
1. After being put aside by God for forty years, Moses learned to serve God according to His leading and to trust in Him—Exo. 2:14-15; Acts 7:22-36; Heb. 11:28.
2. After becoming a complete failure, Peter learned to serve the brothers by faith and with humility—Luke 22:32-33; John 18:15-18, 25-27; Matt. 26:69-75; 1 Pet. 5:5-6.
VI. In the decree of the kingdom's constitution, Christ displayed the two possible ways of people's life and work before God—Matt. 7:13-14, 21-27:
A. The broad way leading to destruction is according to the worldly systems, satisfying the natural tastes, to get the crowd, to maintain a career of man, and to achieve man's enterprise—13:31-33; Rev. 2:13, 20; 17:4-5.
B. The constricted way leading to life is according to the divine regulations, fulfilling the spiritual requests to bring in God's elect and to bear the testimony of Jesus Christ, carrying out God's economy for the building up of the Body of Christ—Rom. 1:9; Heb. 11:5-6; Rev. 1:1-2, 9-10.
C. The way that leads to a living reward in life is the Way (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:22)—the way of the truth, the straight way, the way of righteousness (2 Pet. 2:2, 15, 21), the way of peace (Luke 1:79; Rom. 3:17), the way of salvation (Acts 16:17), the way of God (Matt. 22:16; Acts 18:26), and the way of the Lord (John 1:23; Acts 18:25); it is slandered as the way of heresy (24:14).
D. The God-ordained way is to have a living and working that are always narrow and constricted, according to the pattern of the Lord's indescribable life and ministry—John 5:19; 4:34; 17:4; 14:10, 24; 5:30; 7:6, 18:
1. We in the Lord's recovery must walk in our spirit; walking in spirit restricts us, causing us to live a normal, Christian life and making us vital, healthy believers—Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 22-23; 1 Thes. 5:16-18.
2. The Lord Jesus sowed Himself as a seed of life and fell into the ground as a grain of wheat so that the life within Him could be released to bring forth many grains; we need to serve Him and follow Him in this way—Matt. 13:3; John 12:23-26; 10:11; 1 John 3:16.
3. The work that the Lord needs to produce and increase the church is the overflow and outflow of the inner life, not the endeavor of outward activity—John 7:37-39; 4:10, 14:
a. The important thing regarding our work is not its quantity but its quality; gold, silver, and precious stones are always small in quantity but high in quality, whereas wood, grass, and stubble are always high in quantity but low in quality—1 Cor. 3:12-15: 1) Gold symbolizes God in His divine nature, silver symbolizes Christ in His redemptive work, and precious stones symbolize the Spirit in His transforming work. 2) Wood signifies the human nature, grass signifies man in the flesh, and stubble signifies lifelessness.
b. We will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ not according to the quantity but according to the quality of our work, "of what sort it is"—v. 13.
c. "Because Watchman Nee was not interested in the outward work, the life-issue of his ministry has flowed throughout the whole earth…In my whole life, he is the only person I have known who paid more attention to life than to work" (Watchman Nee—a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, by Witness Lee, p. 87).