BEING TRAINED IN THE DIVINE REVELATION
My main burden in this time is to give you some perfecting in the areas of truth and life. We will have two meetings. In the first meeting, we will fellowship about being trained in the divine revelation, and in the second meeting, we will fellowship about being cultivated in the divine life.
The Sixty-six Books of the Bible
Being the Complete Revelation of God
Which Cannot Be Added to or Subtracted From
The Bible’s revelation is altogether founded on the truth. Whatever is hidden in God is a mystery. When this mystery is manifested, it is a revelation. Then when this revelation is seen by us, it is the truth. The Bible is a book of divine revelation (2 Tim. 3:16-17). It has passed through many generations, and it was written by many hands. From the Pentateuch at the beginning of the Old Testament to the book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament, there are altogether sixty-six books. It took approximately fifteen to sixteen hundred years to complete. Before the writing of the New Testament, God’s revelation was not yet complete. When the apostle Paul became a minister of the church in the New Testament, he completed the Word of God (Col. 1:25-26) and fully presented the divine revelation. With the epistles of James, Peter, John and Jude and the book of Revelation, the Bible was fully completed. Hence, at the end of the Bible there is a warning, saying that no one can add anything to or delete anything from this book (Rev. 22:18-19). Therefore, we need to read every book, every chapter, and every verse of the Bible, lest we miss our appointed blessing.
Understanding the Bible, Exercising
Our Spirit, Having Our Mind Opened, and
Having Our Faculties Exercised
Luke 24:45 says, "Then He opened their mind to understand the Scriptures." This indicates that in order to understand the Bible, we need the opening of our mind through the enlightening of the Lord’s Spirit. Otherwise, we will not have any way to understand it. Hebrews 5:13-14 also tells us that in order to partake of God’s word, our faculties, that is, our senses or our understanding, need to be exercised through practice. In reading the Lord’s word, the mental capacity and the spiritual understanding need to be continually exercised.
The Bible Needing to Be Opened
in Order to Give Forth Light
Psalm 119:130 says, "The entrance of thy words giveth light." Many passages in the Bible cannot be understood without explanation. We can see this from the case of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. When Philip saw him, he was reading the book of the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, "Do you really know what you are reading?" The eunuch said, "How can I unless someone guides me?" (vv. 30-31). Verse 32 then says, "Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this: He was led as a sheep to slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so He does not open His mouth." While he was reading, the eunuch did not understand who the "He" referred to. Hence, there was the need for Philip to explain to him so that he could preach to him Jesus as the gospel and lead him to believe and be baptized.
In the same way, there are many passages in the Bible which require explanation before one can understand them. The following list contains some examples of such passages: 1) the seventy weeks (Dan. 9:24), 2) the epistle of Christ written on the hearts of the believers with the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3), 3) Christ making His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:17), 4) being filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19), 5) unto the dispensation of the fullness of the times, to head up all things (Eph. 1:10), 6) becoming the God-chosen inheritance in Christ (Eph. 1:11), 7) the mystery of God being completed at the time of the blowing of the seventh trumpet (Rev. 10:7). If you merely read passages like these by yourself without any guidance from others, you will not understand them, even if you read them many times. Therefore, your training here is first a training on the truths.
(The Vision of the Divine Dispensing and Guidelines for the Practice of the New Way, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee)
