OUR NEED OF ENLIGHTENMENT TO KNOW THE BIBLE
This is the process of five steps that our God, the Triune God, passed through. By His coming and going, He brought God into man and man into God. God lived a life on the earth, and a Man now lives a life in the heavens. This is the revelation of the Bible. The Lord Jesus, in whom we believe, is such a Lord. In these last days it is His mercy to make all these details clear to us. When I preached these things in the United States, the leading Christian country, many theologians and Bible scholars were pierced in their hearts. They falsely accused me, saying that since I am an old Chinaman, I preach oriental thought and old Chinese philosophies. Some even said that I am a pantheist, that I consider everything as God. What darkness they are in! To this day no prominent theologian or professor of theology has written a proper book to refute my theological viewpoints. Today, the whole of Christianity is in darkness. In other words, they know almost nothing of the truth. We need to know that obtaining a doctor’s degree in Hebrew and Greek does not mean that one knows the Bible. Many of these people are even unbelievers; they read the Bible with blind eyes. It is not sufficient to know the Bible in the way of understanding the meaning of each word in the original language; we must see the light revealed by the meaning of each word in the original language.
For example, when the Sadducees argued with the Lord Jesus, saying that there was no resurrection, the Lord Jesus answered, “Concerning the dead, that they are raised, did you not read in the book of Moses, at the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” (Mark 12:26). In reading the phrase “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” the Lord saw the matter of resurrection. He said, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (v. 27). Apparently these men are dead, but since God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, they will be resurrected. This was the way in which the Lord Jesus read the Bible. He had the divine light. To study the Bible, we need light, which does not come by studying the letters. If we desire to go beyond the letters and seek the revelation of life, we need enlightenment.
Today’s theology is very shallow and superficial. It seems that theologians only skate on the ice and are not willing to break the ice and dive into the ocean to explore the depths. Even the hymns used by today’s Christianity are shallow and superficial. We are sorry to say that today’s Christianity is so shallow and knows so little. Today we are here to be trained. I surely have a burden, especially for you young people. I really treasure the fact that you have dropped everything in order to learn to serve the Lord and to study His Word. Today I am here to have an honest talk with my family. I have to say that the blindness and shallowness of today’s Christianity have wasted many people’s time and even their whole lives. I was born in Christianity and have been involved with many aspects of Christianity, such as organized Christianity, fundamental Christianity, the inner life movement, the Brethren, and the Pentecostals. I cannot say that I have read all the books of Christianity; however, with sixty years of experience, I know most of the different denominations well. I have experienced and seen many things. I was born in China and worked for the Lord in Shanghai, the largest city in China. I have been in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and America. I have been to all of the six continents except Africa. I hold no degrees, and I do not know Hebrew. I know only enough Greek to be able to use reference books. But I cannot deny one fact: that today’s Christianity is desolate, shallow, and ignorant of the truth. You can discern this by looking at their hymns. Even their best writings are very shallow.
(The Full Knowledge of the Word of God, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
