Dear brothers and sisters, you are all elders and co-workers in the churches. You should be talking about this day after day. Since you are the elders and the co-workers, you should take the lead to do this and should teach the saints to do the same. Permit me to say that according to my observation, I have not seen much of this kind of condition among you. I have to say an honest word. Our condition is wrong. We are those who take the lead. We have a heavy responsibility. We all have to bow down before the Lord and admit that for many years, we have neglected the works that we ought to do as elders and co-workers. We have to ask the Lord to forgive us.
I say this not to give you a hard time. I am being painfully repetitious with the good intention that we would see the real situation among us. For many years we have had no progress. I have been deeply sorrowful. How poor we have been. For this reason, I would not allow the situation to continue. I have to wake everyone up. We have been wrong. Our direction has been absolutely wrong. If you travel around today, what is seen and heard in many places is not Christ. They are all things that are not Christ. It is meaningless to find out who is right and who is wrong. To be wrong is worth nothing. To be right is also worth nothing. All these are things that come from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What we need is the death of Christ. This is my burden. Let us talk about the death of Christ instead.
When we go back to the churches, we should help all of the saints to know the death of Christ in these seven statuses. At least we have to spend half a year to teach them, until everyone, old and young, great and small, can speak about them, and can understand the meaning of them. Only then will the situation be up to standard. We should speak about this, live this, and express this. This is the situation that we should have in every local church.
Following this, we have to talk about the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection of Christ seems simple, but it too is actually mysterious. First, the God-man, Christ, resurrected from the dead and brought the humanity that He had put on into divinity. This divinity is His status as the Son of God. When He resurrected, He brought His human part into divinity and was born the Son of God. Second, in this way, He was no longer the only begotten Son but also the firstborn Son of God. In the only begotten, there was only divinity, the status of God. In the firstborn Son there is the divine element plus the human element. It is the same way with us. We were the sons of man. But as soon as we believe and receive the Lord, we become the sons of God. God’s nature and elements are added into our humanity. Third, in His resurrection, we were all resurrected together with Him to be born the sons of God. Christ’s becoming flesh brings divinity into humanity. His resurrection brings humanity into divinity. In this way, God and man are mingled as one. Moreover, in His resurrection He has become the life-giving Spirit, entering into all those who believe in Him to be their life.
These are the four great things that Christ accomplished in His resurrection: bringing humanity into divinity, being born the firstborn Son of God with His humanity, begetting us as the sons of God through resurrection with Him, and becoming the life-giving Spirit. In this way, He brought all those who believe in Him into divinity. They are fully mingled with God. This is the mysterious resurrection of Christ.
Brothers, I believe these truths are in the books that we have published. We should pursue after these things, speak about these things, and should teach the brothers and sisters these things. We should be an "educated" family, one that is filled with the atmosphere of pursuit for the truth. We should not talk about or discuss anything but Christ. We should be those who become alive in Christ this way, and we should exercise moment by moment to live in our spirit. In our speaking and in our conduct, we should follow our spirit. If you elders and co-workers do this, I fully believe that after a year or so all the churches will be speaking Christ, discussing Christ, and living Christ, and there will be no difficulty or storm among us. May the Lord be merciful to us.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Taipei on April 19, 1990)
(The Mysteries in God's New Testament Economy, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)