Conference with Witness Lee

The next time we saw Witness Lee was during a conference held in Palo Alto and San Francisco, California, on the weekend of April 14-16, 1962. Some of us drove up from Los Angeles. Others came from Sacramento, San Francisco, and the Bay Area.

Message One: Plan of God
based upon Ephesians 1:22-23; 3:17; and Colossians 3:11

Witness Lee pointed out that the church is both a gathering and the Body of Christ. As the Body of Christ, it has the life of that person, Christ. The Body cannot be separated from Him; the church is a part of Christ. The church is the union of a people having the fullness of Christ. It is not that of a single person. Individuality has been buried in baptism. Baptism is a first experience for new believers. “The church carries you in order to bury you.” Only Christ lives. Christ is every part of His Body. All persons should be excommunicated and Christ is all (Col. 3:11). Only one man was created. Eve came out of Adam and was his fullness. The church is the fullness of Christ.

Message Two: The Plan of the Ages
based upon Ephesians 1:8-11; 3:9-11

Witness Lee said that Colossians speaks of Christ, the Head; Ephesians speaks of the Body, the church. Both together make up the whole man, a corporate man. The central meaning (purpose, mystery) of the whole universe is a complete man, Christ and the church. On the bridge of time between eternity past and eternity future, the plan of the ages is being worked out, which was purposed in eternity and for eternity. That purpose is that Christ is a vessel to express God and the church is a vessel to express Christ. Where is God? In Christ. Where is Christ? In the church. Satan is out to destroy the expression of God and of Christ. The one thing that pleases God the most is the church. The church is the masterpiece of God’s whole creation.

Message Three: The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
based upon Ephesians 3:8 and 1:23

When we enjoy Christ’s riches we will become His fullness

The riches of Christ are presented to us by the apostle. If we receive his message we will enjoy Christ’s riches. When we enjoy Christ’s riches we will become His fullness. Christ’s riches, e.g., wisdom, righteousness, justification, sanctification, redemption, etc., are spoken of in all of the New Testament. Christ is everything we lack. His riches to us are a “blank check.” Those who pray for a need to be supplied may be the ones to fulfill that need (Matt. 15: 32-39). The supply of the riches we enjoy becomes the means to minister life to others. Often the Lord will raise up an environment in which to experience His riches. The fullness of Christ is the testimony of Christ. The temple in the Old Testament was raised up by the enjoyment of the riches of Christ, the good land. The temple was the sum total of all the offerings. However, a lazy life led to no produce, no offerings.

Message Four: The Holy Spirit
based upon Ephesians 1:13-14; 2:18, 22; 3:16; 4:3, 3; 5:18-19; 6:17b-18

The Holy Spirit is both a seal, a sign of ownership that we belong to God, and a guarantee or earnest that what God has belongs to us. The way to come into God’s presence is by turning on the switch of our spirit as with a light bulb.

The Spirit is also for us to drink of and be filled with (5:18).

Once in the spirit we are blended with God. There is a power within that can cause our inner man to be strengthened. God works in us like a pump that is used to inflate a ball (3:16). The Spirit within should not be grieved (4:30). That Spirit is a spirit of unity. In this room are many bulbs but only one electricity. If there is no flow of electricity, there is no unity (4:3). The Spirit is also for us to drink of and be filled with (5:18). The more filling, the more praise, joyfulness, and singing (5:19). We need to also put off the old man (the self), put on the new man (Christ), and be renewed in the spirit of the mind (4:22-24).

The conference then moved to San Francisco for the concluding two messages.

Message Five: The Work of God throughout the Ages

Witness Lee shared how we need a blueprint to see how God is working today. Without this, the building work will look like chaos. When the Word of God came to us in China, we accepted the Lord Jesus and the Scriptures, but we rejected Christianity. We also received the spiritual literature including church history, biographies and autobiographies, messages (Apostolic Fathers to the present), and commentaries. But we also realized God was after a corporate vessel. The church was marred. There was some recovery through Luther, but it led to state churches and later private churches. Baptism was recovered, but it led to the Baptists; elders led to Presbyterians; brotherhood of Christians (Zinzendorf) led to Moravians; and sanctification (John Wesley) led to Methodism. Darby made a cut with the world, Mueller recovered a life of faith, and Hanna Smith stressed consecration (and led to Keswick). Andrew Murray stressed fellowship with the Lord, Jessie Penn-Lewis, the cross, and T. Austin-Sparks, the resurrection.

Message Six: Edification, Building Up, and Laying on of Hands

Witness Lee defined edification as a popular (man-made?) work that produces individuals that are pretty to look at but are not built up.

God wants living stones built together, not moving stones that can come and go at will

Building up includes the process of edification but produces as a final product believers built into a spiritual house. Such will not be nice to look at nor valued by man, but it is desirable to God and is what God is after. God wants living stones built together, not moving stones that can come and go at will. Each one must ask himself, “With whom am I being built?” The purpose of the laying on of hands is to put stones into the church for building. Such a stone declares, “I have lost my freedom to be an individual. I am now in the church to be built with others.” That member can now receive the riches of the Head for the Body. Everything the Body has, that member now has.

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