Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew 16. We will read from verses 13 through 20. These are very familiar words.
But when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?”
And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
He saith unto them, “But ye, whom say ye that I am?”
And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered and said unto him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then charged He the disciples that they should tell no man that He was the Christ.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee that we may gather together this evening in Thy precious name. We have the assurance that where two or three are gathered together into Thy name, there art Thou in their midst.
So, Lord, we do treasure Thy presence with us. We do want to open our hearts to Thee, Lord, and pray that Thou wilt speak through Thy Word to our hearts.
Lord, Thou knowest how much we need Thee. Thou art our very life, and Thou art the One Who shall have us all for Thyself. So we do look to Thy Holy Spirit to work in and among us, that whatever Thou hast for this evening might be fulfilled to the praise of Thy glory. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Well, it is a real pleasure to be able to be with you, dear brothers and sisters, after so many years.
As I was waiting before the Lord, asking what He wants us to consider before Him at this time, I was impressed with one burden: the corporate aspect of Christian life. In other words, we would like to consider together this matter of the church.
I would like to ask a question first. Why is it that our Lord Jesus came into this world? For what purpose? Why did He come? To accomplish what?
I believe, brothers and sisters, we all know the answer to this simple question. Of course, He said Himself that He came to seek and to save the lost. Thank God, we were lost, but He has found us. He has saved us. He has given us His own life, and we belong to Him. Thank God that one day we will go to heaven and be with Him.
Now, all these are very true and very dear to us. But as we continue to study the Word of God, we find that His purpose in coming is more than just saving us out of hell into heaven.
His coming is for the purpose that whom He called, He also justified; and whom He justified, He also glorified. In other words, He wants to transform us and conform us to His own image, that we may be like Him—not only believing in Him, but being like Him.
I believe, brothers and sisters, we ought to agree that this is why our Lord Jesus came into this world. But tonight I want to go a little further.
Do you think the Lord Jesus saves us just to fill heaven? Or do you think that the Lord transforms us and conforms us to His own image that we may be pillars, monuments, for Him?
Or do you think that His coming has a corporate aspect which is much greater than the individual and personal aspect? Now, if that is the case, then I think this matter of the church is of very great importance.
In other words, not only should we seek the Lord just for ourselves, but we should seek the Lord that His ultimate purpose in saving us might be fully realized.
So, God willing, I would like to use this time that we will be together just to consider before the Lord this very thing about the church: the corporate aspect of our Christian life.
We know that our Lord Jesus, when He was thirty years old, came out for public ministry. In the beginning, you find the Jewish people flocked to Him because, after four hundred years of silence from above, God began to speak.
Many were expecting Jesus as the Messiah. But gradually they discovered that what our Lord Jesus was interested in was not what they were interested in. Their concept of Messiah was one who came to overthrow Roman rule and make Israel the first of the nations. That was the Messiah they were waiting for.
But they found that our Lord Jesus was not interested in this. So they were disappointed. They began to reject Him, and the Bible tells us that He retreated to the border of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a Gentile city, so our Lord retreated to the border.
There our Lord Jesus began to ask His disciples a question: “Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?”
Of course, brothers and sisters, His disciples heard a great deal about our Lord Jesus. But they would not tell our Lord Jesus all the bad things people were saying about Him, so they tried to give the good report.
They said, “Some say You are Elijah, because the Bible prophesied that Elijah will come to restore the nation. Others say You are Jeremiah, because You wept. Still others understand that You are John the Baptist come to life. Some others say You are one of the prophets, or the Prophet, as we find in Deuteronomy 18.”
Now, if somebody came to you and said something like that—“You are like George Washington. You are like Abraham Lincoln”—how would you feel? Probably you would be very humble and say, “No, I am not qualified.”
But strangely, our Lord Jesus not only humbled Himself and said, “I am not qualified”; He was not satisfied. He considered their comments far below what He really was.
So He turned to His disciples, those who had been with Him over three years, day and night, who heard Him, watched Him, and were with Him. The Lord said, “Now, what do you say that I, the Son of man, am?”
As usual, Peter, the spokesman, said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” You are the Messiah. You are the Anointed One. You are the One sent by God for a mission. That is Your office. And You are the Son of God. That is Your person.
Our Lord Jesus said, “Simon Bar-jona, let Me tell you: this is not something that flesh and blood can tell you. It is My heavenly Father Who reveals His Son to you.”
In other words, it is a revelation to know that our Lord Jesus is the Christ, that He is the Son of God. Without revelation, the most you can think of Him is probably Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, or the Prophet. That is all.
It takes heavenly revelation to know Who Jesus really is. Dear brothers and sisters, thank God, we are among the blessed ones.
But this was not the end. Our Lord Jesus continued to speak. As the Father reveals the Son, so now the Son is going to reveal something that He is really after.
Only then did He really tell us why He came into this world and for what purpose. He said, “You are Peter. You are a little stone, a detached stone. Upon this rock, this massive rock, I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Now, brothers and sisters, this is a tremendous revelation. It is as important as the Father’s revelation of the Son, and it is based upon the Father’s revelation of the Son. The Son is able to reveal something that is dearest and most important to Him.
So He is telling us why He came into the world. He came into the world in order to build something. He wants to build His church—His church as His own body, His church as His own bride. That is why He came into this world.
But unfortunately, we find among God’s people today that we are more interested in ourselves. “What happens to me if I believe in the Lord Jesus? Will I go to heaven? Will all my sins be forgiven? Will I be saved?”
Or even more, we ask whether we will be transformed and conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus. In other words, we are more interested in ourselves than in what our Lord Jesus is interested in.
Now, it is very true that unless we first receive the Father’s revelation of His Son, His Son could never reveal why He came into this world.
The Lord Jesus said, “You are Peter.” Formerly, you were Simon; now you are Peter. Something has happened. Formerly you were made of dust, but now you are a little stone. A new character, a new life, has come into you. You are a changed person.
Now, because you are a little stone, I have a use for you. The reason why I make you a little stone is for a greater purpose. Upon this rock I will build My church.
Of course, no one among us here would think that Peter is the rock, the foundation of the church. If Peter were the foundation of the church, later on you would find how that foundation shook.
Our Lord Jesus Himself is the rock, the massive rock. He is the foundation. It is the confession of Peter—“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—that is the foundation.
Now, foundation of what? You do not just lay a foundation and that is it. You remember our Lord Jesus once used a parable: if you lay a foundation and do not finish the building, you will be a laughingstock. Better not start at the very beginning.
So, brothers and sisters, here you find that our Lord Jesus came into this world to be a foundation stone, but to build upon that foundation has to be of the same character, the same nature, as the foundation.
You cannot build on a rock with mud, which men are always doing. What the foundation is, there will be the building materials.
So, dear brothers and sisters, when our Lord Jesus came into this world to seek and to save the lost, it seems, as you read the four Gospels, that everywhere He went He met the blind, the deaf, the crippled, the lepers, the sick, and the dead. That is all He found.
Sin has reduced us to such a state that He could not use us as materials for His building. So that is why He has to transform us. He has to give us a new life. He has to give His own life to us.
Only with the same material as He is can He build His church. So throughout His life on earth, you find that He was going here and there, everywhere, preparing materials that are fit to be built upon Himself. That is what He had been doing.
As a matter of fact, the real building did not begin until Pentecost. After He had risen from the dead, after He had appeared to His disciples for forty days, after He had ascended to heaven, there He was anointed by His Father as the Christ, the Lord.
From His head, the anointing oil flowed down into the body, and that is Pentecost. That is the beginning of the church, the body of Christ on earth.
What is the church? I wonder whether any one of you has asked that question before.
I was brought up in a Methodist church. My father was a pastor. Thank God, I came from a very devout family. My father loved the Lord; he knew the Lord. We had family altar every night. He would gather all seven children into the living room, read from a big Bible, ask all of us to kneel down, and lead us to pray.
From kindergarten upward, I was in mission schools. I attended church. At that time, we were compelled—forced—to attend church. On Sunday morning, the whole school body would march into the church to hear the sermon.
We occupied one-third of the building. But what did we do? Ah, the pastor’s son and the rest of my fellow students, hiding behind the big hymnbook, would be reading novels.
We were blind. We were dead. But thank God, by His grace, He saved me.
But this matter of the church never came to my mind. I thought I was in the church. Not only in the church, but I was active in the church.
Whenever there was any gospel outreach, we young people would be at the front line. We would stand on the streets, pulling people into the church building to hear the gospel. We organized evangelistic bands, going to the villages to preach the gospel and pray for the sick.
I remember at one time a man had meningitis. He died, but we all came into his room and put our hands all over his body and prayed for him. Unfortunately, he did not resurrect.
We were in the church, active in the church. But, brothers and sisters, what is the church that our Lord Jesus said, “I will build My church”?
Is the church that building at the corner of the square? How usually we say, “I go to church.” What do you mean? You mean you go to a certain building that is called church?
We say, “I left my umbrella in the church.” How did you do that? Unfortunately, we think of the church as a building, something physical; or we think of the church as an organization, a religious organization.
But as you read the Word of God, you will find that our Lord Jesus did not have any idea of building such a church. He said, “I will build My church.” What does He mean?
We know that the very word church in English is not the exact translation of the Greek word. As a matter of fact, it is a translation that has given us the thought of an organization.
In the Greek original, it is ekklesia: those who have been called out and gathered together. That is what the word means.
Those who have been called out from the world—not just called out to be individuals, but called out and gathered together. Now, how do they gather together?
In Matthew 18:20, He said:
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
That is the simplest explanation of what the church is. Two or three is the minimum. One person is not the church. One member cannot be the body. At least you need two or three.
Where two or three are gathered together—if they do not gather, they are scattered. These two or three do not make up the body. They have to gather together.
When they gather together, they have to gather together unto the name of our Lord Jesus. Otherwise, it will be just a fraternity of some kind. You have to gather together unto the name of the Lord Jesus.
It is almost like a marriage. When a lady marries, you find she takes her husband’s name. So here you find where two or three are gathered together unto the name of the Lord Jesus. In other words, they take the name of the Lord Jesus.
They do not gather together unto their own name. They do not gather together unto any name. They gather together unto the name of the Lord Jesus; that is to say, they put themselves under the headship of Christ. Let Christ be their Head.
And what happens? The Lord said, “There am I in their midst.” In other words, there will be the presence of the Lord. He, in His Spirit, will be in such an assembly. That is the truth that it is His body.
It is a shame that this did not come to my attention until a few years after I was saved. Then the Lord began to challenge me about this matter of the church: What really is the church? What is it made up of?
“You are Peter. You are a little stone.” Peter understood it very well. The world may misunderstand, but Peter knew, because he wrote in 1 Peter that our Lord Jesus is the living stone, and as we come to the Lord, we become living stones.
In other words, we become part of Him, a chip of Him—of the same quality, the same life. And we are built up together.
So, brothers and sisters, what is the church that our Lord is going to build? What material will He use? Nothing but His own self.
He will build His church with His life. First, He gave His life to us. Then He will use that life to build His church. So the church is called the church of the living God.
I remember many years ago, when I was in England, I visited Westminster Abbey. If you have ever been in Westminster Abbey, what impression did you get?
You see all these very old stones. All these famous men and women were buried there, and all these plaques tell you who he or she was. So after I visited Westminster Abbey, I came out with the feeling that it was the church of the dead.
Is it not true today? Oftentimes, what we call church today gives us the impression that it is dead.
Life—what kind of life? His life. That is the material for the building of the church. Nothing foreign.
The church is the most inclusive organism because it includes all God’s people: all who are born again, all who are the Lord’s, all who have His life. They are born into the church.
If you want to join an organization, you have to go through certain procedures. But nobody can join the church—only by being born into it.
We cannot receive church membership. I remember that in the Methodist church, when we were sixteen, we were received into the church as members of the Methodist Church. But you cannot be received into the church of God, the living church, by any other qualification.
There is only one qualification: you have to be born into it. If you are born from above, you are in it. It is not a matter of whether you have a Ph.D. or a D.D., or whatever you may have. You have to have the life from above, because the church is built with Christ Himself.
I would like to tell that story. In the 1960s, I had the privilege of having a conference year after year with Brother T. Austin-Sparks and Brother DeVern Fromke. We had a conference in Wabana.
One day we talked about the church, and I was going to explain it. Now, if any one of you knew Mr. Sparks, he was so heavenly minded that he would never touch the earth. He thought that anything that touched the earth would be spoiled.
He had such a vision of the heavenly principles of the church that he did not like to see any formula applied to it. But that night I wanted to use a formula, so I apologized to him first. I said, “Tonight I want to use a formula. The reason is that I want to make it very clear.”
So here is my formula. What is the church? Suppose there were only three real believers in the world, and these three were the best that you could think of. Who would they be? Peter, John, and James.
Suppose there were only three believers: Peter, John, and James—those three disciples of Christ to whom our Lord Jesus often gave special privilege because they were very close to Him.
Now, I said, here is the formula: Peter plus John plus James equals the church. Yes or no?
No. The Christ in Peter plus the Christ in John plus the Christ in James equals the church. Right or wrong?
Wrong. And that is our problem. Why? If it is Christ, you have no problem in the church. But even though Christ is there, Peter is also there, John is also there, and James is also there—and they will create problems.
And they did, because Peter wanted to be the first, and John and James were joined together to sit at the right and left hand of Christ. Problems—big problems. That is not the church.
Now, what is the church? The Christ in Peter minus Peter, plus the Christ in John minus John, plus the Christ in James minus James, equals the church. Praise the Lord.
The Bible says this. Where do you find it? 1 Corinthians 12:12:
For the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is the Christ.
Now, is that what your Bible says? Did I quote wrongly? At first glance, you would always say that is wrong. The body is one, but has many members; many members, but one body. Well, that is the church, right? So also is the church.
Now, who is right: your reasoning or the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit says, “The body is one that has many members, many members but one body; so also is the Christ.”
Why? Because it is the Christ—nothing but Christ. In the church, you have no man, no woman. In the church, you do not have Greeks or Jews. In the church, you do not have bondmen or freemen. All these human distinctions are gone.
In the church, it is only Christ. So that is what the church is.
Because of this, you find that there is much that needs to be done in each of our lives. The problem today with the church is too many people and too little Christ. Christ never causes any problem. It is we who cause the problem.
I heard of somebody trying to find a perfect church. Someone said, “Well, if you find a perfect church and you join it, that spoils it.”
So you see how pure, how heavenly, how spiritual the church is. Our concept of the church is earthly. Our concept of the church is composed of man—not to say that in the so-called church there are so many unbelievers.
Even if they are believers, what is their spiritual condition? Do they bring themselves into the church—their own ideas, their own thoughts, their own ways? If they do, yes, they spoil the testimony of the church.
So here you find that the church is such a glorious thing. Brothers and sisters, we need a revelation from above of what the church really is.
Otherwise, we fail to cooperate with our Lord Jesus, because He said, “That is the church I am building.” And He said, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Why does our Lord Jesus want to build His church? I think at least you can find two main reasons.
One reason is that the church is the body of Christ. Ephesians 1:22-23 says that God has made Christ Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who filleth all in all.
Again, in 1 Peter 2:9, we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, for what purpose? To declare the excellencies of Him Who called us out of darkness into light.
So, brothers and sisters, what is the church, and what is it for? The church is the body of Christ. It is the fullness of Him Who filleth all in all.
In other words, as our body is the fullness of the head, so the church is the fullness of Christ. It is through our body that we express the excellencies of our head.
So the church is here on earth to be filled with Christ to its fullness and to express Christ in His excellencies to the world. Or you can put it another way: the testimony of Jesus has been entrusted to the church. That is why the church exists.
As in Old Testament times, God entrusted His testimony to the nation of Israel. They were to declare the name of the Lord, that the whole world might know about Him—about His holiness and His righteousness. But they failed.
Now, in New Testament times, our Lord Jesus entrusts Himself, as revealed by God, to His church. He wants His church to be His testimony in the world. How will the world know about Jesus except through the church?
This is our ministry: to be light to the darkness around us. What a pity when, instead of that, the darkness of the world has intruded into the church, and the light of the lampstand is going out.
Now, that is one reason. Another reason why our Lord Jesus wants His church is because there is a spiritual battle going on.
Ever since God created man, that battle has been fought. Put it this way: why did God create man?
If you search the Scriptures, you will find that God created man according to His own image. Why? Among all His creations, He never created anything according to His image—not even angels. Why did He create man according to His image?
There must be a reason behind it. He wants to use man to defeat His enemy.
For God to defeat Satan is easy, because Satan was a created angel. When Satan rebelled against God, for God to annihilate him would be easy—no problem—but no honor.
A big man fighting against a little boy and winning receives no honor, no glory. So He created man a little lower than the angels and allowed that creature, inferior to the angels, to beat down Satan. Now that is glory.
That is the mission that God gave to man. But man failed. That is the reason why He sent our Lord Jesus into this world to be a man—as the Son of man.
I think we all know Philippians 2. He Who had the form of God—that is, all the qualities and character of God—was equal with God, God’s Son, God’s image. But He emptied Himself and came into this world to take the form of a bondservant.
In other words, in the inner being of our Lord Jesus, when He was a man outwardly, He was a bondservant to God. That is what man should be. He denied Himself. He obeyed His Father even unto death, even the death of the cross.
There, as a man, He defeated Satan. And now He has given His victory to His church and asked His church to finish the business.
So, brothers and sisters, there is a tremendous spiritual battle around us. It is a fierce battle.
All the gates of Hades are open, trying to swallow up the church, because Satan knows that if the church is victorious and fulfills its mission, that is his end.
Today, so far as the so-called church is concerned, he is taking a nap. It does not bother him anymore; it is already in his hand.
But whenever there is a real manifestation of what a church ought to be, all hell will break out, because he knows what will happen.
Brothers and sisters, in Revelation 12, you have a vision: a woman in travail, and a red dragon standing before that woman.
He is not there to swallow the woman, because that woman could not do him any damage. But there is a man-child within that woman. He knew that when that man-child was born, that was when he would be finished.
Sure enough, when the man-child was born, he was caught up to the throne. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and his angels and threw him out of the air, to prepare the air for the return of Christ.
On the earth there will be the great tribulation, and finally his end. So, brothers and sisters, there is something of tremendous importance concerning the church.
If the church fails in its mission—and it has failed—thank God, there is a call to overcome. Those who respond to Christ will be the man-child.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the reason why I feel burdened to share with you this matter of the corporate aspect of our Christian living is that we are not just individual Christians.
Our attention should not be only upon ourselves, because that is not God’s ultimate intention. He wants a church, a body, that will express Himself, that will be faithful to His testimony, and that will be His instrument in His hand to destroy all the works of the enemy and bring all things to the feet of our Lord Jesus.
Tremendous! We have a tremendous responsibility—a great privilege, but also a great responsibility.
So I just want to put this before you, dear brothers and sisters. Consider it. Meditate on it. Search the Scriptures about it.
By the grace of God, when everything seems to be falling apart, thank God, He never fails. He will have His overcomers to complete His work. So may the Lord help us.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for calling us with such a high calling. We do acknowledge that we are unworthy, but it is all in Thy hand.
Thou art able to supply us with everything we need for us to fulfill our mission. So we just surrender ourselves and hand ourselves over to Thee completely. Allow Thyself indeed to have a free hand with us and use us for Thy ultimate purpose.
May glory be unto Thee, Lord, in Thy precious name.