The Recovery of the Local Churches

The Lord’s New Beginning on Virgin Soil

Although the recovery of the practice and truth of the local church began in the Western world, particularly with the Brethren in the nineteenth century, this glorious beginning did not last. Instead, half a century later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the result was even more divisions due to doctrinal differences. Hence, by the 1920s there was the need for a new beginning on “virgin soil,” away from the influence and tradition of the divided situation of Christians in the Western world. This “virgin soil” turned out to be pagan China. Below Witness Lee summarizes the recovery of the local churches from the Reformation to the Lord’s new beginning in China, along with the previous recovered truth and practices:

In the Reformation that took place in the sixteenth century, through Martin Luther’s teaching, many gave up the Catholic Church under the pope, but they did not receive the proper revelation and the enlightening help to recover the genuine practice of the church according to the New Testament revelation and pattern. They were sidetracked first to form the state churches, such as the state church of Germany and the Church of England, and then to invent the private churches, the private denominations, such as the Baptist church and the Presbyterian church. In the meantime, in the eighteenth century Zinzendorf recovered the practice of the church to some extent, but not in full. Then, in the nineteenth century the British brothers recovered the practice of the church very much, even to the extent of having the local assemblies as the church in Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-13). However, regrettably, that glorious situation did not remain very long. The British brothers were divided, even in their first generation, into the so-called closed brethren and open brethren, with an addition, the Newton brethren. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, after they had existed for only a little over half a century, they were divided into hundreds of divisive assemblies, even having several assemblies in the same city. Under that kind of situation the Lord was forced to raise up a recovery as a new beginning in the pagan and conservative China as the virgin soil for the church practice from the third decade of this century. In this fresh action the Lord has recovered among us in the last seven decades the proper understanding and definition of the eternal life, the genuine understanding of the church of God, the boundary of the local church, the genuine ground of the church, Christ as the overcoming life, Christ as the all-inclusive One who has the preeminence in all things both in God’s old creation and in His new creation and who is the centrality and universality of God’s eternal economy, the church as the Body of Christ, the all-inclusive, compounded, and life-giving Spirit, God’s eternal economy concerning Christ and the church, the Triune God’s dispensing Himself into the tripartite man, the ultimate issue of God’s chosen people as the New Jerusalem, the full view and the full definition of the New Jerusalem as God’s ultimate manifestation and expression in His mingling with all His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified elect for eternity, etc. In such a recovery we practice the genuine church, caring for the all-inclusive Christ, the consummated Spirit, the eternal life, and all the divine truths of reality, not of vain letters, and endeavoring to escape from organization, dogmatic regulations, rituals, the clerical system, and traditions, that we may practice the universal priesthood, the universal function of all the members of Christ in the church life for the building up of the Body of Christ in God’s eternal economy.

(Witness Lee, Crucial Points, 20-21)

God desires that His people meet together in oneness to express and glorify Him. In order for this practical oneness to be manifested, the believers must be willing to simply meet together in unity as the church in their city, the local church. This is the simple, direct mandate and pattern presented in the Scriptures and practiced by the believers in the early local churches.

Main

The Reformation

The Moravian Brethren

The Plymouth Brethren

A New Beginning

Watchman Nee’s Calling

Watchman Nee’s Revelation

Watchman Nee’s Care for the Local Churches

The Local Church in Foochow, China

Witness Lee’s Revelation

The Spread of the Local Churches

Bibliography

Links