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Additional Local Church Quotes by Witness Lee on The Reformation
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.
(Witness Lee, Crucial Points, 20)
When the church was first formed, it was very normal. But after a short while, Satan came in and did something to damage the one Body of Christ, the one church of God. Satan worked to such an extent to form the Catholic Church. The word catholic means universally one. In a sense this is not bad. All the saints are one church. We are all catholic, but the Catholic Church is under a pope. Under the pope are the cardinals, who are the cabinet members of the papal government. Then under the cardinals are the archbishops, the bishops, and the priests. This forms a hierarchy to control people. That damaged the Body of Christ to the uttermost for ten centuries, from about A.D. 500 to 1500.
Then Martin Luther was raised up in the Reformation. He left the Catholic Church, but he did not take care of the truth concerning the church. Instead, he helped the Germans to form the state church, the church of a nation. Eventually, other state churches were formed in the Scandinavian countries and in England. Today there is the Church of England, and the queen of England is the head of the Anglican church, the Episcopalian church.
Some pursuers and lovers of Christ did not agree with the Catholic Church or the state churches, so they invented the private churches. Today there are private churches such as the Baptist church, practicing baptism by immersion, and the Presbyterian church, practicing the government of the church through the presbytery.
Eventually, the Brethren rose up in England, and they stressed that the church should not be under anyone’s control. The church must be free. They were free to such an extent that they established local churches on streets. These were not city churches but street churches. Not long after the Brethren were raised up, they were divided into hundreds of divisions. I know of one case where a group of them divided over whether to have a piano or an organ in their services. Thus, one group became a “piano church,” and the other became an “organ church."
Today there are also the Pentecostals who care only for speaking in tongues and miraculous gifts, not for God’s desire to have His one church. Many of them do not care whether their speaking in tongues is real or false. Other seekers of Christ take the excuse that they do not like to be under any man. They only want to be under the Holy Spirit. If I do not want to be under you and you do not want to be under me, we cannot have a church life. Instead, each of us becomes a “church."
(Witness Lee, Issue of the Dispensing, 75-76)
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