In the bosom of the Father

When this new hymnal was published, the brothers and sisters did not know how to appreciate it very much. As a result, when they broke bread to remember the Lord, they still selected the old hymns that they were accustomed to. Because we published many messages to promote God's economy, the brothers and sisters were gradually brought into this new flow during the last twenty years. They began to love these hymns. For example, Hymns, #203 says:

In the bosom of the Father,
Ere the ages had begun,
Thou wast in the Father's glory,
God's unique begotten Son.
When to us the Father gave Thee,
Thou in person wast the same,

Christianity has degraded to today's fallen condition because few people are able to speak the Lord's word in the meetings. At the time of the worship service, only the pastor who has been trained in speaking speaks. All the rest just listen in silence. This is because they cannot speak and have nothing to say. This is the situation of the worship service in all of Christianity. In the Lord's recovery, our meetings in general have also fallen into the same condition of not speaking. We only have a little speaking in the bread-breaking meeting. Actually, that cannot be considered as speaking the Lord's word; there are merely some prayers and praises. Yet to everyone's feeling, the most enjoyable and the best meeting is this bread-breaking meeting. This is because in the bread-breaking meeting everyone practices speaking some words of praise. When everyone speaks, the meeting is certainly attractive. In the early days, the words of praise spoken by the brothers and sisters in the bread-breaking meetings were quite simple. Yet the meetings were still very enjoyable. But after a while, the words of praise became monotonous; and eventually, no one had much feeling about those words any more. By 1961, we added some new songs and published some messages on God's economy. After that, the praises in the bread-breaking meeting had more depth of content and the meeting became more enjoyable. For example, Hymns, #203, verse 3 says:

Once Thou wast the only grain, Lord,
Falling to the earth to die,
That thru death and resurrection
Thou in life may multiply.
We were brought forth in Thy nature
And the many grains became;

We need to remember Him as all these things. Every week we have at least one meeting for the purpose of coming together to remember Him. At the Lord's Table we display His death for the remembrance of Him. We need to improve our praises at the Lord's Table meeting. We should pray, "Lord, You are our henna flower for our beauty, and You are the fruit for our nourishment." If we do not praise Him in this way, it indicates that we do not have the proper knowledge of Christ from the Bible. If we have the adequate knowledge of Christ, we will praise Him adequately at His table.

Because Christ is so many positive items, the church also becomes many items. Verse 4 of Hymn #203 says,

We're Thy total reproduction,
Thy dear Body and Thy Bride,
Thine expression and Thy fulness,
For Thee ever to abide.
We are Thy continuation,
Thy life-increase and Thy spread,

Today there are thousands of "Christs." These Christs are called Christians. The word Christian means "a person who belongs to Christ." As Christians, we belong to Christ and are His counterpart. As those who belong to Christ, we are Christ (1 Cor. 12:12). He is the mingling of divinity with humanity, and we are too. We are exactly the same as He is in life and nature. We are copies of Christ, and these copies are the mingling of the Trinity with humanity. He is the model, the mold, and we are His mass production. The second and fourth stanzas of Hymns, #203 express the thought that we are Christ's duplication and reproduction:

By Thy death and resurrection,
Thou wast made God's firstborn Son;
By Thy life to us imparting,
Was Thy duplication done.
We, in Thee regenerated,
Many sons to God became;

If you investigate, you will see that much of the terminology which we use today is definitely not found in Christian theology. Some among us have studied theology, and perhaps some even were pastors. I would ask them if expressions such as "the increase of Christ" and "the multiplication of Christ" have ever been used in Chinese theology. These terms were not found in theology before we were raised up by the Lord. We can say that they, especially the terms increase and multiplication, were invented by us.

Hymns, #203 was written by me in English after I brought the Lord's recovery to America, when I was preparing the English hymnal in 1963. In 1967, when I returned to Taiwan to rearrange the Chinese hymns, I translated this hymn into Chinese myself. This hymn reads as follows:

1 In the bosom of the Father,
Ere the ages had begun,
Thou wast in the Father's glory,
God's unique begotten Son.
When to us the Father gave Thee,
Thou in person wast the same,

We need to be people filled with the essence of Christ Himself. It is not enough for us merely to have the knowledge concerning Christ. We need more of the person of Christ essentially. The increase of the Triune God within the believers is the growth of the Body of Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God. This growth, this increase, is the organic building up of the Body of Christ. In the past we did not experience very much of the organic building up of the Body of Christ. We need to have Christ growing in us day by day. We should not exercise ourselves in ethics. Day by day we need to exercise our spirit consciously, purposely, and intentionally to receive Christ essentially more and more. We need to have Christ added to us and increasing in us day by day.

The last verse of Hymns, #203 says:

We're Thy total reproduction,
Thy dear Body and Thy Bride,
Thine expression and Thy fullness,
For Thee ever to abide.
We are Thy continuation,
Thy life-increase and Thy spread,

Our organic salvation began with our regeneration, in which God dispensed His life into our spirit. He added His uncreated life to our created life, and our original, God-created humanity, which had become fallen and corrupted, was redeemed and resurrected. We do not have an exchanged life but the divine life added to our redeemed and resurrected human life. Moreover, the regenerating God continuously sanctifies us to uplift our nature with His holy nature. He first added His life to our life, and He is now uplifting our nature by making our natural disposition holy. He is also renewing our mind, even allowing us to have His mind as our mind. Philippians 2:5 reveals that we can have the mind of Christ. Based on our regeneration, sanctification, and renewing, we are transformed. Transformation changes our entire being and continues with conformation. We are being conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, who is the processed and consummated Triune God. Finally, we will be glorified. When we are fully in glory, God and we will be the same in life, nature, and expression. The only difference will be that He has the Godhead, which we can never have, because He is the unique God. We need to pray not merely to be holy but even to be the same as God is.

In 1963 I wrote Hymns, #203, which says, "We're Thy total reproduction." I rejoice and am full of worship and humility in these days because of the revelation that the Lord has given us. It is a great thing that the Lord has revealed these things to us. Because they will be printed, they will be a significant part of history. These are the happiest days of my whole life.

Our practice in the work should be that we first experience something before going out to speak about it. Before I moved to Taiwan, I had remained in China for seventeen years after coming into the recovery. I was in Taiwan for more than ten years, sometimes traveling to Manila but visiting only one or two other places. I was invited to visit other places, but I would not go, because I felt that I needed to stay in one place to learn something. Then I came to the United States in 1962, thirty years after I came into the recovery. Although I have learned much since moving here, when I first came to this country, I came with some maturity in life. I wrote many hymns, such as Hymns, #203, and spoke messages at that time that are rich in truth and in life.

In 1961 I went to America, and as a result that year became a point of demarcation in my work. The following year I began my work in America. Prior to 1961, every time I returned to Taipei from abroad, I was afraid to go to the Lord's table meeting because everything was old. The hymns were old, and the prayers were old. However, during the few recent times I have come back to Taipei, I found that the singing at the Lord's table meeting has improved. The saints have learned to sing: "In the bosom of the Father, / Ere the ages had begun, / Thou wast in the Father's glory, / God's unique begotten Son," and "Once Thou wast the only grain, Lord, / Falling to the earth to die" (Hymns, #203, stanzas 1 and 3). At the same time, I noticed that some older sisters, who are not highly educated, still knew to pray: "O Lord, You are the only grain that fell to the ground and died to produce us as many grains. Thank You for dispensing Your life into us." The old hymns used in the remembrance of the Lord were gone. Thus, we can say that we have entered into a new age.

I moved to the United States in 1962 to bring all the things concerning the Triune God, the all-inclusive Christ, the compound Spirit, the experience of Christ as life, our human spirit, and other scriptural truths to this country. These truths can be seen in the approximately two hundred hymns that I wrote in 1963, such as Hymns, #203, #499, and #501. These hymns represent the second age of the Lord's recovery. Some of my helpers who listened to my messages came up to the standard of the second age and responded by writing more hymns. For example, #1174 says,

What a victory! What a triumph!
God Himself became a man,
Clothed Himself in human nature
To fulfill His mighty plan.
He through death destroyed the devil;
Risen now, the Son of Man!

In ourselves, we do not have the capacity to make ourselves alive, to stand up, and to ascend into the heavens. Our nature does not have the capacity to overcome the power of gravity. However, God's breath of life, His grace of life, has been breathed into us. This grace of life contains a capacity that enables us to ascend until we arrive in the heavenlies, where God is. It has also seated us there so that God might display in the ages which are coming, that is, in the millennium and in the new heaven and new earth, the riches of His grace of life. There we will be as a musical hymn for all creation to sing of God's sweetness, wisdom, and glory. Hymns, #203 is a very sweet hymn. As we sing such a hymn, we sense its sweetness and its beauty. I believe that one day, in the kingdom, all the angels will take the lead in the creation to sing such a song of praise to God concerning us as God's poem, God's masterpiece.

Wherever I went, I always preached Brother Nee's teachings. Some people considered this a shame, but to me it was a glory. At the beginning of my speaking I would tell people that what I was sharing was Brother Nee's message. I even learned to follow Brother Nee's gestures, posture, and accent. It was a glory to speak what he spoke. Before I began the work in the United States, I wrote Hymns, #203, which speaks of the one grain that became many grains to be the Lord's continuation. The Lord covers me to say that this is a very deep hymn. I also wrote "O glorious Christ, Savior mine" (#501) and "Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace!" (#499). When I came to the United States, the first message of the first conference I gave in English was on the all-inclusive Christ, based on Deuteronomy 8:7-9. However, in all this I never changed. What I speak is still from Brother Nee.

The many grains produced by Christ's resurrection are His increase (John 3:30a). Farmers make a living by the increase of their seed. They sow a relatively small quantity of seed into the earth, and after three months they reap a large harvest. That harvest is the increase of the seed. When Jesus was on the earth traveling in the holy land, He was the unique grain. But today, consider how many "Christs" there are on this earth. There are not only thousands but millions around the globe. This is the vine mentioned in John 15. This great vine covers the entire globe. The church, which is Christ (1 Cor. 12:12) as His increase, is the true vine. This too is a product of Christ's resurrection. This is Christ's increase, propagation, and surplus.

The fourth stanza of Hymns, #203 reads:

We're Thy total reproduction,
Thy dear Body and Thy Bride,
Thine expression and Thy fulness
For Thee ever to abide.
We are Thy continuation,
Thy life-increase and Thy spread,
Thy full growth and Thy rich surplus,
One with Thee, our glorious Head.

In this verse a number of words are used to express the fact that the church is Christ's increase and expansion.

Isaiah 53:10b says not only that Christ will see a seed but also that He will extend His days. Today Christ is extending His days by living in His believers. His believers are His extension. Therefore, we may sing these words: "We are Thy continuation,/Thy life-increase and Thy spread" (Hymns, #203).

The entire book of Revelation, like the entire Bible, is a book of testimony. The entire Bible testifies concerning God first by Christ and then by us. We are Christ's continuation. Hymns, #203 says that we are Christ's reproduction, multiplication, duplication, and continuation. A person's body is a continuation of his head. The body and the head are not two persons, but one person. Our body is the head's continuation. In the same way, Christ's Body is the continuation of Him as the Head. The Head and the Body both bear the same testimony for God. With the Head it is subjective. With the Body it is objective.

This hymn says that once Christ, the only begotten Son, was the only grain. Through His death and resurrection He has made us the many grains. As such grains, we are the many sons of God (Heb. 2:10), Christ's many brothers, His many "twins." Now the many grains are blended as one loaf, which is Christ's Body, His reproduction.

In John 8 a sinful woman was brought to the Lord. Eventually, He said to her, "Has no one condemned you?" (v. 10). "And she said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more" (v. 11). This was also a sign. The Lord Jesus was God expressed, yet He would not condemn a sinner. Is this not something mystical? He was a divine and mystical person living in the divine and mystical realm, doing everything in a divine and mystical way. We should be such persons. If we are working in an office, those around us should have the feeling that there is something extraordinary about us. This extraordinary thing is divine and mystical. We all need to be discipled by the Lord to be divine and mystical persons.

By the Lord's mercy, I was able to write Hymns, #203 because of the Lord's discipling. Stanza 4 of this hymn says:

We're Thy total reproduction,
Thy dear Body and Thy Bride,
Thine expression and Thy fullness,
For Thee ever to abide.
We are Thy continuation,
Thy life-increase and Thy spread,
Thy full growth and Thy rich surplus,
One with Thee, our glorious Head.

I wrote this hymn in my sixties, after I had been discipled by the Lord for about forty years.

All of us need to be impressed with the revelation of the church in hymn #203. I wrote this hymn in 1963. During that time I realized there was a shortage of hymns on the deeper truths. This hymn says:

...

We must pay our full attention to stanza 4 of this hymn. This stanza reveals that the church is God's total reproduction, God's dear Body, God's bride, God's expression, God's fullness, God's continuation, God's life-increase, God's spread, God's full growth, and God's rich surplus. We may have sung this hymn many times without any impression of its significance. Stanza 4 of hymn #203 tells us what the church is. Have we ever considered that as the church we are God's total reproduction, God's continuation, and God's rich surplus? This is why we should pray, "Lord, give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation to sing such a song." We need to read and sing this song prayerfully until we really see what the church is in its highest sense. The church is the total reproduction of God!