In the bosom of the Father

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;

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,

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.