Basic Lesson Series—Volume 6 Love One Another WATCHMAN NEE Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York Copyright ©1975 Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York All Rights Reserved ISBN 0-935008-10-1 Available from the Publishers at: 11515 Allecingie Parkway Richmond, Virginia 23235 PRINTED IN U.S.A. Basic Lesson Series—Volume 6 CONTENTS 39. GOVERNMENTAL FORGIVENESS 5 40. THE DISCIPLINE OF GOD 25 41. RESIST THE DEVIL 43 42. HEAD COVERING 69 43. THE WAY OF THE CHURCH 91 44. ONENESS 115 45. LOVE THE BRETHREN 137 46. PRIESTHOOD 157 47. THE BODY OF CHRIST 173 48. THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 191 BASIC LESSONS ON PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN LIVING Burdened with the need of a firm foundation for the Christian life, brother Watchman Nee gave a series of basic lessons on practical Christian living during the training session for workers held in Kuling, Foochow, China in 1948. He expressed the hope that these essential lessons might be faithfully learned by God’s people, thereby laying a good foundation for the building up of the Body of Christ. These messages on practical Christian living have now been translated from the Chinese language and will be published in a series of six books, bearing the various titles of: (1) A Living Sacrifice; (2) The Good Confession; (3) Assembling Together; (4) Not I, But Christ; (5) Do All to the Glory of God; and (6) Love One Another. “Exercise thyself unto godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7), is the exhortation of the apostle Paul. May our hearts be so exercised by God’s Word as to give the Holy Spirit opportunity to perfect the new creation. All quotations of the Scriptures, unless otherwise indicated, are from the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901). GOVERNMENTAL FORGIVENESS There are four kinds of forgiveness in the Bible. For convenience’ sake, we shall 3399 give each a name: first, eternal forgiveness; second, borrowed forgiveness; third, communional forgiveness; and fourth, governmental forgiveness. In order to walk uprightly, we need to learn what God’s governmental forgiveness is. Before we touch on this, however, let us first differentiate the four kinds of forgiveness. Eternal Forgiveness We call the forgiveness we receive at the time we are saved eternal forgiveness. This is the forgiveness of which the Lord Jesus spoke when He said, “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk. 24:47). This is also what Romans 4:7 refers to: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.” We call this kind of forgiveness eternal forgiveness because once God forgives our sins, He forgives them forever. He casts our sins into the sea, into the depths of the sea, so that He no longer sees nor remembers them. Such is the forgiveness we receive at the time of salvation. For us who believe in the Lord Jesus, He forgives all our sins and takes away all our iniquities so that before God none are left. This is eternal forgiveness. Borrowed Forgiveness Many times God Himself says, “I forgive you!” Sometimes, though, He declares His forgiveness through the church: “God has 6 Love One Another forgiven your sins!” This kind of forgiveness we term borrowed forgiveness. “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:22-23). Here the Lord gives His Holy Spirit to the church so that she may represent Him on earth and be His vessel to forgive people’s sins. Though we call this borrowed forgiveness, we need to exercise extreme care lest we fall into the error of the Roman Catholic church. Notice what the Lord said. The forgiveness here is based on the Lord’s breathing upon the church, saying, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” The consequence of receiving the Holy Spirit is that the church knows whose sins are retained and whose are forgiven. Thus the church may declare whose sins are retained and whose sins are forgiven. Remember this: the church has such authority only because she herself is under the authority of the Holy Spirit. “Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”—these words come after “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” Borrowed forgiveness is God forgiving people’s sins through the channel of the church. Sometimes we meet a sinner who feels guilty after hearing the gospel. We bring him to God and he confesses that he is a sinner. He asks God to forgive his sins. He cries, he sheds tears, he repents and honestly receives the Lord Jesus. But, being a heathen, he knows nothing of the truth of salvation. If, at this moment, there is someone who can represent the church and declare to him, “God has forgiven your sins!”, this would be an excellent thing to do, for it would spare him much sorrow and many doubts. Whenever you see a person who has truly believed, you can tell him, “Today you have received the Lord; now you may thank God, for He has already forgiven your sins.” If the church cannot forgive or retain sins, how can she decide who may be baptized and who may not? Why do you baptize some people and refuse to baptize others? Why do you receive some to the breaking of bread and refuse others? These are instances in which the church exercises the authority the Lord has given her to declare who GOVERNMENTAL FORGIVENESS 7 is saved and who is not saved, whose sins are forgiven and whose sins are retained. Such words may not be idly spoken but only under the authority of the Holy Spirit. The church, having received the Holy Spirit, is under His authority, and is thus like a borrowed hand to God. The Lord borrows the hand of the church to declare whose sins are forgiven and whose sins are retained. This, then, is the second kind of forgiveness in the Bible: instead of forgiving sins directly, God uses the hand of the church to forgive people’s sins. In eternal forgiveness, God directly forgives sins, but in borrowed forgiveness, God announces His forgiveness by man’s hand. Communional Forgiveness What is communional forgiveness? “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7-9). “My little children, these things write I unto you that ye may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world” (2:1-2). The forgiveness mentioned here is neither that which we received at the time of salvation nor that which the church extends to us. After we believe in the Lord and become God’s children, we still may have need of God’s forgiveness. We have ∗ mentioned this before as the forgiveness of the red heifer. Though we have received eternal forgiveness, we may weaken and once again sin before the Lord, thus interrupting our fellowship with God. So, once again we need forgiveness. ∗ Volume 4, Not I But Christ, Lesson 22 8 Love One Another Life has a special characteristic—it delights in fellowship. Or, as biology students know, we may say that life has two basic features: self-preservation—to keep oneself alive and away from death, for life fears to die; and fellowship—the fear of being isolated. If you put a chicken alone in one place, it will show boredom; but if you put many chickens together, they will manifest great liveliness. A man imprisoned in solitary confinement suffers greatly because of being unable to communicate with other people. Man, like other living creatures, desires to preserve his own life as well as to have fellowship with others. For you who have trusted in the blood of the Lord Jesus, the life preservation problem is already solved. You have no more trouble because you are eternally saved and your sins are eternally forgiven. But there may be trouble in another respect. If you sin against God after you are saved, your fellowship with God as well as with God’s children may be disturbed. What does this mean? Let us use an example: after her mother has gone out, a girl steals into the kitchen and, without permission, eats some goodies. When she is finished eating, she wipes her mouth clean, cleans off the table, and closes the kitchen door. But she has already committed a sin! Usually she and her mother have very intimate fellowship in the evenings, but tonight it cannot be the same. When her mother calls her from upstairs, her heart jumps downstairs! She thinks that her mother is going to beat her. Even when her mother gives supper to her, she cannot enjoy the food. She is afraid that her mother has discovered what she did. All evening she tries to evade her mother. As you can see, her fellowship with her mother is disturbed. Of course, just because she has stolen some food does not mean that she is no longer a daughter.