The Ministry of God’s Word W N ATCHMAN EE Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York Copyright ©1971 Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. New York All Rights Reserved ISBN 0-935008-28-4 Available from the Publishers at: 11515 Allecingie Parkway Richmond, Virginia 23235 PRINTED IN U.S.A. CONTENTS Part ONE: THE MINISTER 1 Three Kinds of Ministry 7 2 The Contents and Delivery of the Word 21 3 The Course and Ministry of Paul 33 4 The Peak of the Ministry of the Word 47 Part TWO: THE WORD OF GOD 5 The Basis of the Word 61 6 The Need for the Holy Spirit’s Interpretation 73 7 The Need for the Holy Spirit’s Revelation 87 8 God’s Word in Christ 105 9 Knowing God’s Word through Christ 121 Part THREE: THE MINISTRY 10 The Foundation of Ministry 137 11 Revelation and Thought 151 12 Burden and Word 169 13 The Discipline of the Holy Spirit and the Word 189 14 The Word and Memory 205 15 The Word and Feeling 219 16 The Word and the Release of the Spirit 233 17 Some Helps in Speaking 259 Part FOUR: THE OBJECTS OF THE WORD 18 The Objects of the Word 289 The contents of this volume comprise a series of messages which were delivered in Chinese by the author during a training period for workers held in Kuling, Foochow, China, in 1948. All quotations from the Old Testament are from the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901), unless otherwise indicated. All quotations from the New Testament are from the New American Standard Bible: The New Testament (1960), unless otherwise indicated. P A R T O N E THE MINISTER 1 Three Kinds of Ministry 1 “But we will devote ourselves . . . to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6.4). The matter of serving people with God’s word is called the ministry of the word; the person who so serves is called a minister. “Ministry” points to the matter, while “minister” speaks of the person. The ministry of the word occupies an important place in the work of God. There are definite principles to be learned by those who preach the word of God and serve people with God’s word. From the Old Testament time to the New, God always is found speaking. He spoke in the Old Testament days; He spoke while the Lord Jesus was on earth; and He continues to speak in the New Testament church. We learn from the Bible that God has a prime work to perform on earth, which is, to utter His own word. If the word of God is taken away, then almost nothing is left of God’s work. No word, no work. When the word is eliminated, the work is reduced to near zero. We must therefore recognize the place of God’s word in His work. Once the word is removed the work of God ceases immediately, for God operates through His word; He treats His word as His work. The work of God is filled with His word. How does God utter His word? This is a very special and quite remarkable method: God’s word is spoken through the mouth of man. Not only is there the word in the Bible; there is also the minister of the word. Were God to speak directly by Himself, He would have no need for the minister of the word. Since His word is delivered by man, the minister of the word becomes a real concern. How very significant is man, therefore, in the work of God. God employs no way other than man to deliver His word. God is in need of a special class of people to be the ministers of His word. 8 The Ministry of God's Word Briefly stated, one can find throughout the whole Bible three different kinds of people whom God uses to preach the word. In the Old Testament God’s word is spread by the prophets; hence we have the ministry of the prophets. Once again, at the time of the earthly pilgrimage of the Lord Jesus, God’s word became flesh; and thus we have the ministry of the Lord Jesus. And finally, in the New Testament God’s word is propagated by the apostles; with the result that we have the ministry of the apostles. The Old Testament Ministers of the Word: The Prophets In the Old Testament God chose the prophets as the men to speak His word. These many prophets spoke according to the visions they received. Even a person such as Balaam could speak for God, for Balaam was a prophet; his prophecies were some of the greater ones in the Old Testament. The way by which the Old Testament prophets could serve as ministers of God’s word was through the word of God coming to them. Balaam, for example, prophesied as the Spirit of God came upon him. He spoke in spite of himself. God set aside his feeling and his thought and gave him revelation. The word of God came to him irrespective of his condition. He neither added his own opinion nor mingled his own feeling or thought in with God’s word. In other words, God merely employed the man’s mouth to utter His word. This is typical of the Old Testament ministers of the word. The Holy Spirit gave the word to a particular individual and so controlled that person that there could be no error in God’s word as propagated by him. Though God used the person, there was little, if any, human element involved in this type of revelation. Man merely spoke the word of God without adding anything to it. Nevertheless, in the Old Testament we do find people such as Moses, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah whom God employed as mouthpieces in a way which was more advanced than that of Balaam and other prophets. The words which Moses wrote were mainly what Three Kinds of Ministry 9 God had commanded him. As the Lord spoke, so spoke Moses. Isaiah recorded vision after vision which the Lord had shown him. In this respect these prophets functioned under the same principle as Balaam. But in another respect Moses and Isaiah were quite different from Balaam. For we know that whenever Balaam himself came forward, his personal feeling was so wrong that he was condemned before God. While under revelation, Balaam spoke the word of God; but as soon as he spoke by himself, he manifested sin, error and darkness. This was not true of Moses. Though he largely spoke according to what God commanded, yet there were times before God when he spoke as he felt. During these occasions he was not looked upon as doing anything wrong; instead, his word was recognized as also being God’s word. This shows that Moses was more used by God than was Balaam. The same is true of Isaiah. Most of his prophecies came directly from the visions he received from God, but sometimes he himself began to speak. David and Jeremiah expressed their own feelings before God even more than Moses and Isaiah. All of these prophets approached the way of the later New Testament ministers; even so, they acted mostly under the same principles as the rest of the Old Testament prophets. They spoke when the word of God came to them. The Minister o f the Word in the Gospels: The Lord Jesus When the Lord Jesus came to the earth, the Word became flesh (John 1.14). The Lord Jesus Himself is the word of God. He clothed Himself with flesh and became a man in the flesh. Whatever He did and said were all God’s word. His ministry was the ministry of God’s word. The way God’s word was spread through the Lord Jesus is totally different from that through the Old Testament prophets. Earlier God merely engaged man’s voice to propagate His word. Even John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, was but a voice in the wilderness. The word of God simply used his voice. 10 The Ministry of God's Word Not so with the Lord Jesus. He is the Word become flesh. The very Person is the word of God. In the Old Testament the word came upon man. The word and the man were two separate entities. The former was simply spoken by the latter’s voice. Although with Moses and David it was somewhat different, the basic principle of the Old Testament was that God merely engaged the human voice. In incarnation, however, the word of God was clothed with a human body; God’s word became man. It was no longer the word coming to man, nor was it God’s word using the human voice. The word instead was dressed in man; therefore it had human feeling, thought and opinion, though it remained God’s word. If man’s opinion had entered into God’s word during the Old Testament period, that word would have ceased to be the word of God. For in the instant that human feeling, thought or opinion is mixed in with God’s word, the latter turns imperfect, impure, and unclean. It is the ruination of God’s word. To maintain the purity of His word, nothing of man’s opinion, thought and feeling may be mingled in. When the word of God was voiced by Balaam it became a prophecy. But if Balaam had attempted to add his own feeling and idea to it, it would have immediately ceased to be God’s word, for the nature of the word would have been changed. This fairly well sums up the Old Testament situation. With the Lord Jesus, however, God’s word used not only man’s voice but his thought, feeling and opinion as well. His human thought was God’s thought; so too were his feeling and opinion God’s. This is the ministry of the word which God was able to obtain in the Lord Jesus. How vastly unalike it was from the Old Testament way. God did not want His word to be merely word; He wished it to be like a person. He delighted in having His word become flesh. This is one of the greatest mysteries in the New Testament. It was God’s desire that His word should carry human feeling, thought, and idea through a personality. It was this kind of ministry which the Lord Jesus possessed.