Life-study of the New Testament (2nd edition)

Author Witness Lee reveals that the reality of the kingdom is simply the King Himself, sown into humanity as the seed of the kingdom. This kingdom seed, containing the kingdom life and nature, will grow and develop in the believers, constituting them the reality of the kingdom, until it is brought to full maturity as the manifestation of the kingdom. In particular, it explains the crucial difference between the kingdom of the heavens and the kingdom of God, and presents a clear understanding of the Lord’s prophecies concerning Israel, the church, and the nations at the consummation of the age.

Mark’s Gospel provides more details than the other Gospels in order to portray the Slave-Savior’s diligence, faithfulness, and other virtues in the saving service He rendered to sinners for God. In Mark’s Gospel are the fulfillment of the prophecies in Isa. 42:1-4, 6-7; 49:5-7; 50:4-7; 52:13–53:12 concerning Christ as the Slave of God. His diligence in labor, His need of food and rest, His anger, His groaning, and His affection display beautifully His humanity in its virtue and perfection, while His lordship, His omniscience, His miraculous power, and His authority to cast out demons to forgive sins, and to silence the wind and the sea manifest in full His deity in its glory and honor. What a Slave of God! How lovely and admirable! Such a Slave served sinners as their Slave-Savior, with His life as their ransom, for the fulfillment of the eternal purpose of God, whose Slave He was.

The Gospel of John also unfolds the divine building. In 1:14, we see that Christ in the flesh was the tabernacle for God’s habitation among men on earth. In 2:19-21, Christ’s human body was also the temple of God on earth. Through His death, His body in the flesh was destroyed, and in His resurrection, He raised up His mystical body, the church, to be the enlarged temple of God.

This is God’s building in the universe. Furthermore, this Gospel reveals that the believers are to be built up to be the Father’s house, the dwelling place of the Triune God. This is adequately and fully disclosed in John 14. According to that chapter, all the believers will be built together as God’s eternal habitation with many abodes. Thus, as the Lord’s last prayer in John 17 indicates, all His believers must be built up into one.

The first section of the Gospel of John, composed of the first 13 chapters, is on the coming of the Lord Jesus to bring God into man and to declare God to man. The second section, composed of the last eight chapters, is on the Lord’s going in death and coming back in resurrection to bring man into God and to abide in and with man for God’s building.

In the first, Christ, the Spirit with our spirit, the church, and the gifts are covered as the major subjects. In the second, Christ, the Spirit with our spirit, and the church are developed further, but the gifts are not even mentioned. The gifts are replaced in this book by the ministry, which is constituted with, and produced and formed by, the experiences of the riches of Christ gained through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross. This Epistle gives us a pattern, an example, of how the killing of the cross works, how Christ is wrought into our being, and how we become the expression of Christ. These processes constitute the ministers of Christ and produce the ministry for God’s new covenant.

In this book, the current evil age is not the secular world but the religious world in its present manifestation which distracts God's people from the living person of the Son of God. This book exposes the inability both of the law and of circumcision, showing that the law cannot impart life to regenerate us and that circumcision cannot energize us to live a new creation.

But the Son of God who has been revealed in us can enliven us to make us a new creation, and the Christ who lives in us can afford us the riches of His life to live the new creation. The desire of God’s heart is not that we would keep the law but that His Son would be revealed in us, operate in us, live in us, and be formed in us that we may know Him, receive Him as our life, and become the sons of God individually and the household of the faith corporately. The book of Galatians unveils that the crucified Christ, not the law with its ordinances, is the center of God's economy.

The Life-study of Ephesians also gives a clear view of the contents of the book of Ephesians. In chapter one of Ephesians we have the blessings: God’s selection, predestination, sonship, holiness, redemption, sealing, pledging, and much more. Then we shall see the prayer of the Apostle for a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know the hope of God’s calling, to see the glory of God’s inheritance among His saints, and to realize the greatness of the power that has been wrought in Christ to produce the Body. Then in chapter two, we see the production of the church, the nature of the church, the vision of the church, the building of the church, and the function of the church.

In chapter three, we see the revelation of the mystery and the ministry of the stewardship concerning the church. Following this, we see Paul’s prayer for the strengthening of our inner man, so that Christ may make His home in our heart, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. This causes us to have the practical experience of Christ. Then, as revealed in the last three chapters, we shall know how to walk on earth, to bear responsibility, and to fight the battle for God’s purpose. This is the content of the book of Ephesians.

In everything we do, we need a pattern, a model, an example. Even in the experience of Christ and the enjoyment of Christ, we need a pattern. This pattern is Christ Himself. Chapter three indicates that Christ should be our goal, our aim. We who love the Lord and seek Him are not aimless. Our aim is Christ Himself. He is the goal toward which we press. Finally, in chapter four, Christ is our strength.

In 4:13 Paul says, “I can do all things in Him who empowers me.” Christ is not only the pattern and the goal; He is also the strength, the power, the dynamo. As the dynamo within us, he empowers us to live Him, to magnify Him, and to press on toward Him as the goal. In the four chapters of Philippians, we see Christ as the One lived out and magnified, Christ as the pattern, Christ as the goal, and Christ as our inward strength. This book on the experience of Christ covers four major points: the expression, the pattern, the goal, and the strength.

Paul's Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, written to more experienced believers, cover God’s economy regarding the church. In the life-study of these books, Witness Lee presents crucial points in these Epistles concerning God's economy, the inoculation of the church against decline, the maintenance of the order of the church, and the believers' equal status in the new man.

In Life-study of First Peter, he describes the Christian life under the government of God with its high demand, and in Life-study of Second Peter, he details the divine provision that supplies the believers with all that they need to meet that high demand.

In the Life-study of Jude, Witness Lee shows from Jude's Epistle the genuine contending for the faith and the believers' living in the Triune God issuing in their full enjoyment of Him.

In addition to this ultimate revelation of Christ, the book of Revelation also unveils many unique aspects of the church as the testimony of Jesus. The lampstands in chapter one, the great multitude of the redeemed in chapter seven, the bright woman with her man-child in chapter 12, the harvest with its firstfruits in chapter 14, the overcomers on the sea of glass in chapter 15, the bride ready for marriage and the fighting army of Christ in chapter 19, and the New Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 are all the testimony of Jesus which is the Spirit - the substance, the disposition, and the characteristic - of the prophecy in this book (19:10).

The central content of this book is an unveiling of God’s economy concerning Christ and the church, presenting the ultimate and consummate revelation of Christ with His full salvation and the church as His loving bride, the New Jerusalem. In this book, we find the full and adequate conclusion, not only to the writings of John and to the New Testament, but also to the entire divine revelation.