Week of 9 May 2021
HWMR
Vanity of Vanities, the Reality in Jesus, and the Revelation of the Sons of God
Ecclesiastes 1:2b says, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity”. The theme of Ecclesiastes is vanity of vanities. The central thought of Ecclesiastes is the vanity of vanities of human life under the sun in its falling away from God. The contents of Ecclesiastes are a description of the human life of fallen mankind under the sun, a life in the corrupted world. The teachings of Solomon in Ecclesiastes show that the human life in the corrupted world is a vanity, a chasing after wind. No matter how good, excellent, marvelous, and wonderful a thing may be, as long as it is of the old creation, it is part of the vanity of vanities under the sun. Only the new creation, which is in the heavens and not “under the sun”, is not vanity but is reality. In addition to Solomon, in Psalm 39:4-6 David also realized the nothingness and vanity of his life.
Man was created by God with the highest and most noble purpose, that is, to express God in His image with His divine life and nature. However, God’s enemy, Satan, the devil, came in to inject himself as sin into the man created by God for His purpose. Through this fall of man, man and all the created things that had been committed by God to his dominion were made subject to vanity; thus, human life in the corrupted world also became vanity. The way for us to escape this vanity is to come back to God and take God in Christ as redemption, life, wealth, enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction so that we may still be used by God to fulfill His original purpose in creating man for the fulfillment of His eternal economy. Although the human life in the corrupted world is a vanity, a chasing after wind, we need to realise that God has put eternity in man’s heart. “Eternity” in Ecclesiastes 3:11 is “a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy”. God created man in His image and formed in him a spirit so that man may receive and contain Him and have a heart that seeks God Himself so that God can be man’s satisfaction. Temporal things can never satisfy man; only the eternal God, who is Christ, can satisfy the deep sense of purpose in man’s heart.
In Ephesians 4:17 Paul exhorts the believers to “no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind”. The Gentiles, the nations, are the fallen people; the basic element in the daily life of fallen mankind is the vanity of the mind. They walk without God in the vanity of their mind and are controlled and directed by their vain thoughts. In Ephesians 4:17 there is a contrast between the reality in Jesus and the vanity of the fallen human mind. In the godless walk of fallen man there is vanity, but in the godly life of Jesus there is reality. God as the reality (v. 24) was exhibited in the life of Jesus. The reality in Jesus is the actual condition of the life of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels. The human living of Jesus was according to the reality, that is, according to God Himself. Everything the Lord did in His human life was God expressed and therefore was reality. The life of Jesus according to reality is the pattern for the believers’ life. As members of the Body of Christ, we need to learn Christ and be taught in Him to live a life of reality as the reality is in Jesus—a life of expressing God. We can live in the reality that is in Jesus because “we are in Him who is true”. Him who is true refers to God becoming subjective to us, to the God who is objective becoming the true One in our life and experience. To be in the One who is true—the true One—is to be in His Son Jesus Christ, for the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is the true God.
Because creation has been made subject to vanity, the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God “in hope that the creation itself will also be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God”. Revelation is an unveiling or an appearing of something previously covered or hidden. At the Lord’s second coming, when we will be glorified and our bodies will be fully redeemed, the veil will be lifted. The creation, which “groans together and travails in pain together until now”, is awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. This revelation will be the consummation of the process of designation that we are now passing through. Although the entire creation is presently held in a condition of vanity and corruption, God will bring in His kingdom to deal with the present condition. The coming kingdom will be a kingdom of the glory of God, a kingdom composed primarily of the revealed sons of God. God’s glory goes with His kingdom and is expressed in the realm of His kingdom. The creation is eagerly expecting and anxiously watching for God’s kingdom to come; at the time of the revelation of the kingdom, the whole creation will be liberated, and the manifested sons of God will be delivered from vanity and “will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”.
(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)
The Body of Christ
The Degradation and the Recovery of the Church
During the past two thousand years, the gospel has not changed. On the very day that the church was produced, God saw this new creation and considered that it was good. This is like God considering everything as good in Genesis after He created everything in six days. After some time, the situation changed. Although the situation changed, the beauty of the original creation remains the same. The beauty of the church on the first day at Pentecost was comparable to the beauty of Eve on the day of her creation. However, the church gradually changed. It changed from Ephesus to Sardis. At the time of Martin Luther, God began to take the way of recovery step by step. For the past four hundred years, God did some recovery work every fifty years. During the past one hundred years, His work has been especially strong. It seems as if the last few decades have seen the peak of recovery. There has never been a time when the church has been as rich as it is now.
The Body Testimony being God's Final Recovery
We believe that God is recovering the most difficult thing today. What worries us the most today is the fulfillment of Ephesians 4. It seems as though we do not have to worry about the fulfillment of John 3:16. We are not afraid that it will not be fulfilled, and we are not worried. Suppose someone says that he has believed and asks what he should do if he still has not received eternal life. He has believed, yet he has not seen any result. What should he do? We are not worried about this. I have read the New Testament more than two hundred times. I am not worried about any other passage. I have even read Revelation a few hundred times. I am not worried about that book either. However, I am worried about Ephesians 4. I am concerned about how this passage of the Scriptures will be fulfilled.
Ephesians 4 says that the work of the ministry is to arrive at the oneness of the faith. The church is the Body of Christ, and it builds itself up in love. We are not concerned about things like the new heaven, the new earth, and the lake of fire. But when I lie on my bed, I am always apprehensive about the fulfillment of Ephesians 4. I have studied the Bible, and I have prayed, but I still do not have the assurance that the condition in Ephesians 4 will be fulfilled in the church today. Among God's children today, there is much confusion, and there are all kinds of divisions. When will we be one? Today there are all kinds of ministries; the situation is very complicated. How can this chapter be recovered?
Yet, brothers and sisters, we believe that there will be a day when God's recovery will reach the fulfillment of Ephesians 4. God is doing a recovery work everywhere. The ultimate work among all these works may very well be the recovery of the Body testimony. God's leading today is to bring us back to the beginning and to recover us to the condition at the beginning.
(The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, (Set 3) Vol. 57: The Resumption of Watchman Nee's Ministry, Chapter 22, Section 1)
Concerning the Gospel
The Real Meaning of the Human life Under the Sun
God created man for Himself, but man was seduced by Satan to give God up, and thus man became fallen. Nevertheless, God still blesses man so that he may have a good living and enjoy various material things. By blessing man with material things, God maintains the existence of mankind from generation to generation. God has preserved man in this way for the sake of the redemption of His chosen ones.
Apart from God's blessing no one could bear to live on earth. On the one hand, everything under the sun is vanity of vanities and is subject to the slavery of corruption. On the other hand, certain things in human life, such as education, work, and marriage, are still very appealing. If we did not strive to gain an education or to succeed in our work or to have a good married life and family life, we might be tempted to commit suicide. God uses man's striving for these things in order to keep man on earth. If mankind ceased to exist, God could not gain His chosen ones from among the fallen human race. If mankind had been terminated, Christ could not have come, for there would have been no lineage for His incarnation.
Although man is fallen, God continues to bless man, causing the sun to shine and the rain to fall and maintaining a proper order in the universe. As a result, people have the desire to go on living. In this way mankind is preserved for God to fulfill His purpose in choosing us before the foundation of the earth.
We were born at the right time and in the right place. Therefore, we all are here today for God's purpose. Without God's sovereign preservation of physical, human life, none of us could exist for His purpose.
God Having Put Eternity in Man's Heart
God has made everything beautiful in its own time and has put eternity (an aspiration for the things in eternity) in man's heart, yet so that man does not find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. In His creation of man, God put something into man which Solomon called "eternity." This means that in man there is a kind of aspiration for God, an aspiration for something eternal. Physical things may be enjoyable, but they are temporal.
Many successful people can testify that when they were endeavoring to advance in their career, they sensed that there was an emptiness within them. They began to realize that they were seeking something eternal. After they gained something they wanted, they felt that it was nothing. This feeling comes from the aspiration in man's heart for something eternal.
According to our own experience we know that whenever we have a success in our human life, we also have an empty feeling. This indicates that within man there is an aspiration for eternal things. God has put such an aspiration, such a seeking, in man's heart so that he will seek God. Every person, especially every thoughtful person, has within him this longing and seeking for eternity. (Life study of Eccl. Msg 1)
After the full harvest of their crops, the Jewish people observed the feast of Tabernacles to enjoy what they had reaped in the worship of God Hence, this feast signifies the completion, achievement, and success of man’s career, study, and other matters of human life, including religion, with the joy and enjoyment thereof. Thus, the feast of Tabernacles implies the completion of your job, achievement, and career. Although you may be successful in your occupation or career, you must realize that it will all issue in thirst. Eventually, after working your entire life, you will be thirsty, because everything has a last day. Everything ends. The last day is always a great day. After people attain a certain success, other people will give them a memorial day. A person’s memorial day is always his last day. It is the end, and the end is empty. It results in thirst. In John 6 we have the beginning of life, which results in hunger; in John 7 we have the success and completion of life, which end in thirst. The previous case sets forth the people laboring, working, seeking, and striving to find something to satisfy their hunger, but they fail to get it. This case sets forth the people already having everything they need, but they find that it does not quench their thirst. They have obtained everything; they have enjoyed everything. But with all of their success, with all of their gain, even with all of the things connected with their feasts—their religion and their temple—their thirst cannot be quenched. Therefore, these two cases compare those who are working with those who are resting. Nevertheless, regardless of whether you are working or resting, you cannot fill your hunger or quench your thirst.
However, the Lord is the food to the people who labor and He will afford living water to those who rest. Actually, humanity exists in only one of two conditions. One is that because they lack something they must seek, work, strive, and labor; the other is that because they have everything they may rejoice and enjoy their riches. In other words, at first you find that you do not have anything; therefore, you must work and labor hard. For example, perhaps you are in the first year of college and you have to labor over your studies. This is like the feast of the Passover. After you have graduated and received your degree and have an excellent occupation, you are rich. This is like the feast of Tabernacles because the work and labor are over. Now you are at rest and are in the position to rejoice and enjoy the benefits of your labor.
Which feast are you attending—the feast of the Passover or the feast of Tabernacles? Regardless of which feast you are attending, you are still hungry or thirsty. Whether you are in a poor or rich condition, whether you are in a state of poverty or plenty, you will realize that you are either hungry or thirsty. Many foreign students come to the rich country of the United States for an education, but in reality, they are simply hungry. After they work hard for several years and finally achieve their Ph.D. degree, some will become very wealthy, but they will still be thirsty.
Perhaps as a young person you are considering marriage. This reveals that you are hungry for a wife, hungry for a helpmate, hungry for a family and children. I must tell you that although you may marry the best wife, have the best children, and possess the best of everything, you will eventually be seventy or eighty years old. That will be your feast of Tabernacles in which you will rejoice in everything and enjoy everything. At that time, you will discover that nothing has been able to quench your thirst. At the Passover, you were hungry, but after the feast of Tabernacles, you were still thirsty. When you made out your application for college, you were hungry, but after your graduation, you were still thirsty. When you were first married, you were hungry, but now, after you are married, you sense that you are still thirsty.
Praise the Lord that Christ is the bread of life for those who are laboring at the feast of the Passover. A college education can never be the bread of life. Only the Lord Himself can be our satisfaction. Furthermore, only Christ can quench the thirst for those who are resting and rejoicing at the feast of Tabernacles. Even when people have everything, the corn and the wine, they realize that an inner thirst still persists. They may rejoice and enjoy the produce that is in their hands, yet only the Lord has the living water to quench their thirst. (Life Study of John Msg 17)
