I.　It is crucial for us to see that the Lord's recovery is altogether a matter of life and truth; life and truth characterize the recovery—John 8:32; 14:6:

A.　Life is the Triune God Himself in all His processes to reach man, and truth is God Himself as the reality—1:1, 14, 29; 14:9-10, 16-17; 17:17; 1 John 5:6.

B.　In order to have an adequate vision of the Lord's recovery, we need to know the recovery in the Triune God and through the Bible, the content of which is the truth—John 17:3, 17; Eph. 1:17; Col. 1:9.

II.　In New Testament usage, the word truth denotes Christ as the reality— John 1:14, 17; 8:32, 36; 14:6:

A.　According to the natural concept, the word truth means "doctrines" or "principles," but verses such as John 1:17; 4:24; and 1 Timothy 3:15 show that truth is not a doctrine or a principle but the reality.

B.　Whenever we read the New Testament, we should not understand the word truth according to the natural concept but realize that it refers to Christ as the reality—John 8:32, 36; 14:6.

III.　In order to know what truth is, we need to know the Gospel of John:

A.　John is composed with the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit— the Word, life, light, grace, and reality, or truth; all these factors are actually God Himself—1:1, 4-5, 14, 16-17; 14:9-10, 16-17, 26.

B.　John 8:32 and 36 use the truth and the Son interchangeably, revealing that the truth is actually a person, Christ the Son.

C.　On God's side, truth is God revealed, and on our side, truth is God realized; when God reveals Himself, that is truth, and when we realize and touch God, that is also truth—1:14, 17; 8:32.

IV.　Truth is the shining of light, the expression of God as light—vv. 12, 32:

A.　Light is the source of truth, and truth is the issue of light—1 John 1:5-6.

B.　Truth is the shining of the divine light on the facts of the Bible to "televise" a heavenly vision of those facts into our being—Psa. 119:130.

C.　Truth is the Triune God shining into us; thus, knowing the Lord's recovery in truth requires that we experience God shining as the divine light—John 1:1, 4-5, 9; 8:12, 32.

D.　Because of the degraded situation of Christianity today, there is the urgent need of truth as the shining of light to free God's people from the darkness of degradation—2 Tim. 2:15, 18, 25.

V.　In order to know the Lord's recovery in truth, we need to know the Bible in the way of truth—John 17:17:

A.　When we know the Bible in truth and not only in doctrine, we have the shining of light, which causes us to have life—8:12; 1:4-5.

B.　Truth—the content of the Bible—is between doctrine and light—2 Cor. 3:6; 4:6; John 8:12, 32:

1.　The truth is the reality conveyed in the doctrines—17:17:

a.　When we realize the truth, we have the reality that is conveyed in the doctrines; such reality can be revealed to us and realized by us only through the Spirit—14:17; 15:26; 16:13.

b.　Truth is the reality conveyed in the doctrines and realized through the Spirit—17:17; 16:13.

c.　Through the Spirit's enlightening, the doctrines become truth and the shining of the divine light in us; then we are joined to the light, and the light becomes life to us—1:4-5; 8:12, 32.

2.　As we read the Bible, we first receive doctrines; when the Holy Spirit enlightens the words of the Bible, the doctrines become truth, reality—16:13:

a.　The truth is conveyed in doctrines, yet the truth in the doctrines can be realized only by the enlightening of the Spirit—2 Cor. 4:4, 6.

b.　When the Spirit enlightens us, the doctrines we know become truth, which brings light, and light brings life—John 8:12, 32; 1 John 1:5-6.

c.　For this, we need to pray much in a proper way, opening our entire being to the Lord; the more we pray in this way, the more the Spirit will enlighten us to cause the doctrines to become truth—Eph. 1:17; Col. 1:9.

VI.　Truth is nothing less than God Himself—John 1:1; 14:6:

A.　Truth is God revealed and realized in His many aspects, as unveiled, for example, in the Gospel of John—16:13.

B.　The content of the Bible is the truth because the Bible reveals God to us; thus, our receiving of the truth is our experience of God as truth—Col. 1:6.

C.　The Bible is the revelation of God as reality—John 1:1; 17:17:

1.　The Bible itself is not the reality; the Bible is God's speaking, His utterance, and God Himself is the content, the reality, of the Bible.

2.　When we touch the content of any doctrine, if we do not touch God Himself, we still do not have the truth; only when we touch God do we have the truth—2 Cor. 3:6.

3.　Whether a teacher ministers truth to us or merely doctrine depends on whether his teaching ministers God to us; if God is ministered in his teaching, what he speaks is not merely doctrine but truth—1 John 5:13, 16.

D.　If we reject a particular teaching from the Bible, we are rejecting God in that aspect and thus cannot experience Him as such—John 8:37-38, 40.

VII.　The goal of knowing the truth is that we would have the riches and the abundance of life—10:10:

A.　In order to have the riches of life, we must have the truth, the shining of the Triune God; the shining of the divine light in its many aspects is the riches of life—1:4-5; 10:10; 11:25.

B.　All the riches of life are in the truth; every truth is an aspect of the riches of life.

C.　The rivers of living water are different aspects of life—7:37-39:

1.　These rivers flow out through the truth; actually, every river is a truth— 14:6.

2.　The way to have the abundance of life and to flow out the riches of life is the way of the truth—8:32:

a.　The more truth we have, the more riches of Christ as life we enjoy—Eph. 1:13; 3:8.

b.　Eventually, we will have the abundance of life; the abundance of life is altogether in the truth—John 10:10; 8:32; 14:6.

D.　The increase in truth results in the growth in life; as a believer receives more truth, life becomes more abundant in his experience—Eph. 4:15-16.

VIII.　We are truly in the Lord's recovery if we know the Triune God and the Bible, have life and truth, and are full of light—John 8:32; 11:25; 14:6:

A.　The Lord's recovery is not an activity, movement, or ordinary Christian work but a matter of life and truth in light—1 John 1:1-2, 5-7.

B.　Those who are truly in the Lord's recovery know the Triune God in a living way and know the Bible in the way of light; we should pray for this to be our experience—Heb. 8:10-11; John 17:3, 17; Psa. 119:130.