LIVING AND SERVING ACCORDING TO GOD'S ECONOMY CONCERNING THE CHURCH
Message Three
The Full Knowledge of the Truth
Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 2:4, 7; 3:15; 4:3; 2 Tim. 2:15, 25; 3:7; Titus 1:1
I. The Lord's recovery is the recovery of the light of the truth—1 John 1:5-6:
A. Truth is the shining of light, the expression of the divine light—John 8:12, 32; 1 John 1:5-6:
1. Truth is the issue of light—John 1:4, 7, 9; 3:21; 8:32.
2. Knowledge without light is doctrine, but knowledge full of light is truth—1 John 1:5-6; 4:6.
B. The truths as revealed in the Scriptures have been lost, missed, misunderstood, misinterpreted, and wrongly applied throughout the ages—John 17:17:
1. The goal of the Lord's recovery is to recover the reality, life, livingness, strength, power, and impact of the matters revealed in the Bible.
2. The truth in the Lord's recovery is the consummation of the truth of the past nineteen centuries—2 Tim. 2:2.
C. We need to have the truth wrought into us and constituted into our being—1 John 1:8; 2:4; 2 John 1-2; 3 John 3-4:
1. To be constituted with the truth is to have the intrinsic element of the divine revelation wrought into us to become our constituent, our intrinsic being, our organic constitution.
2. There is the desperate need of the living truth to produce the church, to help the church to exist, and to build up the church—1 Tim. 3:15.
3. The solid truth that is constituted into us becomes in us a constant and longterm nourishment—4:6.
4. If the truth is wrought into us and constituted into our being, we will be able to protect the interests of the riches of God's divinity and the attainments of His consummation—Rev. 21:12a, 17.
5. The Lord's word, the truth, is in the Bible, but the Bible needs the proper interpretation—2 Tim. 2:15.
6. We need to pay the price to learn the truth—Prov. 23:23.
7. The truth is absolute in itself, and we must be absolute for the truth—2 John 1-2, 4; 3 John 3-4, 7-8.
II. God desires that we"all…come to the full knowledge of the truth"—1 Tim. 2:4:
A. The Lord's recovery is to recover the full knowledge of the truth—v. 7; 4:3:
1. The degradation of the church issued from the neglect of the truth.
2. The Lord's recovery today is the full recovery of the divine truths in the holy Word—John 1:14, 17; 8:32.
B. Paul was an apostle not only according to the faith but also according to the full knowledge of the truth—1 Tim. 2:4; Titus 1:1:
1. Faith is to receive all God has planned for us, all God has done for us, and all God has given to us—1 Tim. 1:4; 2:7.
2. In the books of 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul emphasizes the need of the believers to come to the full knowledge of the truth—1 Tim. 2:4; 4:3; 2 Tim. 2:25; 3:7.
3. The full knowledge of the truth is a thorough apprehension of the truth, a full acknowledgement of the reality of all the spiritual and divine things that we have received through faith—1 Tim. 4:3.
C. All the believers need to come to and be in the full knowledge of the truth—v. 3:
1. Every believer has the capacity to come to the full knowledge of the truth—2:4.
2. To have the full knowledge of the truth is to fully know the truth; knowing the truth in this way is a safeguard.
D. All the believers need to know, experience, and be absolute for the subjective truths—John 8:32; 14:6:
1. The truths in the Bible have both an objective aspect and a subjective aspect—Rom. 8:34, 10; Col. 3:1; 1:27.
2. The objective truths are for the subjective truths, and the subjective truths are for the producing of the church—2 John 1, 4; 3 John 3-4, 7-9a.
3. The Lord desires to recover the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures—the subjective aspect of the truth concerning the Triune God and the church—John 1:14; 14:16-20; 1 Tim. 6:15-16; 2 Tim. 4:22; 3:15-16.
4. The Gospel of John is a book on the subjective truths for the producing of the church—4:14; 6:57; 14:16-17, 20; 3:15-16.
5. The subjective truths are linked to the Spirit and life and are constituted with Spirit and life—Rom. 8:2; 2 Cor. 3:6:
a. The Spirit and life are the substance of the subjective truths; without the Spirit and life we do not have the subjective truths.
b. When we live by the Spirit and life, we have the experience of the subjective truths—Rom. 8:2, 4, 14.
c. The church life is an issue of our experience of the subjective truths; when we experience the subjective truths, the church is spontaneously produced—vv. 10-11; 12:4-5; 16:1, 4-5; 1 Cor. 1:9, 30; 15:45b; 6:17; 1:2; 12:27.
E. We need to fully know and be absolute for the highest truth—Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; 12:4-5:
1. The highest truth is that in Christ God became man to make man God in life, nature, constitution, and expression but not in the Godhead so that the redeeming God and the redeemed man can be united, mingled, and incorporated together to become one entity—John 1:12-14; 14:20; Rev. 21:2, 10-11.
2. The high peak of the divine revelation—the"diamond" in the"box" of the Bible—is the revelation that in Christ God has become man in order that man might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead—2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; Eph. 3:17a.
3. God became man through incarnation, man becomes God through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification—John 3:5-6; 1:12-13; Rom. 6:19, 22; 12:2; 8:29-30.
4. It is only by God's becoming man to make man God that the Body of Christ can be produced and built up; this is the high peak of the divine revelation given to us by God—v. 3; 1:3-4; 8:14-16; 12:4-5.
F. The standard of the Lord's recovery depends upon the standard of the truth we put out; the truths will be the measure and the standard—John 18:37.