The Church Life is an Issue of our Experience of the Subjective Truths in the Bible

Today the Lord desires to recover the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures, and we as believers in Christ need to not only know the objective truths but even more, know, experience, and be absolute for the subjective truths so that we may experience Christ for the building up of the church. Amen!

Both objective and subjective truths are needed if we want to fulfil God’s eternal purpose; however, we need to pay particular attention to the subjective experience of God in Christ as the Spirit.

Throughout the centuries, many Christians loved God and pursued after Him, but they remained on the surface, not going deeper with the Lord, for they remained on the level of the doctrines.

It is easy to read the Bible out of love for the Lord and see the wonderful, sound, spiritual doctrines, and it is natural to stay here, on the level of doctrines.

If a person is smart and has eloquence, he may even expound the Scriptures, but he may not have the inner experience of what he is speaking.

This was the case of Martin Luther and so many other seekers of God.

But one day they entered into the subjective experience of Christ, and everything changed.

It is not good enough for us to understand and apprehend the doctrines in God’s word; we need to go deeper with the Lord and have the subjective experience of Christ.

God is not merely for our doctrinal understanding and theological apprehension; yes, He does want us to come to the full knowledge of the truth, but this knowing of truth has to be subjective.

We need to not only read but also pray the word of God.

When we read the Bible, we may get knowledge, and we may even have a lot of Bible knowledge, which will puff us up.

But when we pray over the word of God, when we take God’s word back to Him in prayer, and we allow this word to dwell in us and speak to us, there’s a change that happens in our being.

What a wonderful change in our life and living is brought when we say Amen to God’s word!

So many changes take place in our being, beginning with the renewing of our mind and continuing with the adjusting of our emotions and the subduing of our will, when we simply say Amen to God’s word!

The word of God is living and operative, and it operates in us to divide our soul from our spirit (Heb. 4:12), exposing and dividing the thoughts and intentions of the heart from what the spirit is.

We need to have the subjective truths in God’s word applied to our being.

We need to enter into the subjective experience of the truths in God’s word so that, day by day, we may go on with the Lord, we may live a life for the fulfilment of His purpose, and we may minister Christ to others for the building up of the church.

Our Need to Experience the Subjective Truths for the Building up of the Church

The Bible has a lot of facts and spiritual realities that do not affect us in our experience but they are ours for our appreciation and enjoyment by faith.

For example, the Gospels tell us that Christ died for us as our sin offering; He shed His blood for our sins.

This is something objective, something that He did for us.

However, this objective truth needs to become subjective to us.

The Bible also tells us that Christ became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) and that Christ breathed Himself into us as the Spirit (John 20:22).

These are subjective truths, for we can receive, experience, and enjoy Christ as the Spirit today simply by calling on His name (Rom. 10:13).

The objective truths are for the subjective truths, and the subjective truths are for the producing of the church and for the building up of the church.

We do not despise or neglect the objective truths; rather, we appreciate them and go on to experience the subjective truths.

We need to experience the subjective truths day by day for the building up of the church.

In the church life in the Lord’s recovery, we enjoy the subjective truths, truths that many Christians today don’t even dare to speak of.

When we have the proper knowledge of the truth in the word of God, we will realize that most of the truths revealed in the New Testament are subjective to our experience.

Through the experience of the subjective truths, the church is spontaneously produced.

If we only remain in the objective truths, the church can never be produced or built up.

You will end up having a lot of Bible knowledge, and therefore you will argue and debate with others, even causing division in the Body.

Teachings such as post-tribulation rapture or pre-tribulation rapture, baptism by immersion, head covering, foot washing, etc are wonderful, but they can be the topic of many debates and arguments in the church if we remain on the level of the objective truths.

The church can never be produced by the objective truth; we need to realize that the objective truths are for the subjective truths, and our experience of the subjective truths produces and builds up the church.

The Lord today desires to recover the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures; He wants to recover 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).

We appreciate the Triune God, but He is not for our understanding or mental apprehension but for our enjoyment!

The love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is with us all; the entire Trinity is not objective but very subjective, for our enjoyment as love, grace, and fellowship (2 Cor. 13:14).

The church is not merely an entity that God obtained through the death and resurrection of Christ; the church is not merely a congregation, the gathering of the called-out ones.

Even more, the church is the Body of Christ, the very organism of the Triune God, where Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:10).

There is the objective aspect of the church and there is also the subjective aspect; we need to experience the subjective truths for the building up of the church.

The Gospel of John is a book on the subjective truths for the producing of the church (John 4:14; 6:57; 14:16-17, 20; 3:15-16).

What we see in this gospel is not just doctrines; we see a Person, Jesus Christ, who wants to regenerate us and make us children of God (1:12-13), those who are born of the Spirit to be spirit (3:5-6).

He is the Good Shepherd who came that we may have life and have it abundantly (10:10), and He Himself is the resurrection and the life.

He came to be our life, and He came to impart His life into us.

So He as a grain of wheat fell into the ground and died so that He may bring forth in resurrection the many grains, the many believers in Christ (12:24).

This is not something objective; this is something very subjective. We need to experience the subjective truths in the Bible for the building up of the church.

May we go on with the Lord little by little, day by day, until we experience Him day by day for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to be not only our Savior but also our life. Thank You for not only dying for us on the cross but also breathing Yourself as the Spirit into us to regenerate us. Thank You for being not only our Good Shepherd but even our very life, for You came that we may have You as our life and have life abundantly. Amen, Lord, recover our experience of the subjective truths for the building up of the church. Save us from merely knowing the doctrines and objective truths in God’s word yet without having the experience of the subjective truths. We want to go on with You. Hallelujah, Christ to us is so subjective, so living, so rich, and so life-giving! We want to experience Christ as the reality of the subjective truths in the Bible so that the church as the Body of Christ may be produced and built up!

The Church life is an Issue of our Experience of the Subjective Truths

The subjective truths in the Bible are linked to the Spirit and life, and they are constituted with Spirit and life (Rom. 8:2; 2 Cor. 3:6).

When we speak of the subjective truth, we don’t only mean the truths that we can experience, but the fact that the truth is constituted with Spirit and life.

The substance of all the subjective truths in God’s word is related and linked to the Spirit and life.

The Spirit and life are the very substance of the subjective truths; without the Spirit and life, we can’t have the subjective truths.

For example, we may experience suffering due to the persecution of some around us, or we may experience the cross, bearing the shame for the Lord Jesus.

However, as we suffer persecution and as we bear the cross, did we touch anything of the Spirit and life?

Did we enjoy something of the divine life, and did the Spirit have a way to operate in us and impart the divine life into our being?

Or are we merely experiencing the suffering for Christ, but without any experience of the Spirit and life?

If we do not touch the Spirit and do not have something of God’s life added to us as we suffer and bear the cross, though we may experience all this suffering, our experience is not for the building up of the church.

We may have some sweet experiences, some nice and subjective experiences, but all these need to be linked to the Spirit and life.

When we live by the Spirit and life, we have the experience of the subjective truths (Rom. 8:2, 4, 14).

When we suffer and are persecuted, when we are under the suffering of the cross, what do we do?

Do we grit our teeth and bear the suffering, or do we turn to the Lord, call on the Lord, and contact the Lord?

May we learn to contact the Lord and tell Him that we can’t do it, we can’t bear it, and we can’t be it, so we let Him do everything in us and for us.

May we allow the Lord’s element of life to be dispensed into us so that we may experience Him in His death, in His resurection, and have the experience of the killing of His death and the power of His resurrection.

Such an experience of Christ enables us to bear the shame and suffer the cross. As we suffer the bearing of the cross, as we are persecuted and are amid sufferings, we touch the Spirit and we touch life, and we experience the subjective truths.

The church life is an issue of our experience of the subjective truths; when we experience the subjective truths, the church is spontaneously produced (Rom. 8:10-11; 12:4-5; 16:1, 4-5; 1 Cor. 1:9, 30; 15:45b; 6:17; 1:2; 12:27).

There is the subjective viewpoint in the Scriptures, telling us over and over again that God is not only the God who is high above but that He is our breath of life, our living water, and our nutritious food.

When we enjoy the Lord and take Him as our breath of life, our living water, and our nutritious food, we experience Him as the reality of the subjective truths, and our experience brings in the church, being for the building up of the church.

God desires to come into us and be our enjoyment; the more we enjoy God, the more joyful He is.

He’s in us, right in our spirit, even one spirit with us (1 Cor. 6:17).

We have His life, nature, and essence, and He is working Himself into us to make us the same as He is.

May we enjoy and experience the subjective truths in the word of God so that the church life would simply issue out of our experience.

Through the subjective experience of Christ as the One who sanctifies us, renews us, transforms us, conforms us, and glorifies us, the church life is produced.

The church life is a spontaneous issue of our experience of the subjective truths in the word of God.

When we have the enjoyment and experience of the subjective truths, we spontaneously have the church life.

May we be saved from merely trying to improve ourselves according to the morality and ethics in the Bible; may we drop our struggling and striving and just come to the Lord to enjoy Him.

Instead of seeking to perfect ourselves according to the doctrines and truths in the word of God, may we just come to the Lord to subjectively experience Him for the producing and building up of the church.

Without our experience of the subjective truths, there’s no way to have the church life.

But when we experience the subjective truths in God’s word, the church life will be spontaneously produced.

Lord Jesus, we want to experience the subjective truths in the word of God for the producing and building up of the church. Save us from trying to improve ourselves and perfect our behaviour according to the ethics and morality revealed in the Bible. Bring us into a subjective experience of Christ according to the word of God. Oh Lord, we want to allow You to make Your home in our hearts through faith a little more today. We want to experience and enjoy You as our life, our breath of life, our living water, and our rich and nutritious food. We take You as our life and our life supply. We need You. We depend on You. We want to abide in You and simply draw all our life and life supply from You. Hallelujah, the church life is an issue of our experience of the subjective truths! Amen, Lord, we want to experience Christ in a subjective way for the producing and building up of the church as the Body of Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 3, “The Subjective Truths in the Holy Scriptures,” chs. 1-3, 7, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living and Serving According to God’s Economy Concerning the Church (2023 fall ITERO), week 3, entitled, The Full Knowledge of the Truth.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Learning to Taste God in His Word, article via, Bibles for America blog.
  – The subjective God – the Trinity in Christian experience, article by Ron Kangas in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The Highest Definition of Grace, via, Living to Him.
  – Putting off the old man and putting on the new man, a portion from, The Subjective Truths in the Holy Scriptures, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee.
  – Justification by Faith – What it is and How to Experience it, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Light in Subjective Experience and Truth of God’s Economy, via, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The Triune God: A Testimony of Our Belief and Experience, via, Contending for the Faith.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O Lord, Thou art in me as life / And everything to me! / Subjective and available, / Thus I experience Thee. / O Lord, Thou art the Spirit! / How dear and near to me! / How I enjoy Thy marvelous / Availability! (Hymns #539 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – Christ to me is so subjective, / Liberating pow’r is He, / By the law of life and power / As the Spirit setting free. / Christ to me is so subjective, / Regulating all the day; / He corrects and rules and guides me, / And adjusts in every way. (Hymns #537 stanzas 4-5)
  – The Savior ascended in heaven now dwells, / And soon He’s returning for us His Word tells; / Deliverer indwelling, He now in us lives, / And soon will transfigure, His glory to give. / The day soon is coming when heaven and earth / Will mingle in one in that city of worth; / Objective and subjective will in that day / Be mingled within us in glory for aye. (Hymns #536 stanzas 6-7)