Exercising our Spirit to Learn, Experience, and Minister the Full Gospel of God

As believers in Christ, we need to have the same realisation as the Apostle Paul: we were separated unto the gospel of God, and now we are priests of the gospel.

The gospel of God is an all-inclusive, complete, full, and high gospel including the entire divine revelation in the New Testament, and when we heard the gospel we were saved and entrusted with the gospel for others. Now we are laboring priests of the gospel, and we serve God in our mingled spirit in the gospel of His Son (Rom. 1:9).

Serving God is actually worshipping God; we serve God in worship, and our service to God is our worship to Him. First of all, when we serve God we need to have our conscience purified by the blood of Christ from any dead works (Heb. 9:14).

We serve God in our spirit, and God comes to us as Spirit to fill us and flow through us, therefore we need to take care of our spirit and make sure there’s no hindrance between us and the Lord.

Once we are cleansed and have a sweet fellowship with the Lord, we serve God by preaching the gospel in the mingled spirit. In order for us to preach the gospel of God’s Son, we need to be in our regenerated spirit; it is only by being in our mingled spirit that we can be one spirit with the Lord to speak the word of the gospel for imparting life to those who hear.

Our whole Christian life should be in our mingled spirit; whatever we are, whatever we have, whatever we do, and whatever we say needs to be in the mingled spirit. We need to be spirit-exercising and soul-denying people, realising that the soul with its power and ability needs to be denied so that our mingled spirit may flow freely as we speak the word of God.

Our service to God is not in knowledge, ability, or skills, but in the mingled spirit for the demonstration of the spirit to others. Today we want to see more concerning the gospel: what is the gospel that we preach as we live in the mingled spirit, and what does it mean to be a priest of the gospel.

The Gospel of God is concerning Redemption, Organic Salvation, and the Body of Christ

The gospel of God – unto whom Paul and we also are separated – is the subject of the book of Romans; the book of Romans can be considered as “the fifth gospel” (see Rom. 1:1; 2:16; 16:25).

We need to serve God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son, and this gospel is a complete and full gospel, including not only the first four books of the New Testament (called, the Four Gospels) but the entire divine revelation in the New Testament, especially the book of Romans.

Paul refers to his Epistle to the Romans as a gospel, being assured that God would judge the secrets of men according to his gospel through Jesus Christ (Rom. 2:16), and that He would establish the believers through his gospel (Rom. 16:25).

The gospel of God, as revealed in Romans, includes three main things: redemption, organic salvation in the divine life, and the Body of Christ.

The gospel of the Son of God…includes redemption, life, and the Body. Whenever we contact someone, we should sense whether or not he has experienced redemption. If he has, we should check whether or not he knows Christ as life. If he does, we should check whether or not he knows the Body. If this person knows the Body and has more experience of the Body than we do, we should submit ourselves to him in order to receive help from him. This is the proper way to serve the Lord in the spirit and in the gospel. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1967, vol. 1, “The Service in the Church for the Expression of the Body,” p. 457)

In the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – we have the gospel describing Christ in the flesh as He lived among His disciples before His death and resurrection, but in Romans we have Christ as the Spirit indwelling His believers.

The Christ we preach today shouldn’t be merely the Christ in the flesh before His death and resurrection but the indwelling Christ, the Christ who lives in us and who saves us in His divine life to make us His Body, His corporate expression.

The Christ we announce today as the gospel is not a historical Christ in the flesh who did this and that but a living Christ who dwells in us. The center of the gospel of God is the wonderful Person of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The gospel is not a doctrine, a teaching, or a religion; we don’t speak doctrines to people nor do we promote a religion, but we speak of a living person who went through a process to become the life-giving Spirit and come into us to be our life and everything and make us His Body.

The central message of the book of Romans – the central message of the gospel – is that sinful people can be made sons of God to be conformed to the image of Christ as the Firstborn Son of God so that Christ may obtain the Body of Christ expressed in the many local churches on earth today.

The full gospel we preach today contains three main elements: judicial redemption, organic salvation, and the Body of Christ. The gospel Christianity preaches today is at most regarding judicial redemption leading to regeneration, but we need to realise that God doesn’t merely want to get people saved: He wants sinners to become sons of God and constitute the Body of Christ, practicing the life of the Body of Christ in the local churches.

The result of our gospel preaching is not merely to save sinners but to produce them as functioning members of the Body of Christ to be apostles, prophets, teachers and shepherds, and evangelists, who can take the gospel to those around them!

To serve God in the gospel is to serve Him in bringing the sinners to experience judicial redemption, then bringing the redeemed people to experience the indwelling Christ as their organic Savior, and then help others grow in life, experience life, know life, and be shepherded into the reality of the Body of Christ in the practical local church life!

Thank You Lord for separating us unto the gospel so that we may preach the full and complete gospel of God for sinners to become sons of God and constitute the Body of Christ expressed as the local churches. Lord, we want to know the complete gospel of God, be clear concerning God’s judicial redemption, His organic salvation, and the Body of Christ, and bring this gospel to others. Oh Lord, may the result of our gospel preaching in spirit may be the salvation of many sinners to be made sons of God, members of the Body of Christ, and functioning saints in the church life!

Exercising our Spirit to Learn, Experience, and Minister the Full Gospel of God

We are saved to serve God in spirit in the gospel of His Son; all of us need to function as priests of the gospel of God according to God’s revelation. Our service to God is a priestly service; we need to take time to be in God’s presence, contact God, come near to God, and be infused with God; then, we need to bring God with His presence to His people.

First, we need to learn all the elements and details of the gospel, spending time to get into all the details in the divine revelation concerning the gospel.

We cannot speak what we don’t know, and we cannot preach what we are not constituted with; we need to pay the price of our time and willingness to get into the truth and be constituted with the gospel as revealed in the New Testament (and in particular in the book of Romans).

Second, we need to experience the full content of the gospel: we need to experience God’s judicial redemption by daily applying the blood of Christ; we need to experience His organic salvation by being sanctified, renewed, transformed, and by growing in life; and we need to experience the Body of Christ by living in the Body, keeping the principles of the Body, and doing everything for the building up of the Body of Christ.

Finally, we need to exercise our spirit to learn how to minister the gospel so that we may be laboring priests of the gospel (Rom. 15:16). If we are diligent to labor on the word of God to be constituted with the gospel, and if we are open and willing to experience the full content of the gospel, we will be prepared and qualified to minister the gospel we’re constituted with and we experience to others.

We need to learn Christ, experience Christ, and minister Christ as the gospel to others. As priests of the gospel of God, we need to learn the elements and details of the gospel, experience the full content of the gospel, and exercise our spirit to learn how to minister the gospel.

Our preaching of the gospel is a learning experience: learning the content of the gospel, experiencing the gospel, and learning to minister the gospel in spirit. Amen! All these require and involve our mingled spirit: we need to exercise our spirit to learn the gospel, experience the gospel, and preach the gospel!

Lord Jesus, cause us to realize what it means that we are priests of the gospel of God. We give ourselves to You to learn the elements and details of the gospel as revealed in the divine revelation in the Bible. Lord, we want to experience the full content of the gospel by experiencing Your judicial redemption, Your organic salvation, and the Body of Christ. We want to exercise our spirit to learn how to minister the gospel so that sinners would become sons of God to constitute and live in the Body of Christ in the local churches!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message for this week, and The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1832-1833 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 3 / msg. 3, Serving God in our Spirit in the Gospel of His Son.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Ours is a fellowship in the gospel / Since we received the Lord; / We’re for the furtherance of the gospel, / Spreading to all His Word. / For its defense and strong confirmation / We all partake of grace— / He who began this work will perfect it / Till we shall see His face. (Hymns #1295)
  # We must ever preach the gospel / By perfecting in the homes / Through the word and prayer and singing, / Never laboring alone. / We must ever preach the gospel, / Learning how to prophesy / For the building of the Body, / Thus the Lord to glorify. (Song on preaching the gospel)
  # After you receive, / Are filled and enriched / By such a supply, / Go! Open your mouth! / Speak to all men the words of this life! / And having the same / Spirit of faith, / Be strong! Be not weak! / “We also believe, / Therefore we also must speak!” (Song on speaking the gospel)