The Lord’s Recovery is the Recovery of the Light of the Truth, the Shining of Light

The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the light of the truth; the truth is in the Bible, but due to man’s negligence and laziness, it was lost, misunderstood, and misinterpreted, so there’s the need for the recovery of the light of the truth according to God’s heart’s desire.

This week in our morning revival we come to a new topic, The Full Knowledge of the Truth.

When we hear this, we may think that we need to read the Bible more and we should encourage one another to pursue reading the Bible both personally and corporately.

We may think that we need more knowledge of the teachings and doctrines in the Bible.

But we need to see what is truth in the light of God’s economy.

As we are prayerfully considering what it means to live and serve according to God’s economy concerning the church, we need to be those who arrive at the full knowledge of the truth.

Our truth is the highest truth, for it is the entire truth in the Bible.

Our gospel is of glory, for it is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, that is, the glory of God becoming our gospel, the very shining of God is the gospel that we preach.

This is a matter of God’s economy. But this doesn’t mean that, for us to be good Christians, we need to practice preaching the gospel, reading the word, and making sure that we read the Bible in a proper way.

May the Lord save us from merely picking up points that are on the surface of the Bible and of the sharing in the church life today; may we go deeper with the Lord until we arrive at the full knowledge of the truth.

To have this full knowledge, we don’t necessarily need more teaching of the Bible or more Bible knowledge, even though there’s nothing wrong with this.

We need to realize that in God’s economy, whether we’re preaching the gospel or teaching the truth, we are touching the very Triune God Himself who is embodied in Christ and realized as the Spirit to come into us, be dispensed into us to be our life and everything. This is His economy.

Everything we do is for this; our gospel preaching and our reading of the Bible is for this, for the economy of God.

We need to come to the full knowledge of the truth according to God’s economy, according to how God was processed to be embodied in Christ, consummated as the Spirit to be everything to us, to mingle with us, and to become one with us.

This is what the truth is, and this is the truth we need to enter into.

May the Lord enlighten us, remove any preconceptions and even Scriptural thoughts that we may have and which veil us, and may we come to the divine revelation in God’s word in a pure way for us to see what is the full knowledge of the truth and arrive to this full knowledge.

The Lord’s Recovery is the Recovery of the Light of the Truth, the Shining of Light

There are many definitions of the Lord’s recovery, for there is very much that the Lord wants to recover. One such definition is that the Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the truth.

The truth, however, does not have a sense of doctrine or teaching. In a more specific or particular way, we can define the Lord’s recovery as being the recovery of the light of the truth (1 John 1:5-6).

If we look back at human history and church history, there was a thousand years of dark ages from the sixth century to the sixteenth century under the Catholic church.

God’s people were kept in darkness because, even though the word of God was there, it was locked away and held away from the people by the catholic priests in the Catholic Church.

The Bible was not available to God’s children openly; the word of God was present, but it was kept in darkness, not being available to the people who wanted to know the light.

Then, Martin Luther came, being raised up by God in Germany, and he began to proclaim the simple, basic truth, that according to the Bible, man can be justified by faith directly by believing in God.

Man didn’t have to pass through an intermediary class, do many things for God, pay for this and that, worship this or that saint, but simply come to God through Jesus Christ.

Such a simple truth was held in darkness for ages, but Martin Luther recovered it.

When he opened up that word, the light shined forth!

From that time, truth began to shine forth and it has been shining for the last five hundred years.

Then the Lord raised up the Brethren, who opened up so much riches in the word of God.

Then the Lord raised up brother Watchman Nee and brother Witness Lee, and the Lord’s shining intensified.

The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the light of the truth.

He wants to shine through His word not just through sermons and expositions of the word but even in our daily life, He wants to shine in and through His word in our daily living.

We thank the Lord that He is recovering the light of the truth and that He is shining!

When the word of God is opened up in a proper way according to God’s desire, it gives light. Light is the source of the truth.

Every truth in the Bible, when it is presented, shines and scatters all the darkness!

When the Lord Jesus came, He said, I am the light of the world; he who follows Me…shall have the light of life (John 8:12).

When He came, light came. When He spoke, light shone.

His speaking was God’s shining, bringing light and life.

In the human life of Jesus there was reality, the shining of light.

We are not to imitate His human living and speaking outwardly; rather, we have been put in Christ as the mold, and now we need to learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus.

We need to learn Christ according to the reality shown in the Gospels, that is, according to the life of the Lord Jesus, which was wholly according to God’s reality, God’s truth.

The life of Jesus as presented in the Gospels is the shining of light, and this is truth, the expression of God. In the life of Jesus there is truth, reality.

John 8:32 says, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

When we know the Lord Jesus and the divine light shines on the word of God, we are set free.

We need to be recovered back to the light in the word of God.

There needs to be much recovery of the light of the truth, for we are still so much in darkness in our daily living, in our thinking, and in our speaking.

May we open to the Lord for Him to continue His recovery work in us.

Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into the recovery of the light of the truth. Thank You for coming to be the light of the world, shining on us and in us to deliver us from any darkness. We open to You, Lord. We want to learn from You by being in You as the mold. Amen, Lord, we want to learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus so that our very life and living would be a duplication of Your life and living. Live in us today. Conform us to Your image. May the light of the truth shine in us and through us. Save us from merely knowing doctrines and teachings according to the Scriptures. May there be the shining of light on the words that we read so that we may live in the light and walk in the light! Amen, Lord, may Your living light shine in us and within us, and may any darkness be scattered! Continue in Your work of the recovery of the light of the truth!

Truth is the Shining of Light – We want the Light of the Truth to Shine on us!

What is truth? What is the relationship between truth and light?

Many people think that truth is what is true, and especially in this perverted and crooked world today, people have their own truth, calling it “my truth”.

Is truth “my truth” and “your truth” or is truth “the truth”?

According to the Bible, truth is the shining of light, the expression of the divine light (John 8:12, 32; 1 John 1:5-6).

We could say that truth and light are nearly the same thing; they are the two ends of the same thing.

On one hand, there’s the source, which is light, the shining of God.

On the other hand, there is the issue, which is truth.

The Lord Jesus said that He is the light of the world, and whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness, for He is the light.

But then in the same chapter, He said that we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free, and a few verses later he said that, when the Son sets us free, we will be free indeed (John 8:32, 36).

Christ is the light, the shining of light is truth, and truth sets us free; when the truth sets us free, Christ sets us free, and we are free indeed.

Truth is the very person of Jesus Christ coming to be the light of the world.

The truth that sets us free is the person of Jesus Christ who is the light of the world.

Truth is the issue of light; when light shines, we have truth (John 1:4, 7, 9; 3:21; 8:32).

Truth, however, is different from knowledge, for it is easy to have knowledge and not have truth.

There needs to be the recovery of the light of the truth among us today.

We may read the Bible diligently, we may memorize many verses in the Bible, and we may know all the solid and sound Bible teachings, but we may have no light, for we only have knowledge but not the truth.

We may simply have lots of mental understanding of God’s word, and lots of doctrines, but no truth, no divine light shining.

When the Lord shines on us, when the divine light shines on the word of God, the knowledge we have of the Bible becomes truth, for truth is the shining of light.

May we see this matter and may we be saved from merely having the knowledge of the Bible.

We may read the life-studies of the Bible and we may be very familiar with the footnotes in the Recovery Version Bible, but if we don’t have the divine light shining on us, we cannot have truth, for truth is the shining of light.

How much we need to have the recovery of the light of the truth in our church life and in our Christian life!

Throughout the centuries, the truths as revealed in the Scriptures have been lost, missed, misunderstood, misinterpreted, and wrongly applied.

There is so much darkness among believers today, especially in the Roman Catholic church.

The Lord may have many of His seeking ones in that system, but they are in such darkness, for there’s no light of the truth there.

We treasure what we have in the Lord’s recovery today, the recovery of the light of the truth.

Today we are brought out of all misconception, all error, and all wrong applications, and brought back to the pure truth in the Word of God.

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.

We are not here merely to recover all the truths in the word of God; we need to have the recovery of the light of the truth.

We are not fundamentalists, trying to do things according to the Scriptures in a fundamental way.

In the Lord’s recovery, the Lord wants to recover the life, the livingness, the strength, the power, and the impact of all the matters that are revealed in the Bible.

We don’t just want to know the main truths in the word of God and be able to repeat them, yet lack the power and impact of these truths.

Rather, we want to read the Bible and study the word prayerfully so that we may receive the divine light in God’s word.

We want to have much reality, livingness, life, power, and impact when we come to God’s word and when we meet with the saints.

We thank the Lord that in the Lord’s recovery, the truth is the consummation of the truth of the past nineteen centuries.

We stand on the shoulders of all those who have gone before us, and we go on with the Lord.

We love the Lord, we have a zeal to seek after Him and we exercise our spirit when we come to His word so that He may shine on us and infuse the light of His word into us.

We want not merely more knowledge of the Scriptures: we want the light of the truth to shine in us, in our whole being, and through us to others also!

Lord Jesus, we love You and we love Your word! We come to You in Your word to gain You and receive the light of life. Amen, Lord, we don’t want merely to gain more knowledge in Your word: we want more of the light of the truth! May the truth shine on us, shine in our being, and shine through us! Save us from merely getting doctrines and teaching out of Your word. Recover the reality, life, livingness, strength, power, and impact of the matters revealed in the Scriptures. Save us from merely having knowledge, for knowledge puffs up! We seek You, dear Lord! We want more of You! Recover the light of the truth in us and among us! Make us living, loving, vital, and full of strength and impact! Speak to us today and speak through us to those around us! We treasure Your living speaking in Your living word!

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, 1983, vol. 1, “Practical Talks to the Elders,” pp. 59-60, 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:
  – God’s Economy and the Principle of Recovery – Affirmation and Critique, Vol. V, No. 1, January 2000.
  – The First Great Pillar in the Lord’s Recovery—Truth, article via, Living to Him.
  – The cycle of life, light, and oneness, a portion from, The Genuine Ground of Oneness, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
  – The Crucial Elements of the Bible—Christ, the Spirit, life and the church, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – A history of the Lord’s move and the Lord’s recovery in Europe, via, Amana Trust.
  – God’s Economy, Different Teaching, and the Central Line of the Bible, via, Shepherding Words.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – We limit not the truth of God / To our poor reach of mind, / By notions of our day and sect, / Crude, partial and confined. / Now let a new and better hope / Within our hearts be stirred: / The Lord hath yet more light and truth / To break forth from His Word. (Hymns #817 stanza 1)
  – Love by grace is manifested, / And the light by truth is shown; / By Thy love we may enjoy Thee; / By Thy light Thou, Lord, art known. / O what grace! O what truth! / Love is seen and light is shown! / We would praise Thee never ceasing, / Thou by love and light art known! (Hymns #13 stanza 3 and chorus)
  – Christ is the truth, ’tis Him we testify, / Christ is the life, ’tis Him we minister; / Christ is the Lord, ’tis Him we magnify, / Christ is the Head, and we exalt Him here. (Hymns #863 stanza 3)