Our God hates division and apostasy (heresy); in the church life we must elevate Christ and Christ alone, and we must be exercised to separate ourselves from any heresy (apostasy) and heretics (apostates).
What God wants is that His people would be one (and not divided) and that they would stand in the truth and be filled with the pure word of God (and not touch heresies).
In the matter of division, we must cooperate with the Lord to recover and preserve the genuine, all-inclusive oneness; for this, we must destroy any high places.
The Bible doesn’t tell us what these “high places” were physically, but they were hated by God, and they denote anything that is elevated and it replaces the unique place of God’s choice for the corporate worship of His people.
Anything that is elevated in us, anything that is exalted, loved, preferred, and appreciated more than Christ, that is a high place.
We may think that we don’t have high places, but if we come to the Lord to shine on us through His word, we may realize that even such good things as a healthy practice of Bible study can become a high place, for it replaces Christ.
We read and study the Bible not for the sake of studying the Bible; we study the Bible so that we may gain Christ, be infused with Christ, and be constituted with Christ.
God in His wisdom requires His people to destroy all the high places; all the places in which the nations worship their idols have to be destroyed.
When we set up a high place, we make a division, for we have another worship center besides the one set up by God. May the Lord save us from any substitute or alternative for the unique place of His choice!
May He save us from elevating, lifting, or exalting anything other than Christ, and may we be those who elevate Christ and Christ alone, giving Him the preeminence and the first place!
In the matter of heresy, we need to realize that the word of God is very strict, even forbidding us to speak with those who deny that Jesus Christ is God incarnated in the flesh.
We should not even greet such a ones, so that we may not be part of their evil works; such ones are evil workers and their work is evil. Oh Lord Jesus!
May we open to the Lord concerning these matters of division and heresy, and may we be infused with God’s desire and commandment in His word concerning these matters, so that we may be preserved in the genuine oneness of God’s people and we may become His unique, pure, genuine expression on the earth.
We Elevate Christ and Christ Alone and we Take the Way of the Cross in the Church Life
God has given Christ preeminence over all things; He made Him the firstborn of all creation – both of the old creation and the new creation – so that He may have the first place in all things (Col. 1:18).
The way for us to be preserved in the genuine oneness of God’s people, the enlarged oneness of the Triune God, is for us to elevate Christ and Christ alone.
If we slightly elevate anything or anyone else besides Christ, no matter how good, spiritual, or scriptural that thing is, it may become a ground for us to be divisive and thus separate us from the Body.
Good and spiritual practices such as calling on the name of the Lord, pray-reading the word, prophesying in the church meetings, practicing to PSRP, having prayer meetings, having young people’s meetings, etc – all these should not be elevated to the point that we are divided from others because of this.
Rather, in the Lord’s recovery we should elevate Christ and Christ alone.
To elevate Christ is to give Him the first place, the preeminence, in all things; this is to give Him the first love.
To love the Lord with our first love is for us to love Him with our best love; we need to tell the Lord to rekindle our love for Him and constrain us with His love.
When we are constrained by the Lord’s love, we will regard and take Him as everything in our life.
When we love the Lord with our first love, we will do the first works; the first works issue out of our first love for the Lord.
May all our service for the Lord come out of our love for Him, and may all that we do for Him be out of our exalting Him and giving Him the preeminence.
In the church life, by the Lord’s mercy, we can testify that we have no high places; in contrast to today’s Christianity, we are learning to give Christ the first place and elevate Christ and Christ alone.
Having come to the church, we should have no “high places”, elevations where something other than Christ is uplifted. Rather, in the church life we should have nothing other than the person of Christ and the unique way of the cross (1 Cor. 1:30; 2:4; Col. 1:20; 2:11; 3:11).
It is of God that we are in Christ Jesus, who has become wisdom to us from God – both righteousness and sanctification and redemption; we are in Christ and we elevate only Christ, enjoying Him as our everything.
And if there’s something that bothers us about other people, whether they way they treat us or the way they look or the way they worship God, we allow the cross to operate in us and cross us out so that we may receive all believers even as Christ does.
Amen, in the church life we enjoy Christ as the rich produce of the land; our enjoyment of Christ in the presence of God becomes our worship!
Amen, our worship of God is our enjoyment of Christ in the presence of God on the genuine ground of oneness, for here we elevate Christ and Christ alone!
Our enjoyment of Christ in the presence of God is our church life and even our Christian living, and we grow and mature on the ground of oneness (Eph. 3:8; 4:3, 14-16).
Lord Jesus, we love You! We give You the first place in all things by faith and we elevate Christ and Christ alone. Constrain us by Your love, Lord, so that we may regard You as everything in our daily life. May all our service for You come out of our love for You, as we exalt You and give You the preeminence. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to elevate Christ and take the way of the cross in the church life. May our enjoyment of Christ in the presence of God become our worship, our church life, and even our Christian living, and may we grow and mature on the ground of oneness!
Being Fully Exercised to Separate ourselves from any Heresy (apostasy) and Heretics (apostates)
If we read the second epistle of John we will realize that we need to be fully exercised to separate ourselves from any heresy (apostasy) and heretics (apostates).
We should not think that we are immune to heresy and we are not poisoned by heresy, so this word doesn’t apply to us.
Heretics do not confess that Jesus is God incarnate – they do not confess that He has come in the flesh through the divine conception of the Holy Spirit; thus, they deny the deity of Christ (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7; cf. Luke 1:31-35; John 20:28-29; Rom. 9:5).
We may think that we believe that Jesus is God incarnate, but we also need to realize that some may preach differently, and we should stay away from such ones.
In John 20:28-29, after Thomas touched the place of the nails in the Lord’s body and said, My Lord and my God! – the Lord didn’t correct him but rather He said, blessed are those who have not seen Me and have believed.
Jesus is our Lord and our God; we who did not see Him but believe into Him are blessed!
The Spirit works in the believers to confess to them that Christ has come in the flesh (1 John 4:1-2); however, anyone who denies this is a heretic and teaches heresy, and we should stay away from such a one.
Why is it so important to emphasize the incarnation of Christ?
Anyone who rejects Christ’s incarnation, that one denies Christ’s holy birth, His humanity, His human living, His redemption through crucifixion, and His resurrection; this completely annuls the enjoyment of the life-giving Spirit as the reality of the processed Triune God (2:23).
A heretic is one who denies the divine conception and deity of Christ, as today’s modernists do. Such a one we must reject, we must not greet him, and we must not receive him into our house.
By rejecting him and not even saying hi to such a one, we do not share in his heresy, for heresy is blasphemous to God and contagious like leprosy (2 Pet. 2:1-3; 2 John 1:10).
Just as bringing to others the divine truth of the wonderful Christ is an excellent deed which we must practice daily (Rom. 10:15), so spreading satanic heresy – which defiles the glorious deity of Christ – is an evil work.
Spreading heresy is a blasphemy and abomination to God and also a curse and damage to man.
We all know of one particular group that call themselves Christians, they go from house to house, and they preach that Jesus is not God incarnated; engaging in a conversation with such ones can infuse poison into us, and it can damage us.
Speaking from personal experience, trying to reason and argue with such ones will put their doubts and heresies in your mind, and the effect is long-lasting.
The Bible tells us to love all men and preach the gospel to them, but when it comes to heresies and heretics, we need to stay away from them and not greet them or allow them into our house.
No one who is a believer in Christ and a child in God should have any share in this evil, for even to greet such an evil one is prohibited!
We must maintain a clear and severe separation from heretics and reject any heresy, for we elevate Christ and Christ alone, we give Him the preeminence in all things, and we emphasize the incarnation of Christ, which led to Him becoming a life-giving Spirit to impart life into us! Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we praise You for being God incarnated to be a man! Hallelujah, God became a man, He was conceived in the womb of a virgin for nine months, and He was born to be a God-man! Thank You Lord Jesus for coming to be a man, living a perfect human life, dying an all-inclusive and all-terminating death on the cross, and resurrecting to become a life-giving Spirit! Hallelujah for our wonderful Jesus Christ, the first God-man! Amen, Lord, we want to stay in Your word and be fully exercised to separate ourselves from heresy (apostasy) and heretics (apostates)!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 93, 224 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 10, Avoiding Division, Which Is versus the Oneness That We Keep, and Rejecting Apostasy, Which Is versus the Faith That We Contend For.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Oh, what a preeminent Christ! / You have the first place in all things. / Your name is above every name, / Exalted by God, Lord and King. / My portion is Yourself alone, / Allotted by God in the light. / I hold You as my Head today. / Lord, You are my focus, my life. (Song on, Oh, What a Preeminent Christ)
– Christ as my Person must possess my heart / And be preeminent in every part. / The former owner died but haunts it still. / O Lord, move in; my mind, emotion, will / Now welcome Thee. (Hymns #1179)
– Christ is God incarnated, / Born according to God’s plan / To bring divinity, into humanity, / By mingling with man. / Christ is God incarnated, / He became the Son of Man; / A man of flesh yet without sin, / Accomplishing redemption, / He was a perfect man. (Song on, Christ is God incarnated)
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