The Governing Principles of the Practice of the Local Church

8. No Ordinances

Ephesians 2:15 reveals that for the producing of the universal church as the one new man, Christ abolished the law of commandments in ordinances, the differing ways of living and worship. In his Life Study of Ephesians, Witness Lee teaches that God’s desire that the church would express this one, new, corporate man is frustrated when His enemy utilizes ordinances to divide the believers.

Ephesians 2:15 says that Christ abolished in His flesh the law of commandments in ordinances in order to create the Jews and the Gentiles into one new man. Through His death on the cross, not only did Christ deal with sin, the old man, the flesh, the world, and the Devil; He also dealt with the law of the commandments in ordinances. Many good messages have been given on how the cross of Christ has dealt with sin, the old man, the flesh, the world, and the Devil. But have you ever heard that on the cross Christ abolished the law of commandments in ordinances? Christ did this not for salvation, sanctification, or even victory. He abolished the ordinances in order to create the new man. We freely admit that sin, the old man, the flesh, the world, and the Devil all needed the dealing of the cross, and we praise the Lord that all these negative things have been crucified. But we must go on to see the crucial importance of Christ’s abolishing the law of the commandments in ordinances in order to create us into one new man.

The fact that the Jews and the Gentiles have been created into one new man indicates that the new man is an entity that is corporate and universal. There are many believers, but there is just one new man. All the believers are part of this one corporate and universal new man. The highest revelation of the church given in the book of Ephesians is that of the new man.

To be regenerated is not only to be saved; it is also to be created anew. On the cross Christ abolished the ordinances so that a re-creation could take place. The Jews and the Gentiles were separated by ordinances. But the two peoples have been created in Christ with the divine essence into one new entity, the corporate new man. (656)

Below, Witness Lee elaborates on the definition of ordinances and the frustration they present to the believers’ experience of the one new man in the local churches.

Ordinances are the various forms or ways of living and worship. For example, the Jews have their particular way of worshipping God. Based upon this way of worship, they have ordinances that govern their daily living. Other peoples also have their own ways of living and worship. This is true among the denominations in today’s Christianity. The Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Episcopalians all have different ways of worship. How widespread is this matter of ordinances, and how all-pervading!

God’s intention is not to have a certain kind of worship. His desire is to have the one new man. However, in his subtlety, Satan, the enemy of God, uses ordinances to damage the new man and to keep believers from realizing the new man in a practical way. Satan’s goal is not to keep Christians from heaven or from pursuing spirituality; it is to keep them from seeing and experiencing the church as the one new man.

…In His wisdom God has chosen us out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Rev. 5:9). In the local churches today there are believers from many races and nationalities. Surely the greatest test of whether or not we take Christ as our life and as our person is related to ordinances… In the new man there is no room for Jew, Greek, barbarian, Scythian, circumcision or uncircumcision. This means that in the church as the new man there can be no Chinese, American, British, German, or any other nationality. There is room only for Christ. It is crucial for us all to see that more than nineteen hundred years ago all our ordinances were abolished by Christ on the cross.

(Witness Lee, LS of Ephesians, 656-657)

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