Witness Lee and Watchman Nee: The Need of the Local Churches

The Body of Christ Needs the Local Churches for Its Practice

In his book entitled The Life for the Preaching of the High Gospel Witness Lee writes that the universal church is embodied, realized, and experienced in the local churches. He further states that the universal church, the spiritual Body of Christ, needs the local churches for its expression.

We have seen that the church is the Body of Christ and the expression of Christ. Now we need to realize that this church as the Body of Christ needs the local churches. The church is the expression of Christ, and the local churches are the expression of the church. Without the local churches you cannot contact the church. The church is embodied in the local churches. The church is also realized and experienced in the local churches. So for the practical church life, we all need the local churches. In the Lord’s recovery the local churches are also a main point.

No doubt, in the New Testament the church as the Body of Christ has been fully revealed. Yet if you read through Acts and the Epistles to the last book of the New Testament, Revelation, you will see that the church is fully expressed in the local churches. In the last book of the Bible, what you see is not the church but the local churches. In Revelation 1:11 the apostle John heard a voice saying to him, “What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Here are seven churches in seven cities—one church for one city and one city with only one church. These are the local churches. Today the Lord is recovering the local churches. Wherever we go, we are the one local church there. If we go to Houston, we are the one local church in Houston. If we go to Anaheim, we are the one local church in Anaheim. The same is true if we go to San Francisco, Seattle, or anywhere else.

(Witness Lee, High Gospel, 49-50)

Watchman Nee, in his book Further Talks on the Church Life, explains that merely to stand on the ground of locality—that is, to meet simply as the church in each city—is not sufficient. He writes that a local church must also have a proper content as well as meet definite requirements and conditions, such as receiving all kinds of believers based on Christ’s receiving of them, executing God’s discipline on those in the church who sin, and containing all of Christ and His revelation.

I would like to speak to the brothers a little more concerning the problem of the church. The church must have both the authority of the Spirit and the ground of locality. The ground of locality, however, is not a simple matter, because a church still needs content. Without content, it still cannot be regarded as a local church. Being correct in name is a very important matter, but being correct in name does not necessarily mean that there is no problem. This is the reason I would like to see from the Bible, together with you, several requirements of a church in a locality. Just saying that we are standing on the ground of locality is not enough. In order to say that a church is standing on the ground of locality, it should fulfill certain requirements and conditions and should have a certain content. If none of these requirements and conditions are met, we are still not standing on the ground of locality.

…Him who is weak in faith receive,…for God has received him” (Rom. 14:1, 3). Suppose someone is a vegetarian. We may consider that he is very weak. However, the basis for receiving is whether or not God has received him, not whether he is strong or weak. Perhaps he is a weak brother, but we still must receive him. God already has received him without regard for his strength or weakness; therefore, we must receive him as well. The fundamental fellowship of a church in a locality is based upon the fellowship of God. We must receive a brother whom God has received. We cannot have any reason to refuse him; otherwise, we are a sect, not a church. The church in a locality is based on a receiving that is as broad as God and also as strict as God: Whomever God receives, we receive; whomever God does not receive, we do not receive. The universal church receives all whom God has received in the whole world; a local church receives all whom God has received in a locality. No matter how different a brother is from us or how far short he is of our standard, there is only one requirement for us to receive him—that is, has God received him? If God has received him, we must receive him. Therefore, a local church—we must be very clear about this—must take the life of Christ and faith in God as the basis for receiving believers. Apart from this we do not have any other demands. If we make other demands as certain requirements, we are a sect just like any other sect. A sect is condemned and is therefore a very serious matter.

Witness Lee stresses, in the first section of this Website, the matter of the local church as the expression of the Body of Christ and the local church as the way for believers to realize and experience the Body of Christ, the universal church. The matter of the local churches as the practical expression of the church is fully revealed in the New Testament and clearly interpreted by Witness Lee.

Watchman Nee also observed that simply to meet as a local church in a particular city is not sufficient for the proper church practice; the content of a local church is important as well. Here Watchman Nee primarily addresses the practice of a proper and scriptural local church in receiving the believers, the sole standard and basis being the life of Christ and faith in God held in common by all believers.

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