The Witness Of The Epistles

From Romans to the seven epistles in the book of Revelation, the life-giving Spirit, spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:45, is the general subject of all the New Testament Epistles. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus is presented as the Word who became flesh, while in the Epistles He is presented as the One who became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection for us to receive, experience, and enjoy. In The Spirit in the Epistles Witness Lee speaks of the believers being one spirit with the Lord, that is, of the mingling of the divine Spirit with our regenerated human spirit. Since the Spirit is the essence of the revelation in the Epistles, Witness Lee also emphasizes our practical need to take Christ as life by turning to the indwelling Spirit, by setting our mind on the spirit, and by living and walking in the spirit that we may live in the Lord, who is the Spirit.

This reference volume aims to be a kind of comprehensive status quaestionis for the Catholic Epistles. Here Darian Lockett has collected some of the highest quality scholarship concentred upon the Letters of James, Peter, ohn, and Jude, creating an introduction and orientation to the wide ranging avenues of scholarly investigation into these New Testament texts all in a single-volume. Divided into four distinct sections, the volume begins with an analysis of the Catholic Epistles as a collection, before moving to discuss historical-critical and theological studies, methodological approaches, and, finally, reception history. Taking care to situate foundational essays in the history of scholarship that may be hard to find or contextualize, Lockett offers a brief introduction to each section and draws each section to a close by providing a list of annotated readings which prompt further study and engagement with some of the last literature to be settled upon in the New Testament canon.

John’s writings are complementary to the entire divine revelation. This means that the writings of John complete the Bible. His Gospel completes the Gospels, his Epistles complete the Epistles, and his Revelation completes the whole Bible. In the Life-study of the Epistles of John, Witness Lee emphasizes the outstanding matters in these Epistles in relation to the economy of God. Some of these matters include the divine life and its fellowship, the anointing, the divine birth and the divine seed, the walk in truth and in love, and the encouragement of the fellow workers in the truth. In the Life-study of Jude, Witness Lee shows from Jude's Epistle the genuine contending for the faith and the believers' living in the Triune God issuing in their full enjoyment of Him.

In the Lord’s recovery during the past five hundred years the church’s knowledge of the Lord and His truth has been continually progressing. This monumental and classical work by Brother Witness Lee builds upon and is a further development of all that the Lord has revealed to His church in the past centuries. It is filled with the revelation concerning the processed Triune God, the living Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the experience of life, and the definition and practice of the church. In this set Brother Lee has kept three basic principles that should rule and govern every believer in their interpretation, development, and expounding of the truths contained in the Scriptures. The first principle is that of the Triune God dispensing Himself into His chosen and redeemed people; the second principle is that we should interpret, develop, and expound the truths contained in the Bible with Christ for the church; and the third governing principle is Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. No other study or exposition of the New Testament conveys the life nourishment or ushers the reader into the divine revelation of God’s holy Word according to His New Testament economy as this one does.