Witness Lee Speaks on the Definition of the Ground of the Local Church

Additional Quotes about the Local Church by Witness Lee and Watchman Nee

Today in Bijie in Kweichow province, no one has taken the standing of establishing a church on the ground of locality. If anyone desires to establish a church, it is all right for him to go to Bijie because in one locality there can only be one local church. If an additional church appears there, God will say that is a division. It is just like a woman matching a man. If a man does not have a wife yet, she can marry him and be his wife. If he already has a wife, how can she become his mate? She can only be the mate of a man who has no wife. The whole New Testament tells us this one thing: The church is local. We must see that the church is local. The Epistles speak of the church in Corinth and the church in Ephesus. Revelation speaks of the seven churches in Asia. In each locality there is only one church. The church cannot become independent of locality.

(Watchman Nee, Further Talks, 22)

The church takes a locality as its standing, ground, and jurisdiction for its administration. A local church has an administration which has a jurisdiction for business affairs. The standing, ground, and jurisdiction of the church is physical rather than divine, particular rather than general, local rather than universal, and temporal in time rather than eternal. These are the local aspects of the church.

(Witness Lee, Genuine Church, 8-9)

A local church is one that exists in a locality as a city, the jurisdiction of the church being within the boundary of the city. We have seen that all the local churches are located, respectively, in different cities. To locate a church in a city is practical and convenient for its administration and its function. The jurisdiction of a local church for its administration is within the boundary of the city in which it exists; but its work and testimony should not be limited or restricted by any boundary. For its administration, the jurisdiction of a local church is local; but the testimony of a local church through its work is both local and universal.

(Witness Lee, Brief Presentation, 30-31)

Throughout the Word of God we can find no name attached to a church save the name of a place, for example, the church in Jerusalem, the church in Lystra, the church in Derbe, the church in Colosse, the church in Troas, the church in Thessalonica, the church in Antioch. This fact cannot be overemphasized, that in Scripture no other name but the name of a locality is ever connected with a church, and division of the church into churches is solely on the ground of difference of locality.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 53)

We would die for the Bible. We believe that the Bible is God’s divine Word, and we believe that our Lord Jesus is the very God incarnated to be a man, who died on the cross for our sins, and was resurrected physically, spiritually, and literally. We believe furthermore that today He is in the heavens as well as dwelling within us as the life-giving Spirit, and that one day He will return, physically and literally. You cannot call us liberal. We are the most fundamental among the fundamentalists. We believe furthermore that there is one Head and one Body, one Shepherd, one flock, one Christ, one Church, and one local church for one city.

(Witness Lee, Christ v. Religion, 155)

All believers living in the same locality belong to the same church. This is an unchanging principle. We dare not alter “all the believers in a locality” to “all the undenominational believers in a locality.” If we make undenominationalism or unsectarianism the boundary of our church, instead of locality, then we lose our local standing as a church and become a sect. It is not a denominational church, nor an interdenominational church, nor even an undenominational church we are after, but a local church.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 86-87)

How glorious it would be if the saved in every city could overlook all natural differences and only consider their spiritual oneness. “We are the believers in Christ in such-and-such a place” is the finest confession a company of Christians can make. Whether Christ is in you or not, determines whether or not you belong to the Church; where you live determines the particular church to which you belong. The question put by God to the world is, “Do they belong to Christ?” The question put by God to believers is, “Where do they live?” Not nationality but locality is the question raised. The churches of God are built on city ground, not on national ground.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 93-94)

If we wish to maintain a scriptural position, then we must see to it that the churches we found in various places only represent localities, not doctrines. If our “church” is not separated from other children of God on the ground of locality alone, but stands for the propagation of some particular doctrine, then we are decidedly a sect, however true to the Word of God our teaching may be. The purpose of God is that a church should represent the children of God in a locality, not represent some specific truth there. A church of God in any place comprises all the children of God in that place, not merely those who hold the same doctrinal views.

Should we arrive at a place where a church has already been established on clear local ground, and discover that its members hold views which we consider unscriptural, or that they consider the views we hold as unscriptural, if we then refuse to recognize them as the church of God in that locality and withdraw from fellowship, we are divisive. The question is not whether they agree with our presentation of truth, but whether they are standing on clear church ground.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 89)

Introduction to the Ground of the Local Church

Definition of the Ground of the Local Church

Ground of the Local Church and Foundation of the Local Church

Importance to the Ground of the Local Church

Illustrations of the Ground of the Local Church

Bibliography

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