Life-study of John (Life-study of the New Testament

by Witness Lee

Although the language of the Gospel of John is simple, this book is deep and profound. In this life-study, Witness Lee shows that the Bible is a book of life and building and that the Gospel of John also is focused on life and building. The Gospel of John reveals that in Christ, the Word of God, is life; that He came that man may have life; and that He Himself is life. Furthermore, this Gospel shows that Christ is the bread of life; that He has the water of life; that He gives life to man; and that He even lives in man as life.

The Gospel of John also unfolds the divine building. In 1:14, we see that Christ in the flesh was the tabernacle for God’s habitation among men on earth. In 2:19-21, Christ’s human body was also the temple of God on earth. Through His death, His body in the flesh was destroyed, and in His resurrection, He raised up His mystical body, the church, to be the enlarged temple of God.

This is God’s building in the universe. Furthermore, this Gospel reveals that the believers are to be built up to be the Father’s house, the dwelling place of the Triune God. This is adequately and fully disclosed in John 14. According to that chapter, all the believers will be built together as God’s eternal habitation with many abodes. Thus, as the Lord’s last prayer in John 17 indicates, all His believers must be built up into one.

The first section of the Gospel of John, composed of the first 13 chapters, is on the coming of the Lord Jesus to bring God into man and to declare God to man. The second section, composed of the last eight chapters, is on the Lord’s going in death and coming back in resurrection to bring man into God and to abide in and with man for God’s building.

703 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 15, 2023

About the author

Witness Lee (李常受, pinyin Lǐ Chángshòu) was a Chinese Christian preacher associated with the Local Churches movement and the founder of Living Stream Ministry. He was born in the city of Yantai, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a Christian in 1925 after hearing the preaching of Peace Wang and later became a close coworker of Watchman Nee. Witness Lee moved to Taiwan in 1949 as the Communists were advancing in mainland China. During the 1950s, his ministry extended throughout Southeast Asia and in 1962 Lee moved to the United States, relocating the base of his ministry to Southern California. He gave his last public conference in February 1997 at the age of 91. Many of Lee's spoken messages have been published in over 400 books and translated into more than fourteen different languages. Lee's major work is Life-study of the Bible, comprising over 25,000 pages of commentary on every book of the Bible from the perspective of the believers' enjoyment and experience of God's divine life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Lee was also the chief editor of a new translation of the Bible entitled the Recovery Version.