Life-Study of Romans

Life-Study of the Bible #21

by Witness Lee

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.

815 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 1984

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.

Reviews

[Reese Walling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Witness Lee’s exposition of the epistle to the Romans gives the reader a firm grasp of the “fifth gospel” as they say, with a clear overview of what many would call Paul’s greatest work. Dividing the book into various sections, a clear flow in Paul’s thought and argument are brought to a new light, with a clear emphasis not on justification by faith (as some have taken as the author’s main point), but an emphasis on conforming condemned sinners into sons of God for the producing of the Body of Christ. Chapters 1-3 reveal the wretchedness of man and the condemnation of God. The end of chapter 3 to the middle of chapter 5 reveals God's justification of man. From there until the middle of chapter 8, God's sanctification of man is revealed. From the middle of 8 until the end, God's glorification of man is reveled. Chapters 9-11 are a parentheses on the selection of God. Lastly, as the goal of the gospel revealed in the book of Romans, chapters 12-16 reveal the transformation of the believers for the Body of Christ, both in its universality and practicality. I cannot recommend this commentary enough to any believer who desires to have an in depth understanding and practical application of this wonderful book in the Bible.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an eye-opening journey to go through the book of Romans! I always love how the ministry books focus on our genuine experience of Christ. Praise the Lord that we're no longer serving in the oldness of letter, but in the newness of spirit!

The book of Romans is much more than just justification. We cannot only where we started as a sinners, but also God's eternal purpose of us: sons of God who are fully confirmed to the image of Christ. We're not only justified, we're being sanctified, renewed, transformed, and eventually glorified. All of these experience can only be realized in the indwelling Spirit who is mingled with our spirit. No Spirit, no Christian life! Our God is not only the objective God to the whole creation, but also the subjective God in our spirit!