Distinctiveness
By Watchman Nee
May I now invite your attention to words Jesus dressed to the Jews in John 8:23. "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I not of this world." I wish us to note especially here the use of the words "from" and "of.'.' e Greek word in each case is ek, which means out of" and implies origin. Ek tou kosmos is the expression used: "from, or of, or out of, this world." So the sense of the passage is: "Your place of origin is beneath; my place of origin is above. Your place of origin is this world; my place of origin is not this world." The question is not: Are you a good or a bad person? but, What is your place of origin? We do not ask, Is this thing right? or, Is that thing wrong? but, Where did it originate? It is origin that determines everything. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh: that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).
So when Jesus turns to his disciples he can say, using the same Greek preposition, "If ye were of the world (ek tou cosmos), the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19). Here we have the same expression, "not of the world," but in addition we have another and more forceful expression, "I chose you out of the world." In this latter instance there is a double emphasis. As before there is an ek, "out of," but in addition to this the verb "to choose," eklego, itself contains another ek. Jesus is saying that his disciples have been "chosen-out, out of the world."
There is this double ek in the life of every believer. Out of that vast organization called the cosmos, out of all the great mass of individuals belonging to it and involved in it, out, clean out of all of that, God has called us. Thence comes the title "Church," ekklesia, God's "called-out ones." From the midst of the great cosmos God calls one here and one there; and all whom he calls he calls out. There is no such thing as a call from God that is not a call "out of" the world. The church is ekklesia. In the divine intention there is no klesia which lacks the ek.
If you are a called one, then you are a called out one. If God has called you at all then he has called you to live in spirit outside the world system. Originally we were in that Satanic system with no way of escape; but we were called, and that calling brought us out. True, that statement is a negative one, but there is a positive side also to our constitution; for as the people of God we have two titles, each of them significant according to the way we view ourselves: If we look back at our past history we are ekklesia, the Church; but if we look to our present life in God we are the Body of Christ, the expression on earth of him who is in heaven. From the standpoint of God's choice of us we are "out of" the world; but from the standpoint of our new life we are not of the world at all, but from above. On the one hand we are a chosen people, called and delivered out of the world system. On the other we are a regenerate people, utterly unrelated to that system because by the Spirit we are born from above. So John sees the holy city coming down "out of heaven from God" (Rev. 21:10). As the people of God, heaven is not only our destiny but our origin.
This is an amazing thing, that in you and me there is an element that is essentially otherworldly. So otherworldly is it indeed that no matter how this world may progress, it can never advance one step in likeness to that. The life we have as God's gift came from heaven and never was in the world at all. It has no correspondence with the world but is in perfect correspondence with heaven; and though we must mingle with the world daily, it will never let us settle down and feel at home there.
Let us consider for a moment this divine gift, this life of Christ indwelling the heart of regenerate man. The apostle Paul has a great deal to say about this. In an illuminating passage in 1 Corinthians he makes a striking twofold statement: (a) that God himself has placed us in Christ, and (b) that Christ has been "made unto us wisdom from God: righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1:30). Here are examples of the whole range of human need that God has met in his Son. We have shown elsewhere how God does not distribute to us these qualities of righteousness, holiness and so on in installments "to be taken as required." What he does is to give us Christ as the inclusive answer to all our needs. He makes his Son to be my righteousness and my holiness, and everything else I lack, on the ground that he has already placed me in Christ crucified and risen.
