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

The church has both a universal aspect and a local aspect. In the local aspect the church is expressed in many localities as many local churches. The one universal church expressed in many places on earth becomes the many local churches. The expression of the church in a locality is the local church in that particular locality.

The universal church as the Body of Christ is expressed through the local churches. The local churches, as the expressions of the one Body of Christ, are locally one.

(Witness Lee, Incarnation, 32)

Do not think that the local churches are one distinct side, and the Body of Christ is another distinct side. These two sides are one entity. They refer to the same thing. The Body of Christ is unique in the universe, but it needs an expression on the earth. These expressions on the earth are the local churches. The local churches are the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ is the local churches.

(Witness Lee, CS of Romans, 5)

(The church in these three verses--verses 18-20--is the local church. It is but the embryonic form of the whole church in Ephesians 5:23. The church in Matthew 16 is the whole church.)

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 1, Vol. 15, 206)

Although the church is universally one, the local churches, as the expressions of the one universal church, are many. The building of the universal church began in the building of the local churches. It has been proceeding and will continue to proceed in this way until its completion.

(Witness Lee, LS of John, vol. 1, 11)

We have clearly two different aspects of the Church before us--the Church and the churches, the universal Church and the local churches.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 30, 52)

In the Lord’s mind, the church is always real; there is no such thing as a false church. Not only is this true with the universal church, but this is even true with the local churches.

(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 2, Vol. 36, 227)

1. Revealed by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 18:17

The builded church of Matthew 16 becomes the local church of Matthew 18. We cannot separate these two chapters. What is built in Matthew 16 is the local church found in Matthew 18. Some say that the church is only universal. If so, where is the universal church? The universal church is the totality of all the local churches, even as a body is the totality of all its members.

(Witness Lee, Kingdom, 137-138)

Every truth in the Bible develops progressively, and the truth of the church is no exception. The church was first mentioned by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 16 (v. 18). That was the seed. But immediately after chapter sixteen, the Lord touched the local aspect of the church. In chapter sixteen there is the church, while in chapter eighteen there is the church in a locality, the church to which you can go. If you have some problem, you must “tell it to the church'' (v. 17). Then in the book of Acts, we see the growing up of this seed into all the local churches--the church at Jerusalem (8:1), the church at Antioch (13:1), etc. Following this, in the Epistles there is the definition of the church. Finally, in 2 Corinthians and in Revelation, the local churches are strongly emphasized. The local churches are the harvest of the truth concerning the church.

(Witness Lee, Christ as Life, 117)

We need to point out that the Lord Jesus mentioned the church twice in the Gospels--once in Matthew 16:18 referring to the universal church and once in Matthew 18:17 referring to the local church. When the Lord Jesus mentioned the church the second time in Matthew 18:17, it was in the local sense and it indicated the matter of meeting. In verse 20 the Lord said, “Where there are two or three gathered into My name, there am I in their midst.'' When the Lord Jesus mentioned the matter of the church in a local sense, He pointed out the need of the gathering, the meeting. If we are going to have the Lord’s presence, surely we need to meet together.

(Witness Lee, Lessons on Service, 10)

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