Section 5
the living Spirit. Where is the Lord? He is wher ever there is the rich Word and the living Spirit. Nothing else can be considered as signs of the Lord's presence. If we meet without the riches of the Word and without the livingness of the Spirit and yet claim to meet in the name of the Lord, our claim is meaningless. It is vanity. There is no confirmation, no reality, to back up what we say. There is no need for us to claim that we are the church. As long as we have the rich Word and the living Spirit, that is the vin dication that we are the church. Where the Lord Jesus is, there you will find the rich Word and the living Spirit.
People often talk and argue about the church. Eventually, most of the people who talk and argue about the church are afraid to say any thing about it. These just shut their mouths and become unwilling to even use the term church. They say, "Don't talk about the church. The church is a troublesome thing." It is dif ficult for people to say what is right or wrong as far as the church is concerned. What is the church? The church is Christ increasing and all the leaders decreasing (v. 30). Whenever you see that the leaders are increasing and that Christ is imprisoned that is not the church.