Hymns, #816

Study of the Word - Knowledge and Life

Eng/Kor:816  Chin:591[*]  Span:-  Rus:327  Tag:-  Fra:-  Por:-

Lyrics:Witness Lee
Music:From Dimitri Bortnianski
Meter:8.7.8.7.D.

This hymn has a unique tune.

 
 1 

God's own Word must not be taken

Just as knowledge but as life,

Not alone God's thought conveying,

But Himself to us as life;

Not alone God's mind revealing,

But His Christ as life within,

Not alone the teaching giving,

But experience of Him.

 
 2 

It is only knowledge to us

If we in the letter read,

But when reading in the spirit

It is truly life indeed.

All the knowledge in the letter

Only brings us into death,

But the Word in spirit taken

Gives to us the quickening breath.

 
 3 

It we miss the Lord in Scripture,

It is just as knowledge vain;

But when Christ we touch within it,

Then His life we may obtain.

When we read, the Lord not touching,

'Tis but mental stimulus;

But when Christ we touch by reading,

It becometh life to us.

 
 4 

All the knowledge of the Scriptures

Into life must be transformed,

All the mental understanding

In the spirit must be formed;

All the Scriptural understanding

Must become the life received,

All the knowledge of the letters

In the spirit be conceived.

 
 5 

Just to touch the Word for knowledge

Is to take the very way

By which Eve was lured by Satan

And by knowledge led astray;

But as life to take the Scripture

Is the tree of life to eat;

Thus the Word we must be taking

In the spirit as our meat.

 
Hymn #816