John worked seven years for Jesus, and had already paved the way when Jesus arrived. Before this, the gospel of the kingdom of heaven as preached by John was heard throughout the land, so that it spread across Judea, and everyone called him a prophet. At the time, King Herod wished to kill John, yet he did not dare, for the people held John in high regard, and Herod feared that if he killed John they would revolt against him. The work done by John took root among the common people, and he made believers of the Jews. For seven years he paved the way for Jesus, right until the time that Jesus began to perform His ministry. For this reason, John was the greatest of all the prophets. It was only after John was imprisoned that Jesus began His official work. Before John, there had never been a prophet who had paved the way for God, because prior to Jesus, God had never before become flesh. So, of all the prophets up until John, he was the only one to pave the way for God incarnate, and in this way, John became the greatest prophet of the Old and New Testaments. John began to spread the gospel of the kingdom of heaven seven years before the baptism of Jesus. To the people, the work he did seemed above the subsequent work of Jesus, yet he was, nevertheless, still only a prophet. He worked and spoke not within the temple, but in the towns and villages outside of it. This he did, of course, among the people of the Jewish nation, particularly those who were impoverished. Rarely did John come into contact with people from the upper echelons of society, and he would only spread the gospel among the ordinary people of Judea. This was in order to prepare the right people for the Lord Jesus, and to prepare suitable places for Him to work in. With a prophet such as John to pave the way, the Lord Jesus was able to directly embark upon His way of the cross as soon as He arrived. When God became flesh to do His work, He did not have to do the work of choosing people, and nor did He need to personally seek people, or a place in which to work. He did not do such work when He came; the right person had already prepared such things for Him before He arrived. John had already completed this work before Jesus began His work, for when God incarnate arrived to do His work, He got straight to work on those who had long been waiting for Him. Jesus had not come to do man’s work of rectification. He had come only to perform the ministry that was His to perform; everything else bore no relation to Him. When John came, he did nothing but bring out from the temple and among the Jews a group of those who accepted the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, in order that they might become the objects of the work of the Lord Jesus. John worked for seven years, which is to say he spread the gospel for seven years. During his work, John did not perform many miracles, for his work was to pave the way; his work was the work of preparation. All other work, the work Jesus was going to do, was unrelated to him; he only asked man to confess his sins and repent, and baptized people, so that they could be saved. Though he did new work and opened a path that man had never walked upon before, still he only paved the way for Jesus. He was merely a prophet that did the preparation work, and he was incapable of doing the work of Jesus. Though Jesus was not the first to preach the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, and though He continued along the path that John had embarked upon, still there was no one else who could do His work, and it was above the work of John. Jesus could not prepare His own way; His work was carried out directly on behalf of God. And so, no matter how many years John worked, he was still a prophet, and still one who paved the way. The three years of work done by Jesus surpassed the seven years of work by John, for the essence of His work was not the same. When Jesus began to perform His ministry, which is also when the work of John came to an end, John had prepared enough people and places for use by the Lord Jesus, and they were sufficient for the Lord Jesus to begin three years of work. And so, as soon as the work of John was finished, the Lord Jesus officially began His own work, and the words spoken by John were cast aside. That is because the work done by John was only for the sake of the transition, and his words were not the words of life that would lead man to new growth; ultimately, his words were only of temporary use.

The work that Jesus did was not supernatural; there was a process to it, and it all progressed according to the normal laws of things. By the last six months of His life, Jesus knew with certainty that He had come to do this work, and He knew that He had come to be nailed to the cross. Before He was crucified, Jesus continually prayed to God the Father, just as He prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane. After He was baptized, Jesus performed His ministry for three and a half years, and His official work lasted two and a half years. During the first year, He was accused by Satan, disturbed by man, and subjected to the tests of man. He overcame many tests while He carried out His work. In the last six months, when Jesus was soon to be crucified, from the mouth of Peter came the words that He was the Son of the living God, that He was Christ. Only then did His work become known to all, and only then was His identity revealed to the public. After that, Jesus told His disciples that He was to be crucified for the sake of man, and that three days later He would rise again; that He had come to carry out the work of redemption, and He was the Savior. Only in the last six months did He reveal His identity and the work that He intended to do. This was also the time of God, and this was how the work was to be carried out. At the time, part of Jesus’ work was in accordance with the Old Testament, as well as with the laws of Moses and the words of Jehovah during the Age of Law. All these things, Jesus used to do part of His work. He preached to the people and taught them in the synagogues, and He employed the predictions of the prophets in the Old Testament to rebuke the Pharisees that were in enmity with Him, and used the words from the Scriptures to reveal their rebelliousness and thus condemn them. For they despised what Jesus had done; in particular, much of Jesus’ work was not done according to the laws in the Scriptures, and, furthermore, what He taught was higher than their own words, and even higher than that which had been foretold by the prophets in the Scriptures. The work of Jesus was only for the sake of man’s redemption and for the crucifixion, and so there was no need for Him to say more words in order to conquer any man. Much of what He taught man was drawn from the words of the Scriptures, and even if His work did not exceed the Scriptures, still He was able to accomplish the work of the crucifixion. His was not the work of the word, nor work done for the sake of conquering mankind, but work done in order to redeem mankind. He only acted as the sin offering for mankind, and did not act as the source of the word for mankind. He did not do the work of the Gentiles, which was the work of conquering man, but the work of the crucifixion, work that was done among those who believed there was a God. Even though His work was carried out upon the foundation of the Scriptures, and even though He used that which had been foretold by the old prophets to condemn the Pharisees, this was sufficient to complete the work of the crucifixion. If the work of today were still carried out upon the foundation of the predictions of the old prophets in the Scriptures, then it would be impossible to conquer you, for the Old Testament contains no record of the rebelliousness and sins of you Chinese people, and there is no history of your sins. So, if this work still lingered in the Bible, you would never yield. The Bible records only a limited history of the Israelites, one which is incapable of establishing whether you are evil or good, or of judging you. Imagine that I were to judge you according to the history of the Israelites—would you still follow Me as you do today? Do you know how difficult you are? If no words were spoken during this stage, then it would be impossible to complete the work of conquest. Because I have not come to be nailed to the cross, I must speak words that are separate from the Bible, so that you may be conquered. The work done by Jesus was merely a stage higher than the Old Testament; it was used to begin an age, and to lead that age. Why did He say, “I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law”? Yet in His work there was much that differed from the laws practiced and the commandments followed by the Israelites of the Old Testament, for He did not come to obey the law, but to fulfill it. The process of fulfilling it included many practical things: His work was more practical and realistic, and, furthermore, it was more alive, and was not blind adherence to rules. Did the Israelites not keep the Sabbath? When Jesus came, He did not observe the Sabbath, for He said that the Son of man was the Lord of the Sabbath, and when the Lord of the Sabbath arrived, He would do as He wished. He had come to fulfill the laws of the Old Testament and to change the laws. All that is done today is based upon the present, yet it still rests upon the foundation of the work of Jehovah in the Age of Law, and it does not transgress this scope. To watch your tongue, and not commit adultery, for example—are these not the laws of the Old Testament? Today, what is required of you is not only limited to the Ten Commandments, but consists of commandments and laws of a higher order than those that came before. Yet this does not mean that what came before has been abolished, for each stage of God’s work is carried out upon the foundation of the stage that came before. As for the work that Jehovah then did in Israel, such as requiring people to offer up sacrifices, honor their parents, not to worship idols, not to assault or curse others, not to commit adultery, not to smoke or drink, and not to eat dead things or drink blood—does this not form the foundation for your practice even today? It is upon the foundation of the past that the work has been carried out up until today. Though the laws of the past are no longer mentioned and new demands have been made of you, these laws, far from being abolished, have instead been raised higher. To say that they have been abolished means that the previous age is outdated, whereas there are some commandments that you must honor for all eternity. The commandments of the past have already been put into practice, have already become the being of man, and there is no need to place special emphasis on such commandments as “Do not smoke,” and “Do not drink,” and so on. Upon this foundation, new commandments are laid down according to your needs today, according to your stature, and according to the work of today. Decreeing commandments for the new age does not mean abolishing the commandments of the old age, but lifting them higher upon this foundation, to make the actions of man more complete, and more in line with reality. If, today, you were only required to follow the commandments and abide by the laws of the Old Testament in the same way as the Israelites, and if you were even required to memorize the laws laid down by Jehovah, there would be no possibility that you could change. If you were only to abide by those few limited commandments or memorize innumerable laws, your old disposition would remain deeply embedded, and there would be no way to uproot it. Thus you would become increasingly depraved, and not one of you would become submissive. This is to say that a few simple commandments or countless laws are incapable of helping you know the deeds of Jehovah. You are not the same as the Israelites: By following the laws and memorizing the commandments, they were able to witness the deeds of Jehovah and give their devotion to Him alone. But you are unable to achieve this, and a few commandments of the Old Testament age are not only incapable of making you give over your heart, or of protecting you, but will instead make you lax, and will make you fall down into Hades. For My work is the work of conquest, and it is aimed at your rebelliousness and your old disposition. The kind words of Jehovah and Jesus fall far short of the severe words of judgment today. Without such severe words, it would be impossible to conquer you “experts,” who have been rebellious for thousands of years. The laws of the Old Testament lost their power on you long ago, and the judgment of today is far more formidable than the old laws. What is most suitable for you is judgment, and not the trifling restrictions of laws, for you are not the mankind of the very beginning, but a mankind that has been corrupt for thousands of years. What man must achieve now is in line with the real state of man today, according to the caliber and actual stature of present-day man, and it does not require that you follow rules. This is so that changes may be achieved in your old disposition, and in order that you may cast aside your notions. Do you think the commandments are rules? They are, it can be said, normal requirements of man. They are not rules that you must follow. Take prohibiting smoking, for example—is that a rule? It is not a rule! It is required by normal humanity; it is not a rule, but something stipulated for the whole of mankind. Today, the dozen or so commandments that have been set forth are also not rules; they are what is required to achieve normal humanity. People did not possess or know of such things in the past, and so people are required to achieve them today, and such things do not count as rules. Laws are not the same as rules. The rules that I speak of are in reference to ceremonies, formalities or the distorted practices of man; they are the regulations that are of no help to man, no benefit to him; they form a course of action that holds no meaning. This is the epitome of rules, and such rules must be discarded, for they offer no benefit to man. It is that which is of benefit to man that must be put into practice.