61 Is it right that believers in God can never depart from the Bible and whatever departs from the Bible is false and is a heresy?

Bible Reference:

“Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me, that you might have life” (John 5:39-40).

The answer from God’s word:

“The Bible is a historical book, and if you had eaten and drunk the Old Testament during the Age of Grace—if you had put into practice what was required in the time of the Old Testament during the Age of Grace—Jesus would have rejected you, and condemned you; if you had applied the Old Testament to the work of Jesus, you would have been a Pharisee. … During the time of Jesus, Jesus led the Jews and all those who followed Him according to the Holy Spirit’s work in Him at the time. He didn’t take the Bible as the basis of what He did, but spoke according to His work; He paid no heed to what the Bible said, nor did He search in the Bible for a path to lead His followers. Right from when He began to work, He spread the way of repentance—a word of which there was absolutely no mention in the prophecies of the Old Testament. Not only did He not act according to the Bible, but He also led a new path, and did new work. Never did He refer to the Bible when He preached. During the Age of Law, no one had ever been able to perform His miracles of healing the sick and casting out demons. His work, His teachings, His authority—no one had done this during the Age of Law. Jesus simply did His newer work, and even though many people condemned Him using the Bible—and even used the Old Testament to crucify Him—His work surpassed the Old Testament; if this were not so, why did people nail Him to the cross? Was it not because it said nothing in the Old Testament of His teaching, and His ability to heal the sick and cast out demons? His work was in order to lead a new path, it was not to deliberately ‘pick a fight’ against the Bible, or to deliberately dispense with the Old Testament. He simply came to perform His ministry, to bring the new work to those who yearned for and sought Him. He didn’t come to explain the Old Testament or uphold its work. His work was not in order to allow the Age of Law to continue developing, for His work gave no consideration to whether it had the Bible as its base; Jesus simply came to do the work that He ought to do. … Why must God’s work be according to the Bible? Could it be that God has no right to exceed the Bible? Can God not depart from the Bible and do other work? Why did Jesus and His disciples not keep the Sabbath? If He were to keep the Sabbath and practice according to the commandments of the Old Testament, why did Jesus not keep the Sabbath after He came, but instead washed feet, covered head, broke bread, and drank wine? Isn’t this all absent from the commandments of the Old Testament? If Jesus honored the Old Testament, why did He defy these doctrines? You should know which came first, God or the Bible! Being the Lord of the Sabbath, could He not also be the Lord of the Bible?

62 In the Bible, there are indeed many prophecies about God’s work of the last days. But which words of God can confirm the fulfillment of these prophecies?

The answer from God’s word:

“In the last days, when I open My scroll (the scroll refers to all the words of My mouth, the words I speak in the last time, which are all the content of My scroll), I will tell you this.”

from “The One Hundred and Tenth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

“Man believes that, following the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus went back to heaven upon a white cloud, and took His place at the Most High’s right hand. Similarly, man conceives that Jesus shall descend, again upon a white cloud (this cloud refers to the cloud that Jesus rode upon when He returned to heaven), among those who have desperately yearned for Him for thousands of years, and that He shall bear the image and clothes of the Jews. After appearing to man, He shall bestow food upon them, and cause living water to gush forth for them, and shall live among man, full of grace and love, living and real. And so on. Yet Jesus the Savior did not do this; He did the opposite of what man conceived. He did not arrive among those who had yearned for His return, and did not appear to all men while riding upon the white cloud. He has already arrived, but man does not know Him, and remains ignorant of His arrival. Man is only aimlessly awaiting Him, unaware that He has already descended upon a white cloud (the cloud which is His Spirit, His words, and His entire disposition and all that He is), and is now among a group of overcomers that He will make during the last days.”

from “The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’” 

in The Word Appears in the Flesh

Why is it that the church of Almighty God has become more and more prosperous while the churches of the Age of Grace are all so desolate?

The answer from God’s word:

“The clearest expression of the Holy Spirit’s work is in embracing the here and now, not clinging to the past. Those who have not kept up with the work of today, and who have become separated from the practice of today, are those who oppose and do not accept the work of the Holy Spirit. Such people defy the present work of God. Though they hold onto the light of the past, this does not mean it is possible to deny that they do not know the work of the Holy Spirit. … If man remains stuck in one stage, then this proves that he is incapable of keeping up with God’s work and the new light; it does not prove that God’s plan of management has not changed. Those who are outside the stream of the Holy Spirit always think they are right, but in fact, God’s work in them ceased long ago, and the work of the Holy Spirit is absent from them. The work of God was long since transferred to another group of people, a group on whom He intends to complete His new work. Because those in religion are incapable of accepting God’s new work, and only hold to the old work of the past, thus God has forsaken these people, and does His new work on the people who accept this new work. These are people who cooperate in His new work, and only in this way can His management be accomplished. The management of God is always moving forward, and the practice of man is always ascending higher. God is always working, and man is always in need, such that both reach their zenith, God and man are in complete union. This is the expression of the accomplishment of God’s work, and is the final outcome of God’s entire management.

God's Utterance "Knowing God Is the Path to Fearing God and Shunning Evil"

Everyone should examine anew his life of believing in God to see whether, in the pursuit of God, he has truly understood, truly comprehended, and truly come to know God, whether he truly knows what attitude God bears to the various types of human beings, and whether he truly understands what God is working upon him and how God defines his every act. This God, who is by your side, guiding the direction of your progress, ordaining your destiny, and supplying your needs—how much do you, in the final analysis, understand and how much do you really know about Him? Do you know what He works on you every single day? Do you know the principles and purposes on which He bases His every action? Do you know how He guides you? Do you know the means by which He supplies you? Do you know the methods with which He leads you? Do you know what He wishes to obtain from you and what He wishes to achieve in you? Do you know the attitude He takes to the multifarious ways in which you behave? Do you know whether you are a person beloved of Him? Do you know the origin of His joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, the thoughts and ideas behind them, and His essence? Do you know, ultimately, what kind of God is this God that you believe in? Are these and other questions of the sort something that you have never understood or thought about? In pursuing your belief in God, have you, through real appreciation and experience of God’s words, cleared up your misunderstandings about Him? Have you, after receiving God’s discipline and chastening, arrived at genuine submission and caring? Have you, in the midst of God’s chastisement and judgment, come to know the rebelliousness and satanic nature of man and gained a modicum of understanding about God’s holiness? Have you, under the guidance and enlightenment of God’s words, begun to have a new outlook of life? Have you, in the midst of the trial sent by God, felt His intolerance for man’s offenses as well as what He requires of you and how He is saving you? If you do not know what it is to misunderstand God, or how to clear up this misunderstanding, then one can say that you have never entered into true communion with God and have never understood God, or at least one can say you have never wished to understand Him. If you do not know what is God’s discipline and chastening, then you surely do not know what are submission and caring, or at least you have never truly submitted to or cared for God. If you have never experienced God’s chastisement and judgment, then you will surely not know what is His holiness, and you will be even less clear as to what man’s rebellion is. If you have never truly had a correct outlook on life, or a correct aim in life, but are still in a state of perplexity and indecision over your future path in life, even to the point of being hesitant to go forward, then it is certain that you have never truly received God’s enlightenment and guidance, and one can also say that you have never truly been supplied or replenished by God’s words. If you have not yet undergone God’s trial, then it goes without saying that you will certainly not know what is God’s intolerance for man’s offenses, nor would you understand what God ultimately requires of you, and even less what, ultimately, is His work of managing and saving man. No matter how many years a person has believed in God, if he has never experienced or perceived anything in God’s words, then assuredly he is not walking the path toward salvation, his faith in God is assuredly without actual content, his knowledge of God too is assuredly zero, and it goes without saying that he has no idea at all what it is to revere God.