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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:4-6, 8-9, 12, 19-22
In 2 Corinthians Paul shows us that if we are going to have a ministry of Christ, we have to experience Christ by the working of the cross (1:9; 4:10-12), and the working of the cross is for us to experience the anointing, the sealing, and the pledge of the Holy Spirit (1:21-22). The ministry comes out of this experience. Second Corinthians gives us a pattern, an example, of how the killing of the cross works, how Christ is wrought into our being, and how we become the expression of Christ. These constitute the ministers of Christ and produce the ministry for God’s new covenant. While Ephesians and Colossians may be the highest books in the Bible, 2 Corinthians is probably the deepest.
The central thought of the Scriptures is that God intends to work Himself in Christ through the Spirit into us, that God and we, we and God, might be really one in life, in nature, and in the Spirit. To show this God uses several figures or symbols in the Bible. First, He uses the figure of the good land (Exo. 3:8; Col. 1:12; 2:6-7). God saved and delivered Israel out of Egypt and brought them through the wilderness into the land of Canaan, which was the very enjoyment to the children of Israel (Deut. 8:7-10). The good land is a type of Christ for our enjoyment. God has delivered us out of the world, has brought us into Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), and has made Christ the good land to us so that we may enjoy Him all the time. Whatever He is will be wrought into us (Gal. 1:16; 2:20; 4:19), and all His riches (Eph. 3:8) will be our enjoyment (Rom. 10:12). Then in experience we will be one with Christ.
Another major symbol in the Bible is the tabernacle or temple (John 1:14; 2:19-21; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; Eph. 2:21-22; Rev. 21:3, 22). In both the tabernacle and the temple there are the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. If you are a priest of God up to the standard of His desire, you will be one in the Holy of Holies. To enjoy God by being mingled with Him is to be one with God in the Holy of Holies. To enjoy God in the Holy of Holies, in spirit (John 4:24), is to be mingled with Him (1 Cor. 6:17) as one in life and in nature (1 John 5:12; 2 Pet. 1:4).
Besides the good land of Canaan and the tabernacle or temple, there is another figure in the Bible concerning our enjoyment of Christ. This is the figure of the bride (John 3:29), the wife (Rev. 19:7), the virgin (2 Cor. 11:2). All the redeemed people of Christ are a bride, a virgin, to Christ. We have to be a bride and a virgin to Christ experientially that we may enjoy Him and that He may enjoy us, that we may be one with Him. Thus, in the Bible there are these three types — the good land; the tabernacle or the temple; and the bride, the wife, the virgin, to Christ. These types may also be found, in particular, in 2 Corinthians.
In 1 Corinthians the believers were still in the wilderness but not in the land of Canaan. They were still either in the flesh (the outer court) or in the soul (the Holy Place), but they were not yet in the spirit (the Holy of Holies). In 1 Corinthians 5:7 the Passover is mentioned. The people enjoyed the passover in Egypt. Then in chapter 10 there are the manna and the living water out of the cleft rock (vv. 3-4). These items were also enjoyed by the people in the wilderness. In 1 Corinthians we cannot see anything of the children of Israel’s entering into and enjoying the good land. Thus, the apostle Paul encouraged them to press on (9:24). The Corinthians may have had the spiritual gifts and knowledge, yet Paul told them that they were still fleshly (3:1, 3) and soulish (2:14). They were not spiritual (3:1), because they were still acting and walking in the soul and flesh. Paul was encouraging them to press on, to get themselves out of the realm of the soulish life, so that they might live in their spirit under the leading of the Spirit to enjoy Christ as their good land.
In 2 Corinthians Paul went on to tell them that he feared that they were distracted from Christ. They had been betrothed to Christ, but they were aiming at something other than Christ (11:2-3). Paul exhorted them to forget all the other aims to take Christ as their only aim. He is the Bridegroom, and they were the bride. Second Corinthians shows us some persons who entered into the good land and enjoyed its riches. They experienced Christ in the spirit to become part of the bride to Christ.
The experiences mentioned in this book are experiences in the Holy of Holies. This book gives a portrait of a person who is in the Holy of Holies. Paul and his co-workers were such persons. They had entered into the good land and were living in the spirit, experiencing Christ all the time. They were deep, even the deepest, in the experience of Christ.
It is rather hard for one to get any doctrine from this book. If one is trying to get doctrines out of this book, he is getting into the wrong field. In this field there are hardly any doctrines, but mostly experiences. These experiences are not in Egypt or even in the wilderness but in the good land of Canaan. The experiences are not in the flesh or in the soul but in the spirit. Paul did not exercise his fleshly wisdom, but the spiritual wisdom which is God Himself. The experiences in this book are the deepest; they are experiences in the spirit, in the Holy of Holies. Brother Watchman Nee once told us that 2 Corinthians may be considered as the autobiography of the apostle Paul. If you are going to know what kind of person the apostle Paul was, you have to look into 2 Corinthians.
Second Corinthians speaks concerning the ministry, which is constituted with, and produced and formed by, the experiences of the riches of Christ through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross. The ministry is not merely a matter of gift. A person may be able to speak fluently and eloquently and give many good illustrations and proverbs, but this is just a gift. What the church, the Body, needs today is the ministry. The Body needs some brothers and sisters who have been thoroughly wrought by God and with God so that they may have something of Christ, not merely in their mentality as knowledge to teach others but as the very riches of Christ in their spirit and in their entire inward being to pass on to others. I expect that these ones will go out to certain places to have contact and fellowship with people. Eventually, we will see the growth in life and the building of the saints in the places that these ones visit. Today there are many teachings, much knowledge, and many gifts, but there is a great shortage of the ministry. We have to be desirous of this kind of ministry. We need to pray, “Lord, be gracious to me so that I might be delivered out of my concept concerning the gifts. How I long to be wrought through with something of God in Christ as the Spirit. May I have something of the divine element wrought into me to minister to others that I may have a divine ministry of Christ.” The church needs the ministry much more than the gifts.
Second Corinthians 1:4-6 says, “Who comforts us in all our affliction that we may be able to comfort those who are in every affliction through the comforting with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For even as the sufferings of the Christ abound unto us, so through the Christ our comfort also abounds. But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comforting and salvation; or whether we are comforted, it is for your comforting, which operates in the endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer.” Pray-reading these verses again and again will help us to see that what the church needs today is the ministry. God comforts us in all our affliction for a purpose — that we may be able to comfort others. The Greek word for comfort in verse 4 also means “consolation.” To be comforted by God means to be consoled by God.
The more that the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, the more comfort or refreshment we will be able to enjoy. If we are going to minister something of God in Christ to others, we have to suffer to have the experience. It is by the way of the cross that we may have some riches of Christ to minister to others. The ministry comes out in no other way but by the working of the cross.
Paul told us that God put him into a situation where he was “pressed out of measure” (v. 8 — KJV), or “excessively burdened” in order that he might be able to comfort others. You may have asked yourself why you have so many troubles. You may have trouble with your spouse, with your children, and even with your physical body. Have you noticed that in this book there is the phrase “excessively burdened,” or “pressed out of measure”? You may be pressed, but are you pressed out of measure? This means the working of the cross has terminated you, has brought you to an end.
Paul told us that he and his co-workers were excessively burdened, beyond their power or strength, so that they “despaired even of living” (v. 8). Many of the young brothers have strength. But sooner or later the Lord will press you again and again, and you will be trying to endure the suffering. Eventually, you will say, “Lord, I give up my enduring because Your pressure is something far beyond my strength.” When you are under a certain kind of suffering, never try to exercise your own strength to endure it by yourself. Never try to overcome it by yourself. You have to realize that eventually the Lord will press you beyond your strength. When the pressure comes, you may exercise all your strength — physically, mentally, and spiritually. But the more you exercise your strength, the more you will be pressed. Eventually, you will concede that the pressure is far beyond your strength. Praise the Lord for the pressing out of measure, beyond our power!
After Paul told us that he and his co-workers were so burdened that they despaired even of living, he said, “Indeed we ourselves had the response of death in ourselves, that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (v. 9). When the apostles were under the pressure of affliction, despairing even of living, they might have asked themselves what the issue of their suffering would be. The answer or response was “death.” The experience of death, however, ushers us into the experience of resurrection. Resurrection is the very God who resurrects the dead (John 11:25). The working of the cross terminates our self so that we may experience God in resurrection. The experience of the cross always issues in the enjoyment of the God of resurrection. Such experience produces and forms the ministry (2 Cor. 1:4-6). This experience is further described in 4:7-12.
Paul’s word shows us that we need to be terminated. We need to be brought to an end. Then we will learn not to trust in ourselves but in God. For us to say that we need to trust in God and not in ourselves is easy, but to be wrought through in this matter needs a certain amount of experience. God is working through the cross to terminate us. God is working to bring us to an end, even to bring our spirituality, our spiritual attainment, to an end. We may trust so much in our spiritual attainment, but even that has to be terminated.
In 1:12 Paul said, “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.” In his conscience Paul had the testimony that he was walking, moving, having his being, on this earth not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God. To some, wisdom may be a clever way to meet a situation, but this wisdom comes from our flesh. Fleshly wisdom is what we have in order to do something for ourselves. The grace of God is that we do not do anything but that God does everything within us. It is not that we do something to meet the situation but that we let God do everything in us and for us. This is the grace of God.
Paul said that he conducted himself in the singleness and sincerity of God. Singleness can also mean “simplicity.” God is simple and God is single. The more we are in the flesh and in the soul, the more complex we are. Then we do not have the simplicity but the complexity. A soulish person is very complex. But the more we are in the Holy of Holies, the spirit, the simpler we become. The more we are in the spirit, the more we are simple and single. We are single in motive, single in aim, and single in all our desires. In 1:12 are the simplicity, or singleness, of God, the grace of God, and the sincerity of God. If we have been dealt with by the cross so that the cross has brought us to an end, we will be peaceful persons who are enjoying and experiencing the grace of God taking care of everything for us. We will be so simple and so single in our motive and in our aim. We will enjoy the grace of God and have the simplicity and the singleness of God.
When the cross has been working through us, this working brings in resurrection. Therefore, 1:21-22 says that God has anointed us, has sealed us, and has given us the pledge, the foretaste, of the Spirit. If we are going to minister something of Christ to others, we have to experience Christ by the working of the cross, and the working of the cross is for the anointing, the sealing, and the pledge of the Spirit. The ministry comes out of this experience. We are now in Christ and Christ is our portion, but we experience Christ by the working of the cross. We need the working of the cross because we have the anointing, the sealing, and the foretaste, the pledge, of the Spirit within us. If we have not been brought to an end, it will be very difficult for us to take care of the inner anointing and the inner sealing. It will be hard for us to enjoy the inner pledge of the Spirit. The working of the cross is for the experience of the inner anointing, the sealing, and the inner enjoyment of the pledge of the Spirit. We all need the working of the cross so that we may enjoy the pledge of the Spirit and so that we may experience the anointing and the sealing of the Spirit.
The anointing is first, the sealing is second, and the pledge is third. God has anointed us with Himself. Anointing is like painting. The more a painter paints, the more the paint gets onto the thing that he is painting. Today God is the divine Painter. He paints us with all the elements of Himself. The more He paints us with His divine elements, the more these elements of God will be wrought into us. Thus, God’s anointing us is His imparting of all His divine elements into us. When we were unbelievers, we did not have the divine elements. We only had the human element. Since we have become believers, God is anointing Himself into us in order that we may have the divine elements dispensed into all our inward parts. God’s anointing of Himself into us is so that we may be absolutely mingled with Him, with His divine elements, to be fully one with Him.
The anointing imparts God’s elements into us, and the sealing forms the divine elements into an impression to express God’s image. If I take a seal and seal a piece of paper with it, the same figure of the seal is left on the paper. The sealing gives us the figure or the image. God has not only anointed us with all of His elements, but He has also sealed us with His own image. The more we are sealed by God, the more we will have the image of God.
Finally, we have the pledge of the Spirit. The pledge of the Spirit is the foretaste of God as a sample and guarantee of the full taste of God. God has put Himself into us as a kind of down payment or foretaste so that we can taste Him within.
We must be impressed that God has anointed us with all His elements, has sealed us with His own image, and has put Himself into us as a kind of down payment for our enjoyment. We must learn how to realize the inner anointing, how to cooperate with the inner sealing, and how to enjoy the inner pledge, down payment, earnest, foretaste, of the Holy Spirit. We do this by the working of the cross. The cross has to bring us to an end. Then we can say, “Lord, now I have the sentence of death. I am despairing of my life. I am through. I am finished.” Immediately, we will sense the inner anointing, the inner sealing, and even the inner pledge of the Spirit. Through these three experiences of the Spirit as the anointing, the sealing, and the pledge, with the experience of the cross, the ministry of Christ is produced. By the working of the cross with the inner anointing, sealing, and foretaste or pledge, we will have the adequate experience of Christ. Then we will have the ministry which the Body desperately needs today. May the Lord be merciful to us so that we might be brought into the realization of how much we need the working of the cross to bring us to an end and of how much we need to experience the inner anointing, sealing, and pledge of the Spirit that we may have a real ministry for the Body of Christ.
