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Scripture Reading: Ezek. 36:26; Phil. 2:13; Gal. 2:20a; 1 John 2:27; Rom. 8:2, 6
We have seen what life is, what the real experience of life is, and that the first experience of life is regeneration. In this chapter we will see how to experience life. By the first experience of life we receive the very divine life. Now after we have received life, we need to constantly experience life. The proper way to experience, enjoy, and apply the life we have received is very practical, yet many dear brothers and sisters do not exactly and definitely know the way. In order to know how to experience the life that we have received, we must realize that at the time we received the Lord as our Savior and were saved and regenerated, something happened to us related to ourselves and related to God. Here we will point out a few very important and vital matters, although in actuality there are more than these.
First, at the time the Lord regenerated us He gave us a new heart. Our heart has been changed. Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Our old heart is hard, like a piece of stone. Here it is called the heart of stone. However, at the time the Lord regenerated us, He renewed our heart and changed our heart from a stony heart to a heart of flesh. A heart of flesh is a softened heart, a soft and tender heart. It is also a conscious heart. Since our original heart was old, it was hard for it to have a proper consciousness.
At the same time, the Lord also gave us a new spirit. Our old spirit was a dead spirit. Before we were regenerated, we were dead in our spirit, but at the time the Lord came in to regenerate us, He renewed and enlivened our spirit. Our spirit became a living and new spirit. A new heart is a softened heart, and a new spirit is an enlivened, living spirit.
Here we must point out the difference between the functions of the heart and the functions of the spirit. Many Christians consider that the heart is the spirit, and the spirit is the heart; they take it for granted that these are synonyms. However, these are two items with different functions.
The heart is an organ for loving and for desiring. We love and desire to do things by the heart. For example, I love to read the Scriptures, and I may love a certain drink. This is the function of the heart. However, we cannot receive something with our heart. I may love to drink water, but I cannot drink water with my heart, and I cannot store water with my heart. I need another organ — the mouth — in order to drink the water, and yet another organ — the stomach — in order to store the water. Similarly, we may love a certain color with our heart. We can shut our eyes and say, “I love this color,” but we cannot contact and realize the color with our heart. We need another organ, the seeing organ, the eyes, to substantiate what the heart loves. It is the same with music. The heart is an organ that can love music, but we need another organ, the hearing organ, the ears, to hear music.
Do you love the Bible? To be sure, you do, but with what part of you do you love it? You love the Bible with your heart. However, if I hand a Bible to you, you cannot receive it with your heart. You love it with your heart, but you must take it with your hand. In the same principle, we love the Lord with our heart, but we receive the Lord with our spirit. Why, after giving us a new heart, did the Lord also need to give us a new spirit? It is simply because the heart is a loving organ and not a receiving organ. It is the spirit that can contact God. John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” Strictly speaking, we cannot contact God by our heart. We must contact God by our spirit. We love the Lord, but we must realize that the Lord is Spirit, so we need our human spirit as a receiving and contacting organ to contact the Lord. At the time the Lord came in to regenerate us, He gave us a new heart and a new spirit. A new heart is for us to love Him, and a new spirit is for us to contact Him.
When we were unsaved, we did not have a heart to love the Lord. We may even have hated the Lord. Praise the Lord, at the time He regenerated us, He gave us a new heart to love Him, and now we do love Him! After we are saved, we always have a longing heart to love the Lord. About fifteen years ago, when I was in Brother Watchman Nee’s city preaching the gospel, hundreds of people were saved. The next week the church had a baptism, and many people came. The responsible brothers were busy taking care of affairs, so I was asked to help them. I and another brother contacted some new ones before baptizing them. When a certain young lady came to us, I asked her, “Do you love the Lord?” She wept and said, “Oh, I do love the Lord.” I asked, “Why do you love the Lord?” She answered, “I do not know. I just love Him.” I said to the other brother, “This is good enough. I am one hundred percent sure that this is one of our sisters.”
How can we know that we are saved? We simply love Jesus. Even while we are sinning, we still love Him. Perhaps some may not agree with this. They may ask, “How can someone who is sinning still love the Lord?” Yes, on the one hand, a person is weak while sinning. But on the other hand, there is something deep in his heart longing to love the Lord. It is the longing heart that causes believers to repent after they have sinned. They may feel shameful to come back to contact the Lord, but they know that the Lord is within them. Our longing heart to love the Lord is a strong proof and confirmation that we have been saved.
In addition, before we were saved, we did not have a living spirit, so we could not contact the Lord, but at the same time that we received a longing heart to love the Lord, we also received a living spirit. The Lord is the Spirit, and we have a living spirit, and with this spirit we can contact the Lord as the Spirit. Receiving a new heart and a new spirit are the two main matters related to ourselves that took place in regeneration. Our heart has been renewed, and our spirit has been renewed. So now we are able, qualified, and equipped to love the Lord and to contact Him.
In addition, something related to the Lord Himself also took place in us. God the Father came into us, God the Son came into us, and God the Spirit also came into us. Now the Triune God is abiding in us. God makes an abode with us. This is not a small, temporary abode; rather, it is His dwelling place. Philippians 2:13 proves that God the Father is in us. It says, “It is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” Moreover, Galatians 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Then 1 John 2:27 says, “As for you, the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you.” This shows that God the Spirit as the anointing abides within us. The Father works in us, the Son lives in us, and the Spirit is always anointing in us.
The Holy Spirit of God is constantly anointing us. An anointing is like a cream that we apply to our face to soothe it with a pleasant feeling. Moreover, the Son is alive and living inside of us. Likewise, the Father is the God of His plan, the God of His will, so He operates within us the willing and the working. In this way, the Triune God makes an abode with us, that is, He dwells within us. We have become the resting place of the Triune God. Do we realize that such a wonderful thing has happened to us? The three persons of the Triune God are now within us. If we truly realized that the Triune God is abiding in us, we would be ecstatic.
The three persons of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — are living and dwelling within us. This is not a small matter. If today the president of the United States came to our house, we would be ecstatic. But do we realize that the Triune God is now practically dwelling within us? You may say that you realize this, but how many times have you praised and thanked the Lord about this until you were beside yourself? Have you ever praised the Lord in this way? The very Triune God dwells within us! This is something wonderful and beyond our imagination.
We need to realize the two aspects spoken of above. Something related to ourselves happened to us, that is, a new heart and a new spirit were given to us. In addition, something related to God happened to us, that is, the three persons of the Triune God — the Father, the Son and the Spirit — are now dwelling within us. If we realize these two aspects, these wonderful facts, we will have the standing to know how to experience life. We have a new heart, a new spirit, and the Triune God living, abiding, and dwelling within us.
The very life that we have received is the Triune God. We often say that this life is the life of the Lord or the life of God. However, only once does the New Testament speak of the life of God (Eph. 4:18). It also does not speak of the life of Christ; rather, it speaks of Christ as life. There is a difference between the life of Christ and Christ as life. A person has the life of his mother and father, but he may not have his mother and father themselves. However, we cannot have the life of Christ without having Christ Himself. This is impossible. The life we have of Christ is Christ Himself; the life that we have received of God is God Himself. If we do not have God and Christ, we do not have life. We must realize that the life we have received and enjoy is the very Triune God Himself — God in Christ through the Spirit — who is living, dwelling, and working within us.
Now we may see the way to experience the life that we have received. Romans 8:2 says, “The law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.” This verse speaks of four matters: a law, the Spirit, life, and Christ Jesus. The law is of the Spirit, the Spirit is of life, and this law has freed us in Christ Jesus. Christ is the Spirit, the Spirit is life, and with this life there is a law.
With any kind of life there is a certain law. A kind of law always accompanies a life. With the physical life there are many laws. After we eat a meal, there is a law within our body, especially in our stomach, to carry out the digestion. This is an automatic, unconscious action. If something operates unconsciously in us, it is a law. When we have trouble with our stomach, we are conscious of our digestion, but if we are normal and healthy, there is no consciousness of digestion. Rather, there is an automatic working in our stomach, which is a law. Gravity is also a law. If someone throws a book into the air, there is no need to beg it to come down. It always comes down according to a law.
There is always a law within us. We have Christ in us, Christ is the Spirit, and this Spirit is the Spirit of life, even life itself. Within this very life there is a law. In order to know how to experience life, we must know that this very life within us has a law, which is called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. With such a law it is so easy to experience life.
Verse 6 goes on to say, “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” This verse speaks of death on the one hand and of life and peace on the other. How can we know whether or not we are in the spirit? It is simply by checking whether or not we have life and peace. If we have life and peace, we are in the spirit. If we do not have life and peace, we have death, which proves that we are not in the spirit.
It is easy to understand the way to sense, or realize, that we have peace. The peace mentioned here is not an outward peace in our circumstances but an inward peace, a peace in our spirit, in our heart, and in our whole being. We know that we have peace in our whole being because we can sense it and have a consciousness of it. There are at least four items related to the inward peace. The first is joy, or happiness. To not have joy means that we do not have peace; if we have peace, to be sure, we will have joy. Joy always goes along with peace. Peace is the “elder sister,” and joy is the “second sister.” In addition, we have rest. Peace is a matter of joy in rest. Comfort and ease are also related to peace. When we have peace, we have joy, rest, comfort, and ease. All these can be sensed by us as the consciousness of life. Do we have joy, rest, comfort, and ease? If we say yes to the first item, we must say yes to all the other items. We cannot say that we have joy and not the other items. We know that we have these because we sense them as the consciousness of life. This proves that we are in the spirit.
As believers we may sin, but while sinning, we still have a heart to love the Lord. At that very moment we sense something contrary to peace. We do not have peace, joy, rest, comfort, and ease. Rather, we have unrest and something within disturbing us. We know we are in spirit, in life, by the deep inner sense, the inner consciousness. Likewise, we know we are not in life when we sense that we do not have peace but conflict, something contradicting and disturbing. By the word peace in this verse, the apostle speaks of the inner sense, the inner feeling. If our mind is set on the spirit, we have peace. This is something of a consciousness, a sense.
Life follows the same principle as peace. When we have Christ, we have life, and when we are in life and enjoying life, we have a certain sense. First, we sense strength. The weakest person is a dead person. Physically speaking, a person may be so weak that he cannot even walk or stand, and when he is weak to the extent that he cannot even breathe, he dies. Similarly, when we are not in life, we are weak to the degree that we cannot even pray. If we do not have life, we do not have strength. Some come to the meetings in a weak condition, because the whole afternoon they are in death. If we are strong throughout the entire week, we will come to the meetings in a strong way. Something will energize us to jump up like popcorn and speak. We will not be able to sit silently. This is the first item related to life.
The second item related to life is the life supply. After eating a good meal, we have strength, energy, and satisfaction. In the same way, if we have life and are in life, we are satisfied and full of the life supply. We are not hungry or thirsty. To feel that we are hungry and thirsty in the spirit simply means that we do not have a sufficient life supply.
The third item related to life is that we have light; we are not in darkness. The fourth item is liberty. When we are in life, we have strength, satisfaction, light, and liberty. We should check with our experience. If we are in life, in the spirit, we have peace, which includes joy, rest, comfort, and ease. We also have life, which includes energy, satisfaction, light, and liberty. However, if we do not walk in the spirit, we have death. Death includes all the items contrary to the above eight matters related to life and peace. When we are weak and in darkness, this means we are in death. We can sense whether or not we have life and peace. All these items are a consciousness to us, and we can sense them.
Therefore, the way to experience Christ as life is simple. Romans 8:2 and 6 give us the way. Christ as the Spirit within us has a law. When we are in life, this automatic law always regulates us to sense peace, joy, happiness, comfort, and ease. When we are not in the Spirit of life, this law regulates us to feel that we are in darkness, that we are weak and do not have peace and rest. We must simply go along with the inner feeling, which comes automatically with the law of the Spirit of life. If we are about to say something that is not in the spirit, not in life, right away the automatic law spontaneously regulates us within. This is something within Christians that is wonderful yet mysterious.
How can we know that we are saved? We have been regenerated with a new heart and a new spirit, and the Triune God as life dwells within us. Our longing heart that loves the Lord is a strong proof that we are saved. In addition, with the Triune God dwelling within us, there is a natural, automatic, regulating law, living and spontaneously regulating us. If we have no law regulating us, it is doubtful that we are saved. When I was young, before I was regenerated, the more I quarreled with others, the more I felt self-glorified. Now after having been regenerated, there is something different within me. The more I quarrel, the more I am sorry. How do we know that we are saved persons? It is simply by the inner, living, automatic, spontaneous regulation. Even when we make a small mistake, something within regulates us. It is a law that is delicate and tender, yet deep and strong. Do not despise this law.
We have a spontaneous regulating law within us. This is the simple way to experience life. Sometimes, simply because we do not have this knowledge, we may go to the Lord and pray that He will help and strengthen us. However, if we neglect this law, no matter how much we pray, we will still not be strong. Within us is an automatic law working spontaneously, and this law is unlimitedly powerful.
Praise the Lord, the Triune God as life is within us, and with this life is the automatic law which spontaneously regulates us! If we are in life, this law regulates us to sense life and peace, and when we are not in this life, this law regulates us to sense that we are in death, weakness, and darkness without joy, comfort, satisfaction, and all the items on the positive side. This is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We should simply receive it and apply it day by day. Then we will realize how powerful the law of the divine life is.
