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Second Corinthians 3:6 says, “Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit.” We should note that this verse speaks of ministers and not ministry. Ministry is different from the ministers. Ministry refers to the work, whereas the ministers are the persons, just as elders and deacons are persons. In Chinese we sometimes add the word many in order to distinguish the two words, speaking of the “many ministers” of the new covenant. This is correct because in verse 6 ministers is plural.
According to 2 Corinthians 3, the ministers of the new covenant are not of the letter. Letter conveys many meanings. In literal terms, it refers to the words in black and white. With regard to its intrinsic meaning, it refers to the dead Scripture. Letter in this chapter does not refer to the New Testament, because at that time the New Testament had not yet been written. Instead, it refers to the Old Testament, in particular, the Scriptures written on stone tablets. The meaning of letter also includes dead knowledge. The knowledge that comes from the dead letter is also considered as letter. Moreover, letter also refers to ordinances. Today as the many ministers of the new covenant, we are not of the dead ordinances, the dead Scripture, or the dead knowledge. Instead, we are of the Spirit. Our every work and our walk, whether to go door-knocking, bring people to salvation, baptize people, or conduct home meetings, require us to be men of the Spirit.
Our problem lies in this — our spiritual level is too poor. We may do many things outwardly, such as pray, confess our sins, and seek the filling of the Holy Spirit. In fact, however, we may very much be under the influence of rituals and letters. Even our praying, confessing, and seeking the filling of the Spirit can become rituals and not come out from the spirit by our living in the spirit. The genuine living that comes out from the spirit is without ordinances and rituals. If our living comes from the spirit, then our prayer, being dealt with, and seeking will not merely be the fulfilling of a spiritual duty according to rituals. Rather, we will pray even more, be dealt with more thoroughly, and be filled to the uttermost.
Perhaps some will say that they are not merely fulfilling duties; they are sincere and true, keeping a time with the Lord every day. This may be true, but their practice may still be a routine practice of keeping the rules sincerely and truly. One may pray, confess his sins, and seek the filling of the Holy Spirit sincerely and truly, yet he still may not touch the spirit even a little. This kind of praying, confessing, and seeking is still very much of the letter. Although the thing done seems very spiritual, the doing of it is still of the letter. This proves that such persons themselves are of the letter. If someone asks you why you pray in this way, you may answer that it is because the Bible teaches us to do this. These words sound good, yet within these good words there is an implication that is not good. This answer indicates that you are merely one who keeps the rules. Thus, you have not prayed in the spirit, and it is not the Spirit that leads you to pray. You are of the ordinances, of the letter, and not of the Spirit.
Regarding this matter, we must receive life and spiritual cultivation in a practical way. We need to receive a nurturing in life that we may be persons of the Spirit and not of the letter. If we have no ordinances or rituals, yet we still live a life that is higher than others’, this will prove that we are not of the letter but of life and of the Spirit. Only a man can do the work of man. If a monkey is trained to behave like a man, it is still a monkey, and it cannot do the work of man. Our burden is that we all will see that we must follow the Spirit in life and live in the spirit. It is a matter not of outward practices, rituals, and ordinances but of being cultivated to grow in life.
A fruit tree requires cultivation and special care in order to grow well. Those who work in orchards know that if fruit trees are not protected, cultivated, and pruned, they will not bear much fruit, and they may even be damaged. Still, cultivation is only an outward help for the inner life. No matter how much a farmer cultivates his fruit trees, he cannot replace the life of the trees. He can hang artificial fruit on the trees, but that kind of fruit is “of the letter,” and the trees themselves will be “of the letter.” Artificial fruit is not the fruit of life that is cultivated, grown, developed, and borne through the life within the trees. We must avoid this principle. If the expression of our life is merely an outward hanging of fruit, it is only a decoration, not the issue of our life within. This kind of fruit will be tested by the environment and by time. After a few months of testing, the artificial fruit will become old, break, and fail one after the other. Eventually, we will have nothing; we will be exposed to the uttermost. Therefore, regardless of what situation we are in, whether good or bad, we need to grow in life. Growth develops the nurturing we have obtained and strengthens the content of our inner life.
We must also pay attention to our character. It is difficult for us to receive help regarding our character. To keep ordinances is easy, and to pick up new things is also easy, but to properly build up our character is not easy. This is because the building up of character is related to our weightiness in life.
We all have seen children singing hymns, and we are truly touched by them. Yet no matter how much they touch us and even stir us to tears, we still realize that they are children. They can try their best to behave in a certain way, and they can even act like old adults, but no matter how much they perform, they are still children. Their true outward expression depends not on how hard they try to perform but on the normal growth of the life within them. We need to take care of this principle.
What can truly be a help to others is very much related to the weightiness of our life. For a person to be loose in his character is a proof that his spiritual life is immature. When one person weeps or laughs, others can see his immaturity, but when someone else weeps and laughs in the same way, others can see his maturity. A person’s expressions and feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight are the manifestations of the actual weight of his life. No one can pretend in this matter. The building up of a person’s character is altogether a matter of life.
More than thirty years ago we had a training on thirty traits of character. At that time one hundred twenty persons joined the training. Those who were twenty-five then are now close to sixty. To my impression, however, their character now is not much different from what it was when they were twenty-five. Some of them now have gotten married and had children, and some of their children have already graduated from college. Still, their character has never changed much; they are mostly the same. Originally they were loose, and now they are still loose in the same way. This is a cause of concern to us. I hope that the young people, including the full-time trainees, as they begin to learn how to serve the Lord, will receive the training of their character in a serious and strict way, forsaking all performance and pretense and gaining a genuine weightiness in their inner life.
When we conduct a home meeting, the first impression that people in the home obtain from us is not what message we speak or how we teach them but what kind of person we are. Their first impression is whether we are light persons or weighty persons, whether we are loose or grave. The Bible tells us that as those who serve the Lord, elders and deacons should have the same kind of character, one which is “grave” (1 Tim. 3:2-4, 8). Grave is a very good term, meaning solid, weighty, and not light. Some people may say that young people are simply young, and we cannot expect a twenty year old to be grave. Please remember, though, that gravity depends not on age but on how much weight one has and how much element of life is within him. If what is within you is “cotton fluff,” you will have no weight, but if what is within you is gold, you will be very weighty.
We can discern from the way a person lives whether he is light and frivolous or grave and proper. A person cannot hide or pretend in this matter. Our inner weight depends on what is within us. If there is much of God as gold within us, we will truly be weighty. If our life is light and flighty, it is because we do not have enough of God within us. Today in the church there are still some older ones whose behavior gives people a feeling of lightness. Hence, our being grave depends not on our age but on the addition of God as life within us.
We must learn that to go out to work is not to perform or act. Our going out to work is a matter of our living. The spiritual weight within us spontaneously becomes our character. We are ministers of the new covenant, those who are regenerated, sanctified, transformed, conformed by God, and inwardly filled with God. Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Ultimately, we all will be transformed into His image. According to the usage in the New Testament, image refers not merely to an outward form but to the outward expression of the inner being. The expression of what we are is our image; our image is exactly according to who we are inwardly in our being. Therefore, to be transformed into the image of the Lord does not mean merely to look like Him outwardly. Commonly speaking, we may say that a picture of us is our image, but according to the usage of image in the Bible, a picture alone can never be our image. Our image is not merely our outward appearance; it is the expression of what we are.
Society today teaches people to do things outwardly instead of caring for what they are inwardly. Being a minister, however, is not a matter of doing but of being. It is not our adjusting and adorning ourselves outwardly; it is a matter of our own being. We often hear people say that a certain person gives a good impression. This refers not to that person’s simple outward appearance but to the impression he gives to people by his behavior. The impression that a person’s inward being conveys to people is his image. Today our going to different places to work is to allow people to see our image, our actual being.
Therefore, we as the ministers of the new covenant must definitely remember that we are not of the letter, ordinances, teachings, or certain methods. Rather, we are of the Spirit and of life in a weighty way. This is what we need to be.
Second Corinthians 3:8 speaks about the ministry of the Spirit. Ministers, plural, is the many ministers, and ministry refers to the unique ministry. Whereas ministers refers to people, the ministry refers to the work done by people. We, the ministers, are of the Spirit. Our work, however, is not merely of the Spirit; it is the ministry of the Spirit. There is a difference between being of something and being that thing. To say that something is of gold means that it has some gold in it, but to say that it is gold means that the whole object is gold. A golden necklace, for example, may not merely be of gold, that is, plated with gold; rather, it may be entirely of gold. Today our work is the Spirit. The Bible first tells us that the word is spirit (John 6:63). Then in Ephesians 6:17 Paul states this the other way around, saying that the Spirit is the word of God. Bible translators have had a controversy over this verse, which speaks of the sword of the Spirit. Most people understand that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God; that is, the word is the sword. According to the Greek grammar, however, it is the Spirit, not the sword, that is the word.
We should not merely say that the work we are doing today is a spiritual work. Rather, the work we do today is the Spirit. The Lord Jesus took the lead in the New Testament to say, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit” (John 6:63). According to this principle, we can also say that the work which the Lord has given to us is spirit. The work, the ministry, of the new covenant is a ministry of the Spirit, not merely a spiritual ministry. In Greek, phrases such as ministry of the Spirit comprise words in apposition. Just as the love of God means that God and love are one, and the life of God means that God and life are one, the ministry of the Spirit means that the Spirit and the ministry are one. The work we go out to do is not merely a spiritual work but is also a work that is the Spirit. The Lord said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (v. 63). We may also say that doctrine profits nothing; only the Spirit gives life. If the word we speak is spirit, it will give life. Therefore, all the revelations of the New Testament require us to become spirit. When we become those who are filled with the Spirit, the words we speak will be spirit, and the work we do will also be spirit. Our ministry will not only be spiritual but will be spirit.
Colossians 1:27 says, “To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The mystery here is the mystery of God, the mystery hidden in God. This mystery has a glory, which is the glory of the mystery. God has a mystery, and this mystery is one that has glory. Moreover, the glory of this mystery has riches. This mystery that has glory is Christ in us as the hope of glory. Here there is a glory and a hope of glory.
Our being spiritual and our work becoming spirit depend on how much we know the mystery of God. The mystery of God is Christ. Therefore, the extent to which we know and experience Christ as the mystery of God is the extent to which we are spiritual. To say this more simply, if the element of Christ is in us, we are spiritual. When Christ increases in us, the element of the Spirit also increases in us. There is more of the Spirit in us, because Christ is the Spirit.
Our Christian life should be the life portrayed in the Gospels, one of denying the self and taking up the cross to follow the Lord. Many people have the superficial thought that to follow the Lord is simply to walk after Him. This is not the meaning of the Lord’s word. Rather, it means that today we need to live a life of denying our self, putting the self aside, and inwardly receiving Christ as life. To receive Christ as life inwardly is the genuine way to follow Jesus. When we were saved, we may have heard that we should forsake everything to follow Jesus. We may have been very touched and willing to follow, but we may not have known how to follow. Then one day we received the light to see that the genuine following of Jesus is to put aside our self, receive the pneumatic Christ inwardly, allow Him to be our life, and let Him increase and grow in us day by day. This is the increase and growth of the Spirit in us. In this way we will one day become not only spiritual but also spirit.
Verse 27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Then verse 28 says, “Whom we announce.” We announce Him no longer as an objective One but the One whom we experience subjectively. We are not announcing One whom we have not gained, enjoyed, and experienced. Rather, we are announcing the One whom we have enjoyed. We have experienced and gained Him. He is one with us, and we are one with Him. In other words, we are announcing ourselves, but it is no longer we but Christ in us.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” To be sure, we announce Christ, but now He is no longer only the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended One. Now He is the One who is living in us. We are preaching such a subjective Christ. In Philippians 1:21 Paul says, “To me, to live is Christ.” Can we say that to us to live is Christ? Sometimes we dare not say this. If we say this, others may ask, “Is Christ the way you are? You lost your temper yesterday, and today you were joking. Is Christ like this?” This may give people doubts about the Christ we speak of. Nevertheless, Paul truly declares in the New Testament, “To me, to live is Christ.” In this sense, Paul became Christ. In verse 20 Paul says, “As always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death.” Paul magnified Christ not only once but “as always.” This is the One whom Paul preached. He did not announce an objective Christ. Rather, he preached a subjective Christ, the Christ whom he had enjoyed and who had become him.
Some people may say to us, “You have been saved for many years. This is why you can speak such a word. We have been saved for only several months, so we dare not say this.” This is a valid excuse, but at least we all can take this as our goal. We need to tell the Lord, “O Lord, one day I will tell others that to me, to live is Christ. From now on, to me, to live is Christ.” In our daily living we must learn to experience Christ so that day after day He will become a subjective Christ to us. In this way we can boldly, strongly, and fearlessly tell others, “To me, to live is Christ.”
What we are concerned for is not how many people are baptized. Rather, it is whether or not we can say, “To me, to live is Christ.” Methods cannot subdue people. Instead, it is the true Christ who has become our life lived out from within us. Only this is the power, only this has the authority, and only this can subdue people. We should not go out with a mere saying that “to me, to live is Christ” without being those in whom Christ can be found. We must realize that what we have learned may still not be real. Whether or not it is real altogether depends on whether or not it is Christ. This is a very serious matter. We do not want to see that, having been led here by the Lord, what we accomplish after many decades is merely a campaign, encouraging people to knock on doors all over the world. Instead, we want to see more of Christ in all of us until we all can say, “To me, to live is Christ.”
