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Scripture Reading: Gal. 2:20; 5:16, 25; 4:19; 6:7, 8b, 14-15, 18
In this chapter we will continue to fellowship concerning the way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit — the aggregate of the all-embracing blessing of the full gospel of God.
First, I would like to present something further regarding the matter, mentioned in the previous chapter, of our being identified with Christ in His death that it may be no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us (Gal. 2:20). To be identified with someone, we must first have a union with him. We cannot have communion, that is, fellowship, without first having union. In the Old Testament the priests laid their hands on the sacrifices that they offered. This signified their union with the offerings. Actually, however, the priests were still the priests, and the offerings were the offerings. Union is not by a physical means; union must be by the Spirit. If the Lord were not a Spirit or if we did not have a human spirit, it would be impossible for the Lord and us to have a union. First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit,” and 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” To be identified with the Lord means to be one spirit with Him and even to be one entity with Him. To be one entity with the Lord means that we become Him and He becomes us, that is, that He and we become one. This is a deeper union than that of a husband and wife. A couple’s union is not absolute; they can still be divorced. However, just as our body cannot divorce our head, it is impossible for us to “divorce” the Lord. We are one entity with Him.
We become one with the Lord by believing into Him. Certain verses in the New Testament, such as John 3:16, speak of our believing not merely in Christ but into Christ. Our believing into the Lord is a fact, not merely a saying. Galatians 3:27 says, “As many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” To realize that we have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ requires the exercise of our believing ability. Many times when we preach the gospel to sinners, we do not speak concerning deep spiritual matters because we believe that they will not be able to understand them. This is wrong. We should tell people, “Dear friends, today you can be in Christ, and Christ is waiting to enter into you. Let me tell you how this can be. God is a Spirit, and one day two thousand years ago this God became a man by the name of Jesus. This man lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He went to the cross to die for you and for your sins. He was buried and was resurrected on the third day. Now I will tell you a wonder: on the third day this Jesus in His resurrection became a life-giving Spirit. In brief, Jesus became a Spirit. You might have heard the name of Jesus, but you probably do not know who and what Jesus is. Jesus is God the Spirit. He is in me, and I am bringing Jesus as the Spirit to you. While I am speaking to you, He is speaking. If you believe in Him and call on Him, you will get into Him, and He will get into you.”
To be identified with the Lord is to be one spirit with Him. It is a fact that Jesus today is the Spirit waiting to enter into anyone who believes in Him. If a person exercises his inner being to call on Jesus, regardless of his race, color, or culture, Jesus comes as the Spirit and enters into him. Following this, the person must be baptized. To be baptized is to be put into Christ, signifying what we have received through our believing. To be baptized is also to put Christ upon us. In baptism there is a two-way traffic. We enter into Jesus, and we put Jesus upon us. This is not a form or ritual; it is a fact. When we baptize people, we should tell them that we are not putting them only into the water; we are putting them into Jesus Christ as the Spirit. From the time that he is baptized, the baptized person is in Christ, and Christ is upon him like a garment. This is a fact in which we must believe, and we must have the assurance and boldness to tell this to people.
Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” It is easy for us to believe that we are baptizing people into water, because water is visible; but because of our lack of realization, we may not have the boldness and assurance to tell people that we are baptizing them into the Triune God. Because of our weakness, the Lord did not say here that we should baptize people into the Triune God directly, but that we should do this indirectly by baptizing people into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In reality, however, the name is the sum total of the Divine Being, equivalent to His person. To baptize someone into the name of the Triune God is to immerse him into all that the Triune God is. If we go out to contact others without this assurance and boldness, we will have no power. We ourselves must have the experience that we are really in Jesus and that Jesus is really in us. Then we can go out to preach what we have experienced with boldness and full assurance.
We must believe what we preach, and we must believe that when we baptize people, we put them into the Triune God. The baptized one is in the Triune God; he is in Jesus, and Jesus is in him. Now he and Jesus, Jesus and he, are one. They are two persons united together to be one person. Therefore, the baptized one is identified with Christ. If we are those who have this assurance, we will not preach the gospel in a poor and weak way to others. Before we go out to preach to others, we must first pray ourselves into the Spirit and into the Word of God. We should pray for at least twenty minutes, not mainly for sinners to be saved but for ourselves. We may pray, “Lord, be merciful to empower us. Put us into Yourself. When we go out, go in us and cause us to go in You. We do not want to go out without being in You.” After twenty minutes we will have the assurance that He is in us and that we are in Him. Then we will have the genuine boldness and power. This assurance, boldness, and power added together equals the Spirit.
After a person has been baptized, we should go back to him to tell him that he is one with Jesus. Jesus died on the cross, and since we are one with Him, we died there also (2 Cor. 5:14). We are identified with Him in His death in order that it may be no longer we who live. This was the reason that we died with Him. We needed to be terminated, and now we have been germinated. Now Christ lives in us. This is the higher gospel that we need to preach to the newly baptized ones. We must believe that people are able to understand such a gospel.
Christ’s living in us must be a fact, not merely a doctrine or a declaration. When we awake in the morning, we should call on the Lord a number of times before we do anything else. If we will do this, by the time we have made our beds, we will be different persons. Calling on the Lord in this way will help us to experience Christ living in us. Copying two verses from the Bible after our morning revival and taking them in a little at a time throughout the day will also help us to experience Christ living in us. We should not care merely for the doctrine of Christ living in us. We should care for the fact.
According to Galatians 2:20, the life that we now live in the flesh we live in the faith of Christ. We live a life in the flesh, but we live this life in the faith of Christ. We do not live such a life in our faith but in Christ’s faith, even in Christ as our faith. When we live in this way, we enjoy Christ and appreciate Christ, and Christ within us becomes our present faith. This means that we put ourselves absolutely aside. Nothing is left within us but Christ. Christ is everything to us to such an extent that He even becomes our faith. This is a great matter.
We all need to see that our believing in Jesus and our being baptized into Him means that He comes into us and we are put into Him so that He and we become one. He is in us, and we are in Him. This is possible only because of the two spirits. He is the divine Spirit, and we have a human spirit. The divine Spirit is in our human spirit. Therefore, in our spirit we are one spirit with Him. He died, and we died in Him. We live, but He lives in us. We are still living, yet we live this life not by anything of ourselves but by Him as everything, even as our faith. We all need to see this. This is not merely a doctrine; it must be our experience.
The sixth way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by living and walking by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25). Living and walking by the Spirit is equivalent to having our being by the Spirit. The Spirit is in our human spirit (Rom. 8:16). It is often difficult in Paul’s writings for translators to determine whether spirit should be capitalized or not. The spirit in Paul’s writings is the mingled spirit, the Spirit who is in our spirit.
After rising up in the morning, we should do everything by our spirit. We must begin our day by living and walking in our spirit. If we rise up in a loose way, we will spoil the whole day. The best thing to do after rising up is to call on the name of the Lord. When we call “O Lord Jesus,” we are in the spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). Calling in this way brings us back from everything to our spirit. Then we will have a good beginning of the day, and we will be able to face any situation. We will be able to encounter every circumstance by our spirit. This is to live and to walk by the Spirit. This experience follows the experience of being identified with Christ in His death in order that He may live in us. Without experiencing the identification with Christ, we cannot live and walk by the Spirit.
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ as the Spirit is also by having Christ formed in us through travail. Galatians 4:19 says, “My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.” In Galatians 1:16 Christ is revealed in us; in 2:20 Christ lives in us; and in 3:27 Christ is upon us, clothing us like a garment. Now, in 4:19 Christ is formed in us.
The second stanza of Hymns, #499 says,
The last two lines in the Chinese say that all that we are has been terminated, and Christ’s all in all has become our element. Now His element is everything to us. This is the meaning of Christ’s being formed in us. In his writings Paul also uses the words transformed (2 Cor. 3:18) and conformed (Rom. 8:29). If we are not transformed, Christ has not been formed in us. Christ’s being formed in us depends on our being transformed. We are transformed to His image, and He is formed in us. Our being transformed and His being formed cause us to be conformed to His image. Our being conformed to His image is His being formed in us further.
Romans 12:2a says, “Do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Here the term renewing is used with transformed. This indicates that to have Christ formed in us is to have the three parts of our soul — our mind, emotion, and will — renewed. Our mind is the leading part of our soul. To have our mind renewed is to have Christ “invade” our mind. Our mind, emotion, and will are filled with our self and the world. To be renewed in our mind is to remove our self and the world from our mind, emotion, and will and replace them with Christ. If we are renewed in this way, Christ will be formed in us, and our mind, emotion, and will will be like Him. Every part of our inner being will bear the image of Christ. This is to have Christ formed in us. When we think, we will be like Christ. When we love or hate, like or dislike, we will be like Christ. When we choose or reject, we will be like Christ.
However, most of us are not like this yet. At times we may think noble thoughts, but in our practical life our mind is not like Christ. Our mind simply expresses our self with the world. It is the same with our emotion. We may love, laugh, and weep by the self and the world, not by Christ. This indicates that Christ has not been formed in us. Christ has not invaded our mind, emotion, and will to replace the self and the world with Himself. Many times when people talk, their talk is full of the self and the element of the world. The mind, emotion, and will of such persons are filled with the self and the element of the world. What is formed in them is the self with the world, and they are the expression of the self and the world. We can never be an expression of Christ until Christ has invaded our entire inner being to chase the self and the world out of our mind, emotion, and will and replace them with Himself. Then our inner being will bear the form, the image, of Christ.
According to Paul’s usage in the New Testament, the form is the outward expression of the inner being (see Phil. 2:6 and footnote 2, Recovery Version). If we are full of the self and love the world in our inner being, our outward form will simply be the self and the world. In selecting a pair of shoes, a necktie, or a car, our choice will express the world and indicate that our emotions, our likes and dislikes, are full of the self and the world. But if Christ has invaded, conquered, and subdued us and has chased the self and the world out of our inner being and replaced the self and the world with Himself, we will express Him. What we are is expressed in our outward form. If Christ replaces the self and the world in our mind, emotion, and will, we will have the form of Christ. The Galatians were occupied by Judaism; thus, in their outward form they expressed Judaism. Therefore, Paul said, “My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). Paul had to suffer like a mother, travailing for the Galatians until Christ replaced the self and the world in them with Himself.
Another way to receive, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is by sowing unto the Spirit with the desire and aim of the Spirit in view, to accomplish what the Spirit desires (6:7, 8b). Our human living is a sowing. Whatever we do, we are sowing seeds, and whatever we sow, we will reap. If we sow something high and good, we will reap the same, and if we sow something mean and low, we can expect to reap the same thing. Everything that we do in our daily life is a sowing. We should not think that the way we comb our hair is a small matter. Even this is a sowing. After a certain period of time, we will reap what we have sown. Galatians 6:8 says, “He who sows unto his own flesh will reap corruption of the flesh, but he who sows unto the Spirit will of the Spirit reap eternal life.” We must endeavor to sow properly. If we sow according to the Spirit, we will reap according to the Spirit.
Our sowing unto the Spirit is with the desire and aim of the Spirit in view. Our desire and aim are not ours but the Spirit’s. Christ lives in us, but our sowing may be according to our own desire. We may comb our hair in a certain way because of our own desire. However, when we comb our hair, we must have the desire and aim of the Spirit in view. Our desire and aim should be that the style of our hair would express the Lord whom we love, who is the Spirit within us, that people could even see Christ in our hair style. In our sowing we must have the desire and aim of the Spirit in view, to accomplish the aim of the Spirit. Whatever we have, wear, or do should correspond with the Spirit’s purpose, desire, and intention. What we will reap depends on what we sow.
To sow to the Spirit in this way is to receive, experience, and enjoy the Spirit as the all-embracing blessing of the gospel. If we live a life without the Spirit and sow according to the flesh, we cannot expect to enjoy Christ as the all-embracing blessing. Several years ago the major denominations in America came together to consider a joint work to evangelize the world. Their conclusion was that they could not do this because of the shortage of persons. There are many millions of Christians in America today, but how many of them are living Christ? How many are living Christ in the way that they comb their hair or purchase shoes? This is not a small matter. Our purchasing of a necktie is a sowing. The reaping will come when we stand before people with our tie to preach the gospel. If the tie is too worldly, our preaching will be empty. If we are not dressed according to the Spirit, people will not have the heart to listen to our message. To sow to the Spirit is to live Christ, and this is to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ.
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ as the Spirit is also by boasting in the cross of Christ and living a new creation, which is neither religion nor nonreligion (vv. 14-15). The cross of Christ is our boast. We boast in the fact that everything has been terminated on the cross. The love of cars, the love of a big house, and the love of stylish fashions have all been terminated. Everything has been “crossed out.” This is our boast. Now we are living a new creation. Since we boast in the cross, we cannot live in the old creation; we must live in the new creation. Everything must be new because we are a new creation in Christ. This is the way to enjoy Christ.
The consummate way to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ as the Spirit is by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with our spirit. The book of Galatians concludes with 6:18: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.” The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ being with our spirit is the way to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ.
