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Scripture Reading: John 7:37-39; Phil. 1:19
In the last chapter we saw how the humanity of Jesus has so much to do with the making and producing of gifted persons. Christ as the Head of the church received all the useful, gifted persons from the Father in the position of man. This simply means that He imparted Himself as such a humanity into the rebellious ones to make them the useful, gifted persons.
Now we come to the seventh point, which is revealed in John 7:37-39: “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
This portion of the Word is very much related to the humanity of Jesus. We all know these verses well; I believe that many of us can recite them. We pay our attention in these verses mostly to the matter of the living water. And it is clear that the living water is just the Spirit. But we have probably never seen that the Spirit in this passage is much related to the humanity of Jesus. This Spirit, who is the living water flowing from within us, is constituted of the humanity of Jesus. Without the humanity of Jesus, there could never be such a Spirit. This is made clear by verse 39, which says that the Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. This proves that the Spirit was constituted with the glorified humanity of Jesus. We must realize that at this point the Scripture is speaking of a resurrected humanity.
The Spirit mentioned here is different from the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God already existed. We could never say that the Spirit of God was not yet. But the very Spirit mentioned here by the Lord Jesus was not yet. Hence, this Spirit must be something new and different from the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God was constituted only with the divine essence of God. But after the resurrection of Christ, the Spirit was constituted with something more. He not only had the divine essence but the human essence as well. Formerly, the Spirit of God was constituted with God’s essence only, but now the Spirit of Jesus is constituted not only with the essence of God but also with the essence of a man. Previously, the Spirit had only one element — the divine; now the Spirit of Jesus includes two elements — the divine and the human. Thus, before Jesus was glorified, which means before He was resurrected, the Spirit of Jesus was not yet. The Spirit with the divine essence was there, but the Spirit with both the divine and human essence was not yet.
Without the human essence the Spirit of God could not be the flowing water of life. If God would be a flowing river of life, He must be constituted with the human nature of Jesus. For example, you cannot serve tea without water. In order to serve tea, you must add tea into the water. Before Jesus was resurrected, the Spirit of God was mighty, but He could not be the flowing life in man. If He would flow in man, He required the human nature of Jesus to be added into Him. If the Spirit of God were to be the flowing life in angels, He probably would not need the humanity of Jesus. But if He is to be the flowing life to man, He requires the human element. He needs the human nature of Jesus.
It was about eighteen or twenty years ago when we began to see this matter in John 7:37-39. At that time we began to minister these things according to what we had seen and experienced. I was always a little hesitant, however, to say that today the Spirit of Jesus contains not only the divine element but also the human essence. To say this is not a small thing. We realized that some might accuse us of teaching heresy when we said that the human essence is in the Holy Spirit. How could the Holy Spirit have any human element? However, according to the light we received from the Lord and the experiences we had had in the past, we saw that this is absolutely the truth. The Spirit of Jesus today contains the human element.
Then one day I was reading again chapter 5 of The Spirit of Christ by Andrew Murray. There I received the strongest confirmation. Chapter 5 has been in this book for years, but in the concept of many, it is entirely new. Listen to what Andrew Murray says:
We know how the Son, who had from eternity been with the Father, entered upon a new stage of existence when He became flesh. When He returned to Heaven, He was still the same only-begotten Son of God, and yet not altogether the same. For He was now also, as Son of Man, the first-begotten from the dead, clothed with that glorified humanity which He had perfected and sanctified for Himself. And just so the Spirit of God as poured out at Pentecost was indeed something new...When poured out at Pentecost, He came as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the Incarnate, crucified, and exalted Christ, the bearer and communicator to us, not of the life of God as such, but of that life as it had been interwoven into human nature in the person of Christ Jesus.
Christ came not only to deliver man from the law and its curse, but to bring human nature itself again into the fellowship of the Divine life, to make us partakers of the Divine nature. He could do this, not by an exercise of Divine Power on man, but only in the path of a free, moral, and most real human development. In His own person, having become flesh, He had to sanctify the flesh...From His nature, as it was glorified in the resurrection and ascension, His Spirit came forth as the Spirit of His human life, glorified into the union with the Divine, to make us partakers of all that He had personally wrought out and acquired, of Himself and His glorified life. In virtue of His atonement, man now had a right and title to the fulness of the Divine Spirit, and to His indwelling, as never before. And in virtue of His having perfected in Himself a new holy human nature on our behalf, He could now communicate what previously had no existence — a life at once human and Divine.
Christ had entered with our human nature, in our flesh, into the Holiest of all...In our place, and on our behalf, as man and the Head of man, He was admitted into the full glory of the Divine, and His human nature constituted the receptacle and the dispenser of the Divine Spirit. And the Holy Spirit could come down as the Spirit of the God-man — most really the Spirit of God, and yet as truly the spirit of man. He could come down as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus to be in each one who believes in Jesus, the Spirit of His personal life and His personal presence, and at the same time the spirit of the personal life of the believer. Just as in Jesus the perfect union of God and man had been effected and finally completed when He sat down upon the throne, and He so entered on a new stage of existence, a glory hitherto unknown, so too, now, a new era has commenced in the life and work of the Spirit. He can now come down to witness of the perfect union of the Divine and the human, and in becoming our life, to make us partakers of it. There is now the Spirit of the glorified Jesus: He hath poured Him forth; we have received Him to stream into us, to stream through us, and to stream forth from us in rivers of blessing.
We must seek to know the New Life, the Life of Glory and Power Divine in human nature, of which the Spirit of the glorified Jesus is meant to be the Witness and the Bearer...We have the most intense personal interest in knowing and understanding what it means that Jesus is glorified, that human nature shares the life and glory of God, that the Spirit was not yet, as long as Jesus was not glorified.
This is it of which Jesus says, that whoso believeth in Him shall never thirst, but shall have rivers of waters flowing out of him. This alone it is that satisfies the soul’s thirst, and makes it a fountain to quicken others; the Personal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, revealing the Presence of the glorified Jesus.
Stated in a simple and brief way, Jesus was God incarnated to be a man. Then He was crucified and resurrected. By crucifixion and resurrection, He was transfigured from a lower to a higher form. For example, suppose we have a seed with life in it. The form is low, but if the seed is sown in the earth, it grows, through decay and death, from a lower degree to a higher (see 1 Cor. 15:37, 42-43). It was a seed, but now it has become a flower. The form of the seed is lower, while the stage of the flower is much higher. It was the same with Jesus when He was in the flesh before His crucifixion. His form was low, but by His crucifixion and resurrection, His form became higher, yet it still remained the same nature. The nature and essence were the same, but the form was different. He was flesh before His crucifixion, and He was still flesh after His crucifixion (Luke 24:39), but the form had changed. He did not through death and resurrection relinquish His flesh. He still retained the flesh but in a higher, resurrected form. Then from this resurrected and ascended Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus came forth. Whatever is in Jesus and whatever He has obtained and attained are now all in this Spirit of Jesus.
Suppose we have a teapot full of tea from which we pour a cup of tea. Obviously, whatever is in the teapot will be exactly the same as what is in the cup. The tea in the cup is the same as that in the teapot. The Spirit of Jesus came forth from the very resurrected and ascended Jesus. By this we realize that today the Spirit of Jesus has not only the divine essence but also the human essence of Jesus. There is not only divinity but also humanity. We must consider who this “Me” is in Jesus’ words: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” It is not just the divine person. It is a man. Hence, when we come to Jesus to drink of Him, we come to drink of this man. We drink not only of His divinity but even the more of His humanity. Tea has an abundance of water in it, but we do not call it water; we call it tea.
I am afraid that many of us still think that whenever we come to Jesus to drink of Him, we drink of Him only as a divine person. Few Christians today have the concept that when they drink of Jesus, they are not only drinking of a divine person but also of a human being. They are not drinking only of the divinity of Jesus but even the more of His humanity.
I have seen many who have received the so-called Pentecostal experience with the manifestation of gifts. The strange thing was that in their daily life there was no flow of life. In the meetings, they spoke frequently in tongues and exercised many of the gifts, but when they were in their homes, the flow of life was missing. For many years I have been observing this situation. Of course, concerning those who love the world and do not care for the Lord’s interest, it is understandable that they do not have the flow of life. But what is the reason that those who are so much in the manifestation of the gifts do not have it? I believe the answer is in John 7. To have the flow of life, we all must drink of the humanity of Jesus. We must drink not only of the Spirit of God but of the Spirit of an exalted person, the Spirit of an exalted man. Our understanding is that we drink only of the Spirit of God, but this is not adequate. If we drink only water, we are still short of tea. Today we need to drink some “tea.” We need to drink of the humanity of Jesus. We need to drink of the resurrected and ascended man Jesus. He is not only the Spirit of God but also the Spirit of Jesus. The bountiful supply is not of the Spirit of God but of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19).
Now let us apply all these things in a practical way. Many Christians would like to be angels. And we all expect to be powerful, spiritual, and heavenly. Perhaps you have never had the desire to be an angel, but you did hope to be a spiritual person full of power and able to do many miracles. But among millions of real Christians today, where is such a man? There are always many exaggerated reports, but once you go there, there is nothing. God’s economy today is not like that. His purpose is that we drink of this uplifted humanity. God has no intention of making us angels, but of making us normal Christians with a normal humanity. Of course, we do not mean that we must be naturally human, but “Jesusly” human. We do not need any more of this poor, fallen humanity. Our humanity is not suitable to be brought to God the Father as the meal offering. Our humanity is good only for the lake of fire.
We must learn to take the humanity of Jesus to be a proper person. If under God’s sovereignty you are a young man, you must behave yourself as a proper young man. I do not mean according to the worldly standard but according to the humanity of Jesus. If under God’s sovereignty you are a wife, a husband, a father, or a mother, you must be a proper one, not according to our standard but according to God’s standard. God’s intention is that we would have a proper family life, not by our humanity but by the humanity of Jesus. We should be different from all the other husbands or wives, whether they are good or bad. Their standard is not ours. Our standard is much higher and more practical than theirs. Ours is the humanity of Jesus.
Where is the humanity of Jesus today? We have already seen that the humanity of Jesus is in the Spirit of Jesus. If we will drink of the Spirit of Jesus, we will obtain the element of His humanity. As a husband, the Lord’s humanity will strengthen you to be a husband who is absolutely agreeable with God’s economy. It will not be according to any Christian standard or social standard. Neither Christianity nor society should be the standard of our human living. Our Christian living must be up to the standard of the humanity of Jesus.
Young people have asked me if Christians should have any kind of exercise for their health. We do need some exercise, but to exercise in the same way as the world is wrong. Even in the matter of bodily exercise, we need the humanity of Jesus. Some young people seeking to go on with the Lord have said that they could never exercise with unbelievers. I told them that they were one hundred percent right. I do not believe that any Christian who is one with the Lord can play in certain games and be on certain teams. Many times I partake of bodily exercise, but it is not according to my own natural humanity but the humanity of Jesus. It is not a matter of whether we exercise or not. It is absolutely a matter of what kind of humanity we are exercising. If you exercise your own humanity, that is wrong. We all must be one with Jesus in whatever we do by taking Him as our humanity. If we cannot take His humanity in any course of action, we had better not do it. I do not mean that we should not be a human being. We must be the best human being but not by our own humanity. We need the humanity of Jesus, and this humanity is in the Spirit of Jesus.
It is in the humanity of Jesus that we have the life, the growth of life, and the flowing of life. It is this kind of flowing life that satisfies others. If we are drinking daily of the Spirit of Jesus, whatever we are will be a flow of life that will satisfy not only ourselves but also others. Such a flow of life is not a matter of speaking in tongues or the manifestation of gifts; nor is it a matter of power, knowledge, or teaching; rather, it is a life that is always drinking of Jesus. This life is manifested not in a miraculous, divine, and heavenly way, but in a very human way.
To be a mother is a very human matter, but you should not be a mother by your own humanity but by the humanity of Jesus. I do not mean that if formerly you did not properly care for your family as a mother, you must now be more human and care for your family in a better way. That is not the revelation from the Lord but the culture of human society. What I mean is that, as a mother, you need to be a mother by the humanity of Jesus. As a wife, you need to be a wife by the humanity of Jesus.
We must be proper human beings, not by our humanity but by the Lord’s humanity. As a wife, we must be a wife by His humanity; as a husband, we must be a husband by His humanity; as a student, we must be a student by the humanity of Jesus. Eventually, we all will be so different yet so human. We will be wives, husbands, students, parents, children, and teachers by the humanity of Jesus. If we are this kind of person, we will have the flow of life that will satisfy others. I believe that if all the brothers and sisters who are teachers would be this kind of person, there would be a real flow of life in the schools. The other teachers and students would realize that there is something satisfying, living, and flowing within you. They might not be able to explain it, but they would sense it.
If you are a brother who is drinking of Jesus by enjoying His humanity, it may seem that you do not have power, yet the flow of life within you will satisfy, convince, attract, and eventually convert others. This is the spreading of the gospel in the church life. This kind of gospel preaching does not depend so much on the power but on the life that enjoys Christ’s humanity.
The humanity of Jesus not only has much to do with the producing of gifted persons, but it also produces the flowing of the inner life to satisfy others. There is no other way to have such a flow of life but by enjoying the humanity of Jesus by drinking of the Spirit of Jesus all the time. We must have a real change in our concept. Whenever we pray, we must pray with this concept. Whenever we are drinking of the Spirit, we must drink of Him with this concept. We are not drinking of the Spirit for power, might, or miracles, but we are drinking of the Spirit of Jesus for the humanity of Jesus. As Andrew Murray said, it is not with the exercise of divine power but with real human development. We need the proper humanity for our human life, and this proper humanity is not ours but Jesus’. His humanity is not only the pure one but also the resurrected, uplifted one. His humanity has been transfigured from a lower to a higher stage. And today we must drink of this uplifted, higher humanity for our human life. May the Lord be gracious to us so that we may put all these things into practice.
