Date: November 12, 1935, eveningPlace: ChuenchowScripture Reading: Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:4; 1 Cor. 1:30
God has no intention for man to live by his own life. In eternity past God ordained that man would live out the life of God. This is why God is not satisfied with man simply living by his human life. According to His eternal purpose, God intends for man to live by His life. Man did not realize this in the garden of Eden. Even if he did realize this, he did not accept it. Hence, one day Christ came into the world as a man. He was crucified on the cross; He died, resurrected, and came back as the Spirit so that man might receive God's life through Him. In this way, Christ became the receivable Christ. Those who have believed in Him have received such a Christ. Many people know that they receive the forgiveness of sins when they receive Christ. However, God is not satisfied with forgiving sins alone; He wants man to no longer live in sin. He wants man to accept this receivable Christ into him to be his life so that he can live victoriously.
When a Christian first believes in the Lord, he surely has God's life in him. Yet many people do not have a clear understanding of how Christ becomes their life and how He lives within them. They develop many wrong concepts about this matter because they lack the proper knowledge. After a Christian is regenerated, he begins to have new inclinations. He wants what he formerly did not want and rejects what he formerly embraced. Man's wrong concepts come in when he strives to walk in God's will, resolving not to sin anymore and trying to live out the virtues of Christ. Many are renewed in their conscience after they are saved, and they are more sensitive toward sin, yet they do not have the power to do God's will and do not have the strength to overcome sin. As a result they live in deep remorse. Previously, when they lived in sin, they did not know that it was sin and did not feel any sorrow. They simply lived in a loose way. But now they have obtained a new life with a new nature and new inclinations. Christ is now living within them as their life. This brings in new demands that they find impossible to fulfill. Formerly, they suffered under sin. Now they suffer under the burden of holiness. For example, they may realize that Christians should not be proud or jealous or lose their temper, and they may resolve not to be proud or jealous or lose their temper. To their dismay, however, they find that they can do none of these things. Formerly, they did not realize that these were sins. They did not know what holiness is, and they had no desire to live a holy life. Now they know what holiness is, and they have a desire to live a holy life. But in spite of their knowledge and desire, they find that they cannot make it. This is the kind of suffering that many Christians experience after they are saved. This suffering for holiness is often more painful than the suffering they experienced before they were saved.
Some people can act like good Christians before men, but they realize their own evil before God. Some can pretend to be zealous and faithful in serving the Lord before men, but they know that their life is a series of failures. Their experience tells them that they are zigzagging between victory and failure; they alternate between overcoming and failing. Their life is a perpetual cycle of victories and failures. They know very well that they do not have the strength in themselves to do what they desire to do. Their thoughts and concepts are changed; they are clearly more noble than before. Furthermore, their inward being urges them to change for the better. Yet the life they have and the source of power within them have not changed. They are unable to supply adequate strength to meet their inward demands. Daily they are clear what they should do, and daily they aspire to overcome and be holy, yet daily they fail.
During this period, many Christians acquire new knowledge and experience new demands. As a result, they often make up their minds to do something, to fulfill the inner demands, and to act according to their new aspirations. They try hard to deal with their own sins and to be humble and meek before the Lord, hoping that they will be inwardly free from unclean thoughts and outwardly free from unkind words. They hope to live a life before men that is according to the God-prescribed pattern shown in the Scriptures. They remind themselves repeatedly that they have to do good and that they have to strive to achieve their goal. Yet they find to their surprise that when they do not consciously try to do anything, they live in peace. But once they make up their mind to do anything, they fail no matter how hard they try. At this stage many Christians become discouraged and disheartened. Some even begin to doubt if they are saved. This is the common experience shared by many Christians.
What we have just described is an interesting phenomenon. It is the first mistake Christians commit in their Christian life. They think that God gave them a new life so that they could have a new knowledge and a new understanding of what is good and evil, right and wrong. When they were living in sin, they did not know to differentiate between good and evil. But once they desire to meet God's standard, they fall into a different kind of misunderstanding. What a tragedy this is! They think that God gives them a new life for no other reason than to give them new desires, new cravings, new inclinations, and new hopes so that they will strive for heavenly and spiritual things. Since they are Christians, they think that they should act according to these new desires. They think that receiving a new life means nothing more than receiving a new attitude, a new hope, and a new inclination, and that they still need to exercise their own strength to fulfill these new demands. This is a great mistake.
The new life is God's new law within us. This new law, of course, has new demands. Because it has demands, we exert as much strength as we can to act according to this new law. Yet the new demands that God puts within us can never be met by ourselves. Man only has the human life. This human life is natural and common; it cannot meet the needs of the new law. The old life cannot satisfy the demands of the new law. For example, consider a fish. Even if I could give it a new demand to fly and even if I had the power to put a new desire to fly within it, the fish could not fly because there is no flying power within the life of the fish. Although it can aspire to fly, it cannot actually fly. The same is true with Christians today. The new life brings new desires and new inclinations. Yet the old life cannot meet the demands of the new life. This is the kind of Christians we find in Romans 7. The Christian in Romans 7 is one who aspires to meet the demands of God's law by his own strength, but who fails. I have never seen a Christian who can meet God's demand by his own strength. Nothing that comes out of our old life can meet God's demand.
Another group of people know that they have received a new life, new standards, and new demands and aspirations. They know that they are weak and prone to defeat and failure. They think that they should ask God to grant them strength and help them to overcome sin. They think that they should ask God to empower them for their new living. They think that God will grant them the necessary strength if they pray enough. They think that once God hears their prayer, they will overcome many sins and be able to do good and live out God's requirements. These Christians know that it is wrong to make resolutions, and they know that they cannot do anything by their own strength. Therefore, they pray for God to give them the strength. Even though they cannot make it by their own strength, they think that they can surely make it if they have God's strength. As a result they beseech God, pray, and even fast. They shut themselves up behind closed doors to pray to the Lord, or they leave the secular world behind to pray on the mountains or by the sea. They think that God will answer their prayers if they are earnest enough. The amazing thing is that even though God seems to answer other prayers, He never answers their prayer for victory over sin. They are surprised that their sin can torment them to the extent that they become totally defeated in its face. They think that they are not desperate enough; consequently, they pray day and night, asking God to grant them the power to overcome their sin. When they lock themselves up in their rooms, they are kept from their sins, and they think that they have overcome. But as soon as they finish praying and walk out of their rooms, temptations and Satan are waiting outside the door, and they fail again.
Tonight I will not ask if you have prayed. I will only ask one penetrating question: How many of you have overcome sin through praying for God's help? You may have prayed for God to make you a strong Christian. You may have prayed for Him to give you strength and help. God may answer your prayer and make you strong, but you still cannot overcome your sin. This is an amazing fact. God never helps you overcome. He never helps you stop yourself from sinning.
After many failures, some Christians become aware of the sins they frequently commit. They know why they fail. I am afraid many of you have not yet realized your habitual sins. Some are better and know their habitual sins. Some realize that they are too quick and excessive in their speaking. Some realize that their thoughts are unclean and unpresentable before men. Some realize that they are too blunt; they know that they hurt others all the time. They know that they are not meek. Some realize that they have a bad temper, and some realize that they are proud. Many people realize their habitual sins and then pursue the virtues that are the opposite of their sins. For example, those who are proud seek humility. Those who are jealous seek to be lowly. Those who have a bad temper seek patience. Those who have unclean thoughts seek to have a clean heart. Whatever sins they have, they seek virtues that are opposite of their sins. While one is seeking patience, he may think that he is not all that bad. He thinks that he only has a little shortcoming in his conduct; he only needs a little patience. He prays for God to send a package of patience from heaven. The amazing thing is that this patience never comes. No matter how hard he tries, patience never comes. He tells the Lord that he lacks a certain virtue and that he aspires to have it from the Lord. But no matter how hard he prays, the Lord will not give it to him.
My burden is not to speak about the wrong concepts of Christians. I have mentioned only these three, but other concepts are similar in principle. My purpose for bringing them up is to show that they are dead ends for a Christian. They are not the biblical way. God has no intention for a Christian to live this way. If we live according to these principles, we will fail all the time. God has given us a new life. This new life brings us not only new knowledge and new desires, but also new energy and new strength to meet the new desires and new demands. The new desires and new demands come from the new life, just as the new source of supply to meet these new desires and new demands also comes from this new life. When we were regenerated, we not only received new desires and new knowledge, which aspire to overcome our lusts and our sins, but we also received new power to meet the demands of this new life.
The new life and new power that God has given to us is simply Christ Himself. Today Christ lives within us. What is He doing within us? He is within us as our life, and He is within us to be with us all the time. The Lord said that He will not leave us as orphans (John 14:18). We can say that the wretched man in Romans 7 is an orphan, and we can call Romans 7 a chapter about orphans. The man in Romans 7 had new demands and new desires, yet he could not meet these needs. He was like an orphan hungry for food, but who was without food. The weather was cold and he needed clothing, yet he was without clothing. He had to find all these things by himself. Yet even when he willed to have these things, he could not have them. The Lord said that He would live within us and meet all our needs. Tonight I am not just preaching a Christ who has died for us. I am not just preaching a crucified Christ but a Christ who is living in us, a Christ who supplies all our needs.
We should not be satisfied with the Christ we knew in the past. In John 4 the Lord told the Samaritan woman, "Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life" (vv. 13-14). This is the life in the Spirit which Christ gives to us. This life is a spring. Christ does not give us something that can be contained in a bucket or exhausted in a few days. Christ supplies a spring within us. We can draw from it all the time "into eternal life." It will not run out even when we see God face to face. Christ is in us as our life, and He is supplying all of our needs.
Many Christians say that they are saved, but their lives do not appear any different from those who are not saved. I have often joked that some Christians are "not quite saved." Do not be mistaken. I am not saying that they are not saved. I am saying that they do not appear to be quite saved. This means that they have not reached the biblical definition of being saved. Can you say that you have Christ as your Shepherd and that you "shall not want"? Is Christ your Shepherd? Can you say that you have no want? You may have to confess that you have many wants. If you answer in this way, it proves that you need to know Christ in a deeper way. The Christ mentioned in the Bible is One who can satisfy your heart. He will make your heart thirsty again and again, yet He will satisfy your thirst again and again. I must say Hallelujah! The Lord has given us a spring. This is not like listening to a sermon once a week on Sunday and then running out of the supply for the other six days of the week. He is a spring within us which wells up into eternal life. A Christian has no need of a bucket because there is a well within him. The water within many Christians seems to come from a bucket; it quickly runs out. But the Bible says that there is a spring within a Christian, which wells up into eternal life. The source of supply in a tap is the reservoir; the supply is not from the house itself. In the same way, the source of life of a Christian is Christ; it is not from himself. What a difference this is from the man in Romans 7, who wills and fails again and again.
Many people think that they are too weak and that they have failed too often. They ask God to strengthen them. They think that as long as they have the power, they can overcome sin. Yet even if they had the power, they could not overcome sin. They are often amazed when they are overcome by their sin. But in themselves can they do anything other than sin? It should not be a surprise at all for them to sin. A Western missionary once said to me, "I sin often. I am sick of my sins. I cannot overcome no matter how hard I try. My work in China has failed." While I was listening, I was laughing. She asked, "Why are you laughing?" I said, "You feel strange that you sin. But I do not feel strange at all. To me this is most common. I may be surprised if you committed greater sins, but I am not surprised that you are committing these kinds of sins." She said, "I have been preaching in China for seven years. I know that God has called me, and I have experienced Him a little. Yet I always fail. How can I work any longer? God has to give me the strength to overcome my sins." I said, "If you prayed for anything else, God might answer you. But if you pray for God to give you the strength to overcome your sins, He will not answer. He will not give you the strength to overcome your sins."
I told her that her mistake was in trying to mend the old creation with the new creation. She was weak, and she asked for strength to overcome her sin. Yet the power of the new life, the power of God, is not given to us to sustain our old man or to empower it to overcome sins. God never does this. We need to ask God to grant us new light and new revelation. We need Him to show us that it is not a surprise for us to be weak. It is absolutely right that we should overcome sin. The problem is that the human life will always remain the human life. This life does not have the power to overcome sin. God has no intention for us to overcome sin with our human life, and He has no intention to sustain our old life with His power. God intends for Christ to be our life, our strength, and our victory.
How does God give us the overcoming life? He gives us the overcoming life by giving us His Son, who becomes our victory. Paul said, "For to me, to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21a). Paul did not say that we should live by Christ, that we should live by His strength, or that we should live by His life. He said that for him to live was Christ. Our greatest misconception is to think that God gives us Christ to help us to overcome our sins. It is true that we have to overcome sin. But the way is not by Christ granting us the strength to overcome our sin. The biblical way is to set ourselves aside and to allow Christ to overcome for us. Christ died for us on the cross. Now Christ is living within us and for us. If Christ were not living for us and if Christ only died for us on the cross, it would be impossible for us to overcome. Christ is not here to sustain us or to strengthen us to overcome our sins. He is here to set us aside and to live within us in our place. He is overcoming sin for us. This is why Paul said that for him to live was Christ. Only when Christ lives for us can we say that for us to live is Christ. If Christ is not living for us, we cannot say that for us to live is Christ. We are not living by Him, and we are not living by imitating Him or living by drawing from His strength. For us to live is Christ. It is not a matter of Christ strengthening us, but a matter of Christ becoming our life.
Three years ago I was working in America. One day after a meeting, a doctor invited me to go to his home. His wife said to me, "Please pray for me." I asked, "Why do you want me to pray for you?" She said, "I have several naughty boys, and they make me lose my temper all the time. I tried to be patient when the first child was born, and I tried to endure when the second child was born. However, when the third child came along, I felt powerless. When all four are together, I can no longer hold back, and I begin to lose my temper. The more they are together, the more I lose my temper. I cannot be patient. What should I do?" I smiled at her and said, "Do you really want to be patient?" She answered, "It would be wonderful if God would grant me patience. Then I could keep from losing my temper." I said, "You are not lacking in patience." She said, "What do you mean? If I am not lacking in patience, what do I lack?" I said, "You lack Christ. You do not lack patience. If you pray for patience, God will never give it to you, because Christ is our patience." Christ does not help us become patient; He does not give us the power to be patient. He is patience within us. There is a great difference between these two things. We do not lack patience; we lack Christ. Christ is our patience. He does not help us become patient. He does not give us the strength to make us patient. He is living within us and for us, and He is living out His patience within us. Christ within is our patience.
First Corinthians 1:30 says, "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption." This verse shows us that God has made Christ our sanctification. It does not say that Christ helps us to become sanctified or gives us the strength for sanctification. Christ does not give us the strength for us to be sanctified. Rather, He becomes our sanctification. Christ is our very sanctification. This is victory. Victory is for Christ to be our life.
Many people are familiar with Galatians 2:20. But few see the real significance of this verse. We often think, "Since it should be no longer I that live, I must strive and struggle to live no longer." Actually, it is not a matter of us striving or struggling to live; it is a matter of Christ living. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who is living. This means that Christ is living instead of us. Christ has redeemed us from sin on the cross, and He is now living within us and for us. This is an exchanged life: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Last year in Chefoo, a Christian said to me, "I need a great change. Once I am changed, everything will be fine." I said, "Your hope can never be realized." He said, "You do not know me. How do you know that there is no hope in me?" I said, "I knew you long ago. Before you were born, I knew you already. What are you? You are hopelessness itself. God has said in the Bible that there is no hope in you. If there were some hope in you, God would not have crucified you. The cross is God's valuation of you. It means that you only deserve to die. You are worthy of nothing but death. You should die, and you must die. You are absolutely useless. God was not mistreating you when He crucified you. You say that you want to change, but I say that you can never change for the better. You can never improve. This hope can never be realized. It does not matter how much a cow changes; it will still be a cow. It does not matter how much a pig changes; it will still be a pig. No matter how much you change, you will still be yourself. You want to change. But let me say something to you. Add the letters e and x to the word change and make it exchange. What you need is not a change, but an exchange."
No matter how much I, Watchman Nee, change, the life within me will always be the life of a sinner. God's way of salvation and His method of deliverance is not changing what is evil and weak within me into something that is good and powerful. God's way of salvation is to set me aside. Henceforth, it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me. God has exchanged my life for the life of Christ. It is not a change, but an exchange. God put Christ within us so that He would live instead of us. This is victory. A man may have a bad temper, but God's way of salvation is not to change his bad temper. His way of salvation is to put Christ within him so that Christ becomes his patience and meekness. God intends that Christ be our sanctification, righteousness, humility, patience, etc. This means that everything is Christ. It is Christ who is everything to us. This is the meaning of victory.
Victory is something that God gives to us; it is not something we strive to attain. Many people read only the letter of the Bible but do not understand the reality behind the letter of the Word. They do not understand what Galatians 2:20 means. Over ten years ago, when I was first saved, someone read me a story about a little eight-year-old girl. She was saved and had the excellent experience of overcoming sin, and she knew what victory meant to her. During a meeting at the Keswick Convention, someone asked how she would overcome when temptation came. She answered, "Every time temptation comes, I will not speak to it, I will not fight against it, and I will not ask it to go away. When Satan knocks on my door, I tell the Lord, `Lord, You open the door for me.' When Satan hears the Lord opening the door, he will say, `Sir, sorry, I have knocked on the wrong door,' and he will turn and run away immediately." The first time I heard this story, I smiled like you do today. At that time, even though I knew that the little girl was right, I did not know how right she was because I did not have the experience yet. During the past few years, I have learned this secret of overcoming sin. The secret is for Christ to deal with the sins instead of dealing with them myself. I do not need to resist sins; Christ resists them for me. I do not have to fight against temptations; Christ fights against them for me. I do not have to reject Satan; Christ rejects him for me. I do not have to overcome sin; Christ overcomes it for me. I do not have to exercise patience; Christ becomes my patience for me. I do not have to be pure and humble; Christ is my purity and humility.
The Son of God is in me; Christ is in me. This is my victory, and this is my everything. I cannot help but praise Him. The Son of God was willing to die on the cross for me. Today He is willing to live within me. He is sitting on the throne in heaven, but at the same time, He is also living within me. God has given His Son's life to us for this very purpose. He has set aside man's life and put His Son's life within us. Our living and our everything depends on Christ. Many people think that as long as they receive a package of patience, humility, or love from heaven everything will be solved. But we have to realize that God's salvation in Christ is a wholesale transaction instead of a retail transaction. We do not need to ask for a little today and a little tomorrow. He has put everything within us once and for all.
Many people say that there are nine kinds of fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22 and 23. They think that the Holy Spirit has nine different kinds of fruit and that we take in this fruit one by one. This is like saying that we first take in a fruit called love. Now love is within us, but we do not have joy yet. So we move on and take in another fruit called joy. After we have joy, we move on to take in peace. But there is not such a thing. We have to realize that the word fruit in the phrase the fruit of the Spirit is singular in the original language. There is only one fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, endurance, etc. are all part of the one fruit of the Spirit. Once we have the fruit of the Spirit, we have all nine virtues. If we do not have the fruit of the Spirit, we do not have any of the nine virtues. We cannot say that we have one kind but are short of the other eight. If we have one, we have all. If we are short of one, we are short of all. Christ is the fruit of the Spirit. When we receive Christ into us, we have the entire fruit of the Spirit.
We often ask what the fruit of the Spirit is. But God asks who the fruit of the Spirit is. The fruit of the Spirit is just Christ Himself. When we have Christ, we have the fruit of the Spirit. If we have Christ, we have everything. In the eyes of God, we do not obtain these things item by item. Rather, we obtain the whole Christ once for all. Once we have Christ, we have the fruit of the Spirit. Many people have tried to buy a little grace from God here and there. The result is nothing but failure. Let me ask: You have been praying for patience for a long time, but have you received it yet? Christ is in us as our life, and He is living for us. What else do we need? Once we see that Christ is our life and that He is living for us, we will immediately have all the grace that we need. The Chinese have an expression: "As long as the green mountain remains, there is no fear that one will run out of wood for fire." Christ is our "green mountain," and the nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit are the trees growing on this "mountain." If we want to be overcoming in our lives, our eyes have to be set continually on Christ.
The kind of Christians that God is after are not those who imitate Christ or those who have received a little power here and there. The kind of Christians that God is after are those who will set aside themselves and allow Christ to live instead of them. With this replacement, there will be the proper walk. When Christ lives for us and within us, we become Christ, and we can overcome. Otherwise, we will not live Christ, and we will not overcome no matter how we live. Victory is Christ becoming everything within us and living for us. This is the overcoming life.
