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Second Corinthians 3:3 says, “Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.” This verse reveals that we may express Christ as His letter. Here a letter of Christ does not mean a letter written by Christ; rather, this letter is a composition that uses Christ as the alphabet. A letter of Christ is one composed of Christ as the content to convey and express Christ. All believers of Christ should be such living letters of Christ so that others may read and know Christ in their being.
A letter of Christ is composed using Christ as the words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. From beginning to end, Christ is every part of such a letter. Therefore, a letter of Christ speaks Christ, for every part of the letter expresses Him. In order to make us the living letters of Christ, He needs to be written, wrought, into us. People should be able to read Christ on our being. We may preach about Christ, but how much of Christ can people read on us? When people observe the way that we live, they should read Christ. We need more of Christ written upon us; that is, we need more of Christ wrought into us. Christ should be wrought into our thinking, our loving, our choosing, and into our entire being. The extent to which Christ can be seen or read by others in us depends upon the extent to which Christ has been written into us. This is a matter not of doctrine but of experience.
When a man is regenerated by the Holy Spirit and his spirit is made alive, he becomes a living epistle of Christ. This living epistle is written with the Spirit of the living God. This means that God writes Christ into the believers by the Spirit, imprinting Christ into them.
By having Christ inscribed into us, we also become living letters of Christ, which can be read by others. There are many cases of young people who have been read by their parents. At first, their parents opposed them because they had turned to the Lord or had come into the church life. But even while the parents were opposing them, they were reading what had been inscribed of Christ into them. As a result, after a period of time many of these opposing parents turned to the Lord’s way. Even if your parents are opposing you, they are still watching you, reading you as a letter of Christ. Eventually, if you live and walk in the Spirit of life in your relationship with your parents, they will be convinced. Although you may not intentionally try to honor your parents, spontaneously you render them the most excellent and wonderful respect because you walk according to the spirit. Your parents will notice this, appreciate it, and eventually may be convinced and subdued by it.
In verse 3 Paul says that the Corinthian believers were a letter of Christ ministered by the apostles. This means that through their ministry the apostles “wrote” such a letter of Christ. In this verse the word ministered actually means “served.” Thus, Paul is saying that the Corinthian believers are a letter of Christ served by the apostles. However, realizing that the word serve is not adequate, Paul went on to use the word inscribed. This explains the meaning of ministered, or served. Paul’s way of ministering was by inscribing. Paul and his co-workers were writing living epistles. These epistles were their letters of commendation. The apostles were the writers, and the believers were the epistles written by them.
As one who was a pattern for living Christ for the church, Paul was competent in Christ to write these living letters with Christ Himself as the spiritual alphabet. He was qualified, and he had a mastery of the skill necessary for this. The book of Revelation says clearly that Christ is the Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and the Omega, the last letter (22:13). Surely Christ is also all the letters between alpha and omega. Anyone who lives Christ for the church knows Christ as alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and every other letter of the heavenly alphabet. We all should look to the Lord for His mercy and grace in order to carry on the work of writing Christ into the saints. Instead of merely teaching doctrines or the Bible to others, we must do the unique work of writing living letters of Christ.
The letters of Christ are written by the ministry of the apostles. The apostles are filled with Christ so that their ministry spontaneously ministers Christ to those whom they contact, inscribing Christ in their heart and making them living letters conveying Christ. As apostles, Paul and his co-workers were themselves letters of Christ, epistles written with Christ as the content (2 Cor. 3:1-3). Paul was a living letter written of Christ by the Holy Spirit with all the realities of Christ as the writing element. Today when we read 2 Corinthians, which is Paul’s autobiography, we can see Christ. We can read Christ in him. What is written in Paul’s Epistles is nothing but Christ. Christ is conveyed to the readers in every book that he wrote. Paul is always associated with Christ because Paul is Christ’s letter. When we read him, we see Christ. It is difficult not to refer to Paul when we speak about Christ. The fourteen Epistles of Paul constitute half of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. Without these fourteen Epistles, the New Testament would not be complete (Col. 1:25).
When the Corinthians were sinners, not knowing Christ, Paul came to them and brought them to Christ. He begot them in Christ through the gospel and became their spiritual father (1 Cor. 4:15). In a sense, Paul begot us also. In Paul’s fourteen Epistles we see Christ to a much greater extent than what is portrayed in the four Gospels. We see the all-inclusive, mysterious Christ, who is the mystery of God (Col. 2:2) and who produces the mystery of Christ, the church (Eph. 3:4). The most striking point of Paul’s Epistles is that in them he opens up the eternal and universal mystery. God has a mystery, which He planned in eternity past, but the four Gospels do not speak much concerning God’s eternal plan as the mystery of the universe. Paul, however, unveils to us the mystery of the all-inclusive Christ as the Head for the producing of the Body.
Paul was constituted with Christ and was a living letter of Christ. Paul’s Epistles do not convey mainly himself but the Christ with whom he was constituted to such an extent that he could say, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Paul lived and did many things, yet it was no longer he but Christ. When we read Paul’s Epistles, we are reading him, yet what we see is not Paul himself but Christ as his constituent. Like Paul, we should be constituted with Christ. In a sense, the name of Christ should be a part of our name, because when people read us, they see Christ. It is no longer we but Christ who lives in us. Just as Paul says, for to us, to live is not we ourselves but Christ (Phil. 1:21). Christ is our person and the reality of our person; in this sense, we are Christ.
Paul was one who wrote living letters of Christ. Now we also must follow him to inscribe Christ into others and thereby to compose living letters of Christ. Wherever we go, we should write Christ into others. What people need is to have Christ inscribed into them. We all should go forth to write living letters with the life-giving Spirit of the living God.
Some of the saints may think that because they are not apostles, they cannot participate in writing a living letter of Christ. We should not hold this concept. Through our preaching of the gospel, we can write Christ into others. To preach the gospel is to write a living letter.
The proper preaching of the gospel depends on our measure of life and on our experience of God and Christ. A brother with considerable experience of God and Christ may speak to a fellow worker concerning God. Instead of trying to convince him of the existence of God, the brother may testify of how he came to believe in God and receive Christ as his Savior. He may testify that something living and real came into him and changed him. Such a testimony infuses others with Christ, convinces them, and subdues them. This is the experiential way to preach the gospel. This way is a matter of infusing into others what we have enjoyed of God and Christ. Even though unbelievers may not mentally accept what we tell them, through our experiential preaching of the gospel the element of God and of Christ will be infused into them.
In 2 Corinthians 3:3 Paul says, “Inscribed not with ink”; he does not say, “Inscribed not by ink.” It is important that we pay careful attention to Paul’s use of the preposition with. The word with indicates that the spiritual ink, the Spirit of the living God, is an essence, an element, used by the one doing the inscribing or the writing. This preposition indicates that the Spirit is neither the writer nor the instrument used for writing; rather, the Spirit is the essence, the element, the substance, used in writing. The Spirit of the living God, who is the living God Himself, is not an instrument, such as a pen, but an element, the heavenly ink used in writing, with which the apostles minister Christ as the content for the writing of living letters that convey Christ.
The ministry of the apostles is to write letters with the life-giving Spirit as the essence. The more the apostles minister to us, the more they impart into us the element of the life-giving Spirit, just as the more we write on the paper, the more ink is added to the paper. In 2 Corinthians 3:3 Paul does not view the Spirit as a person, an instrument, or a power. Rather, the Spirit is the essence used for inscribing living letters of Christ.
Our ministry in the local churches must be a ministry of inscribing. It should not be mere teaching. If we only teach others, the divine essence will not be inscribed into them. Teaching does not require any essence; however, inscribing does require an essence, just as writing with a pen requires ink. Likewise, we must have the divine essence in order to inscribe it into the being of the saints. On the one hand, the Spirit as the processed Triune God is the essence inscribed into our being. Because this essence has been inscribed into us, we cannot remain the same. Transformation is taking place within us. On the other hand, through our ministry of the word, we should inscribe the divine essence into others so that, although they may not remember the points of the message, what has been inscribed into them of the divine essence will never be erased.
The ministry of inscribing is unique, and the essence used for inscribing is also unique. Peter did not do one kind of inscribing with one kind of essence, and Paul, a different kind of inscribing with a different kind of essence. No, the apostles were not divided; neither were they divisive. Rather, they all practiced the same inscribing with the same essence. Therefore, the unique inscribing must be with the unique essence, the Triune God as the Spirit. The term the Spirit, as used in the New Testament, is very meaningful. The Spirit denotes the processed Triune God to be the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
In Genesis 1:2 we read of the Spirit of God. Elsewhere the Old Testament speaks of the Spirit of Jehovah (Judg. 3:10; 1 Sam. 10:6). In the New Testament the term the Holy Spirit is used (Luke 1:35; 3:22). Then in Acts 16:7 we read of the Spirit of Jesus; in Romans 8:9, of the Spirit of Christ; and in Philippians 1:19, of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. In Romans 8 we are charged to walk according to the spirit (v. 4). In the New Testament the emphasis is not on walking in the Holy Spirit or in the Spirit of God; the emphasis is on walking according to the spirit. Finally, at the end of the Bible in Revelation 22:17, we read of the Spirit and the bride. Thus, the Bible ends with a word not about the Spirit of God, nor about the Holy Spirit, but about the Spirit. The Spirit in Revelation 22:17 is the processed Triune God.
We should not regard the Spirit as being separate from God. In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul goes on to say, “The Lord is the Spirit.” In the same verse Paul also speaks of “the Spirit of the Lord.” The Spirit is the Lord, and the Lord is the Spirit. In like manner, the Spirit of the living God is actually the living God Himself. When Paul says that the apostles inscribed a letter with the Spirit of the living God, this does not mean that the Spirit of the living God is only the Spirit and not God Himself. The Spirit of the living God is God. The living God is the Triune God, the One who has passed through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection and has now been consummated in the life-giving, life-imparting, and life-dispensing Spirit. With this Spirit the apostles inscribed upon the saints to make them a letter of Christ written by them.
The Spirit is the writing Spirit, and we are the letters of Christ. The Spirit is the ink for writing Christ into us. As the divine ink, the Spirit is the Spirit of the living God. There should be something living within us all the time as evidence that Christ is being written into every part of our inner being. If we are under the Spirit’s writing, we have the deep sense of being living within. Christ is being written into us with the spiritual ink, the Spirit of the living God. This makes us a letter of Christ. We are under the writing of the Spirit of the living God, and He is engraving Christ into us.
If we are persons full of Christ, saturated with the life-giving Spirit, we will have the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8) with which to write Christ into others. We will also have the life-giving Spirit of the living God as the heavenly ink. The ink is the Spirit, the essence of the ink is Christ with all His riches, and we are the pen. To have this ink in our experience, we must enjoy Christ, possess Christ, be filled with Christ, be saturated with Christ, and be covered with Christ. Others should always find us in Christ. In Philippians 3:9 Paul speaks of being found in Christ. He wanted to be found by others in Christ, not in anything other than Christ. Paul did not want to be found in himself, in his culture, or in his particular way of living. We also should aspire to be found in Christ, to be one with Christ, saturated with Christ, constituted of Christ, and reorganized with Him. Then, being anointed with the Spirit and filled with the life-giving Spirit, we will have the Spirit as the ink to write Christ into others. Then as we speak to others, we will spontaneously write upon them with the life-giving Spirit of the living God. The element of the riches of Christ will be infused into them, imparted into their being. In this way, Christ will be inscribed into them. To write Christ into others in this way is truly to live Christ for the church.
The more we speak for the Lord, the more Christ is written into us. It is in this way that we become ministers of the word. The ministry comes out of the inward writing of Christ with the Spirit as the writing ink. This writing Spirit is the life-giving Spirit.
The Spirit is the ink, and the content of the ink is Christ with His person, work, and attainments. This heavenly ink is a compound of all the elements of Christ. The more we are inscribed with this ink, the more we have the elements of Christ dispensed into us. Then we become a letter of Christ with Christ as our content.
In order to be a letter of Christ inscribed with the Spirit of the living God, we must first be captured by Christ. If we have not been captured by Christ, we cannot be inscribed with the Spirit of the living God. To be captured by Christ means that our emotions, intentions, and desires are subdued and captured. Then the Spirit has a free way to write on us whatever He wants to write of Christ. Christ has been put into us (Col. 1:27) as the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). He is within us to write the elements, the riches, of Christ into our whole being, but if we are rebellious in our mind, emotion, and will, there is no way for the Spirit of Christ to write something of Christ into our being. He is waiting for us to be willing to be captured by Christ. If we are conquered, defeated, subdued, and captured by Christ, we will afford the Spirit a free way to write Christ into us.
The inner working of the indwelling Christ is an inner writing. The Spirit of the living God is within us waiting for an opportunity to write something of Christ into our being, into our inward parts. Until we are willing to be captured by Christ, the Holy Spirit can write nothing of Christ into us. Christ is in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), but He may not have occupied our mind, emotion, and will. We have Christ within us, but we may be rebellious in our mind, emotion, and will. We need to be defeated, conquered, and subdued, not doctrinally but practically in our mind, emotion, and will. When we are truly subdued by Christ, the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ within us, will have the opportunity, the free way, to write something of Christ gradually into our being so that Christ is inscribed into every part of our inner being with the Spirit of the living God to make us His living letters.
To read and to study the Word is mainly to feed and nourish our inner man, not merely to acquire the knowledge of the letter (Jer. 15:16; 1 Tim. 4:6; 2 Cor. 3:6). No matter how much knowledge we receive from the Bible, if we are not subdued by Christ and being inscribed with the Spirit of the living God, we can do nothing for the Lord in a way which truly builds up His Body. If we would build up His Body, we must first be defeated. Then we will continually be under the inner writing of the Spirit. There will be a writing, an inscribing, of Christ taking place within us, not by the letter of knowledge in our mind but by the living Spirit in our spirit and from our spirit into our heart. Some element of Christ will be inscribed, wrought, into the inward parts of our being. Something of Christ will be inscribed into our mind, our emotion, and our will so that our whole person, our whole being, will become a letter of Christ. Then we will become a minister with a ministry, not merely a gifted person with a gift. God will then accomplish His economy through us as captives and as living letters of Christ.
Whatever has been revealed in the Scriptures needs to be inscribed into us, not merely by our studying of the Word or our reading of the Bible but by our being willing to be captured by Christ. To be a minister with a ministry that builds up the Body of Christ is not a matter of receiving better teachings or certain help from hearing messages but a matter of Christ inscribing Himself into us in a living, real, and practical way.
If a great deal of the Spirit has been inscribed into our being, we will not always need to function outwardly in church meetings. Sometimes we simply need to let others read us. If in the meetings there are none who have Christ written into them, we will have the sense that the meeting is empty. But if there is even one who has Christ inscribed into him, the meeting will be enriched. Such a one does not need to say anything or do anything. Simply by being present he enriches the meeting, because a great deal of Christ has been written into him by the living Spirit.
We should have the consciousness that while we are ministering to the saints, we are inscribing Christ into their hearts, and they are receiving more of the Spirit as the ink. When we receive the Spirit as the ink, all the elements compounded in the Spirit — Christ’s divinity, humanity, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension — are added into our being. All these elements are compounded in the divine ink, and the divine ink as the divine element is applied to us by the servants of the Lord.
Our burden is not to preach the gospel or teach the Bible but to write living letters of Christ. If we are to be this kind of writer, we must be one who is constituted with the Triune God. Then, we will not be the one actually doing the writing; the God who has been constituted into us will be the real Writer. He as the Writer will inscribe Himself into the believers.
The function of the ministry of the new covenant is to inscribe living letters of Christ, and the competency, the qualification, of this ministry is God Himself. The writer of these living letters is actually not Paul; the writer is the God who has been constituted into Paul’s being. Therefore, God is not only the Writer; He is also the “ink,” the substance or element, of what is written. This means that God is writing Himself into His chosen people. The result of this writing is a constitution of the Triune God into His people. Thus, the Writer is God, the writing substance is God, and the issue, the result, is also God. The processed Triune God as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is both the Writer and the writing substance. In the writing of living letters of Christ, the Spirit is the substance that is inscribed into us.
In 2 Corinthians 3:3 Paul says that the letter of Christ is inscribed “not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.” This indicates that a letter of Christ is a letter of a human being. By the dispensing of the Spirit into our being, we human beings become a letter of Christ written by the apostles with the Spirit as the writing substance. Our heart, as the composition of our conscience (the leading part of our spirit), mind, emotion, and will, is the tablet upon which the living letters of Christ are written with the living Spirit of God. This implies that Christ is written into every part of our inner being with the Spirit of the living God to make us His living letters.
When the apostles preach or minister Christ, they minister Him into the heart and spirit of the believers. First, Christ as the life-giving Spirit is ministered into a believer’s spirit. This means that Christ is written in the spirit of that believer. Then by further ministry Christ spreads from the spirit into the mind, emotion, and will. Eventually, Christ will be written into every part of our inward being. In the words of Ephesians 3:17, this is Christ settling Himself, or making His home, in our heart. Christ making His home in our heart equals the writing of Christ throughout our inner being. This writing causes a believer to become a living letter of Christ. Such a person expresses Christ in whatever he says and does.
Christ today has come into our spirit, but He may not yet be written on our heart. Our heart, which mainly surrounds our spirit, is composed of our mind, emotion, and will, plus our conscience. Therefore, for the Spirit to write Christ on us as living letters means that He writes Christ into our mind, emotion, and will; that is, the Spirit takes our whole heart as the tablet for inscribing Christ. As He does this, we become a complete epistle of Christ, and others can read Christ upon us. When others “read” our mind, emotion, and will, they will realize that every part of our being is Christ; our thoughts, love, hatred, and intentions are all Christ (cf. Rev. 2:6). The transforming Spirit is waiting for the opportunity to write Christ into our mind, emotion, and will in order to make us complete epistles of Christ. The indwelling Spirit, who is the transforming Spirit, is doing the work of writing in us, but we need to give Him our cooperation. We must let Him have the free course to write something into our mind, emotion, and will.
Christ desires to be written into every part of our inner being, our heart, but we may be preoccupied by many other things. How can Christ be written into us and written on our heart when our heart is preoccupied with other things? Our heart may be preoccupied with our family, material possessions, education, job, or future expectations. There are many things that can usurp the place of Christ in our heart. We may have many preoccupations in our heart, giving no room for Christ to write Himself into us. Furthermore, our heart may be closed to Christ. The preoccupations and the closing of our heart should be dealt with. The filthiness, the uncleanness, of our heart also needs to be dealt with. Is our mind pure? Is our emotion clean? Is our will right? We all need to confess that to one degree or another there is dirt in our mind, emotion, and will. Although we may come to the church meetings, we need to ask ourselves how much of Christ has been written into us. There may be no possibility, no ground, and no opportunity for the Lord to come in to write Himself into us because our heart is filthy, impure, preoccupied with other things, and closed to the Lord. We need to ask ourselves what our situation, condition, and relationship are with the Lord. By the Lord’s mercy, we need to open our being to Him. When we open our heart to Him, He writes Himself into us.
The spirit is the innermost part of our being, the hidden man of the heart (1 Pet. 3:4). Christ as the life-giving Spirit has come into our spirit to make us alive, to regenerate us, and to indwell us. Christ lives in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). Ezekiel 36:26, which tells us that God gives us a new heart and a new spirit, indicates that the heart and the spirit are two things. The Lord wants to inscribe Himself as the Spirit into our heart, “in tablets of hearts of flesh” (2 Cor. 3:3). Thus, this letter is not written on our spirit but on our heart in order that Christ might be expressed and be read by others. A person expresses himself by his mind, emotion, and will. If Christ is written only on our spirit, He will be hidden; He will not be seen, read, or expressed. Christ as the living Spirit must be written on our heart so that He can be expressed and be seen by others.
Christ as the life-giving Spirit desires to be mingled with our mind, emotion, and will in order that there will be the description of Christ in our mind, the definition of Christ in our emotion, and the expression of Christ in our will. Then when others look at our mind, emotion, and will, they will see Christ. For example, a person’s love for his or her spouse should be full of Christ, describing and expressing Christ.
The Lord is gracious, patient, and merciful. The Lord is continually waiting for opportunities to mingle Himself with us. Whenever we call on His name, He takes the opportunity to mingle Himself with us. The Lord’s main concern is not what we do outwardly but what we are. He wants to dispense Himself, inscribe Himself, into our mind, emotion, and will all the time. He is taking every opportunity to write something of Christ within us little by little. We need to be patient with one another in the church life because more and more of Christ is gradually being wrought into us. This is the Lord’s transforming work. In the age of eternity we all will have become the complete letters of Christ. At that time the entire composition of Christ will have been inscribed into our whole being. Christ alone will be the content of our mind, emotion, and will.
