Search
Scripture Reading: Phil. 1:19-21a; Col. 3:4a; Gal. 2:20; John 14:19-20; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17; 5:14; 1 John 1:3; John 15:5; Rom. 8:6b; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 6:17-18; John 6:63; 1 Thes. 5:19; Eph. 5:18b; Rom. 8:4
We have seen that God has an economy, which is to have the Divine Trinity worked into us so that we, the chosen ones who have His life, may become His corporate expression. We have also seen that in order to accomplish this eternal economy, the Triune God must go through a procedure, which is to dispense the Divine Trinity step by step into us so that He might become our life and we might become His living, that God and man may be mingled and joined as one. This procedure is His dispensing, and it is for the purpose of arriving at God’s goal, which is His economy. After this, we saw that the first supply in this dispensing is the supply to the believers in their growth in life. When God dispenses Himself into us and His element is daily added into us, we the believers grow in life. In this chapter we must see another aspect of the supply in God’s dispensing. God’s dispensing is not only our supply in our growth in life, but it is also our supply in our daily living. This is something very practical and precious.
Since my youth I have heard many teachings and doctrines from Christianity. In general, these teachings and doctrines all teach Christians to live a moral life and to be proper and upright in their conduct so that they may glorify God through their good works. This is not very different from the ethical teaching and philosophy taught by the Chinese. The first few sentences in Confucius’s book The Great Learning are quite profound. He says, “The way of the great learning is in the developing of the bright virtue, in the renewing of the person, and it ends with supreme goodness.” This means that the highest teaching is one that develops the “bright virtue” that is already within man so that man may be renewed day by day until he reaches perfection. If the Bible taught only morality and ethics, then the classical books of the Chinese would be just as good as the Bible. If this were the case, why would the Chinese have needed the missionaries to teach them? For this reason I began to reject Christianity at the age of sixteen or seventeen.
Through the mercy of the Lord, I heard the genuine gospel at the age of nineteen. A young lady from Shanghai came to my hometown to preach the gospel. Her preaching was full of power; it was very uncommon and was different from what I had heard before. She spoke of the Egyptian ruler Pharaoh’s enslaving of the Israelites; furthermore, she said that this Pharaoh was a figure of Satan and that Egypt was a figure of the world. Today Satan as the prince of this world is enslaving men, especially God’s chosen people. When I heard this, I was deeply touched. I said in my heart to the Lord, “Lord, I do not want to be deceived by Satan anymore. Although I am still living in the world, I do not want the world anymore. I just want You.” On that day I was clearly saved.
After I was saved, I began to love to read the Bible. I desired very much to know the Bible and wanted to know what the Bible was all about. Although I was still a poor student, I tried my best to secure spiritual books and books on Bible exposition. Not long after that, I obtained some books by Brother Watchman Nee. His books opened my understanding of the Bible. He pointed out again and again that those who have believed in Christ have been crucified with Christ. The cross of Christ has terminated us. God has no intention for us to sin; neither does God have any intention for us to do good. Based on the Bible he said that both good and evil belong to the same tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil bears four kinds of fruit: knowledge, good, evil, and death. But there is another tree that is in opposition to this tree — the tree of life. This tree, being of life, has nothing to do with knowledge, good, evil, or death. Brother Nee also pointed out that today man seeks only after knowledge. When he has knowledge, he tries his best to do good and to be moral. But in the end, the result is evil and death.
After this, Brother Nee pointed out that in the New Testament the Lord Jesus came. The Lord did not ask man to labor for Him. Instead, He placed Himself before man as man’s food. He said, “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Not only is the Lord Jesus life, but He came that man may have life and have it abundantly. He is also the bread of life to be man’s food. He said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes into Me shall by no means ever thirst” (6:35). Furthermore, He said, “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever...As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (vv. 51, 57). Brother Nee told us that this is what God is after. God does not want us to sin and to commit evil; neither does He want us to do good and to be moral. God wants to be man’s life, to satisfy man’s hunger and quench his thirst. These words of Brother Nee’s rendered me great help in my spiritual life and in the knowledge of the Bible.
Some may ask, does not the Bible also teach man to have all kinds of virtues? How can we say that God does not want us to do good? Should we not be meek and yielding? Should we not love our wives and submit to our husbands? Surely the Bible talks about all these things. But we must ask, what is the source of these expressions in life? What is the essence? Gold is yellow, and so is bronze. Superficially, they look alike. But actually, their essences are very different. Man’s highest morality is like bronze; it is not genuine. It is superficial and is like a tree without roots or water without a source. A Christian’s virtues are not superficial; they are not without root. The root of the Christian virtues is Christ. He is the Lord of heaven and earth and the God of all creation. He died for our sins and has resurrected. When we believe in Him with our heart and call on Him with our mouth, He enters into our spirit and enlivens our spirit. In this way we are regenerated. In addition to our human life, we have received the eternal and uncreated life of God. Thus, we share the same life that Christ has and have the same living that He has. Now, this all-inclusive Christ lives in us. When we live Christ and magnify Him, all His human virtues are expressed in our living. Only such virtues are genuine, high, and noble, like gold.
May our eyes be opened to see that what God truly desires is for Christ to be life in us and to be lived out of us. The Christian living is one that lives Christ and magnifies Christ. Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Through the death of Christ we have died in Him. Now, through His resurrection Christ is living in us. God wants the “I” to be crucified in the death of Christ so that in His resurrection Christ may live in us and be the source and everything in our living. This is why Paul says, “As always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:20b-21a).
A Christian’s living is one that lives Christ. It is not a matter of work, nor is it a matter of doing good. Christ is not only our life but also our living. We live Christ because Christ lives in us (Col. 3:4a; Gal. 2:20; John 14:19-20). Christ lives in us to be our life; we live Christ to be Christ’s living. The proper experience of Christ is to live Him. To live Christ is to magnify Christ in whatever circumstances we may be in. This is not a doctrine or a theory but a reality.
By ourselves we can never live out all the virtues of Christ. In our daily living we need the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19). In order to save fallen man, God became flesh to be a man in the Son and through the Spirit. He passed through thirty-three and a half years of human life. At the end of His life He was crucified on the cross and was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit. Such a Spirit is not merely the Spirit of God as He was before the Lord became flesh but is the Spirit of God after the Lord’s resurrection, being produced as a mingling of the Holy Spirit, who has divinity, with the Lord’s incarnation (His humanity), His human living under the cross, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. This Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He includes all the rich ingredients of Christ’s divinity, humanity, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. He is the compound, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit of the Triune God. Hence, with Him there is the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He Himself even is the bountiful supply. Now He is living in us, daily supplying us and dispensing Himself into us as our food. He is whatever we need.
God created man according to His image. God’s image is all that God is. God is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Love, light, holiness, and righteousness are what God is; hence, they are the image of God. Since man was created in the image of God, within man there are human virtues, such as love, light, holiness, and righteousness. But these human virtues are not the reality; they are merely the image of the reality. Man’s virtues are a picture of God’s image. A picture is not the reality of a man; it is not the man himself. When we believe in Christ and receive this pneumatic Christ, He enters into us to be our life within, and He lives Himself out from us. By this we will have the reality of all the virtues of God’s attributes, and we can live out the real love, light, holiness, and righteousness, which are the expressions of Christ in us.
When the Lord Jesus lives in us, we can love others in a genuine way. We do not love by our own love; rather, we love by the Christ who is living in us and who is our bountiful supply. This Christ who is living in us is the Spirit with the bountiful supply. He has become one with us. We do not need to do good or to be moral by ourselves. Everything we do and all our living should come about by the bountiful supply of Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the Christ who is the life-dispensing Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17). The supply of this pneumatic Christ is His dispensing in life. The supply and dispensing of His life cause us to be saved in our living of Christ so that we may not be put to shame because we have not lived Christ and may not lose the testimony that we ought to bear for Christ because of our failure to magnify Christ. On the contrary, with all boldness, as always, even now, daily, Christ will be magnified in our body, whether through life or through death.
If we want to receive and to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, first we must love the Lord with all our heart. We must fellowship with Him all the time and must abide in Him unceasingly (2 Cor. 5:14; 1 John 1:3; John 15:5). Actually, it is not we who love the Lord first. Rather, it is the Lord who first loved us. This love was manifested through His death for us on the cross. The love of Christ constrains us on all sides. It focuses us on one goal, that is, that we would no longer live to ourselves but to Him. In such a condition we live in the fellowship of the eternal life of Christ and enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
How can we abide constantly in the Lord? Today the Lord is not only in heaven but also in our spirit. When we set our mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6b), we are abiding in the Lord. To set the mind on the spirit is actually to abide. Every day and every moment we need to set our mind, which represents our whole person, on the spirit. The more we set our mind on the spirit, the more we will abide in the Lord, and the more the Lord will live Himself through us. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” We can abide in the Lord because of the fact that we are one spirit with Him.
At the same time, the Spirit with whom we have been joined as one is also the word. The Lord Jesus said in John 6:63, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” In the Christian experience, the word and the Spirit must forever be one. If we want to receive the Spirit, we must receive the word. Without receiving the word, it is impossible for us to have the Spirit. Since God is both the Spirit and the word, He created for us a mind to understand and also a spirit to receive. When we touch the Bible, we need to exercise our mind and our spirit. We need to read with our mind and pray with our spirit; that is, we need to pray-read the word of the Lord. We must pray-read daily at set times to receive the word of God, which is the embodiment of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17; John 6:63).
We not only need to pray with our spirit, but we also must pray at every time in spirit (Eph. 6:18) and must not quench the Spirit (1 Thes. 5:19) but must be filled in spirit by the Triune God (Eph. 5:18b).
Finally, if we desire to receive and enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we must also walk only according to the spirit (Rom. 8:4). Our walk, our speaking, our actions, and our attitudes must be conducted according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. In this way we will daily receive and enjoy the dispensing of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Under this dispensing, we will spontaneously receive the supply of Christ within and will live a life that expresses Christ.
