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Scripture Reading: John 1:1, 14; 6:63; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Acts 6:4; 2:42; 10:9; Isa. 56:7
The Bible reveals that God is our enjoyment and that all the riches of God, what God is in His fullness, are the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8, 19b). All the fullness of God is embodied in Christ (Col. 1:19) and becomes the items of the riches of Christ. The reality of Christ is the Spirit, who is the Spirit of reality (John 14:17), and all that Christ is, that is, all the riches of Christ, are revealed in the Word (1:1). Therefore, in order to know the riches of Christ, we have to know the Word, which is the revelation of all that Christ is. Moreover, the place in which we realize the Triune God is our human spirit (3:6). In order to realize Christ and always enjoy Him, we have to exercise our spirit. There is no other way to enjoy Him, and there is no other organ with which we can enjoy Him. We have to exercise our spirit to realize all that God is in Christ through the Holy Spirit and as revealed in the Word. These five items — God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Word, and our spirit — are the factors of our enjoyment of God.
Christ is first revealed as the Word, and in His resurrection He was transferred from the Word into the Spirit. Therefore, our experience of Christ is an experience of constantly transferring the word into the Spirit. John 6:63 is a great verse in the Bible. It says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” The word is spirit, and the Spirit is life. The word is life to us only when it is transferred into the Spirit. We do not have the word of life directly. We need a step in between; that is, the word must be spirit in order to be life to us. Without this step, the word is mere knowledge to us. In order to know the Scriptures and to know life, we must be familiar with and very clear about all these principles. Then we will have the keys to open the Word. Otherwise, no matter how many times we read the Word, we will read it in a blind and foolish way, and it will never be clear to us.
The four Gospels tell us that the Lord Jesus came as the Word. In the beginning, in eternity before the foundation of the world, He was the Word, and in time He came in incarnation (John 1:1, 14). Therefore, the New Testament begins with Christ as the Word. Then at the end of the Gospel of John Christ became the Spirit as the breath of life (20:22). This Gospel begins with the Word and ends with the Spirit. The Word and the Spirit are not two persons; they are one person with two aspects. First, He was the Word, and eventually, He became the Spirit. With the help of the Epistles we can realize who this Spirit is. The proper term used for this Spirit is the “life-giving Spirit.” First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” Again we see that the Bible is opened by this one principle, that the Word becomes the Spirit as life. Christ is the Word, Christ has become the Spirit, and this Spirit is the life-giving Spirit.
It is by the Word through the Spirit that Christ is life to us and imparts life to us. According to the letter of the Bible, many Christians know that Christ is life, but not many can say how Christ can be life to us practically. We must be clear that Christ is life to us because He is the Word who became the Spirit who gives life. Now in order to receive, realize, and experience Christ as our life, we must know the Word and how to transfer the Word into the life-giving Spirit. This is the way to take Christ as life.
From my youth I heard Christian teachers say that the word of the Bible is life. However, they did not tell me how the black and white printed words of the Bible can be life. The answer is that the word in black and white must be transferred into the Spirit. If the word is merely in letters, it is not life; it is mere knowledge that kills (2 Cor. 3:6). It is when the word is transferred into the Spirit that it becomes life, because it is not the words directly but the Spirit who gives life.
In the four Gospels the disciples received the Word, but they did not yet receive the Spirit. It is after the four Gospels, in the Acts and the Epistles, that they received the Spirit. This means that the Word that the disciples received in the four Gospels was transferred into the Spirit, whom they experienced and contacted in the Acts and the Epistles, and at that time the disciples dealt not only with the Word but also with the Spirit.
At the time of the Gospels the disciples did not have the New Testament. However, they still had and dealt with Christ as the Word. First John 1:1 says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life.” At that time, what Peter, John, and all the disciples heard, saw, handled, and dealt with was the Word. In his first Epistle, John did not say that they had seen the Son of God or Jesus Christ. Rather, they saw, heard, looked upon, and even handled the Word. This Word was not a composition written in black and white letters. This Word was a living person, whom the disciples “read” day by day. This person is the Triune God who was incarnated to be a man by the name of Jesus. This Jesus had many “stories” for the disciples to read. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.” Peter, James, John, and all the early disciples beheld the glory of this living person, and in this way they “read” Him.
From the time Peter, Andrew, James, and John were called, they started to “read” this living person. Wherever they went with this person, they beheld this person and what He was doing. In this way they “read” Him for three and a half years. Once on the sea they experienced a violent storm. They were frightened by that storm, but this living person as the living Word lay there still asleep (Matt. 8:24-25). When He awakened, He simply gave the order to the air and the water for the storm to stop (v. 26). Then the disciples marveled, saying, “What kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (v. 27). What they were doing at that time was reading the living Word.
Later, Peter, James, and John went to the mountain with the living Word, where they beheld Him further. All of a sudden His face was shining like the sun. Peter said, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You are willing, I will make three tents here, one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (17:4). Peter did not read the living Word clearly, so he began to speak foolishly. Then a voice from heaven said, “This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I have found My delight. Hear Him!” (v. 5). Moses and Elijah disappeared from view, leaving Jesus Himself alone. This was the way Peter read the living Word.
When they came down from the mountain, those who took up the temple tax came to Peter and asked him whether or not Jesus paid the tax. Peter replied, saying, “Yes” (vv. 24-25). When he came into the house, Jesus asked Peter, “From whom do the kings of the earth receive custom or poll tax, from their sons or from strangers?” It is as if Jesus said, “Do the kings on the earth collect tax from their own sons? Did you not hear on the mountain that I am the Son of God? Why then did you tell the tax collectors that I, the Son of the King, have to pay the tax?” When Peter was corrected by the Lord, he may have wanted to say, “Then I am wrong. You should not pay the temple tax.” However, Jesus agreed to pay the tax, but not in a way that was easy for Peter. Peter had to do something difficult. The Lord said, “But that we do not stumble them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. And when you open its mouth, you will find a stater; take that and give it to them for Me and you” (v. 27). Peter must have been very troubled. While he was throwing the hook into the sea, he may have said to himself, “I do not know from what direction the fish will come, and it must be a fish with a coin in its mouth. I simply cannot believe this. I have to learn the lesson. From now on I should not say anything. I should keep my mouth shut and not get involved.” It must have been the Lord’s intention at that time to educate the foolish Peter not to say anything when the tax gatherer came. He simply should have said, “Please wait. Let me go ask Jesus. I do not know anything, and I have no ground or right to say anything. Let the Master speak.” In this way Peter read much of the living Word.
According to the four Gospels, Peter may have read the Lord Jesus more than anyone else. After the Lord’s resurrection, when the day of Pentecost came, Peter stood up to speak. After being educated by the Lord, Peter did much talking, not in nonsense but in the Spirit and in life. We all must learn the way to read the Word. We should drop the traditional way of reading. The old way does not give any revelation; it gives only dead knowledge in black and white letters.
The four Gospels were written by the early disciples based on what they had read of Christ as the living Word. First they read something of the Lord, and then they put what they had read into writing for us to read. Before John wrote chapters 14 through 17 of his Gospel, he “read” the Word by hearing the Lord. Some of what the disciples read of the Lord was His spoken words, but some of what they read were the living, walk, and acts of the Lord Jesus. They saw how Jesus acted, behaved, and dealt with people. Then after they saw all these things, they put them into writing for us to read. They were the first ones who received the Word; we are the next generation of those who receive it.
The four Gospels reveal Christ as the living Word, whom the disciples read day by day for three and a half years. At that time the Lord Jesus was the Word, but He was not the Spirit. In the Acts and the Epistles, however, the Lord Jesus was no longer only the Word to the disciples. By that time the disciples were dealing with Christ as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). It was through crucifixion and resurrection that this Jesus, who is the Word, was transferred into the Spirit.
In our own experience, however, we need to see how we can practically enjoy Christ as the Word transferred into the Spirit. It is hard to say whether today we are dealing with and enjoying the Lord as the Word or as the Spirit. If we simply study the Word in the way taught by seminaries, for example, we will enjoy the Lord mainly as knowledge in the mind, although by His mercy we may unconsciously enjoy Him a little as the Spirit. Today, however, we are enjoying the Lord as the Word more in our spirit than in our mind. Eventually, we will enjoy Him entirely as the Spirit in our spirit. All that we know of Him as the Word must be transferred into the Spirit. Then eventually we will enjoy the Lord not only as the Word but also as the life-giving Spirit.
The way to transfer Christ as the Word into the Spirit is to open our heart, open our spirit, and exercise our spirit to pray. In the four Gospels there is the Word who was “read” by the early disciples, and in the Acts there is the Spirit. Between the record of the four Gospels and the first part of Acts, the disciples prayed for ten days. It was by prayer that the Word was transferred into the Spirit. From that time on, Peter became a praying person. This is why in chapter 6 Peter said, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word” (v. 4). Prayer comes first, then the ministry of the word. To “continue steadfastly in prayer” means that their prayer never ceased. Acts 2:42 confirms that all the disciples continued steadfastly in prayer.
In Acts 10 Cornelius sent his servants to call Peter. At that time what was Peter doing? He was on the housetop praying (v. 9). In the four Gospels we see a talking Peter, not a praying Peter. Today too many of the brothers are talking brothers. Sometimes they talk about the messages, but sometimes they just gossip. There is not much praying. In Acts, however, the talking Peter became a praying person. The disciples had already read Christ as the Word in the four Gospels. They already knew the Word clearly. Now what they needed was to transfer the Word into the Spirit by praying.
Consider what the one hundred and twenty disciples prayed for during those ten days before Pentecost. Someone may think that Peter prayed for his wife, that John and James prayed for their father’s fishing business, that Andrew prayed for his home in Galilee, and that Mary and Martha prayed for Lazarus. However, this is not so. The Lord Jesus had told them to wait for the promise of the Father. He said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (1:8). In verse 22 Peter said concerning the selection of Matthias, “One of these should become a witness of His resurrection with us.” They needed to select one to make up the number twelve so that they could adequately bear witness of Jesus. The disciples must have realized that for them to be the Lord’s witnesses required that Christ be wrought into them.
By these two passages we can realize what the disciples must have been praying during those ten days. They must have said, “Lord, we have given up everything other than You. We were Galileans, but we have given up our home and our country. Now we are here simply as empty vessels. This little upper room is just like an altar, and we are lying on the altar waiting to be filled by You, possessed by You, taken over by You, and mingled with You. Lord, we have been reading all that You are for three and a half years. Now You have gone to the heavens, but You told us we must be Your witnesses on the earth. How can we do this? Lord, we are here open to You. Come to fill us. Come to take us over. Come to possess us, occupy us, and saturate us.”
The disciples did not pray in a superficial way. Their prayer must have been a deep one. The one hundred and twenty had given up their homes, their relatives, their jobs, their goals, their fame, and their everything. The Lord had told them that they would be His witnesses, but they could not be His witnesses without being filled with Him. They needed the Lord to take them over and possess, occupy, fill, saturate, empower, and equip them. This must have been the content of their prayer. It was by this prayer, praying what they had been reading of Christ as the Word, that what they read was transferred into the Spirit. Therefore, from the day of Pentecost they were truly one with the Lord in spirit, and the Lord was one with them.
This is why when Saul of Tarsus persecuted Stephen and the other disciples, the Lord Jesus said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (9:4). When Saul asked, “Who are You, Lord?” the Lord answered, “I am Jesus, whom you persecute” (v. 5). Saul may have thought, “I persecuted Peter, James, John, and Stephen, but I never persecuted Jesus.” However, by speaking to Saul in this way, the Lord revealed that to persecute His disciples was to persecute Him. Jesus was one with Peter, John, James, and all the disciples, because He was not only the Word but also the Spirit. From the day of Pentecost, the Word had been transferred into the Spirit. From that day the early disciples dealt not only with the Lord as the Word but also with Christ as the Spirit.
The principle here is that whenever we read, hear, or know something of the Lord, we have to pray. We must keep this principle not only as individuals but also in our corporate life. The proper way to have a message meeting is that after the message we leave time for all the brothers and sisters to pray together. We should not simply give them a message and close the meeting. We have to pray to transfer the Word we hear into the Spirit. In the spring of 1961 I was with the young people in Manila. During all those days, they spent more time praying than listening to the messages. For about two weeks, morning and night, those young people prayed. They prayed before coming to the meeting, and they prayed in the meeting. There was no real start to the meetings. Everyone simply prayed when they came. The prayer lasted for a long time, sometimes almost an hour before the message began. The message was finished in thirty or forty minutes, and then they prayed for about another hour. There were around one hundred young people, and all of them prayed, sometimes fifty or sixty in each meeting. That was a real move of the Lord in Manila that prepared them for some persecution that was to come. The prayer in that conference strengthened the whole church there. It also laid a good foundation for the church in Manila so that even today two-thirds of the members in the church are young people.
I do not mean that we should change the form of our meetings. Rather, we need to change our attitude, realization, and way of life. In the poor situation today, many people do not pray. They merely “come to church” at 11:00 A.M. on the Lord’s Day to sit and listen to a message. We have to turn this situation around. We must be revolutionary to have a new kind of situation. The brothers and the sisters must be helped to learn how to pray and to have a prayer life. Then when they come to the meeting, they will come to pray. Isaiah 56:7 says, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” All the brothers and sisters should come to the meeting to pray. We should not have too much singing; rather, we need more prayer to dig our heart, prepare our heart, and open our spirit. Then we can have a time for the ministry of the word, and when we speak the word, it will be living and will strike the spirit of the hearers. After the word is given, we still should have an additional time for prayer.
We should allow all of the attendants in the meeting to pray. At certain times in Taipei, there was not enough time for everyone to pray one by one, so the brothers and sisters began to pray at the same time, two or three thousand people all opening their mouths to pray. It was not that we encouraged them to do this; they did it spontaneously because everyone wanted to pray. At the beginning of 1961 we had a conference on the building of God. This conference was wonderful simply due to the fact that all the attendants spent much time in prayer. We must transfer the Word into the Spirit by our prayer.
In the four Gospels the early disciples had the Word for three and a half years, but they did not yet have the Spirit. At that time Christ was only the Word to them. It was through their prayer for ten days that Christ was transferred to them in their experience as the Spirit. From that time on they became a praying people, dealing not only with the Word but also with Christ as the life-giving Spirit. We all must keep the principle of transferring the word we have heard into the Spirit by our prayer.
