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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:22; Rom. 8:23
In this chapter we want to continue to see how Christ as the Spirit can be our enjoyment. In particular, we want to see how the exercise of our heart is crucial for our enjoyment of Christ.
We have pointed out that the Spirit of God is in our spirit. Romans 8:16 says that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit, and 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” These two verses prove that the Holy Spirit is working in our spirit.
We also need to see the move of the Spirit in our heart. Galatians 4:6 says, “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!” Romans 5:5 says that “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” These verses tell us that the Spirit is moving in our hearts. Ephesians 3:17 says that Christ is making His home in our hearts, and 2 Corinthians 4:6 says that God is the One who shines in our hearts.
Second Corinthians 1:22 says that God has “sealed us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.” Ephesians 1:14 says that the Holy Spirit is the “pledge of our inheritance,” and 2 Corinthians 5:5 says that God “has given to us the Spirit as a pledge.” The pledge is the down payment, guarantee, earnest, or foretaste. The first part of the payment is the foretaste of all the payment. In ancient times the Greek word for “pledge” was used in the purchasing of land. The seller gave the purchaser some soil from the land as a sample. Hence, a pledge, according to ancient Greek usage, is also a sample. The Holy Spirit is the sample of what we will inherit of God in full.
Romans 8:23 says, “And not only so, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan in ourselves, eagerly awaiting sonship, the redemption of our body.” The thought in this verse is also that the Holy Spirit has been given to us for our enjoyment. Today the Spirit is the firstfruits of the coming harvest, the foretaste of our full enjoyment of God. We have not enjoyed the main part yet. The main part is the harvest. Today we just have the foretaste and enjoy the firstfruits. Hebrews 6:4 says that we are those who have “been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit.” Again we see that Christ as the Spirit is given to us for us to enjoy.
Because the Spirit is for our enjoyment, He is involved with our heart. Romans 5:5 shows that our enjoyment of the Spirit is a matter of love in the heart. The Spirit’s working is in our spirit, but the Spirit for our enjoyment is in our heart. Our spirit is not an enjoying organ but a working organ. The enjoying organ is the heart. Thus, the spirit is the working organ to receive and contact God for our heart to enjoy Him. We contact God with our spirit, but we love and enjoy Him with our heart.
There is a big difference between the spirit and the heart. Ezekiel 36:26 says that we have been given a new spirit and a new heart. We can say that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit, but we cannot say that he who is joined to the Lord is one heart. Our spirit is a receiving and contacting organ, and our heart is a loving and enjoying organ. We receive and substantiate psychological and physical things — such as music, scenery, thoughts, and ideas — through the organs of the soul and the sensory organs of the body. But we receive the spiritual things of God by our spirit as an organ and enjoy all these spiritual things by the heart. We have received Christ as the living Spirit into our spirit for us to enjoy in our heart.
When we are fellowshipping with the Lord in our spirit, we enjoy Him in our heart. If we have no fellowship with the Lord after receiving Him into our spirit, we will not enjoy Him. We must love the Lord with our heart and give the Lord more ground within us. Then we will enjoy Him. We cannot enjoy Him until we love Him with our heart and give Him the ground to take over all the parts of our heart. We have to realize that Christ as the Spirit is given to us as the foretaste, as the firstfruits, for our enjoyment.
We have to exercise our spirit to receive Him, to absorb Him, and we also have to exercise our heart to love Him. Then we will enjoy Him. Mark 12:30 tells us to love the Lord from our whole heart. The heart is the loving organ. For example, many of the Chinese do not enjoy American food, because they do not have the heart for it. But we enjoy American food, because we have a heart for it. In the same way, many have received the Lord into their spirit, but not many have the enjoyment of Christ, because their heart is not for Him.
Ezekiel 36:26 speaks of a new heart and a new spirit. We need a new loving ability with a new receiving ability. We need a proper heart to love Him and to seek Him. We also need a spirit to receive Him. We must learn to contact and receive Him by exercising our spirit and to love, treasure, appreciate, and seek Him by exercising our heart. Then He will become our enjoyment in our heart.
In Mark 12:30 the Lord Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.” The heart includes the soul and the mind. The mind is in the soul, and the soul is in the heart. Our whole strength refers to our physical strength. We love the Lord our God with all our being, that is, from our heart, through our soul, our mind, to our body. We have to love the Lord in such a specific and detailed way.
In 1 Corinthians 2:16 Paul says, “We have the mind of Christ.” Christ must saturate our mind from our spirit, making our mind one with His. We must give Him more and more ground to spread out of our spirit into our mind. This means that our mind will be saturated with His mind, and we will have His mind. In the same principle, our emotion will be saturated with His emotion. In other words, our love will be saturated and permeated with His love. Thus, we will have His love in our love. Also, our will must be saturated with His will. Eventually, we can say that we have His heart as our heart because He has made His home in our heart. Our mind, emotion, and will must be thoroughly saturated, renewed, and transformed with Christ. Then we will have the heart of Christ as our heart.
In order for Christ to be our enjoyment, He must be the Spirit. John 6 says that He is the bread of life and that it is the Spirit who gives life (vv. 35, 63). Christ must be the Spirit to be the bread of life, the heavenly food, for us to enjoy. In John 7 He is the Spirit as the living water for us to enjoy (vv. 37-39). If Christ were merely the Word, He could never be our enjoyment. He must be the Spirit in order to be our enjoyment. The Spirit is given to us as the foretaste, the firstfruits, for us to enjoy in our heart.
We have to learn how to enjoy Christ as the life-giving Spirit by exercising our heart and our spirit. In the Lord’s decree of the kingdom’s constitution in Matthew, He dealt with these two organs. He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens,” and “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (5:3, 8). Our heart must be pure, and we must be poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit is to have the capacity in the spirit for the Lord to come in. If we are rich in spirit, it means that we are filled up and do not have the capacity to receive the Lord in a fresh way. We need to be emptied in our spirit to have more capacity to receive the new things of Christ. We also need to be pure, single, in our heart so that we may see God. We have to exercise our spirit so that we may contact and receive the Lord and deal with our heart so that we may enjoy and experience Him more and more as the Spirit.
