Search
Scripture Reading: John 10:10; 3:5-6, 14-15, 29-30; 6:44-45; 7:17; 14:21, 23; 21:15-19; 12:25
In John 10:10 the Lord said, “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.” We may know this verse and may even have some experience of it, but we need to ask, “Why did the Lord come that we may have life?” The Lord came that we may have life for the unique purpose that the bride might be produced.
We can prove this by John 3. In this chapter the words spoken by the Lord are short and simple, yet they are profound. The Lord came that we may have life, but how can we have this life? John 3 shows that we can have life by being regenerated, born again. It is through regeneration that we receive Christ as life. The way to be born again is to be born of water and the Spirit (v. 5). “Water” was the central concept of the ministry of John the Baptist, that is, to terminate people of the old creation. “Spirit” is the central concept of the ministry of Jesus, that is, to germinate people in the new creation. Water deals with all the negative things of our past, burying everything of our old history. Water buries the old life, and the Spirit brings in the new life.
The life which we have received by being born again is a life for us to enter into the kingdom of God (v. 3). Let me give an illustration to help us understand this. On the earth there are a number of kingdoms. There are the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the human kingdom. The only way to enter into a particular kingdom is to have the life of that kingdom. We entered the kingdom of humanity by being born of human parents. Without having been born of human parents, we could never have seen, or entered into, the kingdom of humanity.
In the universe there is another kingdom, the kingdom of God. The only way that we can enter into this kingdom is by being born of God. There is the kingdom of man, the kingdom of humanity, and there is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of divinity. We all have been born into the kingdom of humanity, but we need to enter into the kingdom of divinity by being born again of God. Nicodemus thought that to be born again was for him to return to the womb of his mother (v. 4), but to be born again is to be born of water and the Spirit. This means to have our old history buried in the water and to have a new beginning, a new life, a new history, a new day, a new start of life, by the Holy Spirit. We have entered into the kingdom of God by a new birth, by regeneration, by being born of water and the Spirit.
John 3 goes on to tell us that Jesus would be lifted up just as the bronze serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness (v. 14). When He was lifted up on the cross, He was the Lamb (1:29), but He was in the form of a serpent. In John 1 is the Lamb, and in John 3 is the serpent. He was lifted up on the cross as the Lamb of God to take away our sin, and He was lifted up in the form of the serpent to deal with Satan, the old serpent, so that we might have the divine, eternal life (v. 15).
Surely His being lifted up was also to accomplish redemption, but redemption is not the goal. Redemption is the procedure for the goal. Redemption is for life. Through redemption we receive life. Praise the Lord that today we are not only redeemed but also born again. The past is gone, and a new life is now our portion. We have the eternal life, which is God Himself flowing into us. Life is simply God Himself in Christ as the Spirit flowing into us.
God has flowed Himself out and into us by two steps — by incarnation and by resurrection. Incarnation accomplished redemption, and resurrection imparts life into us. It was by the step of incarnation that He became a man (1:14). As a man He was the Lamb of God lifted up on the cross in the form of a serpent to take away sin and to deal with Satan in His accomplishment of redemption. Then He was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Christ as the Lamb of God is in chapter 1 of John. Christ as the breath, as the life-giving Spirit, is in chapter 20. After He was resurrected, He came back to His disciples and breathed into them, telling them to receive the Holy Spirit (v. 22). When we believed into Him, we received Him by breathing Him in. Now we have Him within us as our life.
Eventually, in John 3:29 Christ is revealed as the Bridegroom who is for the bride. We are the bride. We might wonder how we fallen sinners could be a part of Christ’s glorious bride. We become a part of this glorious bride by redemption and regeneration. John 3 shows us the start of life and the consequence of life. The start of life is to be regenerated by receiving redemption. The consequence of life is to enter into the kingdom and become a part of the bride. By being redeemed and regenerated, we have entered into the kingdom of God and have become a part of the bride.
After being regenerated, we need transformation. We can be transformed by drinking Christ, feeding on Him, abiding in Him, and breathing Him in all the time. John 4 tells us how to drink of Him. Chapter 6 tells us how to feed on Him. Then chapters 14 and 15 tell us how to abide in Him. Finally, chapter 20 tells us how to breathe Him in. As we breathe Him in, we are refreshed. Christ is the real refreshment. We need to be refreshed by Christ day by day. By drinking, eating, abiding, and breathing, we grow in the divine life. If we are really drinking of Christ, feeding upon Him, abiding in Him, and breathing Him in day by day, we will have the growth.
Now I want to point out another side of the growth in life. Although we have been born of the Spirit, we still have the flesh with us. We have the flesh without and the Spirit within. To grow in life means to have the Spirit within you increasing all the time and the flesh without decreasing all the time. Colossians 3 says that in the new man, the Body of Christ, the church, there is no natural person (vv. 10-11). In other words, there is no American, Chinese, Canadian, Japanese, Mexican, or any other race in the new man, but Christ is all and in all.
All of us in our flesh are like ugly worms, but within us there is something beautiful, which is the spiritual, heavenly, divine “butterfly.” The Lord came that we might have life for the purpose of producing the Body, and in the Body there is nothing old. However, we are old in our natural man, so we need to be transformed. This is why we need to drink the Lord, eat the Lord, abide in the Lord, and breathe in the Lord all the time. But in order to be transformed, our soul-life must also be dealt with. Our mind, emotion, and will — our entire soul — must be dealt with by the Lord.
In John 6:44-45 the Lord said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” The Father draws us to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by enlightening our mind. The real meaning of repentance is to have a change in our mind. Even today we still need some change in our mind. Our mind can frustrate us from coming to Christ. Day by day, morning and evening, we need a change of mind. We need the enlightenment of the Father so that we may realize our oldness. We need the renewing of our mind. Our mind needs to be taught by the Father afresh every morning.
We need the Father’s teaching, not man’s teaching. The Father’s teaching enlightens our mind so that we may see the things in our concept and understanding that replace Christ. We might have something good in our mind which replaces Christ, so we need to repent. We need to have a change of mind, a change of our concept. Never be satisfied with what you understand. Never remain in your old concept. In John 5 the Lord told the Jewish people that they had the knowledge from the Old Testament, but they would not come to the Lord Jesus for life (vv. 39-40). We need to be enlightened and have our mind renewed again and again.
In John 6 there is the renewing of the mind. Then in John 7 there is the dealing with the will. The Lord Jesus said, “If anyone resolves to do His will, he will know...” (v. 17). This means that if we are going to know Christ and know the Father’s intention, we must be submissive to take the Father’s will. Then we will see that the Father’s will is for us to enjoy His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We may be exercising to drink the Lord, eat the Lord, abide in the Lord, and breathe in the Lord, but in many things we do not want to have a change of mind, and we do not want to have our will subdued to the Father’s will. Thus, we may have the feeding, the eating, but not the proper digestion. You may exercise to enjoy the Lord, yet you are not willing to be enlightened in your mind and subdued in your will. As a result, it is difficult for you to partake of the Lord in a full way. Also, it is difficult for you to realize how much the Son of God means to you. The proper drinking and eating of the Lord must be realized in the change of the mind and in a submissive and subdued will.
The growth in life is Christ increasing within us and our decreasing. If Christ is going to increase in us and we are going to decrease, we need a change of mind in our concept, and we need a submissive will. The more we are changed in our mind and subdued in our will, the more Christ will be increased within us. This is the growth in life for the local church.
We can have the reality of the church life only by the growth in life. If we are short of the growth in life, we are short of the building up. The building up of the church life depends absolutely upon the growth in life. The real growth in life is not the increase of knowledge, of gifts, or of power. It is the increase of Christ within us. The increase of Christ within us requires that we have our mind changed and renewed and our will subdued.
John 14 shows that we need to have our emotion dealt with. The Lord said, “He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him...If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (vv. 21, 23). Love is with the emotion in the heart. Thus, in John 6 the mind is enlightened, in chapter 7 the will is subdued, and in chapter 14 the emotion is stirred up by the Lord. The real love of the Lord will bring Him to us. If we love Him, He will manifest Himself to us. If we love Him, He and the Father will come to us and make a mutual abode with us. This is a matter of the emotion. Our mind has to be renewed, our will has to be subdued, and our emotion has to be stirred up to love the Lord.
At the end of the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus dealt with Peter in a simple way. The resurrected, glorified Lord asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” When Peter said that he did, the Lord said, “Feed My lambs” (21:15). When you love the Lord, there is an outflow of life to feed others, to minister Christ as life to others. We may say that we are enjoying the Lord, but our mind has not been changed, our will has not been subdued, and our emotion has not been touched by the Lord or stirred up by Him. We surely need the drinking, eating, abiding, and breathing, but we also need our soul dealt with. The enjoyment of the Lord requires us to have a change in our mind, to have our will subdued, and to have our emotion stirred up to love the Lord.
The Lord Jesus went on to touch Peter’s strong will, but He did it in a wise way. He did not rebuke Peter and tell him that his will was strong and stubborn and that some day his will would be subdued. Instead the Lord said, “When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go” (v. 18). This shows the ripening of life, the maturity in life, not merely the growth in life.
The more mature you become, the more submissive you are. When you are young, you are stubborn in your will, and it is so easy for you to debate and argue with others. But if you are growing in the Lord, the day will come when you will be very submissive. When you are ripe in the life of Christ, you will never argue with the brothers. You will go along with others. Even if they put you on the cross, you will say Amen. To go along with a fellow member needs the growth in life and the ripening in life, the maturity in life.
The Lord predicted that one day Peter would be a submissive person, not only submissive to God’s will, God’s hand, but also submissive to all of his environment without any resistance. If we have the maturity in life, we can say, “No matter what happens to me, no matter what betides, I will not resist.” We need the mature ones in the church life. The young ones know how to fight, but they do not know how to be coordinated. To be coordinated requires a certain degree of maturity. If we have only life without growth, there will be fighting in the church life all the time. We need the growth in life for the maturity in life.
Peter was a bold and strong man, but the Lord told him that the day would come when someone would gird him and bring him to a place where he did not want to go, yet he would still go. Then the Lord said, “Follow Me” (v. 19). If we love the Lord, that will afford us an outflow of life to minister life to others. But to be submissive in the will affords us the ability to follow the Lord. If we are going to follow Him, we need a real subduing of our will.
You need a submissive will, but it cannot come to you overnight. You need the growth in life, bit by bit, until you have the maturity in life. The local church is not only a place where you can receive life but also a place where you can grow in life to be matured in life. The real growth in life is, positively, the increase of Christ within you, and negatively, the decrease of yourself. This decrease is in the change of your mind, the subduing of your will, and the stirring up of your emotion.
In John 12:25 the Lord said, “He who loves his soul-life loses it; and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life.” We have to lose the soul-life, the psuche, to participate in the eternal life, the zoe. We lose the soul-life for the divine life. We have to lose the soul-life, the natural life, in three directions: in the change of the mind, in the subduing of the will, and in the stirring up of the emotion. Day by day we need the fresh renewing of our mind, the subduing of our will, and the stirring up of our emotion so that our emotion is on fire for the Lord. This needs to take place continually until we become a mature person in the divine life. The more we are matured, the more submissive we will be in our will to the Lord, to the environment, to the church, and to all the brothers and sisters around us. Then there will be no problems in the church life.
We have to grow in life by drinking the Lord, feeding on Him, abiding in Him, and breathing Him in. We also have to continually have a change of mind, have our will subdued, and have our emotion stirred up. The entire soul-life must be lost for the divine life. Then day by day the church life will be strengthened and built up.
