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Scripture Reading: John 1:4; 14:19-20; 6:57; 1 John 5:12; Col. 3:4; Gal. 2:20a; John 8:12; 1 John 1:1-7a
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:14)
This verse clearly states that the Lord Jesus, who is life to us, is the light. The life is the light.
Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (8:12)
Light of life is a very special term in the Scriptures. The previous verse says that the life is the light; this verse tells us that the light is the light of life.
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.” “That which was from the beginning” is the Word of life. We know this because this Epistle was written by the writer of the Gospel of John, who wrote in the first verse of that book, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the beginning of his first Epistle, it seems as if John was telling the believers, “That which was from the beginning, which I wrote about in my Gospel, is the Word of life.” In the second verse, he adds a parenthetical: “And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” The word life here is a proper noun and could be capitalized: “And the Life was manifested.” Again, from John’s Gospel we know that life here is the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. John continues in verse three: “That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” To convey the sense that John had in writing these words, we can paraphrase his words: “We declare to you the life, but you will have the fellowship. What we declare is the life, but what you will have is the fellowship. If you receive the life, which we declare to you, you will have the fellowship.” Hence, the fellowship comes from the life. In verse 4 John says, “And these things we write that our joy may be made full.” John continues in verses 5 through 7a: “And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth; but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” In this opening word from 1 John, we see four matters: life, fellowship, joy, and light. According to these seven verses, when we receive the divine life through the apostle John’s fellowship, we have the fellowship of life, which causes us to be full of joy and brings us into the light.
The life spoken of in this passage is the Word that was in the beginning and has been manifested to us. Concerning this life, John writes that the apostles first heard it, then saw it with their eyes, then beheld it, then handled it with their hands. After handling it, the apostles declared it to the saints. This shows us how real and available this life is to us. Once we receive this life, we have the fellowship of life. If we have the fellowship, we will be full of joy. Not only so, because this life brings us into God, who is light, we will be in the light. If we are in the fellowship of this life, we are in fellowship with God, and if we are in fellowship with God, we are in the fellowship with the light. In other words, if we have this life, we have fellowship, joy, and light. In this message we will consider the significance of these four matters.
I have a very heavy burden that you who love the Lord would realize the proper way to experience Christ as the inner life. It is not easy to have this realization. You may know that Christ is life to you, and you may know that Christ lives within you. Moreover, you may love the Lord and know that you have to pray to Him and contact Him. You may know all these things, but the truth of the matter is that it is rather difficult for me to help you realize the proper way to experience Christ as the inner life in a very real and practical way. It is possible for people to be helped to know that Christ is life to them yet not be helped to know the proper way to experience this life. It is not easy for me to help you in this matter. It is very difficult for physicians to give a clear and understandable explanation of the life in the human body; it is more difficult still to help you have a clear realization concerning Christ as life and help you experience Him in a practical way. For this reason, I have looked to the Lord much, seeking Him that He would grant me a simple way or a clear word whereby I could present this matter to you. What is this simple way? If you are going to experience the inner life, Christ Himself as the divine life, you have to know what the fellowship of this life is. In his Gospel, John stresses mainly that we can have this eternal life but spends little time telling us exactly how we can experience it. It is in his first Epistle that he tells us the right and proper way to experience the eternal life. The way to experience the divine life is simply to know the fellowship of the divine life.
The apostle John declared this life to us so that we may have the fellowship of life. It is rather difficult to arrive at a proper definition of this term, the fellowship of life. One day, after I had spent much time seeking the Lord and referring to books concerning this matter, the Lord pointed something out to me. There are at least two physical things that we can use to illustrate the fellowship of life. The first is an electrical current. Let us say that we are in a room that has been installed with electricity and electric lights. In such a room, we have not only electricity but the current of electricity. This electrical current illustrates the fellowship of life. An electrical current is simply electricity flowing. When the lights are turned on, we have the flow of electricity, the electrical current. However, if the lights are not on, although we still have electricity, we do not have the current, the operation, of electricity. We can also illustrate the fellowship of life with the circulation of blood in our body. The circulation of blood is actually the blood itself circulating. These two illustrations help define the fellowship of life. The fellowship of life is simply the flow of the divine life.
We can bear witness to this in our experience as believers. When we were regenerated, something began to flow within us. This is because as regenerated persons, we have a flow, a current, within us. This flow is the flow of life. The more we love the Lord, spend time with Him, and contact Him, the more this current courses through us. If we check with our experience, we will realize that before we were saved, we did not have this kind of flow within. It was only from the time that we opened ourselves to the Lord and received Him as our Savior and life that this flow began within us. I can still recall the day this flow began in me. One day I went to a gospel meeting. Before the meeting I was not saved, but during the meeting I was regenerated. When I left the meeting, there was something within me that made me want to sing and praise the Lord. I realize now that that “something” within me was actually the fellowship of the divine life. It was the current, the flowing, of the spiritual “electricity.” We have this experience repeatedly as Christians. Suppose we spend some time with the Lord and enjoy Him. During that time, do we not feel something flowing within us, burning within us, and even energizing us? This is the fellowship of the divine life. We as believers have the “current” of the divine life within us.
The proper way to experience Christ as life is to have this flow within us. If we do not have this current flowing within us, something is wrong. Just as a room may be installed with electricity but may not have the electrical current in operation, we may have Christ as the divine life but lose the fellowship of the divine life. If we check with our experience, we will realize that this is truly the case. Having the flow is just like breathing: the air is all around us, but unless we breathe, there is no way to take it in. The way to know whether we are in the fellowship, living by Christ, and experiencing Christ is simply to check whether there is a flow within. Do we have the current within us? If we do not have the flow or if the flow is ebbing, we must cry out to the Lord and open to Him.
When you have the flow of life, you will have joy. When I see you with a long face instead of a shining face, I know that you have lost the inward flow. If you have the inward flow, regardless of your situation, you will be full of joy. Indeed, your having joy means that you are in the flow, in the fellowship of the divine life.
Christians, as a rule, must be joyful persons; they must be persons who are full of joy at all times. Sometimes we are so full of joy that we feel we will burst unless we shout “Hallelujah!” “Praise the Lord!” or “Amen!” Sometimes we are so full of joy that our silence must cease and we must bubble over by speaking. As Christians, we should not be so silent. Because we are so full of the current, flowing, and bubbling of the divine life within us, instead of being quiet, we must shout and speak. You will find that the more you express what is flowing within, the more the fellowship of life will flow within you. This is what it is to be a Christian in the fellowship of the divine life.
We should never quench the fire that is burning within us (1 Thes. 5:19; Rom. 12:11). In other words, we should not smother the flow of the fellowship of life within us. Let us say that we have a fire burning in our fireplace. If we close the flue on the chimney and close all the doors and windows, the fire will go out. If we want the fire to burn, we must give the fire ventilation by opening the chimney’s flue and throwing open the doors and windows. When we let the air come in and ventilate the fire, the fire will burn brightly, even to the point of consuming our entire house! If we allow the fellowship of the divine life to flow in us, that is, if we allow the “fire” to “burn” in us, this proves that we are living in Christ and taking Christ as our life practically. This is what it is to experience the flow, the fellowship, of life.
As a person who is not especially emotional, I do not like to be too emotional. However, many times when I pray, I find that I must call, “O Lord! Hallelujah!” If you are careful not to quench the Holy Spirit and if you allow the Spirit to flow, you will most certainly do the same thing. On the one hand, we must be careful not to do this too often in the meetings lest it disturb others. On the other hand, if sometimes the saints do this in the meetings, we should not be disturbed, for this is something in the spirit. Second Corinthians 5:13 says, “For whether we were beside ourselves, it was to God; or whether we are sober-minded, it is for you.” For others’ sake we must be sober. However, before God we very often have to be beside ourselves.
If you are a Christian and yet have never been beside yourself, you are not a normal Christian. You have to be a Christian to such an extent that, because there is a current within you, you are beside yourself. I believe that some of the brothers and sisters may have this experience from time to time. However, we must all have these experiences with greater frequency. We have to be in the fellowship, in the current. When we are in the flow of life, we will be full of joy and full of an inward, energizing power. When we are in the flow, it will be very easy for us to experience the Lord’s presence and know His mind and will.
This is the simple secret to which I was referring in the previous chapter and the answer to the question that I posed in it. By what way can we practically experience Christ as life? We experience Christ as life by maintaining the inward current of life within us all the time. If anything, anyone, or any place causes us to lose the inward flow, that is a sign that we are wrong. Whenever we have some struggle, quarrel, or strife with the Lord, the inward current stops. Even if we only struggle a little bit or argue with Him briefly, the flow ceases. The flow is not stopped only by disobedience toward the Lord; it is stopped even by the slightest argument or struggle with Him. When the flow abates, we must realize that we are wrong, and we must stop whatever it is that we are doing and cry out to the Lord.
Today if you ask me how I know that I am living by Christ, I will tell you that the answer is simple: I have the flow. I have the current flowing within me. This is very practical and very real. Any time that we do not have the flow within us, we are not living by Christ. In these days, we need to spend time to realize this matter and enter into this kind of practical experience. We have to be in the flow. We have to possess the inward current of the divine life flowing within us all the time.
Not only do we need the fellowship of life; we need to experience the light of life. Whereas the fellowship of life is the current, the flow, of Christ as life within us, the light of life is the shining of the divine life within us. We should not separate the light from the life and think that the life and the light are separate matters. When the life within us shines, it is the light. Here is yet another indication of whether or not we are living by Christ. When we live by Christ, something within us shines, enlightening us within and bringing us into a realm of light. When the light of life is shining within us, there is no darkness in us. We know whether we are living by Christ by checking whether we are in the light or in the darkness.
When we are in the darkness, we can quarrel with the brothers, even to the point of losing our temper, yet not feel that we are wrong. In fact, if we quarrel and become angry yet have no sense of wrongdoing, this proves that we are in darkness and that there is no light within us. In such a situation, not only has the current within us stopped, but the light has gone. Not only is there no flowing; there is no shining. If we are experiencing the shining of the light of life within, when we go to quarrel with a brother, we will realize that we are wrong.
The shining of the light of life not only enlightens; it also governs. Wherever there is light, there is ruling. Light itself is even a ruling power. If tonight the city in which you live were to have no light, confusion would engulf the entire city, and many lawless activities and crimes would take place. This indicates that light is a ruling power. The Lord’s light, as often as it shines within us, always rules us and keeps us in order. Our having the flow of life and the shining and ruling of light within is proof that we are living by Christ, that we are in Christ, and that we are taking Christ as our life. It is urgent that we all realize this matter. I pray that the Lord in these days will enable us to realize this and have more experience of living in Christ by experiencing the fellowship of life and the light of life.
This is the key, the secret, of experiencing Christ as life in a practical way. If we take care of the flowing and shining of life within us, we will have need of nothing else. Of course, we will still need to pray, read the Scriptures, attend the meetings, and fellowship with the saints. But we have to realize that all these proper Christian activities are actually the result of the flowing and the shining. At the same time, all these practices are the instruments, the means, by which we experience more flowing and shining. The basic thing we must realize is that the secret of living by Christ, living in Christ, and taking Christ as our life is to always take care of the inward flowing and the inward shining. If you do not have the inward flowing and shining, you must go to the Lord to deal with Him and be dealt with by Him, for that is a strong indication that something is wrong within. If all the saints among us would take care of this matter day by day, what living, shining, and flowing Christians we would be! Then whenever we come to the meetings, everyone would come with something flowing and shining within their being. The enjoyment of the fellowship of life and the light of life must be our day-by-day and moment-by-moment experience.
I beg of you to practice one thing: take care of the inward flowing and inward shining. As a Christian, you must have the inward flow and shining. If you do not have the inward flow and shining, you are a dead Christian — one who has lost the fellowship, the inward current, of life. If this is your case, you have to recover the fellowship of life by going to the Lord, dealing with Him, and being dealt with by Him. If you take this way, you will immediately recover the fellowship.
Question: How do we know that we are experiencing the flowing and the shining of life?
Answer: When you have the inward shining, it is very easy for you to recognize any hint of darkness. From the perspective of the Christian experience, this is very real. As believers, we have something living within us, flowing within us, and energizing and “heating” us. However, these kinds of experiences have been very much neglected by Christians today. We pay too much attention to other things and as a consequence have neglected this matter. Let us forget about the other things and care for this one thing, that is, for the inward flowing and the shining. When you are going to pray, you have to pray in the flow. When you speak, you must speak in the flow. In the midst of ministering, I have often had the sense that the flow has stopped. Whenever I experience this, even in the midst of ministering, I have to cry to the Lord. I have to be adjusted by Him and be recovered to the inward flow of life.
The divine life, with its flowing and shining, is a living matter. With anything that is living, there is always some amount of registration, feeling, sense, or consciousness. When the Lord within us is flowing and shining, we sense it; we have a deep feeling that there is something flowing and shining within us. We especially have a sensation when we do not have the flow and light of life. When we are surrounded by air and are breathing, we may not have any particular sensation. However, when there is no more air, our sense is awful and very acute.
I stress once again that this is the proper way for us to experience Christ as life. Christ, who is God Himself, is profound, great, and almighty, yet He is so available and real to us. This is a great mercy and grace to us. It is impossible for us to imagine and understand how wonderful this is. The unbelievers do not know of these things. When we talk about the fellowship of life and the light of life with them, they think that we are superstitious. However, we know the reality. We know that the Lord is as real and available as the air. The air is very easy for us to breathe. It needs no preparation for us to assimilate it. If we had to prepare the air in the same way we have to prepare food, we all would have died long ago. There is no need for us to go to the supermarket to purchase air, no need to store it in the refrigerator, and no need to cook it. Wherever we go, the air is ready for us to breathe. The air is vital to our existence, yet it is so obtainable. Our Christ is just like the air that we breathe. This is the simple and practical way for us to experience Christ.
If we all practice this, we will be victorious Christians and spiritual persons, and we will enter into the real church. When we experience Christ in this way, we experience the cross, we are controlled, we are ruled, we are nourished, we are refreshed, and we are strengthened. This is the simple secret whereby we can experience Christ.
