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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:27; Zech. 12:1; Rom. 9:21-23; John 4:24; 3:5, 14-15; Gen. 2:7
In the previous chapter we saw that in the Bible there are the five great mysteries: the universe, man, God, Christ, and the church. Apart from these five great mysteries, there are many other mysteries in the Bible. The Gospel of Matthew speaks of the mysteries of the kingdom. The Gospel of John and the first Epistle of John also contain many mysteries, such as the mystery of eternal life and the mystery of God becoming flesh. The other books of the New Testament also speak of the mystery of our rapture, the mystery of resurrection, and other mysteries.
Eternal life is a mystery. Eternal life is not a matter of blessing but a matter of life. The Greek word for eternal applies not only to time but also to sphere; it implies time and extent. With respect to time, this life is everlasting; with respect to extent, this life is unlimited. Hence, this life is the eternal life. Such a life is mysterious to us. The fellowship produced out of this life is also mysterious.
In Greek the word for mystery implies “the shutting of the mouth,” “being silenced.” Suppose this morning as an old Chinese man I come and stand here silent with my mouth shut. You sit in silence for ninety minutes, and I stand also in silence for ninety minutes. As a result, you all will say, “This is really a mystery! We went to the meeting this morning, but we did not hear anything. We only saw a mysterious situation. The preacher simply would not tell us what was hidden inside his being. What a mystery!”
The universe is a mystery; the universe is mysterious. This means that God kept His mouth shut. God created the heavens and the earth; then He created all things in great variety; and eventually, He created man. To not have the Holy Bible would mean that God has kept silent. Thus, everything in the universe would be a mystery, and we would not be able to understand anything or know anything at all.
The way the Chinese sages formed Chinese words is truly interesting. The Chinese word for God is made up of two characters: the one on the left means to reveal, and the one on the right means to explain. God is the One who has revealed Himself and who has spoken. When you do not have God, everything is a mystery, but when God comes, revelation comes; then you have light and you are clear. One day before I turned nineteen, I heard the pure gospel and received it. I remember very clearly that on the afternoon I received God, immediately there was brightness within me. This was revelation; this was God coming into me. Dear brothers and sisters, how do you know if you have God in you? You know that God is in you because there is brightness in you, and there is revelation in you.
What is revelation? Revelation is the opening of the veil to reveal the hidden things. The subject of the book of Revelation is the “opening of the veil.” The book of Revelation fully reveals that in the universe there is God’s dominion in heaven and that there is God Himself on earth; it also reveals that God reigns in heaven and on earth and that the Lord is the center of the reigning in the universe. Today we are not under God’s silence. God’s mystery, which has been kept in silence in the times of the ages, has now been manifested through the prophetic writings according to the command of the eternal God (Rom. 16:25-26).
Today we have an open Bible, and the entire Bible is God’s revelation. Hebrews 1 begins by saying, “God, having spoken of old in many portions and in many ways to the fathers in the prophets, has at the last of these days spoken to us in the Son” (vv. 1-2). In the Old Testament, God spoke in the prophets, in men borne by His Spirit. In the New Testament, God speaks in the Son, that is, in the person of the Son.
Now let us come to see the second great mystery in the Bible, which is the mystery of man. Actually, the mystery of man is the mystery of you. All the abstract, invisible, spiritual, living things are surely mysterious, but our human body is also mysterious. Our eyes are more complex than the most advanced cameras today. Even the hairs of our body are mysteries. All the hairs in our body grow downward; only the hairs in our trachea grow upward. Some up and some down: what a mystery! This mystery is very logical. If the hairs on our body were to grow upward, it would be inconvenient for us to take a bath or shower. But if the hairs in our trachea were to grow downward, we would be in trouble, because all the dirty things would go down and accumulate in the lungs; we would not even be able to cough out phlegm. Is this not marvelous?
The first mystery in the Bible is the universe, and the mystery of the universe is God. Man also is a mystery, and the mystery of man is God. We must ask ourselves: Do we have God? How much do we enjoy God? Just to have the name and understand the theory are not enough. We must enjoy God in reality as the meaning of our human life.
The Bible shows us that God’s creation of heaven, earth, and all things was from the lowest to the highest, with man being created last. Furthermore, all the living creatures that God created were each according to its kind. The fish was according to the fish kind, and the bird was according to the bird kind; so then man must be according to mankind. But according to the revelation in the Bible, man is neither of the animal kind nor according to mankind. Man is superior and is different from the insects, fish, birds, and beasts. Man is of the same kind as God because man was created according to the image of God. Like a photograph of God, man bears the appearance of God. But even though man was created according to God’s kind and bears the image of God, he did not have the life of God.
Genesis 1:26 says, “God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” The Us here refers to the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit wanted to create man in Their image and according to Their likeness. But when we reach verse 27, it says, “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” The pronoun Us in verse 26 becomes a singular pronoun He in verse 27. It is clearly Us in one verse, yet the next verse says He. Why is this? If you continue to read the Bible, you will find the answer when you reach the New Testament. Actually, Jesus Christ is the image of God (Col. 1:15); He is the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of God’s substance (Heb. 1:3). Hence, God’s creation of man in the beginning was according to Christ.
Christ may be likened to the molding pan used by women for making bread. The molding pans used by the northern Chinese have seven different shapes: a dog, a tiger, a rabbit, a bird, a persimmon, a peach, and an apple. If you put the dough into the molds, you can make snacks of different shapes. Christ is the mold, and we are the clay. God created man with Christ as the mold. Therefore, man had the image of Christ, but he did not have the life of Christ. Why did God create man in this way? It was for the purpose that one day He could put Christ into man. This may be compared to making gloves. All the pairs of gloves are made for the purpose that one day men could put their hands into the gloves. Christ is the content of man as a glove. If you do not have Christ within you, then you are an empty glove; you are deflated. When you receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior, He enters into you. Then you are no longer an empty glove, but you are filled and satisfied. Man was created according to Christ and for Christ, just as a glove is made according to the hand and for the hand. Without the hand, the glove is meaningless and empty. Without Christ, man is empty and unsatisfied. In creation, man had only the image of Christ but not the life of Christ.
In Genesis 2 we are told what kinds of material God used to create man and how He created man. First, God used the dust of the ground to create man’s body. It is unmistakable that man’s body is of the ground. Genesis 3:19 says that man was taken out of the ground and that man is dust and will return to dust. However, God breathed the breath of life into man’s nostrils, into his body, and man became a living soul with a spirit (2:7). There were two kinds of material used: one was dust, which is concrete and visible; the other was breath, which is abstract and invisible. The dust was used to form man’s body, and the breath was breathed into man to become man’s spirit.
Here we see two kinds of material: dust and breath. The dust formed man’s body, and the breath became man’s spirit. The combination of the two produced the soul. This is why the Bible says that man is a living soul. In the Bible the soul is the unit for counting people. Seventy people of Jacob’s household went down into Egypt, but the Bible says that seventy souls went down into Egypt (Gen. 46:27, KJV).
In the Hebrew language, the word for breath in “the breath of life” in Genesis 2:7 is the same word for spirit in “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah” in Proverbs 20:27. This proves that the breath of life that God breathed into man entered into man to become his spirit. Proverbs 20:27 says that the spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah. This means that man’s spirit is the lamp to contain Jehovah as the oil for the lamp to shine. Therefore, if the spirit within man does not have God, it becomes a useless lamp. The spirit within us is a lamp, and it needs God to come into it as oil for us to be lit and to shine forth.
This becomes clearer in the New Testament. Today, when we believe in the Lord and receive Him into us, this God who is oil enters into us and dwells in our spirit. The parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25 shows us that the five prudent virgins had oil in their vessels, but the five foolish virgins did not have oil in their vessels. This means that some Christians do not have sufficient oil within. This may be compared to driving your car to the meeting; if you do not have enough gas, it should not be a surprise to you when your car stops halfway. Today many Christians are Christians with insufficient oil, Christians who have “stopped halfway.” The surest way is for us to first go to the house of God to get oil every day. We need to read the Bible and pray every day. We should first go to the “gas station” and get a full tank of gas before we start driving. We need to do this every morning to ensure that we will never be short of gas and stop short. Thank the Lord that God created a spirit for us! This spirit within us is the lamp of Jehovah God, and God is the oil within the lamp.
When God created man, the soul was originally good. One school of Chinese philosophy advocates that man’s nature is good by birth, while another school maintains that man’s nature is evil by birth. Actually, both are correct. When man was first created, man’s nature (referring to man’s soul) was good. When Satan came in to damage man, man fell and was united with Satan; thus, man’s nature became evil. Therefore, when the Chinese sages were forming word characters, due to man’s fallen condition they included the word demon as part of the word for soul. The word for soul is made up of demon and speaking; hence, the soul is “the demon-speaking.” This is true especially when a man is angry and loses his temper; the more he speaks, the more he becomes a “demon.”
Man’s soul became fallen and was united with Satan. This is why the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). To deny our self is to lose our soul-life, our natural life. Our attitude as Christians should be to never follow our soul, to always exercise to deny our self, and to take up the cross to follow the Lord.
Man was created in God’s image and according to God’s likeness with a spirit, a soul, and a body for the purpose of containing God. However, the created life of man was not the life of God, and the spirit of man was not the Spirit of God but something that issued from God’s breath of life. Some Bible scholars say that the breath of life in Genesis 2:7 refers to the life of God. This is wrong, because after God created man, He placed man in front of the tree of life, which signifies God Himself. God’s intention was for man to receive the tree of life, which was to receive God Himself, but man fell, and Satan entered in. Therefore, God closed the way to the tree of life so that man had no way to approach the tree of life and receive God as life.
Then a time came when God Himself became flesh to satisfy God’s righteousness, meet God’s holiness, and express God’s glory. He declared that He was life, that He was that tree. Moreover, He told us that He came that man may have life and may have it abundantly. Finally, He died on the cross and opened a new and living way for us so that we who were alienated from God, signified by the tree of life, can enter into the Holy of Holies to contact Him and take Him as the tree of life for our enjoyment.
Today our spirit is the most important part of our entire being. The human spirit is the organ for receiving God as life. We are just like a radio. A radio has a receiver within it. When the receiver malfunctions, it cannot receive the radio waves. Man is like a radio, and the human spirit within him is like a receiver. However, due to man’s fall, very few people take care of the spirit within. Man cares only for the outward body and the soul. When we repented and were saved, our spirit was activated. In other words, our conscience was activated.
According to the record in the Bible, the conscience is the leading part of the spirit. The conscience is the “bright virtue” taught by Confucius and the “inherent goodness” or “the brightness of the human heart” taught by Wang Yang-ming. Now that you are saved, you need to take care of your spirit. In the past when you quarreled with your wife, you were never short of words to defend yourself, and the more you spoke, the more you were convinced that you were right. But after you heard the gospel, the Holy Spirit entered into you and touched your conscience, causing your spirit and conscience to function. Then you confessed your sins and repented. The more you confessed, the stronger your spirit became. The more you confessed your sins, the clearer and purer your spirit became. This means that God came in, the oil came into the lamp, and the lamp was lit. When you have light and revelation, this means that God has come into you. However, after many of us have been saved, we put aside our lamp and do not care for our spirit. We are accustomed to using our mentality, our mind, but not our spirit. Although we know that as believers we should turn to our spirit and care for our spirit, yet we seldom do so.
Zechariah 12:1 says, “Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him.” In God’s eyes, man is of equal importance with heaven and earth. Moreover, heaven and earth are for man; so man is the center. Without the earth, man could not live. Without heaven, the earth would be without rain and sunlight and thus would not be able to sustain all the living things. The animals could not live; the plants could not live; and even more, man could not live. The vast heaven is for the earth, and the earth is for man. Although heaven is great, it is for the earth; although the earth is big, it is for the small man; and although man is small, he is for God. God is Spirit, and the man who is for God must also have a spirit so that the two spirits can become one spirit. It is no wonder that the Chinese sages said that man is the “spirit of all things.” The heavens are for the earth, and the earth is for man and for the spirit within man so that man could live in his spirit to be God’s vessel to receive, contain, express, and manifest God for God’s satisfaction.
Today we Christians have God within us. We are not here merely to eat but to contain God, to express God, and to be God’s vessels. The Chinese have a saying: “Man’s life is a matter of three fillings and one falling.” Three fillings refers to the eating of three meals, whereas one falling refers to sleeping. Our Christian life is not for “three fillings and one falling.” We were created by God as a tripartite man with a spirit, a soul, and a body for us to contain, enjoy, and express God.
Perhaps you have not yet believed in the Lord. In this case you must know that you are a vessel created for God. God wants you to be a vessel unto honor and glory to contain Him. Because God wants you to contain Him, He created a precious spirit in you. This spirit is for containing God. If you do not have God as Spirit in your spirit, your human life is vanity. If you have God as Spirit in you, your human life is substantial. If a radio is never turned on but is always laid aside, even though it has a receiver, it is still vanity. If it is laid aside for a day, it will be vanity for a day; if it is laid aside for a lifetime, it will be empty for a lifetime. You simply need to open your heart to the Lord to receive Him by calling on His name. Do not stay in your mind. You have a spirit within you. You must let your spirit function and let the conscience in your spirit function by speaking to you. You must follow the sense of your conscience and confess your sins to God. God will surely forgive your sins and even enter into you, and you will then be regenerated. When God comes in, the heavenly “music” also comes in. When God comes in, revelation comes in, light comes in, and life comes in.
Today we should not use our mind to worship God; rather, we need to use our spirit to worship God. Only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Only the Spirit can beget the spirit; only the spirit can worship the Spirit. I hope that these words could unravel the mystery of man. Man is a mystery because he has a spirit in him that enables him to let God come in to be his life and meaning. Thus, God becomes the mystery of man. Thank and praise the Lord! God is not only the mystery and meaning of the universe; even more He is the mystery and meaning of man.
