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It is my burden that in the following messages we should see something very basic in the work of Christ. This may be divided into four major steps: (1) the incarnation, (2) the crucifixion, (3) the resurrection, and (4) the ascension.
First, we need to say a few words regarding the eternal purpose of God. The Scriptures reveal to us that in eternity past God designed a plan according to His own good pleasure. In that plan God purposed to express Himself through His Son Jesus Christ and to have Jesus Christ expressed through a group of people. This is how the hidden, invisible God would be manifested (1 Tim. 3:16) and at the same time Christ would be glorified. Christ should have the preeminence, the first place in all things (Col. 1:18). But all this depends upon one thing: that Christ be wrought into a people as their all in all. These people, mingled with the full measure of God’s life in Christ, would be a living Body to Christ (Eph. 1:23). This is the central point of all Scripture.
We must realize, however, that God’s divine plan must be wholly accomplished in and through the Holy Spirit. Although it had been planned in eternity past by God and was accomplished by Christ, yet it must be realized in us by the Holy Spirit. In these messages, therefore, we will see what it means to experience the work of the Holy Spirit.
Let us start at the first major step of Christ, the incarnation. What does the incarnation of Christ mean? We know that Christ is God incarnated as a man. Christ is the God-man. He is not only a man of God; He is also a God-man. Therefore, the incarnation of Christ simply means the mingling of God with humanity. Mingling is much more than mixing together; it is an intrinsic union. In the entire history of mankind such a thing had never occurred. For four thousand years, God was God and man was man. Yes, man had something to do with God, and God sometimes made contact with man, yet the two remained separate. However, when Christ was born as a man, a strange and wonderful event took place. A child was born, a child who was called the Mighty God (Isa. 9:6). Can you believe this — a child called the Mighty God!
Have you ever considered the difference between the God of the Hebrews and the God of the Christians? The God whom the Hebrews believe is only the Almighty Creator, but the God in whom we believe is more. He is still the Almighty God, but He is the Almighty One who came into humanity, born of a virgin. All that our Mighty Creator is and has, was in that little child. This little child was not born into a noble family nor raised in a city of fame (Matt. 2:23; John 1:45-46). He was brought up in a lowly family to do the work of a carpenter (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3). He was a child, yet He was God (Heb. 1:8). He was a laborer, a carpenter, yet He was the Almighty Creator of the whole universe (John 1:3; Heb. 1:2).
Perhaps we have been Christians many years yet have never been impressed with this. It is indeed inconceivable to our natural mind that the Almighty God would one day mingle Himself with a man. But this was accomplished in Jesus Christ, and this is the very desire of God for you and me — that He be mingled with us.
Do you know what it means to be a real Christian? To be a Christian simply means to be mingled with God, to be a God-man. It is not enough to be a good man; we have to be a God-man. A good man might be a man of the tree of knowledge, the result of which is death (Gen. 2:17). A God-man is a man of the tree of life (v. 9). In his spirit, God is mingled; in his heart, God is dwelling; in his soul — mind, emotion, and will — God is occupying. This is a real, normal Christian.
The first person who was mingled with God was Jesus (Matt. 1:21-23). Do you realize why He is so precious to us? It is because in Him is the universal mingling of God with humanity. We should spend some time before the Lord, and say, “Lord, reveal to me the meaning of the mingling of God with man.” We should ask ourselves, “Do I realize it, do I experience it, do I live in it?” If we would bring this to the Lord, I believe that our whole life would be revolutionized. We would realize that we are “peculiar,” “strange,” set apart from society because God is mingled with us. Think how wonderful it is that human beings such as we could have God as life, dwelling within and occupying our whole being!
Now we come to the second point of this first major step of Christ. In the incarnation of Christ, God is expressed in a man. This is contrary to our natural concept. We always think it would be wonderful if God would manifest Himself directly to us, but this is not His plan. God’s plan is to manifest Himself in man and through man. This is the key to the four Gospels: God is expressed in a man — a man who is truly man, a man who lived a human life on this earth, yet who expressed God.
In the Gospel of John we are told that the Lord is the Word of God, that this Word is God Himself (1:1), and that one day He became a man (v. 14). We see the Lord on this earth acting, living, walking, working, and doing things exactly as a man. Although He performed miracles, His life was a human life, His walk a human walk. Sometimes He was hungry, sometimes thirsty. Once He asked a woman for some water to drink (4:7). Sometimes He felt tired (v. 6), and sometimes He even wept (11:35). He was one hundred percent a man! Yet, in this man — in His life, His walk, His work — God was manifested. This is what God still desires today; He desires to be manifested through humanity.
Do you realize that Christians should be very human? When I was young, I had a wonderful thought soon after I was saved: I thought that the more different I was from others, the more spiritual I would be! But one day the Lord opened my eyes and caused me to see that what I was considering was not spiritual but peculiar. It is not peculiarity that must be manifested through me but God Himself. I must be filled with God and possessed by Him. Then I will manifest God in my life. I must be very human yet very spiritual. Today some people think that to make themselves peculiar and different from others is to be spiritual. No, the more spiritual we are, the more ordinary we will be.
Let me tell you a story. About twenty-two years ago we were living and working in a certain city in northern China. At that time many of us were seeking to grow in love to the Lord and be more spiritual. Some of the sisters were influenced by certain writings, so they tried to imitate what the books taught. They tried to be quiet; they tried to be gentle; they tried to do things slowly and speak softly. But after a short time I found that this was not spirituality but altogether imitation. It was imitation without life. One day I talked with these sisters and said, “Sisters, if you would be spiritual, you must move quickly, speak quickly, and seek never to be quiet. If one of you lose your temper, then you will be spiritual.” They exclaimed, “Brother Lee, you are really too much for us! We go to one extreme, and you want us to go to the other.” Then I asked them where they should be. They answered, “Neither at one extreme nor the other. We must be in the middle, we must be balanced.” To be spiritual is not to be quiet and gentle; neither is it to lose your temper. To be spiritual is simply to be occupied by God. We must realize what kind of life God desires us to have. It is not just a life of doing good. It is a life full of Christ, occupied by God and mingled with God in every way.
When our Lord was on earth, though He was wholly a man, He lived by God (John 6:57). He never did anything of Himself (5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:28); He never spoke anything from Himself (7:16-17; 14:10). Our Lord had no sin; He did not have a sinful nature. From a natural point of view, He did not even know what sin was (2 Cor. 5:21). Yet He denied and rejected Himself. He always took God as His life. He walked in God, worked through God, and spoke only from God. This is the life that God desires us to have. The Christian life is to have God in Christ as our life and our all, day by day and moment by moment. We must deny and reject ourselves. We need to abandon ourselves and take God as our life. This is not just a doctrine. This is a life! It is a life of taking God practically, moment by moment, as everything to us.
Christ was what we should be. Christ is the pattern. He is the Head, and we are the Body. God has done the most wonderful thing in the universe in mingling Himself with a man, Jesus Christ. But God did not stop there. He is going onward, doing the same thing today. God is mingling Himself with thousands upon thousands of people! Through the past two thousand years He has been doing this, but man has simply not understood. God wants to mingle Himself with us, but we have not cooperated. In these two centuries there have been many Christian teachings, but something has been lacking — the mingling of God with man. Oh, may we realize that in Christ God desires to be our life and our everything, even as He was everything to Christ.
How may this be accomplished? First, we must see how it was accomplished in Christ. We are told that He was born of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18, 20). After that, not much is said of Him until He was thirty years of age, but we believe that during those early years He must have been filled with the Holy Spirit. He was born of the Holy Spirit and He was filled with the Holy Spirit, yet when He started His work for God, He came to John the Baptist to be baptized. The meaning of baptism is to be put to an end by death and burial. Brothers and sisters, this is a deep experience. We have been born of the Holy Spirit and perhaps have some experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit, yet we must learn this lesson: if we are going to be used by God to fulfill His purpose in this age, we must once more hand ourselves over to the Lord that He might bring us to an end. We must be put to death and buried. Even if we are just as spiritual as the Lord Jesus at thirty years of age, we must once more hand ourselves over to be buried. It was after the Lord was baptized that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him (3:16), and He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
This is an example of the experiential workings of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ had been born of the Holy Spirit and filled inwardly with the Holy Spirit, yet He still needed more of the Holy Spirit to equip and strengthen Him for fulfilling God’s purpose in this age. He needed the Holy Spirit to come down upon Him. From this example we see that there are three steps in the working of the Holy Spirit: (1) begetting, (2) filling, and (3) clothing, or baptizing. Inwardly, we must have the life of God in us through the Spirit of life, and we must be filled with this Spirit of life. Outwardly, we must be clothed and baptized with the Holy Spirit. This is our equipment, our qualification, for fulfilling the purpose of God in this age.
We need to go to the Lord and consider before Him the experiences He has had of the Holy Spirit. We too need such experiences. Inwardly, we need to be born of the Holy Spirit and filled with Him; we need Him as our life. Outwardly, we need to be baptized in Him and clothed upon with Him so that we will be equipped with power for the work of God. All this depends on one thing: we must continually learn the lesson of denying ourselves, of giving up ourselves and contacting the Lord all the time. If we would have a life mingled with God Himself and be in the way of fulfilling His purpose, we must be in the Spirit. Only then will we be able to realize a life and a work which are well pleasing to God.
Pray much about this matter. Let us seek the real experiences of the working of the Holy Spirit, the inward filling and the outward clothing.
