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Date: February 9, 1972
Scripture Reading: John 3:6; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 5:25; Rom. 8:4-6
The content of the Bible is altogether a matter of the Spirit of God and our human spirit. God created man as a vessel so that He could enter into man to be man’s life and nature for His expression. Therefore, God created a human spirit within man as an organ to receive Him (Gen. 2:7; Zech. 12:1). However, because of the fall of man, the spirit of man was deadened (Gen. 3:3; Eph. 2:1). Later, human culture, religion, and various philosophies emerged so that man’s thoughts and concepts deviated from God’s intention, bringing in many complications within man.
The biblical revelation regarding the relationship between God and man is actually quite simple. God is Spirit (John 4:24), and He created man as a vessel to contain Him by creating a human spirit within man (Rom. 9:23-24). God created a spirit within man because He, as the divine Spirit, desires to enter into man’s spirit to be his life and nature. This simple relationship, however, became quite complicated because the fall of man filled man’s mind with many distractions so that he cannot clearly see that God is Spirit, that man is a vessel to contain God, and that the human spirit is an organ and a vessel to receive God. Man, however, can still cry out to God and call on His name so that God can enter into his human spirit to be his life. This is regeneration.
To be regenerated means to be born again, which is to gain another life, the life of God, in addition to man’s original life. The original life we received is the human life, but the life we receive through regeneration is the life of God. The life of God is divine and eternal; it is God Himself, and it is also the Spirit of God. We cannot separate the life of God from God; neither can we separate the life of God from the Spirit of God.
God is Spirit, and the Spirit is the Spirit of life (8:2). When God’s life enters into our spirit, we receive another life, and we are regenerated. Regeneration is the issue of our believing in the Lord Jesus. We were fallen sinners, but God was incarnated to be a man, the Lord Jesus. As our Savior, Jesus accomplished redemption for us on the cross. God became a man in order to bear our sins on the cross, solving the problem of our sins before God. Hence, in order to be regenerated, we must believe in the Lord Jesus, who died for us and who redeemed us from our sins on the cross. When we believe in Him, His redemption is applied to us, and we are forgiven because His precious blood washes us of all our iniquities before our righteous God. Following His redemptive death, Jesus was resurrected from the dead and became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). His death dealt with man’s sins, and in His resurrection as the life-giving Spirit, He can enter into man to be his life through regeneration (1 Pet. 1:3). Man needs to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus so that his sins can be forgiven. Then he needs to open to the Lord and call upon Him so that He can enter man’s spirit to be his life.
We need to follow the living Lord after our regeneration. Consider an example of a brother who was a criminal before hearing the gospel and believing in the Lord Jesus. First, his sins have been forgiven because of the Lord’s death on the cross. Second, the Lord entered into him as the omnipresent life-giving Spirit when he called upon the Lord’s name. Not only were his sins forgiven, but the Lord’s life also entered into his spirit. However, even though he has been regenerated with the Lord’s life, he can still be tempted by the devil to do evil things and to think indecent thoughts in his mind. Nevertheless, deep within his spirit, there is an indescribable feeling that troubles him when he is tempted. This is the operation of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of life, in him. After a man calls upon the name of the Lord, the Lord’s Spirit enters into him, and even though he can be tempted to do evil and improper things, he no longer feels comfortable within when he does such things. This is because the Lord is living within him.
Before they were saved, all Christians had a certain sense of comfort with their sinful behavior. However, after believing into the Lord and calling upon His name, there is an additional sense, a feeling, within them that is real, even though it is almost indescribable. Previously, some believers were expert liars who could easily tell clever lies and be inwardly pleased with themselves. However, once they called on the Lord Jesus and received the Lord, it was difficult for them to lie. Some enjoyed watching movies very much, but the same sense of enjoyment was no longer present when they went to a movie. Ever since they called on the Lord, the Lord within them troubles them and makes them uneasy, because He is living and has no desire to go to a movie. This troubling proves that there is another person with another life in them. This is the operation of the Lord Jesus within a genuine Christian. Jesus, as the living Spirit, has entered into us and become our life. We have been born of the Spirit. John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Jesus, as the living Spirit, is operating in us and troubling us so that we would follow Him. This is the mark of a genuine Christian.
Being a Christian is a very simple matter of following the Lord who lives within us. The Lord is the life-giving Spirit. As He stirs up things within us, He causes us to deal with our sins. Hence, we need to thoroughly confess our sins; the more thorough and more specific our confession is, the better it is. The more we confess our sins, the more the Lord will give us a sense of our sins. Then the more we have a sense of our sins, the more we can confess our sins so that our inner being will be fully occupied and filled with Him. When we call on His name, saying, “O Lord Jesus,” and confess our sins before Him, our sins will be dealt with, and our inner being will be occupied and saturated with the Lord little by little. Furthermore, we will spontaneously enjoy the Lord and sense His presence, sweetness, and riches. The Lord will become our life, power, light, and holiness. We need to daily experience the Lord in this way and be filled with Him.
Regrettably, there are many distractions in Christianity. Christianity has many doctrines that are seemingly good but in reality are distractions. Christianity also has many ordinances, practices, and rituals that have become a form of bondage and restriction. The Pentecostal movement rose up in Christianity at the end of the nineteenth century because Christianity was full of doctrines, empty teachings, rituals, and ordinances, all of which were without life. The appeal of the Pentecostal experience was a reaction against this deadness. This movement, however, eventually went to an extreme, emphasizing the matter of speaking in tongues and teaching that a believer must speak in tongues in order to receive the Holy Spirit, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and have an overcoming living.
The Bible does record experiences of speaking in tongues, and I do not oppose genuine tongue-speaking, but I do not believe that many of the experiences of so-called tongue-speakers today are genuine. Thirty-six years ago I was influenced by the Pentecostal movement, and I spoke in tongues repeatedly. I even helped others to speak in tongues. However, I realized very quickly that it was meaningless, and I abandoned it. I have spent much time to study the matter of speaking in tongues and am confident that much of the current practice of speaking in tongues is false.
Tongues in the Bible refer to a dialect, either angelic or human; however, many so-called tongue-speakers have reduced this to the repeated use of a few sounds. But what dialect only relies on a few sounds? The tongues spoken of in the Bible involved much more than repeating “di di da da.” Many who promote this practice are deceiving God’s children. Some even teach that a person who does not speak in tongues is not saved. Others teach that it is possible to be saved without speaking in tongues but that it is not possible to receive the Holy Spirit without at least some “di di da da” experience of speaking in tongues. Both teachings are absolutely wrong.
All over the world today, wherever there are Christians, there are people who have been helped by the books of Brother Watchman Nee. However, Brother Nee never spoke in tongues. Not only did he never speak in tongues; he was the first among Chinese Christians to tell people it was a doctrinal error to say that one must speak in tongues in order to receive the Holy Spirit. When I first arrived in Tientsin and Beijing to work in these two cities in 1936, I went to learn about speaking in tongues and to lead others to speak in tongues. When Brother Nee heard about this in Shanghai, he immediately sent me a telegram with the words of 1 Corinthians 12:30: “Do all speak in tongues?” He did not speak in tongues, and he did not believe that all Christians needed to speak in tongues. Brother John Sung, who was the most powerful evangelist among Christians in China thirty years ago and who brought many to salvation, opposed this even more. If he saw anyone uttering “di di da da” sounds, he would say that it was of the devil. He was altogether against this so-called Pentecostal experience.
Over the past few centuries, many servants who were greatly used by the Lord never spoke in tongues. Charles Spurgeon and D. L. Moody were both influential preachers in the nineteenth century, but they never spoke in tongues. Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis, who was considered to be a very spiritual person in the twentieth century, also was against such Pentecostal pursuits. She believed that in the Pentecostal movement there were many counterfeits from Satan and cases of demon possession. Andrew Murray was also a very spiritual man. He never spoke in tongues and did not encourage people to speak in tongues. The teaching that one cannot be saved without speaking in tongues or cannot receive the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues is absolutely a satanic heresy.
In 1963 I was invited by a Pentecostal group to lead a conference in San Diego for a week. When I arrived at the meeting place, I saw a sign advertising my name. Immediately, I asked them to take it down, or I could not speak. They took down the sign, and after speaking in the meeting, I stayed in the house of one of the leading ones, along with an American brother and two Chinese brothers and a sister. One night after the meeting was dismissed, we returned to his house, and I went to bed early. Then the host began to speak with the two Chinese brothers about tongues. He and his wife laid hands on them and told them to quickly and repeatedly say Hallelujah in order to speak in tongues. These two brothers were honest and could not pretend to speak in tongues. Nevertheless, the couple was so persistent that eventually one brother said to the other in Chinese that unless he babbled something, the couple would not let them go. The wife of one of the Chinese brothers was Indonesian, and so he uttered a few sentences in Indonesian. When the American couple heard this, they cheerfully applauded and proclaimed that he had spoken in tongues. The next morning the two brothers recounted how they were pressed to speak in tongues. When I heard this, I spoke to the brother who gave us hospitality, saying, “Brother, why did you have to do this? Is the Lord Jesus not enough for you to preach? Is Christ not enough for you to supply? Why do you need to engage in such things?”
When I was living near Los Angeles in 1963, a physics professor in his forties invited me to dinner in his home, and several others came with me. During dinner he testified how he was blessed to be able speak in tongues by just wagging his tongue and making sounds. As soon as he said this, I stopped him, saying, “The Bible has no definite record that Peter and all the one hundred and twenty disciples spoke in tongues on the day of Pentecost. Furthermore, if the tongues they spoke at the time were just sounds made by wagging their tongues, then the tongues they spoke were not supernatural but merely manufactured. In the Old Testament Balaam’s donkey spoke in a genuine human language. Tongue-speaking involves a supernatural power, that is, the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you. There is no need to wag your tongue. If you need to wag your tongue, you are faking tongues.” He had a doctorate in physics, and after hearing my analysis, he said nothing further.
Genuine tongue-speaking is produced by the Holy Spirit coming upon a person, but where is the power of the so-called tongue-speakers who make “di di da da” sounds today? Such ones also speak many prophecies, but none of them are ever fulfilled. A prophetess among some Pentecostals in Taiwan predicted that there would be a great revival throughout the whole world in 1966 and especially in Taiwan. Eventually, nothing happened. Some so-called Pentecostals on the West Coast of the United States repeatedly prophesied that there would be great earthquakes in Los Angeles and that the entire city would sink to the bottom of the sea. They even warned people to leave Los Angeles and live in mountain caves. These prophecies also were not fulfilled. When their prophecies did not come true, their movement declined on the West Coast.
Through our study, we discovered that their prophecies all had the same intonation, whether in Chinese, English, or any other language. There was even a so-called school for prophets on the West Coast that specialized in teaching people how to prophesy. Their prophecies were mainly extracted from the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Our study confirmed that this has been a great bothering to God’s children. Over the past seven years, the churches among us in Southeast Asia and Taiwan have also been distracted very much by this movement. We need to issue a warning to God’s people not to listen to these counterfeits from Satan.
We should return to the pure word of the Scriptures. In God’s redemption, the Lord Jesus is God becoming man. He was crucified for our sins and accomplished redemption. Then He resurrected from the dead and became the life-giving Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, He poured out the Holy Spirit upon the Jewish believers and later upon the Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius. In this way He baptized the whole church in the Holy Spirit. This fact was accomplished before we were born. We must remember that there is no factor of time in God’s redemption. For example, the Lord’s death for us on the cross took place before we were born. And our crucifixion with the Lord Jesus Christ took place before we were born. In the same principle, on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius, the Lord Jesus baptized His whole Body, both Jews and Gentiles, in the Holy Spirit. This was accomplished before we were born.
First Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” This verse says that all who have believed, whether Jews or Greeks, have been baptized in one Spirit into one Body. We were baptized in the Spirit before we were born. Our baptism in the Spirit has been accomplished. The Lord Jesus has died for us, and we have been crucified with Him. When we believed into Him, our sins were forgiven, and when we called on Him, His Spirit entered into us, regenerating us and making us members of His Body. When we believe and call upon His name, He enters into us. If we daily call on Him, we will enjoy Him daily.
We should not pay attention to doctrines, teachings, or rituals but to our living Lord, who is the life-giving Spirit. He died for us, and now He lives in us. We need only to open to Him by exercising our spirit and by using our mouth to breathe Him in as our life, power, light, and holiness. Doctrines are useless, teachings are useless, rituals and ordinances are useless, and speaking in tongues and predictions are even more useless. There is only one way that is true, spiritual, and of life: We need to believe into the Lord Jesus, who was God incarnated as a man, who died for us on the cross, who was resurrected from the dead, and who became the life-giving Spirit. When we believe into Him, our sins fall away. Moreover, we need to exercise our spirit to call on His name. The more we call on Him, the more He will fill us from within to occupy and saturate our inner being and to transform us. When we call on Him and enjoy Him, letting Him fill and occupy us every day, He will become our life, power, light, and holiness.
The way is so simple and practical. Therefore, the apostle Paul says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). Our every action must be by the Spirit and according to the Spirit, and our mind must be set on the spirit. The mind set on the spirit is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). However, we have been distracted by many doctrines, rituals, ordinances, and the like, as well as disturbed by the so-called Pentecostal movement and speaking in tongues. Now we are clear that the simple way to open ourselves and to exercise our spirit is to contact the Lord by calling on His name and by pray-reading His Word. At the same time, we need to follow the leading of His Spirit and confess our sins so that our inner being can be completely occupied, saturated, and transformed by Him. Then we can enjoy Him again and again to be filled with His riches.
Our daily life must be in spirit, and our church life must also be in spirit. We are being built up together into one Body in spirit. Likewise, being an overcomer and being prepared as the bride are matters of the spirit. We should have a daily life in spirit. May the Lord have mercy on us so that our eyes may be opened to live in the spirit and be filled with the Lord’s all-inclusive Spirit.
