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God’s central goal in the universe and in the Bible is life. The word life indicates that God desires to be man’s life. In terms of the nature and significance of life in the universe, only God’s life is life because only God’s life is eternal and incorruptible. Life is the flowing out of God and also the content of God; this life is God Himself.
In brief, life is the Triune God. But to us, this life is not the Triune God who is only in heaven but the Triune God who has flowed out. The Triune God first flowed out with Himself as the content through Christ’s incarnation, and then He flowed out through Christ’s death and resurrection as the Spirit in order for us to receive Him as our life. Hence, when we touch God in the pneumatic Christ, we touch life, because life is God as the pneumatic Christ.
We all know that God is triune — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is in the Son, and the Son became the Spirit. The Father is in the Son so that He may be expressed among men; the Son is the Father’s expression. The Son became the Spirit so that He could enter into man; the Spirit is the entering in of the Son. The Father is the source of life; He is life itself. The Son is the expression of the Father (1 Tim. 3:16), and He is the expression of life (1 John 1:2). The Spirit is the entering in of the Son; He is the entering in of life. The life in the Father was manifested in the Son among men and realized as the Spirit to enter into man and be experienced by man. Therefore, the Spirit is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), through whom man can receive life; moreover, the mind set on the Spirit is life (v. 6). Because the Spirit is the Spirit of life, when a person touches the Spirit with his spirit, he touches life; when he contacts the Spirit, he contacts life; and when he obeys the Spirit, he experiences life.
God is the Triune God. The Father is in the Son, and the Son became the Spirit. To us, the Father is the source, the Son is the expression, and the Spirit is the entering in of God. The Father is expressed in the Son, and the Son became the Spirit to enter into us. Thus, life is the Triune God. The Father is the source of life, the Son is the expression of life, and the Spirit is the entering of life. There is no such thought in our human mind. The most that we have are ethics, morality, and philosophies, which teach us to be humble, meek, patient, and forbearing.
There are two verses in the New Testament which indicate that the manifestation of the Lord Jesus in the flesh is the manifestation of God and that the manifestation of the Lord Jesus is the manifestation of life. These are the two sides of the same thing. When the Lord Jesus was manifested in the flesh, God was manifested — “Great is the mystery of godliness: / He who was manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). When the Lord Jesus was manifested in the flesh, life was manifested as well — “And the life was manifested” (1 John 1:2). These two verses show that the incarnation of the Lord Jesus is the manifestation and expression of God as well as life.
Concerning the matter of God coming to be our life, we first need to see that God is life, then we need to see that God Himself came to be our life, and finally we need to know how God came to be our life. It is not a simple thing for God to come to be our life. First, God flowed out into the flesh; then He flowed from the flesh into the Spirit. Only in this way could He flow into us. From the Gospel of John we need to see how God came to be our life. This is the only book in the Bible that specifically speaks of God being our life.
In John 10:10 the Lord said, “I have come that they [man] may have life.” This means that He desires that we have Him as life; He has come to be our life. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word”; this speaks of the very beginning and says that the Word was God. Then verse 4 says, “In Him was life,” and verses 12 through 13 say, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God...who were begotten not of...the will of man, but of God.” Since we are begotten of God, His being our life is His begetting of us, and His begetting of us is His regenerating of us.
The subject of the Gospel of John is life. It begins by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...In Him was life” (vv. 1-4). This means that the Word in the beginning was God, in whom was life. Those who receive this life are given the authority to be children of God. This authority is of life. Verse 13 goes on to say that we were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God. Whoever desires to receive God’s life must be begotten of Him. If God did not beget us, He could not be our life.
The word beget is a verb. Just as a mother begets a child, God came to beget us. Have you ever thought that God has a deep consideration about us? All the thoughts that we have toward Him relate to His dealing, striking, and disciplining us. We have many thoughts of God dealing with us, but we do not have the thought that God came to beget us. If God did not beget us, He could never be our life. It is a great matter in the universe that God has begotten us.
When we think of the fact that God has begotten us, do we have a deep sense that we should jump up and praise God? Over the past twenty some years, whenever I thought of God begetting me, I would thank and praise Him. I was a piece of clay, but God begot me. This is what we see in the first chapter of John. Verse 4 says, “In Him was life”; then verses 12 through 13 say, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God...who were begotten...of God.” It is God who begets us. If He did not beget us, He could never become our life. This is a great matter in the universe. We were clay and mud, but we have received Him as life because of His begetting. God did not simply “overlay” Himself on us as gilding, nor did He merely “coat” us with Himself like oil. Instead, He begot us. Through His begetting, God has become our life.
In order to see how God begot us, we need to understand John 2, which tells a wonderful story about changing water into wine, about changing dead water into living wine. In this story dead and exhaustible water became endless and inexhaustible wine; this is the changing of death into life. Then in chapter 3 the Lord spoke of regeneration. To be regenerated is to be born again following our original human birth; it is to have the life of God in addition to our human life. We have been born of our parents, but we have been born again of God — this is regeneration. How does God regenerate us? In verses 5 and 6 the Lord said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” This shows very clearly that God regenerates us with His Spirit.
The ultimate expression of life is the Spirit. The source of life is the Father, the expression of life is the Son, and the entering in of life is the Spirit. The Father is the first manifestation of God, the Spirit is the ultimate manifestation of God, and the Son is the manifestation of God in between. In other words, the Spirit is the ultimate manifestation of life. If the Spirit did not enter into us, life could not come into us; if the Spirit did not enter into us, the Son could not come into us; and if the Spirit did not enter into us, the Father could not come into us. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are life. Only when the Spirit enters into us can life come into us to regenerate us.
God becomes our life by regenerating us. How did God regenerate us? God regenerated us by His becoming the Spirit to enter into us so that we could be born of the Spirit. If we compare begotten of God in chapter 1 with born of the Spirit in chapter 3, we will receive light. Chapter 1 says that those who received the Lord were begotten of God, and chapter 3 says that they were born of the Spirit. God is the Spirit, and the Spirit is God. Therefore, to be begotten of God is to be born of the Spirit; to be born of the Spirit is to be begotten of God. If God were not the Spirit, He would not be able to beget us. In order for God to beget us, He must be the Spirit. Then in chapter 4 we see that God is Spirit (v. 24). The way to read the Bible is to continually search the train of thought in the Bible. Chapter 1 speaks of being begotten of God, chapter 3 speaks of being born of the Spirit, and in chapter 4 we see that “God is Spirit.”
To be born of the Spirit is to be begotten of God. This means that in order for God to beget us, He must be the Spirit. If He were not the Spirit, He would not be able to beget us. God must be the Spirit in order to enter into us to be our life. From His perspective, He is the Spirit, and as such, He comes to beget us in our spirit. For example, when we receive an injection, it gets into our veins and arteries; when God comes to beget us, He comes into our spirit. John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” This verse points out directly that regeneration takes place in our spirit. Ezekiel 36 says, “I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you;...and I will put My Spirit within you” (vv. 26-27). This portion also speaks of regeneration. That which is born of the Spirit (the divine Spirit) is spirit (our human spirit). The first Spirit is the Spirit of God, and the second spirit is our spirit. John 3:5 says that God begets us with His Spirit, and verse 6 shows that the Spirit begets our spirit — the Spirit of God comes to beget our human spirit.
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. This spirit is neither our soul nor our body but our human spirit. This clearly shows that God begets us through His Spirit and in our spirit. In other words, the Spirit of God enters into our spirit to beget us. Over the past two thousand years Christianity has never seen such a revelation concerning the Spirit begetting the spirit. This statement seems simple, but actually it is quite profound. What is regeneration? Regeneration is the Spirit begetting our spirit — the Spirit of God begetting man’s human spirit.
The Spirit of God begets our human spirit. When God enters into our spirit through His Spirit to beget us, He enters into us to be our life. This is totally a matter of spirit. I hope that we would all have a deep impression that life is altogether a matter of spirit, a matter of the Spirit of God with our human spirit, a matter of the Spirit of God entering into our human spirit, and a matter of the union and mingling of the Spirit of God with our human spirit.
If we are not clear about these basic points, it will be very difficult for us to understand the fellowship of life. The fellowship of life is certainly a matter of life, but where is life? Life is in our spirit, the mingled spirit, which is the mingling of the Spirit of God with our human spirit to be our life. God begets the human spirit through His Spirit and becomes our life in the human spirit. This is the basic point spoken of in John 3:5-6.
John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” This means that we must use our human spirit to worship and contact God. If we consider begotten of God in 1:13, born of the Spirit in 3:5, and God is Spirit in 4:24, we will realize that to be born of the Spirit is to be begotten of God, that it is our human spirit which is born of the Spirit, and that the Spirit of God begets our human spirit.
In chapter 4, verse 24 says that God is Spirit and that He desires us to worship Him — to contact Him, to fellowship with Him, and to have a relationship with Him — in spirit. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit. We cannot touch God in our mind, emotion, or will; we can touch God only in our spirit because He is Spirit.
John 4:24 is a proof that God begets us through His Spirit and in our spirit. Because of His begetting of us, He causes us to have an absolutely subjective relationship with Him; that is, He comes to mingle Himself with us. Since God is Spirit and He desires to be mingled with man, He needs something of similar nature to Him in order to make this mingling possible. We are composed of body, soul, and spirit. He cannot mingle Himself with us in our body or soul; He can mingle Himself with us only in our spirit. Hence, He begets us in our spirit. When He begets us, He gives us a new spirit and puts His Spirit within us (Ezek. 36:26-27).
We should all be clear that God’s Spirit enters into our spirit to regenerate us. We have read John 1, 3, and 4. Now if we go to chapter 20, we will see that the Lord “breathed into” the disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). This shows how God begets us and becomes our life. These two matters — life and spirit — are the line of life in the book of John.
The line of life indicates that the Word was in the beginning and that life was in this One who was the Word. When we contact Him, we receive authority to become the children of God; we are begotten of God. Moreover, God begets us when His Spirit enters into our spirit. God is Spirit. In order to contact Him and be joined to Him, we must be in our spirit. In order to mingle Himself with us and be our life, He must enter into our spirit through His Spirit. May these words be deeply engraved in our heart and be thoroughly apprehended in our mind so that they may shine forth as light within us.
