Search
Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 1:7; Eph. 5:18b; 1 Cor. 6:17; Acts 13:52; Gal. 5:16, 25; 1 Cor. 14:15; Eph. 6:18
According to the Bible and to our experience, there are four basic factors for the Christian meetings: the mingled spirit, the word, praying, and singing. The first basic factor is the mingled spirit. In many verses in the New Testament, especially in Romans 8 and Galatians 5, whether the word spirit refers to the Holy Spirit or to the human spirit is difficult to discern. Such a spirit in these verses is the mingled spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells and mingles Himself with our regenerated spirit (Rom. 8:16; cf. 1 Cor. 6:17).
The human, God-created spirit of the unbelievers is not regenerated, but as Christians, our spirit has been regenerated (John 3:6). To be regenerated means to have God’s life imparted into our spirit. When God the Spirit regenerates us, He imparts God Himself as the divine life into our being, that is, into our spirit. The unbelievers’ spirit has no divine element, but our spirit does have the divine element because the life of God has been imparted and added into our spirit. The great difference between the believers’ spirit and the unbelievers’ spirit is that we have the divine life as the divine element in our spirit. Because the divine life has been imparted into our human spirit, we may say that our human spirit has been made divine.
In our regenerated spirit, not only do we have the divine life but we also have the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16). This Spirit is the very consummation of the Triune God. The Father is the source, the Son is the course, and the Spirit is the consummation of the Divine Trinity. The Divine Trinity is one, yet He has these three aspects: the source, the course, and the consummation. The Spirit of God is the consummation of the Triune God to reach us. Without the Spirit of God, God cannot reach us. If there were no Holy Spirit, Christ could only come to us to stay among us; He could not get into us. In order to get into us, He had to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This life-giving Spirit is the breath of life. On the day of resurrection, when Christ came back in the evening to His disciples, He breathed Himself into them, and He called what was breathed into them the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). This strongly indicates that the resurrected Christ, the pneumatic Christ, is the life-giving Spirit as the breath breathed into all His believing ones. Now the Holy Spirit is in the believers’ spirit in addition to the divine life.
The believers’ spirit is a composition of three things: our human spirit, the divine life, and the Holy Spirit. Our spirit is now a compound spirit, which is the mingled spirit. The Holy Spirit has mingled Himself with our human spirit in the element of the divine life. It is difficult to see much growth in life among many Christians because very few know about this mingled spirit with the divine life as the mingling element. We cannot have the growth in life if we do not know the mingled spirit in the element of the divine life.
The believers’ spirit is indwelt by the Spirit (Rom. 8:11). The Spirit is not only in us and remains within us, but He dwells in us. To dwell is to settle down. When we stay in a hotel, we only lodge there for a while, but we do not dwell there. But when we own a house, we settle in it; that is, we dwell in it. The Holy Spirit does not merely lodge in our spirit, but He dwells, or settles down, in our spirit. The Holy Spirit indwelling our spirit is a wonderful fact.
Our spirit should be living, fresh, strong, and active. Second Timothy 1:7 says that God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness. Love refers to affection, power refers to strength, and sobermindedness means that we think and behave with a restricted and sober understanding. In order for our spirit, the spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to be fresh, strong, and active, we must exercise our spirit.
The believers’ spirit is also filled with God as the Spirit and filled with the pneumatic Christ (Eph. 5:18b). Although God, the pneumatic Christ, is within us, we need to be filled with Him. In the New Testament to be filled implies saturation. God is within us as the pneumatic Christ both filling and saturating us. We must learn how to realize the infilling, the saturating, of the Divine Trinity. The mingling starts within our spirit, and the saturating carries out the mingling through our entire being, from our spirit through our soul to our body. The Lord saturates us with Himself by filling us up. We need much experience of the mingled spirit, of its infilling and its saturating. Then we will be saturated with the Triune God. The water in a cup can fill the cup, but it cannot saturate the cup. But we as human beings can be saturated by the indwelling God. All the parts of our soul and all the parts of our body need to be saturated with the Triune God so that we can be constituted into God-men.
The believers’ spirit is one with the Spirit. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” How wonderful that we human beings can become one spirit with the Lord! The Lord is the Spirit, He created us with a spirit, He regenerated our spirit, and He indwells our spirit. Now our spirit is joined to His Spirit, and the two spirits are one spirit. We, the believers of Christ, who love Him and who would let Him do everything to saturate us thoroughly, have become one spirit with Him. The experience of being one spirit with the Lord is real and practical. Quite often, before I was to speak, I prayed, “Lord, grant me the grace to practice being one spirit with You, and vindicate the fact that You are one spirit with me in my speaking.” The greatest miracle in the universe is that human beings with flesh and blood can be one spirit with the Triune God. God’s salvation is many times higher than any philosophy. All philosophies attempt to develop our mind, our psychology, our psuche life, which is merely to develop the “poor me.” But regardless of how much you develop yourself, you are still yourself. God’s salvation is not to develop our mind but to put Himself into our being, to have His element saturating our being to make our being one with His divine life. To enjoy this salvation we need to practice being one spirit with the Lord.
The way to practice being one spirit with the Lord is to call on His name unceasingly. Do not call on the Lord only before the meeting, after the meeting, or in the meeting. You have to call “O Lord Jesus” all the time. This will always keep you in the element of the divine mingling. Then in all that you do and say, you will act as a person being one spirit with the Lord. You will not simply be a good person, a person full of proper character and ethical morality. You will be a person full of God. God will be expressed and manifested through you.
The mingled spirit is a strong, basic factor of the Christian meeting. Who comes to the Christian meeting, you or God? It should be that both you and God come in the way of being one spirit. When we come to the meeting with God, we come as a wonderful person, a God-man. When we come, God comes; when God comes, we come. We do not only come together, but we and He come as one spirit. If fifty people met together in this way, that meeting would be glorious.
Sometimes the strong factor of the mingled spirit is not in the meeting. There is nothing of the Divine Being to be the very element that sustains the meeting. To have the factor of the mingled spirit in our meetings requires not only our exercise in the meeting but also the practice of being one spirit with the Lord in our daily life to let the Divine Being saturate our human being. Then we will come into the meeting as a God-man. You may have come to the meeting in a defeated way apart from God. You may have called a hymn in the meeting, but it was altogether you who did it, not God. When you come into the meeting, God should come with you. When you sing, God should sing.
The indwelling Spirit within us must have the full freedom to move and act. We have had many experiences in which we sensed the indwelling Spirit moving in us yet with little freedom. We give Him too much restriction, and we confine Him. As a result, we may have the Divine Trinity in our being, but we do not have the Divine Trinity saturating us. When we come to the meeting, it is only we who come and not God. If we do something in the meeting, it is merely we who do it. The meeting is not sustained by our being there.
But if we are persons practicing to be one spirit with the Lord, we will be a strong, sustaining element in the meeting. If there are even three to five such persons among fifty meeting together, that meeting will be very strong because that meeting has some who are the very sustaining essence. They do not necessarily need to speak or to do anything. Even if they just sit there, their presence will sustain the meeting. Often when certain brothers were absent from the meeting, it became weak, empty, and poor. When these brothers come in, their presence brings in the strengthening essence of the mingled spirit. Simply to learn how to set up home meetings in the new believers’ homes is not adequate. Your being must be dealt with. Your being must be filled and saturated with the divine element. When you go to the home meetings as such a person, you will sustain the meetings.
In the recent past a certain denomination began to practice meeting in small groups in many saints’ homes. When they came together, however, the attendants just sat there without knowing what to do. Even the leader did not know what to do. There was the real absence of the sustaining element in the meeting. If there is little Christ in our daily life and no Spirit in our very being, saturating us and making us one spirit with the Divine Trinity, our meetings will be empty. Sometimes our meetings have been like this. The meeting may have been scheduled to begin at 7:30 P.M., but by 7:35 P.M. only one person had arrived. Gradually the saints came in one by one. The meeting was deadened, and there was no sustaining essence, that is, no factor of God in the Spirit. The Lord’s new way is not just to set up meetings in the homes. We have to have ourselves dealt with by the infilling and the saturating of the Divine Trinity.
We need to exercise our spirit for the church meetings. The way to exercise is to call, “O Lord Jesus.” Even early in the morning we still can call on the name of the Lord without bothering others. We have to be persons practicing to call on the name of the Lord. Then we have to live by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25a) and walk by the Spirit (vv. 16, 25b). To walk means to have our being, to move, to live, and to do all things. We should have our entire being by the indwelling Spirit, by the mingled spirit. Actually, it is hard to know when we are walking by the Spirit. But if we are not walking by the Spirit, we surely will know it.
Some Christians have strict regulations for their living. One group practices wearing clothes only of a certain color, using mule wagons for transportation, and not using telephones. This kind of practice is a practice without the Spirit. In the New Testament what God requires is a life with the Spirit. Such a life does not require outward regulations. Once when I was putting on a new tie, the dear Spirit within me bothered me and said, “No.” I do not have a pastor to come to approve my tie, but I do have the Spirit to restrict me. If I would wear such a tie against the Spirit’s restriction, I would not be able to speak in the meetings. My strength, my secret, my impact, is this bothering Spirit. If I became “divorced” from Him in my daily life, I would be through. The real Christian walk revealed and required by the Bible is to walk by the Spirit and live by the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25 says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,” and 5:16 says, “Walk by the Spirit.” To walk by the Spirit in verse 16 differs from to walk by the Spirit in verse 25. In verse 16 to walk is to walk in a general way, and in verse 25 to walk is to walk orderly, to walk along a line or by a rule to fulfill a purpose. This indicates that our Christian walk must be a walk generally by the Spirit, and this walk must be also according to the particular rule, that is, to live Christ for the purpose of building up His Body. Galatians 5:16 and 25 show us that the Christian walk must altogether be in this mingling, saturating Spirit, who is one spirit with us. We do not need any outward regulations. When we come to the meeting, we should not care for regulations. We should come in with Him and as Him. When we come, He comes. When we are here, He is here. When we are speaking, He is speaking. To live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, pray with the spirit (1 Cor. 14:15a; Eph. 6:18), sing with the spirit (1 Cor. 14:15b), and be strong in the spirit (2 Tim. 1:7) is to exercise the spirit. When we exercise the spirit, the mingled spirit becomes the very factor of the Christian meeting.
In order to exercise our legs, we should walk. If we use our legs all the time, they will become strong. Sometimes when I am sick, I must stay in bed for several days. After three days in bed, my legs become weak. Then I need to walk to recover the strength in my legs. To strengthen our eyes, we need to use our eyes. To strengthen our arm, we need to exercise our arm. Likewise, if we are going to be the sustaining, strengthening factor in the meeting, we need to exercise our spirit all day and every moment, in all things and in all matters. If we go to a home meeting as persons who practice exercising the spirit, we will be a living, strengthening, sustaining, refreshing, supporting, and enriching factor to that meeting. Merely what we say and what we do is not adequate. We must be persons full of the Spirit and saturated with the Spirit to practically become one spirit with the Lord in our daily experience.
