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Scripture Reading: John 14:6; 3:16; Rom. 5:10; Rev. 22:1
I. God’s life becoming the way in everything:
А. God in Christ as our life becoming our way — John 14:6.
B. God’s salvation causing us to receive Christ as our life; Christ as our life becoming the way for us to enjoy more of God’s salvation — 3:16; Rom. 5:10.
II. The street of the holy city having the flowing out of life as the way — Rev. 22:1:
А. The flow of life being the flowing out of God as our supply.
B. This flow of life becoming the way for us to enjoy the life of God in eternity.
Prayer: Lord, we offer to You our praise, our thanksgiving, and our worship. Our hearts rejoice and our spirits leap. We treasure You deep within, and we are willing to follow You. Through Your rich mercy and sovereign grace, You have gathered us here for this New Year’s conference. We are so happy we can meet each other and gather together in Your name. Lord, we look to You to grace us and guide us again through Your all-pervading and life-giving Spirit. We want to be fully open to You to receive more of You, to take in Your riches, and to enjoy Your fullness. O Lord Jesus, we need You once again to forgive us, cleanse us, and anoint us in a rich way. Operate within us and nourish us abundantly. May we be cared for, healed, comforted, and uplifted. Lord, we would all enjoy grace from You. May You speak a word or two to every one of us that would meet our present need.
Lord, what we can do is limited. But when we offer up ourselves to You, what is offered becomes unlimited. Lord, You can feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. We believe whatever little we have and can do comes from You. We want to offer it up to You again. Receive it into Your hands, break it, and give it to us so that it can become our riches and so that we can be satisfied with an overabundance. O Lord Jesus, we worship You. We believe that You are here now. We are here, and You are here. Actually, You came here first; we came after You were here. Lord, how glorious it is that we are called into Your precious name. We are not in ourselves but in Your name. We are not in the worldly enjoyment but in Yourself. Hallelujah! You are the Triune God. You have been processed and have reached an ultimate attainment. Now You are here available for us to enjoy. Release Your word once more. We are happy to hear Your word. Shine out Your light from the word again and manifest Yourself. Touch the deepest part of our being. May every one of us gain something. May honor, glory, and eternal riches be unto You. Amen.
In this New Year’s conference we will have four meetings on God’s way in life. God’s life is our way. The Bible shows us clearly that God is life. God is the source of life. When we have God, we have life. This life is our way. On the other hand, without God there is death. With death we have no way to go on. Today we are taking a way of life. This way is simply God Himself. With God there is life, and with life there is the way. Without God there is no life, and without life there is no way. Apart from God everything is death, and death affords no way to go on.
The Bible reveals further that this God of life desires to join Himself to man and to be man’s life. For this reason the Bible tells us that God loves the world. The love God has for the world is like the love a man has for a woman. It is not a general kind of love. Rather, it is a romantic love. God is in love with man in a romantic way. Perhaps some find it hard to compare God’s love to the love between a man and a woman. But according to the Bible, the love between a man and a woman is holy; it is ordained by God. The Bible compares God to a man and compares mankind to a woman. God loves us. He is loving us not only in a merciful way but in a romantic way. God loves us in this way because He desires to join Himself to us. A man and a woman love each other with the purpose of being joined together. When two love each other very much, they are joined as one. Marriage is such a union. This is the way God loves us. He desires to be one with us and to be our life.
For this reason God created man according to His image. It is wonderful that God did not create a pair of human beings; He created only one man, Adam. After Adam was created, though all the living creatures were brought before him, he did not find his match. He was a lonely man. Hence, the Bible says that “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). This signifies that it is not good for God to be alone. He does not want to dwell alone. Instead, He wants to join Himself to the man He created in His image. When God created man, He created only one man, Adam. Before God prepared a counterpart for Adam, He brought all the created beasts of the field and fowls of the air before him, and Adam gave names to each one of them. But he did not find his counterpart. He was still a lonely bachelor. God then caused Adam to go into a deep sleep, and He opened his side and took out a rib. From that rib God built a woman. Hence, man was created by God, but woman was built by God.
God brought the woman He had built unto Adam. When Adam saw her, he said, “This time this is bone of my bones / And flesh of my flesh.” As a result, the two were joined as one flesh (vv. 23-24). From that day on Adam became Eve’s life, and Eve became Adam’s living. In human society, whether in the East or in the West, the female takes her name from the male; never does the male take his name from the female. This means that once a man and a woman are married, the man becomes the woman’s life, and the woman has the man as her living. After a girl is married, she can no longer live her maiden life. Instead, she must live her husband’s living. The wife has to take the husband as her life and her living.
First, God created Adam. Then He completed Adam’s marriage. Eve came out of Adam and had Adam for her life. Eve was also for Adam and had Adam as her living. This is a type. It signifies that God desires to be joined to the created man, to be man’s life, so that man can be His living. Brothers and sisters, from this we can see what kind of a living we Christians should have. We should have God’s living. We are human beings, yet we can have God’s living. For this reason God came to be our life. This life is our way in everything. Do you want to submit to your husband? The way is to take God as your life. Do you want to love your wife? The way also is to take God as your life. Today many are not living in a proper way. If we want to live as a proper man, there is no way other than through God’s life. Only when God is life in us can we be a proper man. God’s life is the way for us to live a proper human life.
Hence, God desires not only that we would have His image but that we would take Him as life. For this reason, after God created man in His image, He put him before the tree of life, which is a symbol of Himself, and said, “Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (vv. 16-17). This is the beginning of the Bible. By the end of the New Testament, in Revelation the Lord Jesus said, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” (2:7b). Finally, in the holy city, the New Jerusalem, we have the tree of life spreading as a vine along the river of water of life for God’s people to receive and enjoy. This describes the God who loves us, who is joined to us, who has become our life and is giving us life, becoming our eternal and infinite supply of life. We have to receive Him again and again as our life so that we can live Him as our living.
Regrettably, Adam failed and became fallen in this respect. For this reason God humbled Himself to become a man. He took the form of fallen man but without the corrupted nature of fallen man. This God who became flesh was called Jesus. First, He was conceived in a virgin’s womb; then after nine months He was born out of the womb in accordance with the law of the human life. He lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years. He was a proper and perfect man. From man’s point of view, He was merely the son of a carpenter and a little Nazarene. But those around Him marveled at His works and words. Who was He? He was indeed the most wonderful person in history. According to the revelation of the Bible, this Jesus is the God-man, the One in whom there is both divinity and humanity. He accomplished an all-inclusive death on the cross, and He solved the problem of man’s sin before God.
Then He resurrected from the dead. In resurrection He uplifted humanity and brought this uplifted humanity into divinity. Through death and resurrection He brought the man with whom God desires to have a union back to God so that God and man can be joined as one. Furthermore, in resurrection He changed His form. The first time He changed His form was when He became flesh; He changed from that of the infinite God to that of a visible man. After thirty-three and a half years of human living, He entered resurrection through death. In resurrection He changed again to another form; now He has changed from a human form to the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit comes from the Spirit of God, that is, from the nature and essence of God. This Spirit is Jesus Christ today. In Romans 8:2 He is also called the Spirit of life. He is our God and our Savior, and He is also the Holy Spirit. This is the One we believe in and preach about. This is also the One we look unto and call upon. What a wonderful One is He!
Such a wonderful One has now entered into us, not only as our Savior but as our life. This life within us is the way that we should take. Every day we have ways that we must take; they are varied and winding. Parents have their ways to take; children also have their ways to take. Unmarried ones have their ways to take, and married ones also have their ways to take. Men have to work, and women have to care for the family. Everyone has his own way that he has to take. Those who are not married have their problems; those who are married also have theirs. Men have their problems, and women also have their problems. It is difficult to be a human being. Everywhere and on all sides there are problems. Sometimes things are so difficult that there is no longer any way to escape. The only way is Jesus. Jesus is the way to be a husband; Jesus is the way to be a wife. He is the way to be a parent and the way to be a child. Hence, everyone needs Jesus. Without Jesus there is no way. Without Him nothing can be done smoothly or satisfactorily. Hence, the Lord Jesus said, “I am the way” (John 14:6). Do you want to be a proper man? You need Jesus. Only Jesus can be our life within us. Only He is our way in everything.
How then can we enjoy this Jesus as our life? He is God, and He has been processed to become the life-giving Spirit. When we repent, confess our sins, believe into Him, and call upon His name, this Spirit of life, who is the processed Triune God, comes into us to be our life (3:16). This is not a vain doctrine but a divine reality. Now this Spirit of life is in our spirit. The two spirits fellowship and mingle with one another, and they have become one spirit. In this way He has become our life, with the result that we become His living. This is the salvation of God.
Romans 5:10 says, “If we, being enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more we will be saved in His life, having been reconciled.” We are not only reconciled to God through the Lord’s death, but we also enjoy God’s salvation through taking Him as our life. In our human life we often encounter difficulties. Whether in our study or in our work, in the family life or in the church life, the more relationships we build up, the more problems we have. In all these circumstances it is difficult to be a proper man. For this we need to be saved every day from worries, temper, disposition, and many other kinds of problems. We need to be saved, not only once from God’s eternal judgment and punishment but continually through the Lord’s life.
Hence, God’s salvation causes us to receive Christ as our life, and Christ as our life becomes our way to enjoy more of God’s salvation. The Lord’s life is the way for us to live the human life. It is also the way for us to live the church life. How then can we enjoy this salvation? The simplest way is by calling on the Lord. We should touch Him all the time and call on Him all the time. We can never be wrong or suffer loss by calling on His name. Whenever difficulties arise, we should not initiate anything. When our heart feels ill at ease, we should not lose our temper right away; that will only make matters worse. Simply call a few times “O Lord Jesus,” and the Lord will operate within us and be our life within. The result will be that temper is gone, and wisdom is here. What could have gone wrong becomes right, and what was improper becomes proper.
This wisdom that we receive from the Lord becomes our method, and the method becomes the way. I have often heard people say that there is no way. This means that there is nothing that can be done. To have a way is to be able to do something. This way is the wisdom. First Corinthians 1:30 says, “Of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” The wisdom here is the method, or the way. This way causes us to be justified in the past, to be sanctified in the present, and to be redeemed in the future. This way that meets our past, present, and future needs is Christ. Hence, the Christian living is one that allows Christ to be our life continually, with the result that we enjoy His salvation unceasingly. In this living, Christ becomes our way in everything.
At the end of the Bible we see a picture, which is the New Jerusalem. In this holy city, the New Jerusalem, there is one street, in the midst of which flows the river of the water of life from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1). This means that the street of the holy city has the flow of life as the way. In other words, the flow of life is the street of the holy city. This typifies the flow of the divine life as the unique way for God’s people to live their daily life. Wherever there is the flow of the divine life, there is the way by which the people of God walk. We know that the church life today is a miniature of the coming New Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the church life. The principles found in the two are the same. The condition of the holy city then should be the condition of the church life today; that is, the flow of life from the throne of God, as God’s flowing forth, should become our supply. This flow of life becomes the way for us to enjoy God’s life in eternity.
In the church life today we walk in this way of life. In order to maintain a proper relationship among the saints and to continue in the Lord’s fellowship, all of us need to be in God’s way of life. The church is not a human organization, nor is it a social community. The church is the Body of Christ. This Body is organic, and it is not organizational. It is an organic building produced from all of us taking Christ as our life and living in this life. This is like my body today: all the members are not organized together; rather, they are constituted as one body through the organic union of the inner life within them. Today, through living by Christ and taking His life as the way for our walk, we can have a church life free from problems and filled continually with the enjoyment of God’s salvation. By this we can be joined together and built up together. This kind of church life will be the New Jerusalem to be manifested in the future. In it, God’s life will be our flow, our nourishment, and our supply. This life also will become the way for us to enjoy God in eternity.
