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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 2:10, 14-16; 3:3, 6b, 17-18; 4:6-7; 13:14
In this book of 2 Corinthians there is no doctrine. But in telling us of his life, Paul does give us a hint about some of the things we have in Christ. While he is testifying of the kind of life he has in Christ, spontaneously he reveals some things about Christ to us. Therefore, the things about Christ in this book are more precious than in other books.
The first thing that Paul tells us is that we have been firmly attached to the anointed One: “The One who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God, He who has also sealed us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (1:21-22). God has firmly attached us unto Christ, God’s anointed One. To be attached means to be put together. Christ is the anointed One, and God has firmly attached us to this Christ.
Then Paul tells us that we have been sealed by God, and He has given us the foretaste of the Spirit. God’s anointing brings us His divine essence, and God’s sealing impresses us with His likeness. Whenever you seal something, the likeness of the image will be impressed upon it. The foretaste of the Spirit is for our enjoyment. So we must realize Christ as God’s anointed One. This means that He is the very realization of the Triune God. God has attached us to such a One, and He spontaneously becomes a seal upon us. We all have been sealed with the Triune God by the living Spirit.
Many Christians can testify that there is no need to ask certain persons if they are Christians. When you look at them, there is a seal. They bear the impression that they are in Christ. That is the likeness of the Triune God. God is expressed in their face, and that is the sealing. At the same time it is the enjoyment of God. We all have been attached to the Triune God, and He is our expression through our enjoyment of Him.
This is altogether related to the indwelling of Christ. The indwelling of Christ is the attaching, the sealing, and the enjoyment of the Spirit. In no other book has there been anything said about the attachment. It is only in 2 Corinthians. This means that from Paul’s own experience he testifies that he was one who had been attached to the Triune God. He did not live by himself. He lived by the One to whom he had been attached.
Then Paul tells us that we do not need anything of the letter, which means the knowledge of the doctrine of the Scriptures. “Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (3:6). We do not need the letter; we need the Spirit who gives life. Paul mentioned this in Romans 8, but it is not so clear as in 2 Corinthians 3.
Eventually, Paul declares that today the Lord Jesus is that Spirit who gives life. “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (v. 17). The Lord Jesus today is that life-giving Spirit; He is the Spirit who gives life. In no other book is Paul so thorough and so clear in telling us that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Spirit. There is only this one verse that tells us so strongly, so bravely, so clearly, and so emphatically that Jesus the Lord today is that Spirit who gives life.
After this, he says that this Spirit, who is the Lord Jesus Himself, is within us freeing us. He is freeing us from the letter of the law, from the letter of the doctrines, teachings, and knowledge, and from regulations and rituals. He is the freeing Spirit. Human culture is a bondage. Religion is another bondage. Every doctrine in letter is so binding. Even knowledge can be a snare. Religion, culture, doctrine, and knowledge confine people. They may restrain them from being wild, but in another sense they bind them and kill them spiritually. But now the Lord Jesus is not only the life-giving Spirit but also the freeing Spirit. He is within us, and wherever the Lord is, there is freedom. He is the freeing Spirit.
Again I say that in no other book do you have such a verse that clearly tells us that Jesus today is the freeing Spirit, freeing us from within by being our life. Most Christians think that Jesus frees us from outside. But in this chapter Paul tells us that the freedom Jesus affords us is from within. It is mainly not by His power but by His life. He is the life-giving Spirit, freeing us from within. The more we take Him as our life and person, the more we are freed from all bondage.
Paul continues by saying that the Lord Jesus is the transforming Spirit: “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit” (v. 18). Doctrine, culture, religion, and knowledge can only confine us. They could never change or transform us. But the living Christ has come into us not to confine us but to transform us, to change our life. He does this by saturating our whole being with His being. His holy, divine, spiritual, eternal, and heavenly element has not only been added into our being, but it is saturating what we are. Eventually, we will be transformed into His image. That means to be transformed to what He is. And this transformation is from glory to glory. It is from one degree of glory to another. Day by day we are being transformed.
I have been in Los Angeles for twelve years, and there are many saints here whom I have come to know in these past years. I am so happy to say that many have become more like Christ. This is the transforming effect of the indwelling Christ. Transformation comes out of His indwelling. His indwelling implies the life giving, the freeing, and the transformation, and it also implies a kind of killing of whatever we are. His indwelling kills our natural being. This is in order that He may transform us into His being.
Jesus is not religion or doctrine. He is a living reality, not only in the heavens but even more in our being. And He is all the time moving within us. I realize that especially among the young people, the sky is always fluctuating. At four o’clock in the afternoon the sky was clear, but just thirty minutes later, it is cloudy. It is continually fluctuating. We would all like to be stable; if not in the third heaven, at least in the air. No one likes to be down on the earth. However, whether we are up or down does not make much difference. Jesus is still doing a work within us. I can testify concerning so many young people that I have been watching over during the past ten years. They have been up and down, up and down. But praise the Lord! They had the up-and-down transformation. Regardless of whether we feel that we are in the third heaven or in the deepest hell, Jesus is still moving within us. When we are up, He is moving. When we are down, He is moving. He never stops. His intention is to work Himself into us.
The Lord Jesus knows our heart. He knows that we love Him. This is the thing that I treasure so much, to see so many young people loving the Lord. This is the real mercy in the church life. I never saw so many young people in other Christian groups loving the Lord. This is a great grace upon us. As long as we love the Lord, His intention is to work Himself into us. Whether we feel that we are up or down makes no difference. When we are up, He is working. When we are down, He is still working.
I believe that many of us are disappointed when we lose our temper. I do not encourage you to lose your temper, but neither would I advise you not to lose it. Whether I tell you not to lose your temper or to go ahead and lose it makes no difference. When you lose your temper, you will just lose it. I cannot help you, and the Lord Jesus would not help you either. This is because He knows, when we lose our temper, He is able to work more within us. Many times Christ has been wrought into our being through the losing of our temper more than through other things. But do not think that I am encouraging you to lose your temper.
When I was a young man, for a long period of time I was nice to everybody. But I can testify that through that long period Christ was not wrought so deeply into me. Then the Lord took my goodness away. I would praise the Lord in the morning, but I would lose my temper with my wife at noon. Then I would be down. I just could not live. I would say, “O Lord Jesus, forgive me. I lost my temper.” Later, I realized that when I was down to that extent, Christ was wrought into me much more.
As long as you love the Lord Jesus, I can assure you that you will be the elevator going up and down, up and down. But praise the Lord! It is through this kind of experience that Christ is wrought into us. This is especially true in the first stage of our Christian life. To lose our temper affords much opportunity for Christ to be wrought into us.
This is the work of the indwelling Christ to work Himself into us so that we may be transformed into His image. It is not merely by studying, reading the Bible, or praying. Of course, I do not mean that we should not do these things. But many times Christ has to be wrought into us through our failure. Our failure affords a good opportunity to the Lord that He may work Himself into us. Of course, we should not try to lose our temper. That is a kind of performance. But as we are loving the Lord Jesus in our up-and-down situation, He is working within us as the life-giving Spirit. He is working by His indwelling to transform us. This is His main work today.
Second Corinthians also gives us another extraordinary verse: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us” (4:7). There is not such a verse in any other book. Paul tells us that we are the vessels, and the Lord Jesus within us is the treasure. But the key to this verse is the verse preceding it: “To illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (v. 6). In Greek, the word for “face” is the same word used for “person” in 2 Corinthians 2:10, which means the index around the eyes. This means that if we do not have the index of Jesus’ face, He can never be a treasure to us. We will never sense that we have a treasure within until we see the face of Jesus. When we are enjoying His presence, we sense that He is such a precious treasure within us.
This can never be just a kind of saying. We all can say that we are the earthen vessel, and Jesus is the treasure within. But we can say this without any sense of the reality within us. It is only when we are living in His presence, looking at the index of His being, that we will sense that He is such a treasure to us. In the whole universe there is nothing so precious as to behold the face of Jesus. This is something of personal experience and enjoyment. The more we live in His presence, the more sense we will have of the preciousness of Jesus. This is just the enjoyment of His indwelling. This very Jesus indwells us. This is a living reality, not merely a saying.
If we would all learn to forsake our old person, taking Him as our person by looking at the index of His face while enjoying His presence, we would have a sweet sense of the preciousness of the indwelling Jesus. This would make us so shining, a shining which is the reflecting of His glory. I can assure you that if you ever have this kind of experience, others will see how shining you are. It is not that you are merely happy, but you are shining. Something from within shines out, and that is the reflection of Jesus. This was Paul’s experience of the indwelling Christ.
Paul also tells us that we are the defeated captives of Jesus: “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ and manifests the savor of the knowledge of Him through us in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God in those who are being saved and in those who are perishing: To some a savor out of death unto death, and to the others a savor out of life unto life” (vv. 14-16). God today leads us in triumph in Christ. This phrase is difficult to translate. It pictures a general who fought the battle and gained the victory, capturing many captives. Then he returns triumphantly to celebrate his victory, with a parade of all the captives behind him. Today Christ has gained the victory, and He has captured so many captives, including you and me. The procession is still going on in the universe. Hallelujah! We all have been put into this procession. God will lead us in triumph in Christ.
However, to be captured means that we must be defeated, conquered, and subdued by Jesus. It is so good to be defeated by Jesus. Undoubtedly, in the eyes of our unbelieving relatives and friends, we are just a captive to Jesus. To their sense, we have just been captured. Praise the Lord, we have been captured! Jesus defeated us, conquered us, subdued us, and captured us. So now we are so dependent upon Him. We take Him as everything to us. This is the procession of His triumph. We have nothing to say and nothing to do. We are fully captured by Him.
In the ancient times, while such a procession and celebration were going on, certain ones would scatter incense before the procession. This is what Paul means when he says that we are a sweet savor of Christ. We are defeated, conquered, subdued, and captured, and now we bear the incense. The real gospel preaching is the scattering of the incense. And the sweet savor of this incense is life to some and death to others. Praise the Lord that we are in such a procession to celebrate the triumph of Christ.
By looking into all these points, we can see what we should be. We should be the ones attached to the Triune God, within whom Jesus is working all the time, transforming us into His image. And we should be the earthen vessels to contain Him with His living face as the treasure. Then we will be the captives in His triumphant procession, celebrating His victory in the whole universe.
We can see that all these items are completely different from the teachings and doctrines that we received in a traditional way. This is because these are items of Jesus’ indwelling. The indwelling Christ will do all these things, making these items so real, so living, and so practical in our daily life. The Lord’s recovery today is not just to recover the oneness and the church’s testimony but to recover the real content of the church life. The content of the church life is just all these items of the indwelling Christ.
This is why the church life is altogether different from what we saw and experienced in Christianity. It is in another category completely. And this is why the church life is so sweet to us. The indwelling Christ is working within all the brothers and sisters within the church. If we did not have the indwelling Christ, we would all go our own way. We love all the brothers and sisters because Jesus is living and working within them. In the church life every member is so precious, and we do love one another. It is not that we are so lovable; it is because of the treasure indwelling us. Of course, we are human, and sometimes we do have problems with one another. But how good it is when we turn back to the indwelling Jesus. Then we say, “Brother, forgive me, I was wrong. Let’s turn to the Lord together.” And when we touch the Lord together, everyone becomes so lovable. It is not what we are; it is the sweet Jesus that indwells us.
Religion can confine us, but it can never give us a sweet savor. Religion simply does not smell sweet. But Jesus is the very incense scattered among His captives. It is hard to explain the difference in the church. Others sing hymns, they have the Bible, they have one another, and they have their speaker. What is the difference? It is just the sweet Jesus. This is why we have had the burden to share these messages on the indwelling Christ. It is to strengthen, enrich, and uplift the church life. The more we practice the indwelling Christ, the more Christ becomes so precious to us.
If we do not learn to enjoy the indwelling Christ, there is no incense in the church life. He is not sweet if we study Him in an objective way. We cannot smell Him, and we cannot sense Him. But He is so sweet subjectively. When we learn to enjoy Him from within, we scatter the sweet savor to others. This sweet smell is just something of the sweet nature and essence of Jesus Himself.
There is no other book like 2 Corinthians. Paul covers all these precious items in his autobiography because merely in teaching no one can utter such things. This is simply his experience, and he testifies to that effect. Finally, he says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (13:14). This is the church life by the indwelling Christ.
