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We will now ask the second question: What is the experience of life? Once we have seen what life is, we may easily know what the experience of life is.
We have seen that life is God Himself. God Himself flowing into us, being received and experienced by us, is life. Therefore, to experience God is to experience life. All experiences of life touch God. Any experience that does not touch God is not an experience of life.
For example, some repentance is not due to God’s enlightenment but to man’s own introspection. Since it does not cause man to touch God, it is not an experience of life. Repentance that results from God’s enlightenment surely will cause man to touch God and is therefore an experience of life.
That which is derived from man’s own behavior is not an experience of life. It is artificial and of man’s own work; it is not the result of God passing through man nor man passing through God; therefore, it cannot be counted as an experience of life.
What then can be considered an experience of life? An experience that results from God passing through man and man passing through Him is considered an experience of life. For example, in our prayer we meet God, become enlightened, see our own fault, and deal with it before God. It is not that we detect our own fault, but rather, when we draw near to God, we are inwardly met by God, and thereby we see our own fault. God is light; hence, when we meet Him, we see our fault in His light. We naturally confess to God and ask for the cleansing of the Lord’s blood. As a consequence, God passes through us, and we also pass through God. Such experience causes us to experience God; therefore, it is the experience of life.
All experiences of life are from God and are His working within us; therefore, they can cause us to touch God and experience Him. All experiences that are not such are not the experiences of life, for life is God, and to experience life is to experience God. Hence, any such experience of God will show forth life (Phil. 2:13-16).
To experience life undoubtedly is to experience God, yet God is in Christ to be experienced by us. Christ is God’s manifestation and embodiment; He is God becoming our experience. Therefore, all our experience of God is the experience of Christ and is in Christ. Thus, since to experience life is to experience God, it is also to experience Christ.
Though God is life, He cannot be our life unless He is in Christ and becomes Christ, and thus be experienced by us. In order to be experienced by us, He must be our life. But He cannot be our life while in heaven, in the light that no man can approach (1 Tim. 6:16). Furthermore, in order to be our life, He must have our human nature. His divine life must be mingled with human nature so that it can be united with us, who possess the human nature, and be our life. Therefore, He came out from heaven, became flesh, and mingled with human nature. Thus, God became Christ and becomes our life in the human nature for us to experience Him. When we experience Him as our life, we experience Christ.
In short, when we experience Christ, we will experience the following aspects:
Christ being revealed in us is our initial experience of Christ when we are saved. We experience God revealing Christ in us through the Holy Spirit, thus enabling us to know and receive Him as our life and our all.
Christ living in us is our continuous experience of Christ living in us as our life after we are saved. In other words, we experience Christ abiding in us and living for us. This, the continuous experience of Christ in our daily life as saints, constitutes the major part of our experience of Christ.
Christ being formed in us is our letting all that is of Christ be the element of our inward life, that Christ may grow and be formed in us. Christ is in us not only that we may experience Him as our life, as the One who is living for us, but also that we may experience Him even more as our all, thus enabling Him to grow and be formed in our life that His life may reach maturity in us.
Christ being magnified in our body is our letting all that is of Christ become the expression of our outward living so that Christ may be manifested outwardly. Whether it be by life or by death, in any circumstance we let Christ be magnified in our body. In other words, for us to live is Christ. This, of course, is a somewhat deeper experience of Christ — it is not only experiencing Him being formed within us but also experiencing Him being magnified out from us. Christ being formed in us is the maturity of the inward life; it is then that we have all that is His as our inner elements. Christ being magnified in our body is the expression of the outward living; by this we allow all that is His to be our outward manifestation. Hence, in this experience, we experience Christ not only as the elements of our inward life but also as the manifestation of our outward living.
To be full of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ means that we all, that is, the Body, experience Christ until we are full of the elements and constitution of Christ; thus, we grow and are full of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This, of course, is a corporate experience of Christ in full.
Our experience of Christ can transform us until we are like Him. This begins with our experience of Christ being revealed in us and goes on until our body is redeemed (Rom. 8:23). The more we experience Him, the more we are changed, until even our body is changed in form to the likeness of His glorious body (Phil. 3:21). By that time we will be completely conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29), and we will be “like Him” (1 John 3:2). We will then experience Him in a full way.
All that pertains to the life within us and the sanctified living out from us should be our experience of Christ. Because Christ is our life, He is also our sanctification (Col. 3:4; 1 Cor. 1:30). Any experience that pertains to our inward life ought to be Christ living within us; moreover, our outward sanctified living should be Christ living out through us. All our experiences of life should be the experience of Christ. Not only should such great experiences of life as dying with Christ, being resurrected with Him, and ascending with Him be our experience, but even the small experiences of life in our daily living should all be the experience of Christ. Whether it be deliverance from sin or overcoming the world, the living out of sanctification and spirituality, or the living out of love and humility, all should be the experience of Christ. Even the little forbearance and patience we have toward others should be the experience of Christ.
To experience Christ is to let Christ live both within us and out from us. To experience Christ is to take Christ as life and thus to live by Christ. To experience Christ means that all our living and actions are Christ Himself living out and acting out from us. To experience Christ is to experience the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10) — this is the experience of Him as life; therefore, such an experience is also the experience of life.
In John 14, after the Lord Jesus said that He is life (v. 6), He showed not only that He and God are one, that He is in God, God is in Him, and His being life means that God is life (vv. 7-11); not only that the Holy Spirit and He are also one, that the Holy Spirit entering into us and abiding with us is Christ living in us to be our life (vv. 16-19); but also that He as the Holy Spirit entering into us and living in us means that both He and God as the Spirit enter into us and abide with us as our life (vv. 20-23). Simply speaking, after the Lord said that He is life, He showed three things: (1) God is in Him as life, (2) He is the Holy Spirit as life, and (3) the Triune God enters into us as life. Thus, when we experience life, not only do we experience God, not only do we experience Christ, but we also experience the Holy Spirit. Actually, the Holy Spirit is both God and Christ as life being experienced by us, or God in Christ as life being experienced by us.
As Christ is the embodiment of God, so the Holy Spirit is the embodiment of Christ. God as life is in Christ, and Christ as life is the Holy Spirit. We experience God in Christ, and we experience Christ as the Holy Spirit. Thus, as the experience of life is the experience of God and Christ, so also is it the experience of the Holy Spirit.
God is life, Christ is God coming as life, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God in Christ as life, or the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). It is this Spirit of life, the Holy Spirit, that causes us to experience all the content of God in Christ as life. It is this Holy Spirit of life who causes us to experience the indwelling of Christ, and it is this Holy Spirit of life who causes us to experience the resurrection power of God in Christ (vv. 9-11). It is this Holy Spirit of life who leads us to put to death the evil deeds of the body, and it is this Holy Spirit of life who prays in us (vv. 13, 26). All our experiences of life, whether deep or shallow, are produced by the Holy Spirit; therefore, they are all experiences of this Holy Spirit of life.
Romans 8:9-11 shows not only that it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to experience the indwelling of Christ and the resurrection power of God but also that it is the Holy Spirit abiding in us who causes us to experience Christ as life, and it is God abiding in us who causes us to experience life. Thus, the life of God in Christ is experienced by us through the Holy Spirit. Hence, in order to experience this life, we must experience the Holy Spirit; and when we experience this life, we experience the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, the experience of life is the experience of the Triune God, or the experience of God in Christ and Christ as the Holy Spirit to be our life. The Holy Spirit working in us, leading us to experience Christ and to experience God in Christ — this is the experience of life. When, in the Holy Spirit, we pass through God and Christ and allow God and Christ to pass through us, this is the experience of life. Only such experiences of the Holy Spirit, Christ, and God, is the experience of life. All that is otherwise cannot be counted as the experience of life. You can say that it is zeal, religious living, or self-improvement, but you cannot say that it is the experience of life. To experience life is to experience God, to experience Christ, and to experience the Holy Spirit. This is not something of our own doing or attempt at improvement; rather, it is the issue of God moving in us, Christ living out through us, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit in us. May we pursue after this.
