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In this chapter we will fellowship briefly concerning how to lead the young people. When we lead the young people in matters related to life, we should charge them to practice the points that we cover. In the following meeting we should review the point that was covered and fellowship about their practice. Then we can introduce another point. When we are leading the young people’s meeting, our spirit must be strong, since it is possible to fall into a doctrinal discussion because of the substantial educational element associated with teaching spiritual knowledge.
Young people like to use their mind. Even as children, they use their mind and engage in reasoning. Consequently, our teaching can hinder them spiritually if our spirit is not strong, uplifted, and released in the meeting. When we open our mouth to speak or pray, our spirit should be released. When our spirit is released, it is easy for their spirit to be stirred up. Such an atmosphere will affect them strongly. Without the release of the spirit, the young people’s meeting will fall into the realm of knowledge. If we give the young people a small amount of Bible knowledge in every meeting but do not touch their spirit, we will be giving them only educational points. Even though these points are different in content from the general education in the world, they will have no reality without the release of the spirit.
According to my observation, we fail to touch the spirit of the young ones in the young people’s meetings. Some of them come to the young people’s meeting or the Lord’s table meeting simply because their parents are Christians. However, they do not receive much supply in their spirit. At the most they receive a little knowledge. This is because those who are leading the meeting are neither fresh nor strong in their spirit. While it is true that we should give them something that is educational in nature, it is even more important that we touch their spirit. Our leading should have a component of both education and spiritual exercise. On one hand, they should receive something educational to instruct their mind and focus their intellect. On the other hand, our leading should touch their spirit in a fresh and living way. At the same time, they should be encouraged to exercise their spirit to pray so that the Spirit can touch them in their spirit. As the young ones learn to pray, they will also experience being enlivened in their spirit. When they begin to pray, an atmosphere of prayer will be manifested, and gradually, their prayer will come out of the spirit. Then they will receive a genuine supply in the meeting. In this way the knowledge that they receive will be matched by the supply in the spirit.
Being supplied in spirit cannot be separated from receiving knowledge, because every person has a mind as well as a spirit. Our leading of the young people should involve instruction for their mind. However, if our instruction has no element of the release of the spirit, our leading will be ineffective. When we speak to the young people, our word must be educational in nature, having an intellectual component, but at the same time, our spirit must be strong and full. In this way our words will convey an element of the spirit. We must release our spirit when we speak, when we pray, and when we sing in order to touch the spirit of the young people. Our instruction of knowledge and our stirring up of the spirit must occur simultaneously. Knowledge enlightens the mind, whereas the release of the spirit touches the spirit. When our intellect is enlightened and our spirit is open, our fellowship with the Lord will result in receiving a genuine supply.
It is not easy to lead the young people’s meeting. Some think that it is easier to lead the young people’s meeting than it is to lead a regular meeting. This is a wrong concept. From a certain standpoint, it is easy for the young ones to be stirred up to pursue the Lord; but from another standpoint, it is not easy for young people to genuinely touch their spirit. The young people are easily excited, and they can easily be touched in their intellect. However, leading them to touch their spirit is often much more difficult than leading the older saints. In order to lead the young people, we must be strong in our spirit.
In the young people’s meeting we should pay attention as to whether or not the number of those who are attending is increasing. Furthermore, we must also pay attention to whether or not the young people are comprehending and receiving the teaching that is being given. Even more important, however, we need to see a response in their spirit. Every young person must have a strong response in his spirit at least once in order to have a genuine change before the Lord. We also must contact the young people individually and apart from the young people’s meeting. If we do not have time to contact every one of them, we should seek the Lord’s leading and make contact with them individually according to the need. During our contact we should exercise our spirit so that we touch their spirit and cause their spirit to be enlivened.
In the young people’s meeting the most crucial matter involves the spirit of the young ones being enlivened. Therefore, the speaking related to the material that has been prepared should be limited. If we speak too much, they will receive it only with their mind. If we continue in this way for six months, the majority of what they receive from the meetings will be related to the material rather than to the moving and activity in their spirit. Such a result goes against the nature of a Christian meeting, which should be focused on supplying people with the spirit. Nevertheless, in order to supply others with the spirit, we also need to enlighten their mind. In the world the purpose of education is solely directed toward developing the human intellect; there is no consideration of the spirit. However, when we speak a message, we should impart a spiritual education for the purpose of touching their spirit. If we only instruct the mind without reaching the spirit, we have utterly fallen short of our goal, and our work will be in vain. Consequently, those who are involved with the young people’s meeting should be very clear that the goal of using the materials to instruct the young saints is to touch their spirit.
For the remainder of this chapter we need to present another major point of teaching concerning Christ. In chapter 2 we saw the divinity of Christ, and in chapter 4 we saw Christ in His relation to all things. Now we will look at the incarnation of Christ. A Christian must know the Lord in His incarnation more thoroughly than in any other matter because this is the turning point, the central point. All the points previously fellowshipped depend on this point, and all the subsequent points that we will fellowship come out of this point. In other words, everything that the Lord has done was either for His incarnation or depends upon His incarnation. Without His incarnation the Lord would be meaningless to us. Hence, this point is central and crucial. We should present the Lord’s incarnation to the young people from several vantage points.
We should begin by speaking of the prophecy concerning the incarnation. In the Bible the prophecy concerning the Lord’s incarnation is very clear, and it is recorded in numerous places, but we will consider only two verses. In Genesis 3:15, after man fell, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity / Between you and the woman / And between your seed and her seed; / He will bruise you on the head, / But you will bruise him on the heel.” At first glance, the phrase her seed, that is, the woman’s seed, seems quite simple, but the implications of it are very profound. First, God’s speaking related to the seed of a woman coming forth clearly indicates the matter of birth. Second, this birth involves a human being, because the seed is of a woman. Third, the seed who would be born according to this prophecy would be different from every other person born in the world because they are the seed of a man rather than of a woman. The fact that this human seed is the seed of a woman indicates that this seed is different in both origin and nature. The seed of a man comes out of man; as such, its origin is of man, and it has the nature of man. However, the seed in this prophecy comes out of the seed of a woman; as such and by inference, His origin is of God, and He has the nature of God. Therefore, the simple phrase her seed, the seed of the woman, infers that God would come to be a man through incarnation. This is the first prophecy in the Bible concerning God’s coming to be a man.
The second prophecy is in Isaiah 7:14, which says, “The virgin will conceive and will bear a son.” This verse closely follows the thought related to the seed of the woman, because the Son born of the virgin is the seed of the woman prophesied in Genesis 3:15. Christ is indeed the seed of the woman, because His birth involved only a woman, a human virgin. Isaiah 7:14 continues, saying, “She will call his name Immanuel.” The name Immanuel means “God with us,” that is, God with man. This reveals the special source and particular nature of the woman’s seed spoken of in Genesis 3. The Son born of the virgin was called God with man, indicating that He is God with man, God joined to man, God mingled with man. He has the element of humanity as well as the element of divinity. In His name God and man, man and God, are joined. Thus, the prophecy of God’s coming to be a man, God’s incarnation, is very clear.
The accomplishment of the prophecy of God’s incarnation in the Old Testament is spoken of at the beginning of the New Testament. We will consider two portions. Matthew 1:20-23 says, “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph...do not be afraid to take Mary your wife, for that which has been begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins. Now all this has happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel’ (which is translated, God with us).” This portion clearly tells us that the prophecy in the Old Testament has been fulfilled. A virgin was indeed with child, and her being with child was of the Holy Spirit, indicating that the source was the Holy Spirit, that is, God. The Son born of her would also be the Savior of sinners; that is, He would save us from our sins. Hence, His name was called Jesus, meaning “Jehovah the Savior.” Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Joshua (Num. 13:16), which means “Jehovah the Savior,” or “the salvation of Jehovah.”
Galatians 4:4 says, “When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law.” This is God incarnated, the expression of God, the manifestation of God. The Son of God is God manifested. A son expresses his father. Hence, the Son of God is the expression of God; He is also God expressed. The expression of God was born of a woman and became a man; this is incarnation. The God who became flesh fulfilled the prophecy of incarnation.
We can see the meaning of incarnation by looking at several verses. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh.” Simply put, the Word is God expressed and also the expressed God. The incarnated God is not a hidden God but an expressed God. The expressed God is the Word who became flesh. Flesh does not refer merely to human beings in general but also to mankind after the fall. When the Lord Jesus came to be flesh, man was fallen. Hence, the flesh that He put on refers to fallen man, or we may say that He put on fallen man. When speaking of this truth, we must be very precise.
Romans 8:3 says, “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin.” We should point out that even though the expressed God became a man, we should not assume, based on John 1:14 alone, that this expressed God was a sinful man. We must also consider Romans 8:3, which shows that even though He became flesh, He came only in the likeness of a fallen man outwardly without having the fallen nature, the nature of sin inwardly. This is illustrated in the type of the bronze serpent. In John 3:14 the Lord said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The bronze serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness is a type of the Lord Himself (Num. 21:4-9). The bronze serpent had the form of the serpent but not the element of the serpent’s poison, the nature of the serpent. After the Lord Jesus became flesh, He had the likeness of the flesh of sin but not the sinful nature of fallen man. Romans 8:3 speaks of the likeness of the flesh of sin, which proves that the Lord came in the likeness of the flesh of sin but did not have the nature of sin.
Philippians 2:7 speaks of the Lord taking “the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of men,” and verse 8 says that in His “being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of a cross.” Although God was joined to man and expressed through man in incarnation, He did not have man’s sinful nature. Nevertheless, He was a genuine man, not a fake man, becoming, in reality, in the likeness of men.
Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil.” This verse proves that when the Lord was incarnated, He had blood and flesh, the elements of man. First Timothy 2:5 says, “There is one God and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The phrase the man is emphatic; it means that the Lord is indeed a man. He is no different from us other than the fact that He is without sin. He became a man and is a man. First Timothy 3:16 says, “He who was manifested in the flesh.” God’s becoming flesh is God’s expression of Himself in the flesh. Except for the fact that He does not have the element of sin, He is the same as every man. He is the manifested God, the God who is expressed in the flesh.
First Corinthians 15 speaks of the issue of the incarnation. Verse 45 speaks of a “last Adam,” and verse 47 speaks of a “second man.” This shows that the Lord is the last man as well as the second man. From these two portions of the Scriptures we can see that there are only two men in the universe: the first Adam, who is the first man, and the last Adam, who is the second man. As the last Adam, the Lord is the second man, which proves that He is a man. This second man is the mingling of God and man, a second man produced through incarnation. The issue of the incarnation is that another man was produced in the universe. Formerly, there was only one man in the universe, who was out of the earth. Through the incarnation of God, the last Adam, who is also the second man, was produced. This man is out of heaven. Therefore, before the incarnation of God, there was only one man in the universe, the first Adam. When the Lord was incarnated, a second man was produced, who is also the last Adam.
Hebrews 1:3 speaks of Christ as the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of His substance. The Lord’s incarnation is the shining of the glory of God and the expression of the impress of the substance of God. In the incarnation God is expressed through man. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” The issue of Christ’s incarnation is that the last Adam, the second man, was produced and that God was expressed and declared. Matthew 1:23 says, “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel’ (which is translated, God with us).” Through the birth of the Lord, Emmanuel, who is God with us, came forth. This is wonderful.
