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Throughout the generations those who have truly known the Lord and touched life have acknowledged that in order to know the Lord we must know life and experience life. However, in order to experience God as life, we must know the Spirit. Regrettably, our knowledge of the Spirit is deficient. Even those who carry out the ministry of the word do not know and speak of the Spirit in a complete or accurate way. There are thousands of books in Christianity, but it is rare to find a message on knowing the Spirit in our experience. However, according to the structure of the Bible, the speaking concerning the Spirit increases as the divine revelation unfolds.
John 14 marks a turn in the revelation of the Lord’s coming in the flesh to His coming as the Spirit. Verses 2 and 3 say, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” There is much debate in regard to this verse. Some expositors think that coming again refers to the second coming of the Lord Jesus at the end of this age. This is not accurate. Coming again refers to the Lord Jesus coming as the Spirit to enter into the disciples after His resurrection.
Verses 18 and 19 say, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” The time between the Lord’s going and His coming is only “a little while,” and even though the world could not see Him, the Lord promised His disciples that they would see Him. According to these verses, the Lord’s going and coming again did not involve centuries or even decades; rather, it was only a matter of three days and three nights, the period after His death and before His resurrection. After His death and resurrection He came back to be with His disciples. On the evening of His resurrection the Lord came into the midst of His disciples, and when the disciples saw Him, they rejoiced (20:19-20). This fulfilled the Lord’s word in 14:18-19: “I am coming to you...The world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me.” His coming was His coming as the Spirit (v. 17).
Some say that on the evening of His resurrection the Lord Jesus came only with a resurrected body because He allowed one of the disciples to touch the mark of the nails on His hands and put his hand into His side (20:27). Because He came with a resurrected body with flesh and bones, they are unwilling to admit that the Lord Jesus came as the Spirit.
Although He came with a resurrected body, He is the Spirit in resurrection. A brother who could not understand this point once asked me to explain. I replied by asking, “Brother, is the Lord Jesus living in you?” He said, “Of course, He lives in me.” Then I asked, “Is the Lord Jesus who lives in you the resurrected Lord?” He said, “Yes, He is the resurrected Lord.” Finally, I asked, “After the Lord Jesus was resurrected, did He have a body with flesh and bones?” He said, “According to Luke 24:39, when the Lord appeared in the midst of the disciples, He had flesh and bones.” So I said, “Then the Lord Jesus who is in you as the Spirit must have a resurrected body.” He had no answer.
On one hand, the Bible clearly says that the Lord Jesus has a resurrected body, but on the other hand, it tells us that the Lord Jesus lives in us as the Spirit. If we consider this matter only with our mind, it is beyond our comprehension. Just because we cannot comprehend something with our mind, however, does not mean that it is not possible. Even with all the theories and proofs that the scientists have concerning the universe, there are numerous unsearchable mysteries about the universe. While we cannot begin to comprehend God, it is even beyond our comprehension to understand the universe created by God. If we would acknowledge that our understanding of such matters is limited, we would be able to declare that the Lord is both the Spirit and has a resurrected body with flesh and bones. The Lord Jesus, who came as the Spirit in John 20, appeared with a resurrected body with flesh and bones. Even though this is beyond our understanding, it does not change the fact that the Lord Jesus came as the Spirit.
In 20:22 the Lord breathed into the disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Lord Jesus was God Himself, and in resurrection He came as the Holy Spirit who could be breathed into the disciples. Before His death and resurrection He was with His disciples for three and a half years, but He did not speak of His coming as the Spirit until the time immediately before His crucifixion in John 14. Then on the evening of His resurrection He came into the midst of the disciples, breathed into them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The record of this event is very unique.
Immediately prior to His breathing in 20:22, verses 19 and 20 say, “When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and while the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, Peace be to you. And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced at seeing the Lord.” The doors were shut because the disciples were afraid of the Jews, but Jesus still came and stood in their midst. If the doors were shut, how did the Lord Jesus come in? Furthermore, He came with a body of flesh and bones, and He even showed His hands and His side to the disciples. Verse 21 says, “Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be to you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” Here the expression as...also has a special implication. When the Father sent the Lord, the Father was in the Lord and with the Lord (8:29); then when it was time for the Lord to send the disciples, they were sent in the same way. This means that the Lord was in the disciples and with the disciples. When the Father sent the Lord, the Father was in the Lord and with the Lord. This is the reason that the Lord Jesus could say that the words which He spoke were the works of the Father (14:10). The Lord sent His disciples in the same way that the Father sent the Lord. The Lord sent the disciples by being in them and with them. Hence, when the disciples went out to speak for the Lord, the Lord was in them. The Father sent the Lord and was in the Lord, and the Lord sent the disciples and was in the disciples.
When the Lord breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the Lord imparted Himself into His disciples. When the Father sent the Lord, He was in the Lord, and before the Lord sent His disciples, He entered into them. The Lord entered into the disciples by breathing into them. The breath breathed into the disciples was the Lord Jesus; it was also the Holy Spirit. When the disciples received this breath, they received the Holy Spirit, and they also received the Lord. This is how the Lord entered into His disciples. In John 20:23 the Lord said to the disciples, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain, they are retained.” This was possible because the disciples’ forgiveness was really the forgiving of the Lord who was in them. On the day of Pentecost Peter stood up and preached the gospel to the people of Israel, saying, “Repent and each one of you be baptized upon the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Peter could preach the gospel of forgiveness because the Lord who dwelt in Peter was able to forgive. Furthermore, if Peter did not forgive a person’s sin, the sin was retained. In Acts 5 Peter said to Ananias and Sapphira that their deceiving of the Holy Spirit was their lying to God, and then they expired (vv. 3-10). Peter’s authority was the authority of the Lord who was in him.
In resurrection the Lord became the life-giving Spirit. From John 14 onward, the Lord’s speaking concerning His going was in relation to His death, and His speaking concerning His coming was in relation to His resurrection as the Spirit so that He could be in His disciples. Hence, chapter 14 does not speak of the Lord Jesus’ return at the end of this age. If this were the case, His overall speaking would contradict His words in verses 18 and 19, which say, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” The coming of the Lord in chapter 14 refers to His coming as the Spirit after His resurrection.
After the Gospel of John the record in Acts is entirely a record of the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in Acts is actually Christ Himself. From Acts until Revelation the center and subject of the apostles’ preaching is Christ; however, this Christ is the Spirit. In Acts and in the Epistles, Christ is no longer an objective Lord; He is the Spirit dwelling in us so that we may experience Him subjectively. We can be built up together only in the Holy Spirit. If we are not in the Holy Spirit, we can never be built up together. If we do not bring people into the Holy Spirit, we are not building up the church. In the same principle, we must be in the Holy Spirit when we lead people to experience Christ as life.
We have to acknowledge that we have had very little results from our gospel preaching, from our messages, and from our study of the Bible. Many people have heard our preaching of the gospel, but how much effect has there been? The reason that our work lacks results is that we are not in the Spirit. When five hundred people hear the gospel, perhaps two hundred give us their name, but only seventy are baptized. Of the seventy who are baptized, at most twenty remain. Then if we consider these twenty, we have to admit that not many of them are truly living or even know how to pray. The power of our gospel is weak because our spirit is weak and because we have not brought people into the Spirit in a genuine way. We must have a turn; we must turn from relying on messages to relying on the Spirit. Our message must match the Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost three thousand people were saved as soon as the apostles stood up to preach the gospel (Acts 2:14, 41). The apostles relied on the Spirit of God (v. 4), not on their ability. We should rely on the Spirit in the same way. Our preaching of the word should be in coordination with the Spirit, but our actual situation is just the opposite; that is, we rely on our preaching and expect the Spirit to coordinate with us. This is the reason that there has been very little result in our work; this is also the reason for our deadened condition. As serving ones, we have prayed much with fasting. Serving ones need to pray in order to touch the Spirit, not just to ask for things. I hope that we would all pray in order to touch the Spirit and gain more of Him. Only in this way will our preaching have impact.
The word we preach must be living, just like the preaching of the apostles on the day of Pentecost. The apostles said, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word” (6:4). They carried out the ministry of the word through prayer; that is, the ministry of the word came out of their prayer. They prayed, and they received the word. Continuing steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word was the way of the apostles’ work. Our work should also come out of prayer and bring people into prayer. Both those who preach the word and those who receive the word should be ones who pray. The one who is speaking needs to pray, and those who hear should also pray. Then everything that we do will be in the Spirit. The book of Acts shows that the saints prayed day by day. Although the apostles did not cease from preaching the word, their preaching was in coordination with the Spirit.
Our problem today is that we are short of the Spirit, and the main reason for this shortage is our lack of prayer. We can give a thousand messages, but they will be useless without the Spirit. Any message that does not match the Spirit or does not have the Spirit is useless. People cannot be saved without being brought into the Spirit. The number and the content of our messages mean nothing if we do not bring people into the Spirit. No matter how much light is in our word, it will be useless and ineffectual without the coordination of the Spirit. All the leading ones must wake up. We cannot rely on the preaching of the word while neglecting the Spirit. The young people’s meeting must have a turn in this direction: we must turn to prayer. Those who are in the ministry of the word must pray; the elders and the serving ones need to pray more and more.
