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Today many Christians are interested in spiritual gifts. Too often, however, we neglect two of the greatest gifts, the Holy Bible and the Holy Spirit. One is without; the other is within; and the two correspond to each other. In the Bible we find Christ as light and life; in the Spirit we also find Christ as light and life.
Suppose on earth today there were no Bible. After two thousand years, what would there be on this earth concerning the Lord? There would be just a mass of confusion. You may say that we would have the Spirit. It is right to trust in the Spirit, but just as a physical life cannot exist without a body, so the Spirit and the Word must always be taken together. Your life is like the Spirit, and your body is like the Word. If you take care of your body and keep it in good health, your life will last longer. Similarly, if you are built up through regularly reading the Word and spending time in prayer, your spirit will be healthy, and your family life and the church life will be greatly improved.
Let us answer some questions before we continue.
Question: My day starts very early. Should I still get up extra early to spend time in the Word?
Answer: It is not too hard for anyone to get up ten minutes earlier in order to eat the Word. It is a healthy habit, beneficial not only spiritually but even physically. Our anxieties will be replaced by joy when we read the Word; it is a medicine to heal us of our tensions and worries (see Prov. 4:20-22).
Question: Is it best to get into the Word before the sun is out?
Answer: That thought comes from the typology of the gathering of manna. The Israelites had to gather manna before the sun rose, or it would melt (Exo. 16:21). If you can get up that early, that is good. But I am not that legal. If you are a nurse, you may have irregular hours. I just ask you to spend ten minutes before you start your day, whether it is at 5:30 or 8:30.
Question: Should we eat the Word alone or corporately?
Answer: Personal contact with the Lord is basic; corporate contact, helpful. If you have time, do both; if not, take care of your private contact with Him. Personal contact can be likened to textbooks; corporate, to reference books. If you are taking a course in school, you must study the textbook in order to pass; if possible, study the reference books too. In the past few years some saints have had only a corporate morning watch; when they come to pray-read alone, they do not know what to do. It is poor to be able to read the reference books but not be able to study the textbook.
Question: Suppose we do not sense a speaking during our ten minutes with the Lord. Should we be concerned or expect this to be the case sometimes?
Answer: When you go to breakfast, do not be thinking about how it will taste; just sit down and eat. Intending to get a “good taste” from your morning reading will just be a frustration to you. Our feelings are complicated and fluctuating, as changeable as the weather. Do not trust them. Even if the Word seems not to stay with you, it is doing its cleansing work. I encourage you by saying not to try to get anything from your reading; then you will not be discouraged when you do not seem to get anything.
Before you start any day, it is a necessity to come to the Lord. To thus put Him first is to pay Him high honor. He will surely reward you, whether it seems so or not.
Question: Many times in a meeting I sense the anointing to do something. Then the next day when I am supposed to do it, the sense is gone. It has happened countless times. Sometimes I think I should go ahead and take care of it on the basis of my previous sense, and other times I decide to let it go.
Answer: The Christian life is a life by faith, not by feeling. We should come to the meetings regularly, for example. After a meeting we may feel that we have not received anything, but nonetheless we are getting the benefit every time. If you stop coming, you will see how like the world you will become after a few months.
At the beginning of our Christian life, out of sympathy for our weakness, the Lord surely gives us a feeling. But in order to train us to live by faith, after a certain period He removes the feeling. Then we descend into the valley. Knowing that we cannot take too much, the Lord for a shorter period restores the feeling. This gives us the sense of being on the mountaintop. Such a cycle is repeated until gradually the dependence on feelings is gone; there is no mountaintop and no valley. Whether we are opposed or welcomed matters little. Whether it is bright or cloudy, we do not care.
Before you enter such a stage, do not be troubled. If you feel that the anointing of the evening before is gone, contact the Lord again. If the anointing returns, follow it; if not, do not do anything. The Lord does not expect you to live by last night. He just asks us to live today. This is the simple way of faith.
Life is exceedingly complex. How would you define it? There are many kinds of life — vegetable, animal, human, angelic, and divine. When John says, “In Him was life” (John 1:4), what kind of life does he mean? And what is the difference between divine life and human life? When a person dies, what life dies and what life still continues?
How many lives do we Christians have? The New Testament, in Greek, uses three different words for life. The first is bios, from which we get the word biology, the study of life. Bios refers to the life in our body that the medical doctors deal with. Another word is psuche, which is the root of our word psychology. Psuche is translated “soul”; it refers to something other than our physical life. When a man dies, his bios dies, but his psuche continues. The third word is zoe, a kind of higher life. This is the word that John uses when he says, “In Him was life.” By natural birth zoe was not in us; we had only bios and psuche. But John 3:16 tells us that when we believe in the Son (i.e., receive Him, take Him in), we have zoe.
Perhaps some illustrations will help us to keep these distinctions straight. When you neglect having breakfast, you feel hungry by mid-morning. Which life in you is hungry? Bios is. If you have eaten well, but you still feel hungry for some enjoyment of music or a good time, which life is hungry? In this case it is your psuche. You may come to the church meeting and have a good time singing and enjoying yourself. Afterward, your psuche may be satisfied, yet within there may still be a sense of emptiness, or hunger. Here it is your zoe that is crying out to be fed. Why do you care only for your bios and psuche and neglect zoe? Surely our experience confirms that we have these three lives in us.
Not only was life in this One who was both the Word and God (1:1); “the life was the light of men” (v. 4). In John 10:10 Jesus further said, “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.” He called Himself “the bread of life” (6:48) and “the living bread which came down out of heaven” (v. 51). How much He is — the Word, God, life, light, and the bread of life!
He is more than this. In John 15 He told His disciples that He was a vine — not a tall tree sweeping the heavens but a low, spreading vine, reaching even to the uttermost part of the earth. He is not too high for us to reach. He is low and spreading. This vine grows horizontally to reach the whole inhabited earth.
Some say that the picture given us in John 15 is a parable of our relationship with Christ. It is more accurate to say that this vine with its branches is a divine, spiritual fact. God the Father is a farmer tending this great vine, which is growing and spreading throughout the earth. We, as the branches, are here to branch Christ. I hope your coming to the church meetings is not to have a good time; that is too low a reason. We are not here for a good time but rather to branch Christ.
I long for us all to be in the reality of this vision. It is our background that hinders our seeing. From our Christian background, our natural background, and our national background, we have the impression that we must do this and that for God. So we think, plan, schedule, and even move across the country. Branches, though, just stay where they are and live the vine.
Christ lives in us, yet we cannot see Him. How can we prove that He is real? In the early days of my ministry I did a lot of gospel preaching. Once, a professor came to me and said, “Mr. Lee, your preaching is good, and your doctrine is quite philosophical. What you say is logical, but how can you prove that the Christ you preach is real?” I replied, “Do you have a life inside you?” “Yes,” he replied. “Is it real?” I further asked. “If so, show it to me. Otherwise, do not say any more.” He could not show me his life. I went on, “Mr. So-and-so, you are not as philosophical as you think. You may have a doctorate in some area of science, but you are surely not a doctor of yourself. Tell me, how many hearts do you have?” “Mr. Lee,” he answered, “What are you talking about? Everybody knows we have only one heart.” “Sorry, you are mistaken. You have two hearts,” I told him. “Besides a physical heart that pumps your blood, you have a heart that can love. Isn’t this true?” He was subdued. He had a life, yet he could not show it to me. I have a real and living Christ, but I could not show him either.
As a person He may be invisible, but He is also the Word. This book called the Bible differs from all other books. When we read it with an open heart, we find something moving within us. This is because it is God’s Word. In it the mysterious, invisible Christ is embodied. When we take this Word into us, it becomes the Spirit. Then when we speak this Spirit out, it again becomes the Word. The Word and the Spirit, God’s two gifts to us, are one, Christ Himself. We cannot touch Christ, but we can touch the Word; we cannot sense Christ, but we can sense the Spirit. The Spirit and the Word are the two means by which we abide in Christ.
In this New Testament age, whenever we touch the Spirit of God, we touch the all-inclusive Spirit of Jesus Christ. This enriched Spirit is pictured for us in the compound anointing ointment described in Exodus 30:23-25. You may remember the meaning of the spices that were added to the hin of oil; we discussed this in chapter 8 of this book. Myrrh signifies death; cinnamon, the sweetness of the death of Christ. Calamus is a plant that grows out of the mud high into the air; it speaks of resurrection. Cassia is an aromatic plant, used in ancient times to repel insects and especially snakes; it represents the sweet fragrance of resurrection. In this ointment, portraying the Spirit, are the death of Christ, His resurrection, His divinity (one, the measure of oil), His humanity (four, the number of spices), the Trinity (three units of five hundred shekels), and the Godhead. When we have this ointment, we have an all-inclusive dose.
Thus, every time we touch the Spirit properly, we experience this death and resurrection. In the Holy Spirit there is a killing factor and a resurrecting factor. I may find, for example, that my wife is bothering me too much; I get tired of her tight control over my eating. I want forty dumplings, but she restricts me to thirty, telling me that is all she has made. It is so aggravating. Well, when I get into the Word and truly touch the Spirit, what happens to my precious dumplings? My appetite for them is killed. What happens to all the bad feelings toward my wife? The negative thoughts are all gone. When I touch the Spirit, there is first a killing, and then there is something rising up, bringing me into resurrection. Once I am in resurrection, however much she restricts my eating will not affect me. But, sad to say, the sense of resurrection seems to vanish after a couple of days. I feel low. When I look at my wife, I can see she has not changed at all. I have changed, but here she is, still the same. (Actually, I am still the same!) Then again I must seek the Spirit, experience the killing, and be brought into resurrection. This is the way to grow in life.
What is true of the Spirit is also true of the Bible. There is both a killing factor and a nourishing factor in the Word.
I was raised in China, where the teachings of Confucius were widespread. His book The Great Learning aims at developing the natural virtues, even the conscience, which he terms “the bright virtue.” I remember hearing missionaries say that the teachings of Confucius were just like the teachings of the Bible. As one who had been reared and educated in Christianity, I was troubled; why did we need the Bible if its teachings were already in the writings of Confucius? After some comparative study I concluded that the ethical teachings were the same: honor your parents, love your neighbor, be kind, and be humble. At that time I could not distinguish between the virtues advocated by Confucius and those revealed in the Bible.
Now I am clear. The Great Learning is just a cultivation of the natural virtues. The Bible, on the other hand, kills your natural virtues and then brings in the divine virtues of Christ. The more you read the Bible, the more killing you will get. From my experience the killing is first of the negative things, like pride, hatred, and jealousy. Once these are dealt with, the finer killing begins — of your love, humility, patience, and niceness. You may protest that the Lord is killing such desirable qualities, but these must be dealt with until eventually you yourself are also killed. Everything in our natural make-up must be killed.
When I saw this, I fell before the Lord and said, “Lord, forgive me. I will take the killing. I want You to cut this poor self into pieces.” And He did. By the Word in the Bible I was killed and cut into pieces. But the Bible not only kills; it also resurrects. Here rather than a cultivated bright natural virtue, we have the resurrected Christ living in us.
Day by day we must contact the Word and touch the Spirit; both do the same work of killing us and then resurrecting us. We must live this way during the week, then bring this crucified and resurrected life to the meetings. When our meetings are such a showcase of the riches of Christ, thirsty ones will be attracted, and all the members will grow, be knit together, and be built up.
In some of the churches an atmosphere has come in encouraging the young people just to have a good time — singing, shouting, playing guitars. If this is your aim, how can the young people be solidly built up? Within a few years the Lord’s recovery will vanish. The church should be (1) a home with a family, (2) a school, (3) a hospital, and (4) a camp to train an army. In the Lord’s recovery we do not want our meetings to be places of entertainment; that is the way of Babylon. If the young people are built up with the Word day after day, week after week, other serious-minded young ones will be attracted, and the future of the recovery will be bright.
Man must not “live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). The Bible is likened to food. Food is not for you to understand but to eat. If you go to a restaurant, you do not just read the menu and then feel that you have finished your meal. How much have you been eating of the Word? I am afraid that many of you are starving!
It is a necessity that you have a “breakfast” of the Word daily. Do not say that you are too weak to do this regularly. Do not quote Romans 7:18: “To will is present with me, but to work out the good is not.” Romans 7 is referring to the overcoming of sin; we are talking about a necessity of life, like breathing or eating. This “breakfast,” though you may have no sense of it, will nourish, enlighten, water, and strengthen you.
Do not be casual about your Christian life. Paul says, “I therefore run in this way, not as though without a clear aim; I box in this way, not as though beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest perhaps having preached to others, I myself may become disapproved” (1 Cor. 9:26-27). If you are a loose Christian, you may become disapproved.
