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From the time that I received the Lord, I realized that His life was in me. John 3:16 states clearly, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” I knew that by believing in Him I had received eternal life. Yet I wondered how such a life could affect my daily living.
Perhaps some of you have this same concern. You may have a wonderful time in the Word in the morning, yet throughout the day you may often feel condemned because of your loose talking on the phone or your irritability toward your family. In some ways you experience a bird’s life, soaring in the open heavens, but in other ways you lead a dog’s life, barking at your mother or at your children. One moment you are praying to the Lord, and the next moment you are venting your wrath on your family. Which are you, a bird or a dog?
For many years I longed to know how my living could correspond with the life I had received. I was saved in China, a land of idols and Confucius’s philosophy. Many young college students, including Watchman Nee, were saved around that same time, in the 1920s. I do believe that the Lord granted us His gracious visitation as a result of the prayers of many saints, mostly in England. In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion had caused the martyrdom of many missionaries, mostly English; this episode constrained many to pray for China. Our salvation, no doubt, was one result of those prayers.
From our study of the Bible and our seeking of the Lord, we came to realize that our living should be different. We gathered scores of Christian books, seeking to find the way to live such a life. Not one book helped us. In fact, a number of years went by before we found the secret.
We noticed from the Gospel of John that our relationship with the Lord begins by believing in Him. “As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name” (1:12). This first chapter shows that to believe in Him is to receive Him.
The last chapter, however, indicates that our relationship with Him is a matter of love: “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” (21:15). But loving Him is not the way by which we live this life we have received.
The key is found in chapters 5, 6, and 7. It is that the life we have received is Another’s, yet it is not lived by Him but by us. The Lord Jesus demonstrated this way of living by taking the life of the Father. In 6:57 the Lord said, “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” By comparing this verse with 5:26, “Just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son to also have life in Himself,” we can see that though the life was the Father’s, the Father was not the One who lived it. His desire was that His life be lived out by the Son. This life involved two persons: it was the life of the first person, but it had to be lived by the second person. The Father was the Giver of this life, and the Son was the Receiver. There were two persons but one life to be lived.
Married life is somewhat like this. Two people are involved, the husband and the wife, but for a happy marriage, there can be only one life lived. If the wife lives her own life instead of living by her husband’s, their marriage will be miserable. This comparison of marriage with our relationship to the Lord is not superficial. Ephesians 5:23-32 tells us that Christ is the Husband and the church is the wife. Should the church have a living separate from the living of Christ?
Married life actually is a faulty illustration because there are two lives involved. The husband’s life cannot literally be his wife’s life; they each have a life of their own. But in the case of the Father and the Son, the two of Them truly had only one life. In the case of Christ and the church, also, there is only one life; what Christ has as life is what the church has as life.
However earnestly the wives try to be subject “to their husbands in everything,” and however sincerely the husbands try to love their wives “even as Christ also loved the church,” their efforts will be in vain. This will be the case even if the wife follows the principle of taking her husband’s life as her own. The exhortations in Ephesians can only be carried out by both husband and wife taking the life of Another. The love and the submission are from the Lord. When they take Christ as their life, in the wife submission will come forth, and in the husband love will arise.
When we were saved, we were joined to Christ as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). We are one with Him. Today Christ cannot be seen. He is concealed from the eyes of men, first in the heavens (Acts 3:20-21) and second in us (2 Cor. 13:5). While He was on earth, He followed the principle of living by a concealed life. John says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (1:18). As the Son expressed that hidden life, so today we His disciples are charged to take His life as our living, thus making manifest His concealed life.
When the disciples of Confucius try to follow their master’s teachings, all their efforts are directed at trying to improve their behavior so that it will conform to what Confucius said. This is our natural concept also, when we come to the Bible. Christians think that they must behave in an ethical, morally upright way. They study the Bible in order to find out what constitutes the proper Christian life. Then they strive to meet that standard.
All such efforts are nothing but a frustration to the way Christians should live. The proper Christian life is not related to ethics but to a person. No doubt Christian morality and ethics are the highest, but it is because they are Christ Himself. It is He who is love or humility or kindness. These traits are expressed when we live Him.
It is all too common to think that we should improve our behavior after we get saved, that we must try to act like the children of God rather than like the children of the devil. Better conduct is not God’s intention for us. Do you think the Son lived by the Father because His own life was not good enough? By no means! The Son simply wanted to fulfill the Father’s desire to be lived out by the Son. “I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me” (5:30). The Son’s commission was to express the Father, not to do anything else. “The living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father” (6:57). The Son took the Father’s life not because of any sin or weakness or inadequacy on the Son’s part but just to accomplish the Father’s desire. He was sent not to establish an empire or to perform a great work. Even to say that Christ came to save sinners is only partly true. He came to live the Father. If the cross had not been the Father’s will, if saving sinners had not been the Father’s will, Christ would not have submitted to the cross. You remember His prayer in Gethsemane: “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).
As you go through the day, you need to realize that Christ and you have only one life, not yours but His. For this to be your experience, your own life has to be put aside. Then you two will have only one living, not His but yours, because His is concealed.
This is not easy to understand. Ask the Lord to make you clear. “Lord, thank You that You and I have one life. Show me how to take this life; show me how to put aside my life. Thank You, Lord, that the two of us have only one living; this is my living, not Yours. I thank You that the life is Yours. You should thank me that the living is mine!” If you keep praying this way, you will become clear that in the Christian life the Lord and you have only one life. In yourself you have your life; in Himself He has His. But in Him, in His life, you are both one. This one life is your living.
If we pray this way, we may sense that the Lord is pleased — pleased that He has a life for us and that we have a living for Him.
For us to experience the one life, our own life must be put aside. In specific terms, we must put aside both our will and our glory. The Lord said, “I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 5:30). In 7:17-18 He said, “If anyone resolves to do His will, he will know concerning the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, this One is true, and unrighteousness is not in Him.” The Lord sought both the will and the glory of the One who had sent Him. To put our will and glory aside is to deny the self.
All human beings are for their own will and their own glory. Why do we prefer to live by our own life? It is because within us we have a will concerning ourselves. The direction of this will is to promote our name, our popularity, our position. Our will within seeks to advance our glory without.
Self-promotion characterizes human society. Everyone wants to be somebody. Even in the church there are these aspirations to be someone. But the church annuls every one of us. I have heard the church people criticized as being a “bunch of dummies,” lacking any self-assertiveness. Is not this a testimony that the Lord is making us different from the world?
When we put down the will and the glory of the natural life, that life is finished.
To get the most help from the Word, do not seek your own will and glory. If you are after a position for yourself, when you come to the Word, the help you receive will be fragmentary at best. Be content to be nobody. As long as you are somebody, you are taking yourself as life. The Lord Jesus’ baptism at the beginning of His ministry was a declaration that He was terminated, that His natural life was under the cross, and that He would live the Father. It is when you choose such a life that the Word nourishes you. The Word is not for the sustaining of your natural life. The intent of the Word is not to instruct you. Do not try to do what is taught in the Bible. Just open to Him as you open His Word and receive Him through the Word as your supply.
Are you satisfied to be a nobody? You can try the educational world if you would like to be somebody. Or there may be openings for you in the world of politics. But once you step through the door of the church, you are a nobody. Are you willing?
I would rather phrase the question in a positive way: Are you satisfied with the highest commission? The Lord Jesus turned from His own will and His own glory in order to take the Father’s life and live Him. This same high commission is yours: to take Christ as your life and to live Him. It is no more I but Christ who lives in me. This is both the Christian life and the church life. How far it surpasses the will and the glory of the self!
Let nothing distract you from this commission. Do not be concerned about worldliness. Do not think about weakness. Do not be burdened by your sins. The more you try to overcome worldliness, weakness, and sin, the more you will be victimized by them. If you take Christ as your life and live Him out, these and all the other negative things will flee away.
In the everyday affairs of life, do not be pushed into doing things quickly. Do not reply, or even utter anything, in haste. Whatever the provocation, be steady. If a difficult situation arises with your wife, for example, do not be troubled. Just confer with the Lord within: “Lord, I do not do anything. I am one with You. You act in me. You answer my wife. I would not do anything apart from You.”
Having this attitude of taking the Lord as our life saves us from trying to obey the letter of the Bible. By constantly turning to Him and declaring that we are one with Him, we provide Him the opportunity to change us by metabolically carrying away the old and replacing it with the new. Such will be the effect of the nourishing Word we take in — not outward correction but inward change.
How privileged you are to have this other life! As you practice living by Christ, you will see how different you are from those in the world, who have only their own life. God has imparted His life to you. Now He wants you to live Him out as your living.
As the Son lived the Father by the Father’s life, so today we live the Son by the Son’s life. Let us thank Him that we two have one life and one living; the life is His, and the living is ours. This is the proper Christian life.
