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The Gospel of John reveals to us even more than the book of Revelation what God’s economy is. Why did God create the heavens? the earth? the universe? mankind? you? In this Gospel this profound matter is unveiled to us in simple words.
What is God’s heart’s desire? Christianity has been on this earth for more than twenty centuries, and its influence, works, and activities have spread throughout human society. Yet if you have the vision from the heavenlies, you will wonder what Christian work satisfies the Lord’s heart.
The New Testament tells us clearly that what the Lord wants is a bride. The Lord likened Himself to a bridegroom (Matt. 25:1-13). Suppose there is a wedding, and you offer the groom many good things, even the whole world. The groom would just say, “What do I care about all those things? Where is my bride? I only want her.”
It is the Gospel of John that unveils to us God’s heart desire. Of the four Gospels, Christians love John’s Gospel the most. Matthew, you may think, is too complicated, too tough to chew on, and Mark is not all that interesting, but John is as sweet as candy. Do you think John is so easy to understand? How would you explain verse 1? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What beginning is this? When was it? What is the Word? How could the Word be God? This is surely not soft candy! Then verse 4 adds, “In Him was life.” In Him, in this wonderful One, was life. What is life?
Not too long ago, I heard a strange definition of life. One of the saints said, “Life is liberty.” Then do the birds in the air have more life than we do? Do the people yelling and screaming at football games have more life? That is not life. That is looseness. It is the release of the flesh.
These two verses show that life is linked with God. The Word was God, and in Him was life. Here is another trinity — the Word, God, and life. What is life? Life is something in Him, in the very Word who was God. Life is just God.
John 10:10 has another reference to life: “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.” When Christ came, life came; surely when life came, it became available to all of us, even life abundant.
In chapter 14 this One who is life declared to His disciples that the Spirit of reality would come and abide with them and be in them (vv. 16-17). Who is the Spirit of reality? Is He with you? Is He in you? Then verse 20 says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Do you know practically that He is in the Father? Do you really know that you are in Christ and that Christ is in you?
Then we come to chapter 15: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman...You are the branches” (vv. 1, 5). The Lord told us that we must abide in Him that He may abide in us (v. 4). What is the meaning of these simple words — vine, husbandman, branches, abide?
In chapter 17 verses 21 through 23 say, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.” These verses are hard to follow. Verse 21 mentions being one. What is the difference between being united and being one? Then verse 22 refers to the glory the Lord has given us. Do you have this glory? He has given us the glory that we may be one. What does verse 23 mean when it says “perfected into one”?
Now consider chapter 20, when the Lord in resurrection came back to His disciples and breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (vv. 19-22). What is the meaning of this? And what does 6:63 mean when it says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life”? What is the Spirit? What is life?
I believe you are persuaded that John is not so simple. This book is on the profound economy of God. It is expressed in these simple words: I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. In the universe God is a husbandman, a farmer. Farming is God’s economy. Just as the farmer’s economy is farming, growing things, so is God’s.
What does God grow? He grows a vine tree, a vine with many branches. Christ is this vine; Christ is God’s economy. A vine differs from a tree in that it has virtually no trunk. If you cut off the branches of a vine, there is practically nothing left, only the root. Christ said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” This vine, including the branches, is God’s economy. This means that His economy includes us, for we are the branches of this vine. Hallelujah!
How could we be branches of Christ? If a farmer grows wheat, wheat is his economy, but wheat is not the farmer himself. But this vine, which is Christ, is the embodiment of God. God as a farmer grows Himself. By cultivating and developing this vine, God develops Himself. How does He do this? It is by the branching out of the vine. The branches are just the spreading of the vine. Whatever is in the vine is in the branches.
By your natural life, by yourself, are you a branch of the vine? No. By your fallen nature you are not only a branch of Adam but even a branch of the devil. Just as a branch is the branching out of a tree, so when we were born, we were just the branching out of Adam. As branches of Adam, we were also branches of Satan; this is what all the people on earth are today. The wonderful thing is that the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus, He branches out into us. This branching out makes us branches, branches of this wonderful Christ.
Do not look at yourself. This morning you may have lost your temper, and even now you may feel like a branch of the devil. The more you look at yourself, the more you will be disappointed. Look at the Word. “I am the vine; you are the branches.” You just say, “Hallelujah, Lord, You are the vine, and I am a branch. The Bible says so.”
To be a branch in the vine means that Christ has become your life. Life is not liberation; it is a person, a living person — Christ. As branches, we are those filled with Christ. Do not say you do not feel that you are filled with Christ. When the Lord says, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” you have to say a strong Amen. Just keep saying, “Hallelujah, I am a branch!” You will be filled with Him.
God wants you to be filled with Christ, to have Christ as your life and as your person. He is not interested in religion, nor in any work or service you would like to do for Him. He wants you to live Christ day by day. If we do not have such a daily life, when we meet together, it will be just for a theatrical performance. When we shout to release our spirit, we will be actors in a theater. This is not what the Lord wants. If you take Christ as your life, you will not say even a word without the assurance that you are speaking with Him.
The whole of Christianity is off. Even the saints in the Lord’s recovery today are somewhat off, distracted, from the center lane of life. If we are concerned about how to meet — in a quiet way or a loud way, with or without guitars — this is a sign that we are off. The Bible has nothing to say about how to meet or what kind of instrument to use for our music. Shouting or silence, guitars or no guitars, mean nothing. But to meet with Christ and in Christ means everything. Do not push the saints to release their spirit. What kind of spirit are they releasing? Perhaps it is a spirit full of self or of the natural life.
There is talk among us about how to meet. Are we for a good meeting? Are we for a piano or a guitar? Are we for a certain style meeting? No! We are for Christ. When you come to the meeting, you must come with Christ and in Christ. You must come into Christ. If you say that our meeting is too legal, that there is too much ministry, that you prefer an informal, family-style meeting, you are far from the center lane.
I want to say a word here for the whole recovery. We have no particular way to meet. Nearly all our meetings are open to everyone. If you have Christ, you are free to share Christ with the saints. If you say our meetings are too formal, I say I do not know of anything on earth that does not have a form. Without a form nothing can exist. A family-style meeting is a form. In fact, it is more formal, because you insist on it. If we insist on any way to meet, that way is a form. This is not of the Lord. It causes division.
Now let us come back to a further point regarding God’s economy. We have seen that it is not something religious or ethical, but it is Christ wrought into our being. Now we need to consider who Christ is. The Gospel of John reveals this One as the Word (1:1) and also as the Spirit (14:17). Hallelujah! God has given us two precious treasures, the Spirit within and the Word without.
In one aspect the Lord Jesus is the Word; in the other aspect He is the Spirit. Why are there these two aspects? It is because God cares about our experience of Him.
Without the Spirit we cannot experience Him. How could we be in Him and He in us? All by the Spirit. Are you not in the air? Is not the air in you? The Lord Jesus today is the life-giving Spirit. The Greek word pneuma means both “spirit” and “air.” The Lord Jesus is the heavenly, spiritual air.
We are now in this pneuma, and this pneuma is in us. Because He is the Spirit, I have the full assurance that I am in the Spirit and the Spirit is in me. This is why after His resurrection He came back to His disciples, breathed into them, and told them, “Receive the Holy Pneuma” (20:22). Today we are all in the Holy Pneuma, and the Holy Pneuma is in all of us.
If God had given us only the Spirit without the Word, we could easily be misled, because the Spirit is not tangible. In contrast, the Word is so solid, so touchable. Whenever we have a particular experience of the Spirit, we must check the Word. This is our safeguard.
If you care only for the Word and disregard the Spirit, you may be accurate in your beliefs, but you will be dead within. The Word is our safeguard, and the Spirit is our livingness.
These two extremes are apparent in Christianity. The fundamentalists stress the written Word; the Pentecostalists, a kind of “Spirit.” The Lord’s desire is to balance us between the Spirit and the Word, the Word and the Spirit.
If you regard only the Spirit and neglect the Word, your spiritual life will peter out. After not too long a time you will have the sense that your spirit is extinguished and that you have no way to kindle it again. You may try prayer, but you will find that no words come to your lips. Many of us have experienced this. When you run out in the spirit and have no words on your lips to pray, there is a prayer book you can turn to, the Bible.
Just open the Word. Disregard your feeling. Do not try to compose a prayer. Suppose you open to John 1:1. Just read it. Even without any feeling, sometimes as you read, something within is kindled, and prayer spontaneously rises, not in your own words but from the written Word. “Lord, I thank You. You were in the beginning. You are the Word. O Lord, You are just God. How I thank You that in You is life.”
The Word will spontaneously kindle your spirit. This is how the wonderful Lord, who is both the Word and the Spirit, will be your experience.
You may get up in the morning and find that your spirit is on fire. But when you get home from work that evening, you are as cold as a block of ice. There seems to be no reason. What should you do? Hallelujah, when your spirit is frozen, you have the Word! You may open to John 4:23. Read it. As you do, your reading will become your praying. You may say something like this: “O Lord, an hour is coming. Hallelujah! Lord, the hour has come, and it is now.” With just one Hallelujah the ice is melted, and you are filled with the very Christ. The coldness is gone. You do not need to deal with it. It just disappears.
The same is true with your temper. In fact, this is the way to take care of your whole Christian life. Do not try to overcome your temper. Just care for Christ. Today He is both the Word and the Spirit. As the Spirit He is in me, and as the Word He is here in the Bible. Whether I am hot or cold, the Word remains the same. However I fluctuate during the day, the Word is always the same. It always says the same thing.
If you think that this is practicing psychology, try picking up a book about Abraham Lincoln or the thoughts of Confucius. Such books do not provoke such a response in you. Why is the Bible the only book that can stir you? It is because “the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). Neither the words of Abraham Lincoln nor those of Confucius are spirit. It is only the words of the Bible that are spirit, for these are the words spoken by God. Hallelujah for this inheritance of the Spirit within and the Word without!
The Spirit may seem to disappear, but the Word always remains. Learn to contact the Lord through the Word. I encourage you to build up a habit of reading the Word daily, preferably in the morning. Make this a legality.
To live we have to keep some legalities. We must be legal about four things: eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping. Do you think it is too legal to eat three meals every day? Without such a legality you will soon be ready for a funeral! In order to live in a healthy way, you must eat, drink, breathe, and sleep. I am careful to practice these four legalities. That is why I am still so energetic even at my age. Without such practices you will die.
Now there are some spiritual legalities that you must pay attention to. In order to live and be healthy spiritually, you must practice these daily. The young brothers especially must have at least ten minutes of prayer every day. Then you must also have at least ten minutes for reading the Bible. You can read a chapter in ten minutes. If you insist on keeping these legalities, you will be a strong, healthy Christian. Look to the Lord for His grace to practice them.
Suppose you have no interest in praying or reading the Bible. You have done it for a while, and you seem to get nothing out of it. I know the story. If you will keep these two legalities for half a year, you will see the difference it makes. Then if you are still bored, stop for three months. This will give you a comparison. You will see what a loss it is. If you try to put water into a strainer, the water will flow right out. However many times you try, no water will stay in the strainer. But the strainer nonetheless is getting washed. Every day when you read the Bible, it seems that nothing remains. But your being is washed; your person refreshed. If you neglect your Bible reading for ten days, you will see how dull and dirty you feel. Reading the Bible makes you different, whether you sense that you have received something or not.
Come to the Bible not with the purpose of understanding it. Come not even with the purpose of receiving light or the life supply. Just come to the Bible to read it. Eventually, the Lord knows when, light will come, life support will come, secretly, wonderfully, even mysteriously, but not at your time and not in your way.
When I was young, I read a biography that said whenever So-and-so read the Bible, the letters would jump out, and the light would shine brightly. I decided to practice that. I opened the Bible, knelt down, and prayed, “Lord, enlighten Your Word. Make some letters jump out. Make some words stand out to me.” Day after day I prayed this way, but not one letter jumped out. They just seemed to sink deeper into the page. In time, though, the light came, and the life supply came. In some instances it was thirty-five years later. Since coming to the United States, I have had a great deal of light that came through my reading of forty years ago.
Just come to the Bible for the sake of reading it and contacting the Lord, not for any other purpose. When the right time comes, the Lord will give you the light or the life supply or the understanding.
As with reading the Bible, so with prayer. You may expect that if you pray, the Lord will surely answer immediately in your way. Well, after years and years of being a Christian, I can testify that not a single prayer has gone unanswered. Every one has been answered but not according to my way or in my time. Sometimes I did not hear of the answers till after three or five or even more years. As I look back over the years, I worship the Lord that whatever I have prayed He has answered in His way and at His time.
Prayer is not in vain. The answers will come. But the answers are secondary. When you pray, you touch the Lord. This breathing in of the Lord is primary.
By taking the time, at least ten minutes a day, to read the Bible and pray, you are contacting the Lord in your spirit through the Word day by day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. You will be growing all the time and will be built up with Christ. Eventually, you will know that the Christian life is just living by Christ. In thinking, you will think by Him; in speaking, you will speak by Him. You will express your attitude by Him. He will be your life and your person.
If we practice this, our coming together will not be with a way to meet. We will come with Christ, in Christ, and into Christ. Our meetings will not be something theatrical but a living testimony of Jesus, not a performance but an actual testimony of our daily living.
This is what God desires to have. Christianity has been disappointing Him in this for many centuries. Let us receive grace and rise up to say, “Lord, here we are. We want to satisfy You by living You out as a testimony and by coming together in You, with You, and into You.” This is the church life.
