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If you have only a superficial knowledge of the New Testament, you may think that its pages contain just stories and teachings. Buried beneath its surface, however, are the implications of the death and resurrection of Christ. We will discuss this further after we answer some questions.
Question: I believe I have had the experience of dying that you mentioned in the previous chapter, but I am not clear about resurrection.
Answer: In the Bible death is the threshold of resurrection (2 Cor. 4:11-12). If you have the experience of death, you do not need to understand resurrection; it is the complement of death. They go together both in the Bible and in the Spirit and therefore in our experience.
Question: When we go to the Word, how do we know what portion to read?
Answer: Let me suggest a way that I learned from Watchman Nee. Have two copies of the Bible. One should be plain, just the pure text of the Bible without any notes. This is for your morning reading, not too long a portion, a half chapter at most. For this reading, prayerfully select a book, like one of the Gospels or one of the Epistles. (Do not choose Ezekiel for nourishment. Wait till you are full-grown and can handle that kind of food.) Go through this book consecutively verse by verse, praying over every phrase so that you thoroughly digest it. This kind of reading is for your spiritual nourishment.
Use the other copy of the Bible to study for knowledge. Make notes on its pages of light that you receive or of comments from messages or from reference books. For this reading, go through the whole Bible consecutively, once a year, four chapters a day. Gaining this knowledge will give you a solid foundation for life and will enrich the nourishment you receive from your morning reading.
These two ways of getting into the Word, one for nourishment and the other for knowledge, I surely recommend to all of you.
Question: What is the difference between being legal with oneself to get into the Word whether one feels like it or not, and Christian behavior?
Answer: The routine, daily eating of the Word will surely influence your behavior. Because the Bible is the word of our God, when we come to it, we have the sense, even before we read it, that we are coming to God Himself. You will be improved just by this sense. Suppose you were to use your time for the Word on a secular magazine or newspaper instead. Do you not think that giving that time to what the world thinks will have a negative, worldly influence on your behavior?
For over fifty years I have been kept by the Lord in His Word, without ever becoming loose. It would grieve me to see any of you become loose by not diligently reading the Word. The time you waste cannot be recovered, and the poison you take in has a lasting effect. Some of you who are ex-hippies can testify how drugs have damaged your mind, even though you have repented. Go the legal way, not the loose way.
Question: When you talk about being strict and legal, do you mean living like a monk?
Answer: It is not only monks who are legal. Think how strict the armed forces are. Even though the United States is so democratic, once you are in the military service, even the length of your hair is regulated. You have a precise time to get up and get your bed made, and you must keep all your belongings in order. This strict treatment has improved the character of many sloppy young men.
I do not want you to become like a monk or a nun; just be a proper person. Do not get to bed too late. Get up and get dressed at an early hour. Make your bed; then pray and read the Word. Keep all your books in order. Keep all your clothes in their right place. Do not leave dirty clothes around. Put your shoes where they belong. Every room in your house must be neat. Even your yard, including the part by the street, should have a well-kept appearance.
Our testimony as Christians must be that we are people of the highest caliber. We are the witnesses of the Lord Jesus. Do you think we can be both sloppy and spiritual? In God’s creation everything is in good order. We do not want to live in the fallen situation of the worldlings. From my observation of over fifty years, I can state that everyone ever used by the Lord has been one who was strict with himself.
Question: Should we have a specific time to come to the Lord to confess?
Answer: We do not go to the Lord with a certain purpose; we go because we love Him and want to be with Him. Sometimes our grandchildren living nearby stop in to see us. If they behave well, we have learned that they are after something. As soon as they get the cookie or piece of gum they have come for, they take off. Such behavior is like our coming to the Lord with a purpose.
He wants us to come out of love for Him. It would please us so much if our grandchildren came to visit us just because they loved us, not for any other purpose. So it is with the Lord. Early in the morning He would have us contact Him. In our need and out of love for Him, we go to Him. Then in His presence, because He is light, we see our faults, spontaneously make confession, and are cleansed by the blood. To go to the Lord with the purpose of confessing, on the other hand, may result in several minutes of frustration.
Question: Some of us have seen the need for physical exercise and have started jogging, or playing tennis, volleyball, or softball. As you have said, the trend of this age is with sports. Can you help us have the proper attitude toward taking care of our body and yet, on the other hand, be preserved from the world of sports?
Answer: In this crooked, perverse generation, sports and entertainment lead many people into sin and are, in fact, their means of fulfilling their lusts. We need to follow the principle of avoiding the appearance of evil (1 Thes. 5:22).
Your question indicates that you love the Lord and are seeking after Him. As Christians we are not under the law but under the Lord Himself. Thus, when you would go out to participate in some sport, first ask Him, “Lord, will You go with me?” The Lord may say, “I do not like that. I will not go there with you.”
If that is the case, how are you going to get the needful exercise for your body? You may think that young people will not exercise if they cannot be in games. It all depends on your love for the Lord. As a young man, I played on the school team. One day after I was saved, the ball came to me, but I could not kick it. No one outwardly restrained me, but I could not exercise my foot to kick the ball. That was the end of my participation in that sport. Nonetheless, over the years I have surely gotten plenty of exercise. Even now I spend an hour or so a day in exercise, walking, sweeping the yard, watering the plants, and cleaning. Without exercise I cannot sleep well; I need to be exhausted of my preoccupations through exercise.
If you love the Lord, He will lead you as to the kind of exercise you should have.
I would like to give you some examples of death and resurrection in the Word. As we said in the previous chapter, the spices of the compound ointment (Exo. 30:23-25) are the constituents of the Word as well as of the Spirit. What is the difference between the teachings in the Bible and the ethical teachings of Confucius? Both contain corrections and adjustments, but in the Bible those corrections and adjustments contain a killing element. Both this killing factor and the element of resurrection are the main constituents of the Bible.
Let us illustrate how this killing factor works. Suppose you come home from work tired out, and as soon as you step into the house, something provokes you to be annoyed with your wife. You do not say anything because you have made a commitment to take a nap before you do anything else. After your short nap you read the Word for thirty minutes or so. When that is over, your annoyance will be gone. Even if you try to stay annoyed, you will fail. What has happened? Whatever you read in the Word has killed your annoyance. You may even find yourself going to your wife to apologize for not greeting her when you got home. The killing has brought in resurrection; that is why you now feel happy. The holy Word includes the Lord’s presence. It both kills you and supplies you with the Lord Himself. The resulting sense of joy, of the Lord, of the Spirit, of strength, and of nourishment is resurrection. This illustration shows how the two constituents operate in us when we are faithful to get into the Word.
How did Paul deal with the problems in the church at Corinth? “The word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). The word of the cross means the word of killing. This was the word that the Corinthians needed to combat their divisiveness, their confidence in knowledge, and their wild exercise of the gifts. The whole book of 1 Corinthians is the word of the cross. Paul applied the cross to kill what was natural.
How do you think the Greek mentality at Corinth would receive this word: “A soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually” (2:14)? The Greeks were famous in the ancient world for their philosophy. Yet Paul here told them that the man who lives by the soul rejects the things of God as foolishness. Was not this belittling the Greek philosophical mind? More than that, Paul was beheading the Corinthians for their reliance on their clever mind.
As we pray over such a word, it will have the same killing effect on us. We may say, “The soulish man — am I not a soulish man? I surely trust in my shrewd mind. It says here that he does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Could that be why for all these years I have had so little spiritual understanding? The soulish man thinks that the things of the Spirit are foolishness; he is not able to know them. Oh, the soulish man must be broken.” This is the killing effect of the word of the cross.
How would you like to receive this further word from Paul: “I, brothers, was not able to speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshy, as to infants in Christ” (3:1)? Would you not be offended to be told that you are not spiritual, that you are a man of flesh, that you are just an infant in Christ? If you protest such labels, you are proving that is exactly what you are. The word here again is a killing word. In fact, in every chapter of 1 Corinthians there is a killing of some aspect of your being.
In Philippians we have another kind of word: “That you may be blameless and guileless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine as luminaries in the world, holding forth the word of life” (2:15-16). Here in this book on the experience of Christ is the word of life. In 1 Corinthians is the word of the cross, but in Philippians is the word of resurrection.
The Bible is composed of these two kinds of words — the word of the cross, which kills, and the word of life, which brings resurrection.
Second Corinthians 4:10 through 12 says, “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death operates in us, but life in you.” Did you know that death operates? This death is typified by myrrh and is one of the spices of the compound Spirit (Exo. 30:23).
Although we may not understand how death and life do their work, we get the benefit by daily coming to the Word. The Bible, as the word of the cross, is an “antibiotic,” killing all the negative things in us; at the same time, as the word of life, it supplies us with “vitamins” to keep us spiritually healthy.
Notice the connection between these two verses: “If you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:13-14). Putting to death the practices of the body is a killing. This killing is in the Word and is executed by the Spirit. When verse 14 mentions being led by the Spirit, it is referring to our being led to put to death the practices of the body.
If we are led by the Spirit regarding sports, we may put that practice of the body to death. If we are led by the Spirit regarding attending a movie, we may choose not to go. If we are led by the Spirit when we shop, what the stores have to offer will lose their attraction. The practices of the body are the manifestation of its lusts. As these practices are put to death under the leading of the Spirit, we show to the worldlings that we are the sons of God and do not live like the sons of the devil.
Here are two more related verses: “They who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:24-25). In verse 24 we have the crucifying of the flesh; this is the killing, seemingly done by ourselves. In verse 25, however, it is plain that this killing is done by the Spirit. The way to walk by the Spirit is by the cross. By experiencing the killing of the flesh, the self, and the natural man, we abide in Christ and enjoy the resurrection also.
“The word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). When the word of God pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, it is both a killing and a resurrection. This dividing work is done by the word of God, which keeps the soul under the killing and the spirit in resurrection.
This dividing by the word is the means by which we abide in Christ in a deep, rich way. May the whole recovery be brought into such an abiding life.
