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Philippians, a book concerning the experience of Christ, was written by the apostle Paul, who was full of the experience of Christ. Paul says in chapter 1 that Christ would be magnified as always in his body, whether through life or through death (v. 20), and he goes on to say that for him to live was Christ (v. 21). Christ was his inward life and also his outward expression. In chapter 2 he speaks about how he took Christ as his pattern (vv. 5-11). In chapter 3 he explains how he himself regarded Christ as the One of supreme preciousness and how he even suffered the loss of all things and counted them as refuse that he might gain, enjoy, and experience Christ (v. 8). At the end, in the last chapter, he charges and exhorts us with six virtues (4:8). Now we want to see in a practical way the six items in which we experience Christ as our virtues.
In Philippians 4 Paul refers to six virtues: being true, being dignified, being righteous, being pure, being lovely, and being well spoken of. What is described here is very beautiful. To be true is to be without falsehood, without lying, and without vanity, to be real and truthful in everything. To be dignified is to be venerable, noble, grave, and able to fully inspire and invite reverence. To be righteous is to be without anything that is wrong and to be right before God and man. To be pure is to be single, without any mixture. To be lovely is to be agreeable and endearing. To be well spoken of is to be of good repute and to be winning.
These six items stressed by Paul are superior to what most people refer t as “truth, goodness, and beauty.” These six items are divided into three groups: truthfulness and dignity, righteousness and purity, and loveliness and being well spoken of. The Greek word for virtue spoken of by Paul in 4:8 denotes any virtue expressed through the development of the inner life. Such virtues are not produced by outward efforts; rather, they are manifested through the development of the inner life. This may be likened to the fruit borne by a tree. The fruit is not something as an outward ornamentation or decoration. It is the issue of the development of the tree’s life. The virtues we speak of are the good fruits produced from the development of the inner life. Verse 8 says, “If there is any virtue and if any praise.” First there is a kind of virtue as the expression of the inner nature, and then these virtues win people’s praise.
The apostle Paul was a person who experienced Christ, and the virtues which he mentioned that should be found in our human living are not worked out by ourselves. If we look at the context of this book, these virtues are produced as the expression of letting Christ live in us. Paul said that regardless of the circumstances, whether through life or through death, he would always let Christ be magnified in his body, for to him, to live was Christ (1:20-21). Since he lived Christ and expressed Christ, such virtues as truthfulness, dignity, righteousness, purity, loveliness, and being well spoken of were produced. All these virtues were developed out of the inner life and were fully worthy of praise. Our goal as Christians is to live out such virtues by living and expressing Christ.
We bring people to Christ not to improve their lives or reform their conduct but to cause them to have the life of God so that they can live out and express God. The Bible reveals that God Himself is the One who is true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of. He is worthy of our praise and reverence. He created man so that man may express Him that He may be glorified in man. For this cause He created man in His image (Gen. 1:26), which is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. When love, light, holiness, and righteousness are expressed, we see truthfulness, dignity, righteousness, purity, loveliness, and the quality of being well spoken of, all of which are virtues worthy of praise.
Due to Satan’s temptation, man sinned and fell, thereby having the sinful nature within. Yet the good nature in man, which was created by God, still exists in man. For this reason, Confucian scholars spent a great deal of time to study whether the human nature is good or evil. Actually, the human nature originally created by God is good and virtuous. However, the sinful nature that came through the fall is evil. Therefore, today all descendants of Adam have both the good nature and the evil nature.
Our own experience can prove this point. After a person is born, he does not need to be taught to pursue goodness. He has a predisposition to strive upward and to do good. When he obeys and honors his parents, he feels at ease inside. If he provokes his parents to anger, lies to them, or disobeys them, he is convicted in his conscience. This proves that there is a good nature in man. In the same manner, after we are born, without being taught and without any learning, we automatically lie to our parents and cheat them, and evil words and thoughts well up in us. After we sin, lie, or do something filthy, on the one hand we feel regretful and sorrowful, but on the other hand we want to improve ourselves. This proves that we have the good nature as well as the evil nature.
God created us in His image of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. After the fall He also ordained that the Lord Jesus would become a man and pass through death and resurrection to become the Spirit to enter into us who believe in Him to be our life and content. The intrinsic nature of this life fully corresponds to the image of God — love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Today the Lord Jesus, who became flesh, died, and resurrected, is the living Spirit, and as such, He enters into all those who believe into Him, just like air entering into us.
In the Bible God uses air to illustrate that the Lord is the breath of life to us (John 20:22). The breath of life cannot be seen or touched but is very real to our human life. If we do not breathe for five minutes, we will die. Just as our physical life needs air, the life in our spirit, which is higher than our physical life, is a matter of Jesus as the breath of life, the Spirit of life, coming into us to be our life. The constituents of Him as life are love, light, holiness, and righteousness. He is the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness.
We human beings were created with a predisposition toward love, light, holiness, and righteousness, yet we do not have the real elements of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. This may be likened to the fact that the photograph of a person has the person’s outward form and posture but not his inward reality of life. Man has an inner desire to do good, but when he is actually going to do good, it is an entirely different story. Therefore, Romans 7:18b says, “To will is present with me, but to work out the good is not.” We have only the form of goodness. We have the shell of love, light, holiness, and righteousness but not the intrinsic substance of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. When we receive the Lord Jesus as life, He as the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness enters into us to be our life elements. Therefore, God’s way is not to improve our behavior outwardly. God’s salvation is that Christ enters into us to be our life that we may have Him as life and live by Him. It is the Lord Jesus who brings us the reality of life.
We all have the experience that before we were saved, even though we wanted to listen to our parents and honor them, we could not do so. Now whenever we call on the Lord Jesus, He enters into us so that we can spontaneously honor our parents and obey them. Many young people were previously not allowed by their parents to believe in Jesus. Now, however, because these young people have a real change in their life, the parents no longer oppose them after seeing in them the living testimony of believing in Jesus.
In addition, many times, no matter how parents try to discipline, restrain, admonish, or show their love to their children, it is hard for the children to change. Then one day the children hear the gospel, believe, receive the Lord Jesus, and call, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. I receive You as my Savior and my life.” From that time, not only are they full of joy within, but they are also full of the power to do good.
Luke 19 records the story of the salvation of the sinner Zaccheus. He was a tax collector collecting taxes from the Jews for the Roman Empire. He often used the authority of the Roman Empire to extort money from his own fellow countrymen. One day Jesus Himself came to the city where he lived. Since he was small in stature and could not see Jesus in the crowd, he climbed up in a sycamore tree in order to see Him. Looking up, Jesus saw this lost one and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay in your house” (v. 5). Zaccheus received Jesus on that day and had a revolutionary change; he said, “The half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four times as much” (v. 8). Apparently, the Lord Jesus was standing outside of Zaccheus, but in reality He could be the dynamic salvation to him. In the same way today, if a person calls, “Lord,” the Spirit of the Lord enters into him with an inconceivable power that causes him to have a radical change in his inner nature, which is expressed in his outward action.
Therefore, the life of a Christian is not a life of correcting the outward conduct but a life of allowing Christ to enter in to be the motivating power. Take the example of a car. If instead of filling up the gas tank and charging the battery, someone tries to use his own strength to make a car run by pushing or pulling it, that will be a very difficult task. If we want a car to run, first we need to completely fill the gas tank and fully charge the battery. In this way the car will be able to run. Today, because people do not have a full understanding of God’s salvation, in their lives they are like cars without gas and electricity. They depend either on others to pull them from ahead or on their relatives and friends to push them from behind. However, all the pushing results in no movement. Not only so, the car is overturned. This way is altogether wrong. We need the Lord Jesus just as a car needs gas and electricity. The Lord Jesus as the Spirit of life is the “gas and electricity.” If we have the Lord Jesus, we are like cars filled up with gas and fully charged with electricity. By calling “O Lord Jesus,” we can run.
Before a person believes in the Lord, he is like a car without gas and electricity. After he believes in the Lord, there is no need for others to pull and drag him. Just by calling “O Lord Jesus,” he can experience the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The drastic changes in the saved ones often cause their relatives, friends, and neighbors to be astonished. The marvelous thing is that if we call on other names such as Confucius, there is no response. However, once we call “O Lord Jesus,” we have a feeling within. This is the living Spirit of the Lord Jesus in us. Even though we cannot fully comprehend what this is, once the Lord as the “fresh air” comes into us, our whole being is made comfortable and happy. This is truly our experience. Once we call “O Lord Jesus,” we receive Him as the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Such a One matches our God-created image of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. As a result, what we are within exactly matches what we are without. In this way what we do will be true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of.
I have seen some young people who in their age of “metamorphosis” were haughty and arrogant, but by unceasingly calling “O Lord Jesus” day after day, they have become dignified and mature. Previously, they always liked to “put up their fists,” but now there is Someone in them — the Lord Jesus — who draws their fists back. We all have experiences like this. Sometimes we are about to lose our temper, and sometimes our temper has even reached the tip of our tongue, but the Lord Jesus gives us a pull, and we turn and go into our room to call, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” Then our temper is extinguished.
Everyone who believes in Jesus has a wonderful fountain, a “fire hydrant,” within. Once we call “O Lord Jesus,” the fire hydrant is turned on, and it flows out water to quench our anger. Previously when we went shopping, if the salesperson gave us more change than we were owed, we would be happy that we had gained some advantage. But now instead of feeling excited about it, we return the extra change. The Lord Jesus has turned many naughty students into “saints.” This is the operation of His salvation in them to make them people who are true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of, people who are full of virtues. This is not through outward teaching, nor is it through outward correction, but it is through the metabolism carried out in man by the Lord Jesus as his life. This is God’s salvation.
Do not ever think that Christians are those who belong to a charitable organization with the purpose of doing good deeds. We are not drawing people to join a religion and then teaching them to change their outward behavior. The first lines of the chorus of Hymns, #538 read, “It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ be wrought in me.” When a person receives God’s salvation by believing in the Lord Jesus, he does not receive some teaching outwardly for the correction of his behavior. Rather, he receives the living Christ into him to be his life.
I hope that each brother and sister who has been saved can clearly see this matter. Do not ever exercise your will to do good, for doing so often has the opposite effect. God does not require us to exercise our will to do good. Instead, He wants us to call on the name of Jesus. The Bible says, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). When we were giving messages in America on calling on the name of the Lord, some people thought that we were teaching another philosophy, and some considered calling on the Lord a kind of mental exercise. Instead of debating with them, we simply asked them to call on other names such as Washington and Socrates to see if they would sense anything different. Those who tried it did not get any feeling. We have to know that calling “Lord Jesus” is a tremendous matter.
When we call, He comes into us. As the resurrected One, He comes into us with God’s life to save us. If you feel unhappy or uncomfortable, you can open to Him individually, calling, “O Lord Jesus.” If you call this way several times, you will feel at ease within. The Lord Jesus is our Savior, who saves us not only from perdition but also from our temper, anger, lies, and jealousy. He is our way of salvation, and He is our salvation.
First, God created us according to His image of love, light, holiness, and righteousness so that we have the predisposition toward what is true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of. Yet all these are just outward forms and frames; there is no reality within. Therefore, in His salvation God caused Christ to become the Spirit so that Christ as the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness can enter into us. This One who comes into us corresponds with our image, which was originally created by God. Therefore, once He enters into us, He fills the outer shell created by God so that we can be full of reality. This is the same as a glove. Although the glove is designed according to the image of the hand, it is floppy and empty without the hand. But when the glove contains the hand, it has reality. Only then can it fully express the image of the hand, and the hand can also move freely.
The Lord Jesus in whom we believe is the One who is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Through us He is expressed as our virtues: as truthfulness, dignity, righteousness, purity, loveliness, and the quality of being well spoken of. Consequently, the intrinsic nature of the living we manifest before man is virtue, yet for others it becomes something worthy of praise. Once the Lord Jesus enters into man, He makes the God-created man full of the inward reality that he may express the God who is love, light, holiness, and righteousness and become true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of. Once the Lord enters into us, all our problems spontaneously are solved. Once He enters into us, all our inward needs are fully supplied. Thus, we are those who have obtained Christ, who live Christ, and who express Christ.
(A message given on April 19, 1987, at the Lord’s table meeting in Taipei.)
