Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 3:6; Eph. 4:15; Col. 2:19; Matt. 25:1-4, 24-27
In this chapter I am burdened to share something with you concerning the matter of life. We know that it is good for us to be trained to have a proper character. In 1953 I taught thirty items of a proper character to a group of one hundred twenty trainees in Taipei, Taiwan (see the book entitled Character published by Living Stream Ministry). These thirty items of human character did not come from my imagination. They came up in my teaching from my own personal living and personal practice. By the Lord’s mercy I have learned that these items of a proper character are very crucial in our humanity. But in this chapter we want to focus our attention on a basic factor, that is, the matter of life. The life we are concerned with is the divine life mingled with our human life.
We are wonderful persons because we were created with the highest life in God’s creation. In God’s creation there are the plant life, the animal life, and the human life. In Genesis 1 we can see these three different levels of life. The human life is the highest among the created lives, yet it is not the top life in the universe. The top life in the universe is the divine life. Chapter 2 of Genesis shows the life that is signified by the tree of life. That life is a great mystery, yet we know that it is the life of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus’ life is the life of the Triune God, the divine life. Thus, we can see that in the universe there are three lives in God’s creation, and there is one life that is the uncreated life, the divine life.
The Bible shows that the plant life is for the animal life; both of these lives are for the human life, and the human life is for the divine life. Many animals live on plants, which indicates that the plant life is for the animal life. At the beginning God also intended to have just the plant life for the human life. But the human life became fallen. Since the fall, God added something to support the human life, that is, the animal life. Thus, after the fall, both the plant life and the animal life are for the human life. This is why man eats meat in addition to vegetables and fruit, the things of the plant life. Day by day we are nourished and supplied with the plant life plus the animal life.
The plant and animal lives are for the human life, and our human life is for the divine life. Not only is the human life for the divine life, but also the divine life is for the human life. The human life is only for God. That means it is for the divine life. Also, the divine life is mainly for man. That means it is for the human life. Thus, we see that in the whole universe there are four kinds of lives. We do not count the angelic life, because it is a subsidiary life. We Christians have the human life mingled with the divine life. These two lives are for one another. When we use the simple word life, we are referring to this mingled life. Life denotes the human life for the divine life and the divine life for the human life.
Now we need to see that in the Greek language of the New Testament, there are three words for life. The word for the physical life of our being is bios, from which the word biology comes. Psuche, from which the word psychology comes, is used to denote our soulish life, our psychological life. Zoe denotes our spiritual life. Our being is constituted with three parts: body, soul, and spirit. In each of these parts there is a definite life: the life in our body is bios; the life in our soul is psuche; and the life in our regenerated spirit is zoe. One is our physical life; the second, in the middle, is the psychological life; and the last one, which is the deepest one in our being, is the spiritual life because it is in our spirit. We are wonderful persons of three parts with three lives. God’s intention is for Himself, the divine life, to be mingled with such a wonderful human life.
Our spiritual life, the divine life, zoe, should grow. It does not need to grow in God, but it does need to grow in us. Colossians 2:19 says that we need to grow with the growth of God. The divine life in God Himself is perfect, complete. It is at the highest peak and does not need any growth in itself. But when this life is mingled with our life, this mingled life needs to grow.
In the Scripture Reading at the beginning of this chapter are some of the best verses concerning the growth in the divine life. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:6 that he planted and Apollos watered but God caused the growth. We need to consider what Paul planted. Surely he did not plant the plant life or the animal life. Even he did not plant the human life. He planted the divine life into the human life. According to Matthew 13, the human life is the soil in which the Lord sows Himself as the seed of life. When any seed of the plant life is sown into the earth, there will be a mingling. The seed mingles with the soil to produce a plant. So when Paul says he planted, this means that he planted the divine life into the believers. Once the seed has been planted, there is the need of watering. Watering helps the growth of this life, which is divine, in humanity.
Ephesians 4:15 tells us that we all need to grow into the Head. The Head is Christ, the One who has the divine life mingled with His human life. The Head of the church is not merely the divine person. The divine person alone is not qualified to be the Head of the Body, which is the church. This Head needs to be the divine life mingled with the human life. We believers are humans who have received the divine life. We have the human life mingled with the divine life, so we are qualified to be the members of the Body of this Head. Now the divine life in us needs to grow. The human life in the Lord Jesus grew. Luke 2 tells us clearly that Jesus grew not in the divine life but in the human life (v. 52). Today we are growing spiritually, not in the human life but in the divine life. He was growing in the human life, and now we are growing in the divine life. In this divine life we grow into the Head.
Just by your human life, you are not qualified to have an organic union with the Head. The organic union with the Head depends upon the divine life mingled with your human life by faith and baptism (Eph. 4:5). By believing and being baptized, we all have been put into this organic union. In this organic union we, who have the human life, received the divine life. The mingling began here. In this mingling we need to grow with the divine life into the Head, and this divine life is God Himself. Colossians 2:19 says that we grow with the growth of God. This means that we grow with the growth of the divine life. Thus, we are growing with God as the divine life into the Head.
Among today’s Christians there is very little talk about such growth. Sometimes they might use the word growth but not according to its biblical denotation. According to the biblical denotation, our growth in the divine life is to grow with God Himself increasing in us. God increasing in us means that He is added into our being. In this way we grow up into the Head in all things.
We need to see that even this growth needs regulation. In 1963 I was invited to speak in Dallas, and I strongly told the people there that we do not need any teaching. After the meeting, a group of people challenged me. They pointed out some verses from the Bible to show that we need teaching. They did not understand what I meant. The divine life does not need any teaching, but our human life, in which the divine life is, needs some teaching. Then you may wonder why I told people that we do not need any teaching. My point is this: Christianity always teaches people in the human life, while neglecting the divine life. But what we are short of today is the divine life. Teaching cannot help you without the divine life. So what you need today, in this sense, is not the teaching but the divine life. When I came to this country, I did not minister teaching to people for the human life. What I ministered all the time was Christ Himself. Christians today are short of the divine life, which is embodied in Christ. So in this sense, you do not need teaching. You need Christ, the very embodiment of the divine life.
But in another sense, after you have the divine life, you need teaching. In this chapter I substitute the word teaching with its synonym regulation. Regulation actually is the top teaching. Every teaching regulates you. Every teaching that a mother gives to her children is a kind of regulation. In this sense the Bible is full of teaching, full of regulation. The Old Testament, the testament of the law, is full of commandments, and the New Testament is also full of commandments. Even the Lord Jesus said in the Gospel of John that He gave the disciples a new commandment (13:34). John stresses the divine life and also stresses teaching. This means that John stresses regulation.
The full-time training is the top and strictest teaching. It is a regulation. We Christians who want to serve the Lord need this kind of teaching, this kind of training, this kind of regulation. In the training, you are restricted. It is as if you are put into a box. Of course, this box is not a coffin. I once went to visit a certain locality, and the brothers there put me into an apartment with a small shower. When I was taking a shower, it was very difficult for me to move around freely. I had been used to taking a shower in a larger area, without hitting any of the four walls. But that small shower regulated me. It was a small box that restricted me. I could not be so free or loose with my actions. This is an example of being restricted and regulated from being too free, too loose. Such restriction and regulation helps you to grow.
Now you have dedicated yourself to be full time. You are not going to do a business or a job; you are going to carry out a heavenly commission, a divine commission, the commission of the King. The royal family in Great Britain has to train a king or a queen from the time of his or her youth. Without such training, one could never be a king. He would not be qualified to be a king. You do not need any training to be a hippie or a loose person. But to be a king, you need the top training, and the top training is the strictest regulation to help you grow.
We Christians must be regulated. When I was teaching the thirty items of human character, some so-called spiritual people told me that I was teaching something which contradicted my ministry. They said that I always ministered life to people but that now I was teaching people about human character, which was building up human effort. But they did not understand the proper experience of the growth in life. The growth in life, our human being’s growth in the divine life, needs regulation. Every regulation results in a certain character trait.
The first trait of a proper character according to my learning is genuineness. You must be genuine, real, true. Our human life is neither real nor true. It is false and vain. By our natural life we are vain, empty, and untrue. How can we be genuine? How can we be true? How can we be real? It is by the growth of the divine life. The more we grow in the divine life, the more we become genuine. Only the growth of the divine life in us will swallow up all our falsehood and vanity to make us so real, genuine, and true. Another trait of a proper character is to be exact. How can we be exact? We need to grow in the divine life, and this growth needs the regulation.
Let me illustrate in this way. If four brothers would always be with you, you would be regulated on four sides every day. In the full-time training, you are surrounded by people, and you have assigned roommates. Deep within your being, however, you would like to stay in a room by yourself. You do not like anyone to stay and sleep in one room with you. You might say, “I even don’t like a room just for two. I want a room for me alone.” All that you care about is “me” — me the first; me the second; me the third; me the last; me forever. You like to be free. To be free means not to be regulated. You may not like to be regulated by anyone. But when you are not regulated, you are through with the growth.
To put you in the training is to put you in an environment for your growth. The training is the best environment for you to grow. I encourage all of you to remain here for a full term of four months. Do not quit. Do not ask for a leave. Stay to the end. To the end means to the termination. You have to be here to be terminated. Then you will go back with a lot of growth. Sisters, you will greatly surprise your mother when you go back. She will be shocked at your growth. This is not according to some philosophical thinking. This is fully revealed in the Bible. Life grows by regulation.
Everyone likes marriage. But to some extent, eventually everyone hates marriage. Whether you like marriage or you hate marriage, it is God’s ordination. Marriage is merely, purely, and thoroughly a matter of regulation. To get married is to get into regulation. No one can regulate a brother as much as his wife can, and no one can regulate a sister as much as her husband can. Many people in the world cannot suffer this kind of regulation, so they quit. They either separate from each other, or they get a divorce. They would not take the yoke ordained by God. Each dear wife and husband is a lovely yoke. Every day the husband is a yoke to his wife, and the wife is a yoke to her husband. This is ordained by God. A family is also a great factor of troubles. All these troubles come to regulate you. If you submit yourself to this regulation, this will help you to grow. The regulation of the family helps you to grow in the divine life.
The divine life does not grow in an easy environment. It grows only in a hard, troublesome, difficult environment. The full-time training is a troublesome factor. All the lessons assigned to you and all the teachers will be troublesome. In the first few days you may love the lessons and the teachers. But after a while you may begin to hate the training with all the classes, regulations, lessons, and teachers. This is a clear word to let you know that the full-time training is not a utopia. The training will be like the small shower to which I referred. The whole training will be a narrow shower to narrow you down. This will help you to grow.
This growth by regulation has a goal, and this goal is maturity and function. We do not desire to train you with biblical knowledge according to the letter as they do in a seminary. We are cooperating with our God that He may give you more growth, that He may give you the maturity you need. Then you will be useful, and that usefulness is your function. The usefulness is function, and the function issues from maturity. The little babes cannot function in a useful way, because they are short of the maturity in life. As a little child grows, his function increases. You cannot charge an elementary child to study college lessons. This little child has to grow to the full age. Then he will be able to study the college lessons. The function always comes out of maturity.
Since you desire to be very useful in the Lord’s hands, you need to realize that you need the maturity. This maturity comes out of growth. Without growth, even if you have the divine life, there is no maturity. The life plus the growth gives you the maturity. This growth always comes from the coordination of regulation with life. The divine life is precious, the regulation is lovely, and the growth is so valuable because it issues in maturity, which gives you the function. Then you can fulfill your aim and goal of being a full-timer. This goal is to carry out God’s divine and heavenly commission.
I always consider that I am not doing a work. I am carrying out a commission with which I was charged by God years ago. What I am doing here is carrying out a commission, and this needs the proper function. Merely to learn the Bible in the way of studying four years in a seminary is altogether inadequate. You need to submit yourself to the regulation so that you may grow in the divine life. This growth in life brings you to maturity, and this maturity will afford you the function. It is by this function in maturity that you can fulfill your commission. Dear saints, this is my burden as an opening word for the full-time training. Do not take this training lightly. You must be serious with much prayer.
In the Scripture Reading I listed some verses in Matthew 25 concerning the virgins and concerning the slaves (vv. 1-4, 24-27). On the one hand, we are virgins and, on the other hand, we are slaves. As virgins, we need the growth to reach maturity. Of course, the words growth and maturity are not mentioned in Matthew 25, but these two items are there.
This portion of the Word says that the wise virgins have oil both in their lamps and in their vessels (v. 4). The lamp signifies our spirit (Prov. 20:27), and the vessel signifies our soul, our being (Rom. 9:21, 23). Both in our spirit and in our entire being, we should be full of the oil, which signifies the Holy Spirit (Isa. 61:1; Heb. 1:9). This is not the outpoured Spirit but the infilling Spirit. This Spirit fills our spirit and our entire being. To fill our spirit is to light the lamp, and to fill our being is to fill the entire vessel with the spiritual oil. The infilling of the spiritual oil is actually the growth reaching maturity. The more you grow, the more you will be filled within with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the divine life, and the infilling of this Spirit of God is the growth of this divine life.
This is why we all must have a time with the Lord every day to make a thorough confession. In our prayer to fellowship with the Lord we must make a thorough confession of all our sins, transgressions, failures, defects, mistakes, wrongdoings, etc. The more we confess, the more we are filled in our entire being to have the growth of life unto the maturity in life. Every day in the training, we have to get our vessel filled with the Spirit. If a vessel is to be filled with precious things, it has to be empty. If that vessel is full of junk and dirt, nothing precious can get into it. Your confession of all your shortcomings and sinfulness is to empty all the dirt out of your being, your vessel. This is carried out not by yourself but by fellowshipping with the Lord. When you fellowship with Him, He will touch you and enlighten you. He will show you where you are and what your shortcomings are. Then you can follow His instructions and confess everything that He shows you. This empties your vessel so that you can be filled with the Spirit. As long as the vessel is empty, the air gets in, and the vessel becomes full of air, that is, full of the Spirit. We want to train you to build up this practice every day. Every day you need to get your being, your vessel, filled with the Spirit of God for your growth so that you may reach maturity. Then you will have the function.
Matthew 25 also speaks of the slaves. What the slaves need is to function, and this function depends upon diligence. Diligence is another trait of a proper character. Your function needs maturity, but without diligence, you cannot function. Everyone who has reached maturity is a very diligent one. You need to fellowship with the Lord, pray to Him, receive His enlightenment, and be dealt with by Him. A slothful person would never contact the Lord regularly. In order to grow and reach maturity, you need to be diligent. The slave who would not invest his talent was evil and slothful. He would not use the talent given to him by the Lord. He hid his talent in the earth.
You must learn to be filled with the Spirit so that you may grow in life to reach maturity. Then you need to exercise yourself to be diligent so that you can use the ability in maturity to serve the Lord to produce something for Him. Now you can see what the training wants you to do.
