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Matthew 16:15 records that the Lord asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). Then Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in the heavens” (v. 17). Following this, the record in verses 21 through 24 tells us, “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, God be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by no means happen to You! But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” The things recorded in this portion of the Word do not fit in with our human concepts, but they are part of the divine revelation.
Many people do not know what the revelation of God is. Actually, the revelation of God is nothing but Christ revealing Himself. If a person wants to know the revelation of God, he must know Christ. In fact, the revelation of God is Christ. Only when we see Christ will we be able to see the revelation of God, and only when we know Christ can we be those who live in the revelation of God.
The revelation of God is His unveiling of Christ for us to see and know. It is God who causes us to see and know Christ. If a person does not see and know Christ, no matter what kind of living he has before God, what kind of things he does, or what kind of behavior he has, they are all outside of God’s revelation. We have seen that everything that is outside of God’s revelation is of religion and is natural. Only when a person sees and knows Christ will all his living, doing, and behavior be out of God’s revelation.
To many people these words may be hard to comprehend. A clever brother who had a clear mind and who was rich in thought once said that he did not know what God’s revelation was. We should not marvel at hearing such a word, because man often cannot understand or comprehend the revelation of God. Only when the Holy Spirit gives man enlightenment and revelation within, is man actually able to see, rather than merely understand or comprehend.
For example, suppose that when we come to the meeting hall, all the doors and windows are shut. Suppose also that on our way to the meeting hall we met a person who described to us the interior setting of the meeting hall. He described how many chairs, lamps, fans, and microphones there are and how they are arranged. We then more or less have some idea and understanding of everything in the meeting hall. However, the doors and windows of the meeting hall are shut, the interior setting is concealed and blocked, and we have no way to see inside. We heard the description from the person we met, and seemingly we understood, apprehended, and comprehended, yet because we cannot see the real situation, we are still not clear. Not until the door is opened, we enter the meeting hall, and the lights are turned on will we really understand. This understanding is different from an outward understanding. An outward understanding is based upon hearing about something without having any light or actual seeing. Once the door is opened and the real situation is revealed before our eyes, we will be able to see the meeting hall in a clear way. Such a seeing is a revelation.
We may have these two different kinds of knowledge of Christ. One is the result of hearing someone speak about Christ and about the kind of relationship we should have with Him. Even though the speaker may have given a clear and reasonable presentation, and we heard it clearly, we still find it vague because the Holy Spirit has not yet shown us the actual matter. We merely heard the presentation, but we have not seen it. Hence, we may understand the doctrines concerning Christ, but we may not be able to see or know the Christ who is in us. We may understand the doctrines, but if we do not have any inward seeing, then even though we may think that we know and understand, we still do not really know or understand.
May the Lord grant us the grace to not only have some mental understanding of Christ but to have the inward revelation and seeing that will cause us to know Christ. Such a knowledge of Christ will affect us inwardly so that our living and daily walk will be directed by the Lord. As a result, our living and daily walk will be according to revelation and not according to religion. Whatever we are able to do without touching Christ or contacting Christ comes out of religion. Only when Christ touches us in our being will what we do be according to revelation.
Suppose a young brother realizes that children ought to honor their parents and, therefore, cultivates his character and disciplines himself so that he can wait upon his parents. Although this is good, this kind of goodness is religious and natural, because even without knowing Christ, without touching Christ, and without Christ being his Lord and directing him inwardly, he is willing and able to do such a thing. What does it mean to do something according to revelation? For this young brother it would mean that after he is saved, he fellowships with the Lord, knows and touches Christ, and has Christ as his Lord reigning in him and restricting him. He gets to know Christ in such a way that Christ directs him from within, causing him to be restrained and under control. He does not resolve to do anything, yet Christ in him regulates him, causing him to discipline himself, submit to his parents, and be an obedient son to them. Such obedience and submission are not of religion or of the natural man but are lived out by this young brother because inwardly he knows Christ, touches Christ, and has Christ reigning in him. The One who is reigning in him is Christ Himself. Christ reigns in him and lives out from him. This is something of revelation.
All our living that issues from touching Christ and from inwardly being under the influence and control of Christ is according to revelation. All that we do by our own determination and effort without touching Christ, going through Christ, or being controlled by Christ is of religion and of the natural man. This is to do something apart from revelation. In simple words, whatever is the result of revelation is the result of seeing Christ and of His being the Lord within us, reigning over and controlling our being. When this happens, we have a living and behavior that are under His control and authority.
How then can we see revelation? There is a way. In fact, there is a way for doing everything. Once we have found the way, it is easy for us to do something. We know that God reveals Christ to us first by the holy Word and second through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we need to know Christ and see the revelation of Christ through the Word and the Spirit. We all know that Christ is the content of the Bible and that the entire Scriptures speak concerning Christ (John 5:39-40). God has put Christ in the Word, and if we read the Word properly, we should be able to find Christ in it. This may be likened to putting sugar into water. When we get the water, we get the sugar as well. If we cannot find Christ in our reading of the Bible, we are not reading the Bible successfully. Someone who knew God once said that Christ is in every chapter of the Scriptures. When he read about Adam, he saw that Adam typifies Christ; when he read about Moses, he saw that Moses typifies Christ; and when he read about David, he saw that David also typifies Christ. Whether it is the Old Testament or the New Testament, the whole Bible is full of Christ. God uses different ways, including types, prophecies, and parables, to portray Christ. When we read the Bible, if we merely read the types, the prophecies, or the parables without seeing Christ, then our reading of the Bible will be in vain. To read the Bible properly, we must see Christ in the Bible. Since the content of the Bible is Christ, we are reading the Bible successfully only if we are able to see Christ in every chapter, every verse, and every sentence of the Bible.
Not only is Christ embodied in the Word, but He is also realized as the Spirit. He Himself told us that the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of reality, would abide with us and be in us (John 14:17). Strictly speaking, the Holy Spirit’s coming into us is Christ’s coming into us (v. 20). Some people testify that the Holy Spirit in them gives them comfort, and others say that the Holy Spirit in them gives them knowledge. Having comfort and knowledge is good, but it is not good enough. The central purpose of the Holy Spirit’s being in us is to reveal Christ. He leads us and comforts us so that we may know Christ. If we merely receive His leading and comfort without seeing or knowing Christ, something is still missing in the leading and comfort we are receiving, because the Holy Spirit in us is Christ.
For example, consider the following story. There was once a diamond that was put into a nice box. Then someone saw the nice box, and he took it away. Eventually, however, because this person did not realize that he had a diamond, he threw it away and kept only the box. Many people are like this. They receive the guidance and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit without receiving Christ. What is the reason for this? It is because they think that the Holy Spirit in them is only for enlightening and leading them. They do not see that the central purpose of the Holy Spirit’s entering into them is that through leading, enlightening, and other kinds of work they may know Christ and gain Christ. Hence, whether it is reading the Word or receiving the leading of the Holy Spirit, God’s only purpose is that we may gain Christ. If we receive the leading without gaining Christ, the leading that we receive is in vain.
However, how can we see Christ in the Word? How can we know Christ by the sense of the Spirit? These are truly difficult questions. We will not be able to see Christ in the Word, know Christ by the sense of the Spirit, and therefore solve all our problems merely through a few words of explanation. Here, we can only point out the way. In principle, whenever we read the Bible, we should receive revelation. However, because we have too many of our own views, opinions, and ideas we often cannot see any revelation when reading the Bible. The biggest hindrances to our receiving revelation when reading the Bible are our views, opinions, and concepts. We saved ones all have the Holy Spirit within us. In principle, we all should know Christ because the Holy Spirit is within us revealing Christ to us. Yet many of us do not know Christ because of the problem of our own views and ideas. These are frustrations to the Holy Spirit. Our views and opinions hinder us from knowing Christ.
Here we have to mention two passages. One is Matthew 16, which speaks of the cross of Christ, and the other is John 11, which is concerning the power of Christ’s resurrection. In both cases the Lord encountered human frustrations. For instance, one day the Lord Jesus told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to be crucified and suffer death. This truly was a revelation. This matter of the Lord’s crucifixion was originally hidden, but that day the Lord Jesus revealed this hidden matter to the disciples. The disciples should have understood this. Instead, the Lord encountered someone who had his own opinion. This one’s opinion was a good opinion, an opinion of love, yet it was a human opinion. We all should remember the story at the end of Matthew 16. The Lord Jesus told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to be crucified and suffer death. Then right after the Lord finished speaking, Peter came in and said, “God be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by no means happen to You!” (v. 22). The Lord Jesus had revealed His crucifixion to the disciples, but Peter did not understand. Was it because he did not love the Lord that he did not understand the Lord’s word? It was not that he did not love the Lord but that he loved the Lord so much that he expressed his opinion. He took the Lord aside and told the Lord that this would by no means happen to Him. This prevented Peter from seeing the revelation of the cross.
Please bear in mind that there are many “Peters” here. With many of us, either we do not love and desire the Lord, or once we do, we have our own views and ideas. No one loves the Lord without his opinion, and no one desires the Lord without his own views and ideas. The strange thing is that when we are indifferent toward the Lord, we simply put the Bible aside and do not read it. However, after we are revived and become zealous, we begin to read the Bible, and in so doing we read everything that is in our mind into the Bible. We are the same as Peter. If the Lord were to have told us that He was going to be crucified, we also would have had our own opinion, view, and idea. We also would have told the Lord, “God be merciful to You. This shall by no means happen to You!” The Lord had His revelation, but Peter had his own opinion. Peter’s view frustrated the Lord’s revelation.
Many Bible readers cannot see the revelation in the Bible because they are full of their own opinions, views, and ideas. Human beings are really strange in that whether they are well educated or not, they always consider that they are right, and they always have their own views, opinions, and ideas. This is not only the case with educated people but also with less educated people. Even the elderly saints are not an exception. On that day the Lord Jesus’ word was very clear, but Peter still did not understand it; he was inwardly resisting it. Why was he unable to receive the Lord’s word? He was not able to receive the Lord’s word because he had his own views, ideas, and opinions.
Our opinions always frustrate the Lord’s revelation. One day a householder wanted to hire a servant. The first servant came, and the master wanted to test him to see if he would listen to his word. He said to the servant, “Please go to the garden and plant this tree upside down with its roots facing upward and its branches facing downward.” The master was afraid that the servant did not hear him clearly, so he repeated, “The roots should be facing up and the branches facing down—are you clear?” The servant replied, “I am clear.” Then he went to the garden, but when he was about to plant the tree, his opinion came. He thought that the master must have spoken the opposite of what he wanted, for how could someone plant a tree with its roots on top and its branches on the bottom? The more he thought about it, the more he believed that he was right, so according to his own decision, he planted the tree with its roots on the bottom, facing down, and its branches on top, facing up. When he went back to the house, the master asked him, “Did you plant the tree?” He said, “Yes, I did.” Then the master questioned him, “How did you plant it?” He answered, “With its roots on the bottom and its branches on top.” The master inquired of him, “But what did I tell you?” He replied, “I was afraid that you had misspoken, so I planted the tree this way.” In the end the householder discharged him. Then a second servant came. The master asked him also to plant the tree in the inverted way, upside down. Again the master feared that the servant had not listened clearly, so he said it again and asked him, “Did you listen carefully?” He answered, “Yes, I did.” Then the second servant went to the garden. He considered and reconsidered his master’s word and simply could not make any sense of it. He thought that the master must have spoken too quickly and said the reverse of what he intended. Eventually, he also planted the tree with its branches on top and its roots on the bottom. We are the same in our reading of the Bible. Like the two servants, we always read the Bible according to our own way, considering that we are right and thinking that the Bible must mean the opposite of what it says.
Although we all know that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isa. 55:8-9), many times we still like to use our mind to measure God’s thoughts. It is hard for us to have no opinions when reading the Bible, unless we do not read the Bible at all. We all have the same Bible in our hands, yet the results of our reading are altogether different. What one person reads in the Bible is one thing, and what I read may be another thing. If you do not believe this, we can do an experiment. We can let everyone read the same chapter, the same verse, and even the same phrase. In the end we will all come up with different things. This is because even before we read, we already have our own opinions. We do not simply discover the things in the Bible; rather, we put our own opinions and thoughts into the Bible. We may use an illustration. Water itself is colorless, but if we are wearing a pair of glasses with green lenses, we may insist that water is green. The fact is that it is not the water that is colored but that we looked at it through a pair of colored glasses. Hence, if we want to find Christ and know Christ from the Bible, we must put aside all our own views and opinions. Then when we read the Bible, we certainly will receive light and revelation from the Bible.
If we read John 11, we can see two things. We can see that the Lord already had determined what He would do to Lazarus to manifest His resurrection life with its resurrection power. Yet we can also see that when He went to carry out this matter, the Lord encountered a problem—the problem of human opinions and views. This is a great problem in the Gospel of John. When people read John 11, many of them see the Lord’s power but not man’s opinions. In fact, there are many human opinions in the Gospel of John. In John 11 we are told that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus (v. 5). When Lazarus was sick, the two sisters sent people to Jesus. First of all, the two sisters expressed their opinion in the way that they informed the Lord. How do we know this? They sent people to Jesus to say, “He whom You love is sick” (v. 3). Such a word was full of opinions. The Lord, however, was determined to deal with these human opinions. Hence, after He heard such a word, He remained in the place where He was for two days (v. 6). They wanted Him to come quickly, yet He purposely would not come. They expected that He would come in two hours, but He did not come on the first day; neither did He come on the second day. These two sisters were really suffering a great ordeal because they were full of their own ideas and thoughts. If instead of having their own ideas and opinions they would have just allowed the Lord to come whenever He desired, they would have been freed from having any burden or experiencing any ordeal after they had prayed. However, their prayer was to ask the Lord to come quickly. They were expecting every minute and every second that the Lord would come, yet the Lord did not come on the first day, the second day, or the third day. Even after Lazarus died and began to smell, He still did not come.
Not only did these two sisters have their opinions, but the disciples also were the same. When people told the Lord, “He whom You love is sick; will You go?” He did not go. He was truly the Lord of dealings. When people said, “You should go,” He did not go. But two days later, when the disciples had decided not to go, the Lord said to them, “Let us go into Judea again.” But the disciples did not agree. The Lord Jesus told them, “Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going that I may wake him out of sleep.” The disciples replied, “If he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Then the Lord had to tell them plainly, “Lazarus has died.” Then Thomas said to the rest of the people, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him” (vv. 7-16). What he meant was that if the Lord was not afraid of being stoned by the Jews and was going to die, then they would go also to die with Him. These were all human opinions.
When the Lord Jesus arrived, Martha went to meet Him. Martha was the active one, but Mary was the quiet one. When Martha saw the Lord Jesus, the very first thing she said was, “If You had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 21). Her opinion was correct. Because the Lord came so late, Lazarus had already been buried. She seemed to ask why the Lord still bothered to come. We have to know that all opinionated people have an endless number of things to say. Martha’s opinions did not stop here; she went on to say, “Whatever You ask of God, God will give You” (v. 22). It was quite good that she could speak such a great truth. But if she really knew this, why did she still complain? Then Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day” (vv. 23-24). Martha postponed the present resurrection to the last day; this was a difference of two thousand years. Then Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life” (v. 25a). What the Lord meant was, “You do not need to wait until the last day. Where I am, there is resurrection.” Then He continued, “He who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live...Do you believe this?” (vv. 25b-26). Martha said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, He who comes into the world” (v. 27). Basically she did not answer the Lord’s question. The mighty resurrected Lord was standing in front of Martha, yet she did not even know Him or understand what He was saying. Why not? She did not know Him or understand what He was saying because of her opinions. After Martha had finished speaking, she went away and secretly called her sister Mary, saying, “The Teacher is here and is calling you” (v. 28). When did the Lord call Mary? Again we see that Mary was very quiet, and Martha was very active. Martha could not hear the Lord’s speaking because inwardly she was full of opinions.
Before the Lord Jesus entered into the village, Mary had also come to Him and spoken the same word: “If You had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 32). Up to this point, by the time the Lord could say one sentence, the two sisters had already spoken ten sentences. Martha had opinions, and Mary also had her opinions. There was a whole pile of opinions. Faced with this kind of situation, the Bible tells us that Jesus wept (v. 35). Why did He weep? Did He weep because of the death of Lazarus? No. Did He weep because of the problem facing Martha and Mary? No. He wept because of all these human opinions. The Lord was able to raise the dead. Everyone should have been filled with praises. However, they not only did not understand Him, but they were also full of opinions. Thus, the Lord wept. Today the sufferings we have in our daily life are not real sufferings. The real suffering is that we do not know the Lord. The Lord is truly here, yet we do not know Him. The Lord’s word cannot enter into us, and because of this He weeps.
Later, the Lord, being moved with indignation, came to the tomb and charged the people, saying, “Take away the stone” (v. 39a). Even at this moment Martha was still there expressing her opinion, saying, “By now he smells, for it is the fourth day that he is there” (v. 39b). What she meant was that since Lazarus already smelled, it would be useless to do anything, and the Lord had no need to open the tomb. On the one hand, John 11 shows us that the Lord has the resurrection power; on the other hand, the whole story is full of human opinions. Then the Lord Jesus said, “If you believe you will see the glory of God” (v. 40). Here what the Lord meant was that regardless of the condition of Lazarus or the fact that he smelled, Lazarus would rise again. This shows us that the Holy Spirit is within us for us to know that Christ is living. The biggest frustration to knowing Christ in such a way is that we have too many opinions. It is because of our opinions that the Lord’s power cannot be expressed and that we cannot know Him. Too often we judge matters only according to our own views and opinions. The reason why the Lord’s resurrection life and glory often cannot be expressed through us is that we have too many opinions. In brief, in order to know Christ and follow Christ, we must put aside all our views and opinions.
