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Scripture Reading: John 15:4-5; 1 John 2:27; Rom. 8:9-10; 2 Cor. 3:17-18
The purpose of God’s redemption is to work His life into us so that we may be conformed to the image of His Son, Christ (Rom. 8:29). The purpose of God’s redemption is not to change us from being evil to being good or from being wicked to being virtuous. Rather, it is to make His life available to those who do not have His life and to enable those who receive His life as His sons to bear the image of His Son.
Being good or evil and being virtuous or wicked are concepts that are unrelated to God’s redemption; they are religious concepts. God’s life is the focus of His redemption, and the image of His Son is the purpose of His redemption. Human religions stress good and evil for the sake of cultivating good human beings. However, God’s redemption emphasizes life for the purpose of giving us the life of God and making us sons of God.
Without revelation from God it is easy to regard the Bible as a book of religious teachings. People think that just as religion instructs people to leave evil and pursue good, the Bible teaches the same thing but with a higher standard. Therefore, they regard the teachings of Christianity and the teachings of other religions to be similar in nature. Those who have received revelation from God, however, know that teachings related to good and evil, even if they are based on the Bible, are the product of man-made religions. The Bible does not teach people to leave evil and pursue good but rather to receive Christ’s redemption, to live God’s life, and to be conformed to the image of Christ.
Instead of cultivating the good self, God’s redeemed should live by His life. When we appropriate redemption, we receive God’s life, and God wants us to begin to live by His life. However, it is easy to focus on good deeds and on improving ourselves, because we lack revelation. Consequently, we neglect the life of God in us, and we miss the purpose of His redemption. God’s intention is that the image of His Son would be our goal, but we make good deeds our aim. God wants us to live by His life, but we focus on improving ourselves.
We need revelation in order to see that God does not want us to improve ourselves. He wants us to reject the self and live by His life, that is, to live in Him. God does not want good deeds to be our aim; neither does He want us to cultivate ourselves to be good. He wants us to take Christ as our goal and to be conformed to His image. If we see this, we would receive salvation and be transformed.
We should consecrate ourselves to God after we are saved so that His life can work in us. Once we have consecrated ourselves, we need to stop our endeavoring and learn to live by God’s life. Consecration is not for us to work for God but to let God work on us. God works on us through His life. In order to be worked on by God, we need to let His life operate in us. This requires that we not only consecrate ourselves to God but also that we stop ourselves and live in His life after our consecration.
Just as the concept of self-cultivation hinders us from living by God’s life, the desire to work for God distracts us so that we engage in activities apart from His life. Our activity, our doing, and our working prevent us from living by God’s life. Our concepts concerning our self-effort are veils that cover and prevent us from seeing how to live by God’s life.
If we desire to live by God’s life, we need to fellowship with Him. God’s life is inseparable from God. God’s life is God Himself. Hence, if we want to live by His life, we must fellowship with Him. When we fellowship with God, we touch Him, and when we touch Him, we can live by His life.
God wants us to live a life of fellowshipping with Him so that we can live by His life. His life has entered into us in order to grow and mature so that we would bear the image of Christ. If we stop our activities and self-cultivation and, instead, fellowship with Him, His life will have the opportunity to operate, to work, in us, and all that He is will be worked into us. If we live and walk according to the operation of His life in us, we will live by His life.
God’s redemption is focused on the divine life. Therefore, the central significance of the appropriation of redemption is the appropriation of God’s life. The degree to which we appropriate God’s life will be the degree to which we enjoy God’s redemption. To live by God’s life is the practical appropriation of redemption and also the enjoyment of God’s redemption. In order to live by God’s life, we must fellowship with Him and touch the sense of His life.
The purpose of God’s redemption is to make us exactly the same as Christ. This is what God desires to accomplish through His life in us. If we want to allow God to achieve the purpose of His redemption, we must give His life an opportunity to operate in us. Hence, we must stop ourselves and fellowship with God. This is the way to give His life an opportunity to operate freely in us. To fellowship with God and to allow His life to operate in us enable God to achieve the purpose of His redemption.
The Lord said that He is the vine and that we are the branches (John 15:5). This means that we have one life with Him; that is, His life is lived out through us, and everything of His life is manifested in us. Such a living requires unhindered fellowship with Him. Hence, the Lord wants us to abide in Him. He said, “The branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine” (v. 4). A branch that does not abide in the vine is severed from the vine, and a branch that cannot bear fruit does not express the life of the vine. Therefore, the Lord said that we cannot bear fruit unless we abide in Him (v. 4).
By abiding in the Lord we can bear much fruit; that is, we can express His life and allow His life to flow out of us. Apart from the Lord we cannot express His life (v. 5). In order to express the Lord’s life, we must abide in Him, and to abide in Him is to fellowship with Him. Unhindered fellowship with the Lord opens the way for us to live by His life and express His life in us.
In John 15 the Lord uses the physical life to reveal the mysterious fact of our life union with Him. The Lord is the vine, and we are the branches. As branches, we are joined as one with Him in His life; we take His life as our life and live by His life to express His life. The Lord said that we should abide in Him. He does not require us to bear any other responsibility. In fact, we cannot and need not bear other responsibilities. The branches’ only responsibility is to abide in the vine. The branches need not do anything but abide in the vine. As long as the branches are not severed from the vine, they can live by the life of the vine and express the life of the vine. This is the relationship that we should have with the Lord after we are saved.
Not only is it natural and spontaneous for branches to abide in the vine and to live by the life of the vine; this is also a blessed and peaceful matter. May the Lord enlighten us to see that we are branches of Christ the vine so that we would abide in Him. We can have a life of living by His life. If we want to live by the Lord’s life, to express and flow out His life, we need only to abide in Him and fellowship with Him. We do not need to bear many responsibilities or do many things. Rather, we should stop ourselves and abide in the Lord to fellowship with Him. We need only to abide in Him as branches in the vine; everything else is unnecessary. If we see this, we will stop our activity and abide in the Lord, and He will be lived out of us.
In order to abide in the Lord and live by His life, we must mind the Holy Spirit and be according to the Spirit. The Spirit indwells us as the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9). This Spirit is the transfiguration of Christ as the reality of the presence of Christ in us. The Spirit dwelling in us is Christ dwelling in us, and the Spirit with us is the Lord with us. Hence, if we want to abide in the Lord, fellowship with Him, and live by His life, we must take care of the operation of the Spirit. In everything that we do, we must mind His will, obey His moving, and closely follow the sense of His life in us. Whether the sense of the Spirit in us is a positive leading or instruction, or it is a negative prohibition or disapproval, we should obey it in every situation. We should not neglect or contradict this sense. In this way we can practically abide in the Lord and live out His life.
The Spirit indwells us as the transfiguration of the Lord and as the reality of the Lord’s presence. He is also the anointing in us, moving in us unceasingly. The Spirit teaches us all things through His moving in us so that we can know the Lord’s will. The Bible says that we should abide in the Lord according to the teaching of the Spirit as the anointing (1 John 2:27). The teaching of the anointing is the moving of the Spirit within us. The anointing and moving of the Spirit give us a sense so that we may know the Lord’s will.
If we are willing to mind the anointing and moving of the Spirit within us and to obey the sense that He gives us, we will live in Him and abide in Him. This is to live by the Lord’s life. To mind the anointing and moving of the Spirit requires us to stop our thoughts and our activities. It does not matter whether we are occupied with things that are good or bad, right or wrong; we must be willing to stop ourselves in order to mind the anointing and moving of the Spirit to abide in the Lord.
Our basic problem is our own doing and our own working. After we are saved, we all feel that we should earnestly work and do things in order to please and glorify God. Although we think that this is right and proper, it is only a human concept; this is not God’s view. In His redemption God wants the Spirit, as the transfiguration of Christ, to enter into us to be our life. He wants us to live by the life of Christ, living out this life from within us. If we focus on doing things and working for God, we will neglect the anointing of the Spirit within us and be unable to live by the Lord’s life.
Our activities, thoughts, and decisions cause us to live in ourselves rather than in the Spirit. They cause us to live by our abilities rather than by Christ’s life. These things may seem to be pleasing from the human point of view and seem to glorify God, but they are not the issue of living by the Lord’s life. Such things are not related to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for redemption. At best, our doing and working will produce good deeds, but they will not express the Lord’s life. Such activities are not the issue of living by the Lord’s life through the Spirit. We must stop our doing and our working; we must drop our thoughts, determinations, and efforts. Instead, we should focus on the Spirit’s moving in us. If we are willing to pay the price to follow the moving of the Spirit within us, there will be no barriers to our abiding in the Lord and living by His life.
When we abide in the Lord and fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit, we enable Him to gain ground in us. We also cause the Lord’s life to grow and gradually mature in us until our whole being is occupied by and filled with Him. Then the Lord’s life will be lived out through us, and we will be transformed into the same image as the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17-18). This means that our spirit will be filled with the Lord, and our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—will be filled with the Lord. Then our thoughts, desires, and decisions will be the Lord’s thoughts, desires, and decisions. We will be joined fully with the Lord as one. Thus, whatever we do will be pleasing to God, and our work will be to His glory, because our doing and our working will be out of the Lord. This is a living that appropriates God’s redemption.
