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Scripture Reading: 18, 21, Matt. 1:23; John 12:24; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 1:4, 7, 13; 3:17-19; Rev. 1:4-5; Matt. 16:16, 18
We have fellowshipped about two major points relating to the revelation and the vision of God—the Divine Trinity and the economy of God. In the previous chapter we saw four points concerning the economy of God. In this chapter I will speak particularly about our need for the subjective realization and experience of the Divine Trinity and of the church. After seeing the preceding four points, we will sense a need—that we should not only study the so-called truths and visions, but we should also pay attention to the realization, knowledge, and experience of these matters. In other words, we should not just see the facts recorded in the Bible, but we should also realize and experience them.
If we really see the vision, we will certainly respond with an inner desire to realize, know, and experience God’s economy. We can see from the very beginning of the New Testament, in Matthew 1, that the Triune God desires to dispense Himself into man.
In Matthew 1 we can see at least four facts: the genealogy of Jesus, the conception of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, and the name of Jesus. However, the most important thing concerning Matthew 1 is not just to see these facts but to see a precious vision in these facts and to make that vision our experience. We must realize and experience these facts. Take for example these three words: the Lord Jesus. If you read them one by one separately, it is difficult to understand what they mean. But if you put them together and read them, then you can discover their meaning. By the same principle, in Matthew 1 several facts are presented to speak forth a reality, and this reality is that the Triune God wants to work Himself into man.
First, we must see that Matthew 1 mentions God (v. 23); it mentions the Son (v. 21), Jesus, who was God incarnated and born to be a man; it also mentions the Spirit (v. 18) as the basic essence and element of the virgin Mary’s pregnancy. Moreover, this chapter refers to Jehovah because Je in Jesus is a shortened form of Jehovah, and sus means “Savior” or “salvation”; furthermore, Jesus is the One who is called the Christ (v. 18). Thus, this one chapter mentions God, the Son, the Spirit, Jehovah, the Savior or salvation, and Christ. Anyone who studies the Bible can see these divine titles. But we still need to see a vision here.
Originally, God was outside of man. He created man in His image and according to His likeness, and then He breathed into man the breath of life, giving man life and breath. God did not do these two things when He created the animals or even when He created the angels. He created man in His own image and breathed His own breath, the breath of life, into man. It was truly special that He did this. However, God was still outside of man; He was He, and man was man. Despite this, these two were of the same kind. In Genesis 1, when God created all the living things, everything was “according to their kind.” Today those who graft trees know that trees of different species cannot be grafted together; only trees of the same species can be grafted. In His creation God did a work of preparation beforehand; that is, He created man to be of His kind with the view of having man enter into a relationship with Him just like the relationship of grafting.
Later in the Bible the Lord Jesus Himself definitely told us that He is the true vine and we are the branches (John 15:1, 5). But we must realize that we were not born as branches of the vine. Rather, we were wild branches (Rom. 11:17, 24), and it is by faith that we have been grafted into Him as the vine (v. 20, cf. v. 23). This means that although we and the Lord Jesus are different “trees,” we are of the same species. At the very least we have the same image as God and bear His likeness. But despite the fact that we are of the same species with God, He is still He, and we are still we. He is outside of us, and we are outside of Him. In life and nature and especially in essence, we and He are completely unrelated.
Please forgive me for saying that this point is the greatest deficiency in Christianity’s theology. There is a school in Christianity called Reformed theology. Those who belong to this school absolutely deny that we saved ones have the divine nature inwardly; they mainly acknowledge that we have been reformed. They say that originally we were very evil, but now we have been reformed; similarly, society was once evil, but now it has been reformed and improved. In the last century this kind of teaching was very prevailing. This group of people advocated that this world, instead of getting worse and worse, would become better and better. Therefore, the world would become a utopia even before the return of the Lord Jesus. A utopia is an ideal kingdom in which everyone is happy and everything is good. Despite the fact that there is evil today, the day will come in which nothing is evil and everything becomes a utopia. How can this happen? First, it is by preaching the gospel to lead people to reform their errors and revert to good deeds through repentance; second, it is by teaching the biblical truths to exhort the believers to reform themselves. But since the biblical truths have not yet spread to the entire world, everyone must do their best to preach the gospel and bring people to repentance. However, this group of people pays no attention to regeneration; they only emphasize teaching the truth to change human society and turn it into a utopia, an ideal world.
At the end of the last century this school of theology was very prevailing and strongly influential in Europe. But at the beginning of this century, in 1914, war broke out in Europe, and the fighting was very severe. This struck a heavy blow to Reformed theology. After the war in Europe, European theology put particular emphasis on the study of prophecies. At that time the Lord’s recovery was just being raised up in China. Many of the spiritual books I read came from Europe, and they were all concerning prophecies. That was because people felt that the world was becoming more and more chaotic and more and more evil, so they would no longer listen to teachings about utopia. Instead, they had to see what the Bible says. Later, the world situation became even worse. In 1931 Japan invaded the northeastern part of China, and war broke out again. Then Italy invaded Ethiopia, and Hitler invaded the countries bordering Germany. By 1939 Europe was embroiled in another great war that eventually developed into the Second World War, which covered an even greater area and was more severe than the First World War. After this, nobody believed in Reformed theology anymore.
Today, however, forty years after the last great war, this school seems to be showing signs of gradually raising its head again. It still emphasizes that Christians have only one nature and do not have another nature inwardly. Also, it emphasizes that regeneration is merely to change a person’s original nature. This is just like what the Chinese mean when they say that we have to “daily turn over a new leaf” and “develop our bright virtue” so that we would become “renewed people”; this means that we have reformed ourselves. Having been influenced by such a doctrine and having accepted it, many seminary students in America do not believe that Christians have two natures and two lives. The Bible, however, clearly states that when we are regenerated, we are born of the Spirit (John 3:6), and we have received the life and nature of God into us (vv. 15-16, 36; 2 Pet. 1:4) to make us a new creation. This is not merely reforming man’s original nature.
The reason I am speaking so much about this matter is that I want to show you that many Christians today are not at all clear about what regeneration is. Twenty years ago when I first went to America, I released a message telling people that we need regeneration not just because we are fallen, but that even if Adam had not fallen, even if all men had not fallen and had not the slightest bit of sin, we would still need to be regenerated. Take the example of grafting. Grafting is not done because a tree has fallen and therefore one of its branches has to be cut off and grafted into a tree that has not fallen. We all know that grafting has nothing to do with whether or not a tree is fallen. Grafting is a matter of the inward life and nature. Even though you as a tree and the Lord Jesus as a tree are of the same species, your life and nature are too poor, so you need to be grafted into the Lord Jesus, whose life and nature are the best. This is why in Genesis 2 before man had fallen, God placed him in front of the tree of life. God meant to tell man that he had a life within which was merely the human life and not the divine life. Therefore, God put man in front of the tree of life that man might receive the life of the tree of life, which is a higher life.
In Matthew 1:21 the angel of the Lord told Joseph in a dream, “She [Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” It is true that the problem of sin is here. But we must realize that our need for the life of God is recorded in Genesis 2 before sin had come in; sin did not come in until Genesis 3. This proves that it is not because of our fall that we need God to come into us; instead, it is something originally ordained by God. God created us as His vessels (Rom. 9:20-24) to contain Him. Romans 9 says that we are vessels of mercy, then we will become vessels unto honor, and eventually we will be vessels unto glory. The honor of a vessel does not depend upon the vessel itself but upon its content. When man was created, God did not immediately get into him; hence, at the most man was a vessel of mercy in which there was no God, much less glory. Today, however, we have God, so we have become vessels unto honor; in the future when we are in glory, we will become vessels unto glory.
The purpose of a vessel is to contain things. A vessel may have fallen into the garbage can due to carelessness, but that does not mean that it is no longer a vessel and does not need to contain things. It is true that because we had fallen into the garbage can of sin and had become dirty, we needed God to wash us clean. But God’s purpose in cleansing us is that we may contain Him. In this respect, even if we had not fallen into the garbage can of sin and we had been clean, yet without God being put inside of us, we would still be empty. We need to be filled with God. This is the purpose of God’s creation of man revealed in the Bible.
Therefore, Matthew 1 does not simply tell us how God was conceived within the virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit and born as the Son, Jesus, who is Jehovah the Savior and whose name is called Emmanuel (which is translated, God with us). Everyone understands this doctrine, but very few people have seen the vision portrayed by this doctrine. This vision is that the Triune God worked Himself into man and was mingled with man. This God is triune (Gen. 1:26); He is the Father, the Angel of Jehovah (Christ—Exo. 3:2-15), and the Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2). In the Old Testament, however, this Triune God had not yet entered into man. At the most He descended upon the judges and prophets as the Spirit of Jehovah (Judg. 3:10; 6:34; Ezek. 11:5). It was at the beginning of the New Testament that we are clearly told that the Triune God entered into man and was mingled with man.
The Lord Jesus became flesh to be a genuine man. The basic element of His becoming a man was the mingling of the divine essence (the Holy Spirit) with the human essence. According to the record in the Gospel of Matthew, the Holy Spirit as the divine essence entered into Mary and was mingled with her human essence to give birth to a God-man. The One who was brought forth from her was not only a man but also God. Isaiah 9:6 says, “A child is born to us... / His name will be called... / Mighty God.” The baby born in the manger was the mighty God. Therefore, the Lord Jesus was not only a man but also God; He had both divinity and humanity. He was the mingling of divinity with humanity.
The Lord Jesus is the mingling of two natures—the divine nature and the human nature—without a third nature being produced; on the contrary, the two natures continue to exist distinctly. This is typified by the mingling of oil with fine flour (Lev. 2:4). When oil and fine flour are mingled together, the element of the oil and the element of the fine flour both continue to exist individually, without a third nature being produced as the result of a chemical reaction. This is not like the chemical process in which a neutral substance is produced when a base is added to an acid. Furthermore, mingling is different from union. Union is where two are merely joined together; mingling is where one enters into another, and the two are mingled together. The Holy Spirit entered into Mary’s womb and was mingled with humanity to give birth to One who was the expression of two in one, the expression of God and man, and whose name was called Jesus. Thus, the Lord Jesus was born a God-man as the mingling of God with man. In Him were both divinity and humanity. He was the complete God and the perfect man. This is a divine and mysterious matter in the Bible.
Today many Christians know that the church should exist, and their creeds also speak of the Triune God and the church, but they have not seen that the church is a product of the Triune God’s entering into man and being mingled with man. The Triune God and the church are two great visions that we should see. The church is an aggregate entity produced out of God’s working Himself into man in His Divine Trinity.
God entered into man and produced this model, which was first seen in Matthew 1 as an individual, the Lord Jesus. Later, this individual model passed through death and entered into resurrection; when this model came out in resurrection, He was not just an individual. This is what the Lord Himself said: “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). By this time this model became a corporate product, which is the church (Heb. 2:12; John 20:17, 19-23). In Matthew 1 an individual mingling of God and man was produced, but when this One was resurrected, all the ones chosen by God were included in Him and resurrected together with Him (Eph. 2:6; 1 Pet. 1:3) to become the corporate mingling of God with man. Regardless of whether it is the individual model or the corporate product, the principle is the same: the Triune God enters into man and mingles with man.
Christianity today has not seen this matter. I not only preach this truth, but I have also written books about it. Up until today, only slanderous people say that I am teaching heresy. Not one person with a degree and proper qualifications has written anything refuting this truth. In the Los Angeles area there is a group of opposers who organized a research group to study the verses we quoted in order to refute our teachings. After studying Isaiah 9, they had to admit that Jesus truly is the Father.
I have spoken so much because I have a burden to show you that our God is the Triune God, and His heart’s desire, His longing, in eternity has been to work Himself into man. The Bible with its sixty-six books is very rich in content, but its emphasis is very simple: the Triune God wants to work Himself into man. The first step that He took to accomplish this purpose was to create man in His image and according to His likeness as a preparation for Him to work Himself into man. We all know that when a vessel is created to contain something, the vessel must be made the same as the thing it will contain. If the thing is square, you cannot make a triangular vessel. If the thing is triangular, you cannot make a round vessel. From the beginning, God planned to put Himself into man. Therefore, in the beginning when He created man, He created man the same as He. This was God’s preparation.
After approximately four thousand years God finally came to enter into the man whom He had created. The way He came was not by force; He did not come by using His sovereignty or His great power. He came according to the principle of life in His creation. He first entered into man and was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, and then He remained there for nine months before being born on the earth. God is the almighty God who gives life to the dead and calls the things not being as being (Rom. 4:17). Why did He not get into man immediately, be born immediately, and grow up to be the God-man Jesus immediately? He did not do it this way. He entered into man by keeping the principle He had established when He created all things. Thus, He was in Mary’s womb for nine months before being born as a child. After His birth He grew up day by day also according to the principle of life. The Bible records this very clearly: “Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in the grace manifested in Him before God and men” (Luke 2:52). Then, again, when He was thirty years old, He came out to minister according to God’s ordained principle (Num. 4:3; 1 Chron. 23:3; Luke 3:23) and did the work that God had commissioned Him to do. This shows that every step of the living of the Lord Jesus on earth was according to the principle of life. He lived on earth neither by miracles nor by His sovereign authority but completely according to the natural laws of the growth of human life. This was the second step of God’s working Himself into man.
After thirty-three and a half years, again, according to God’s ordination, the Lord Jesus entered into death and then rose from the dead. When He entered into death, Satan thought it was he who had captured the Lord Jesus, put Him on the cross, and crucified Him there. However, in God’s eyes it was the Lord who willingly laid down His own life to accomplish redemption (John 10:18). He put Himself into death and resurrected from the dead. This was the third step He took to work Himself into man. Through death and resurrection the Triune God is able to dispense Himself into the myriads of people whom He has chosen. This, however, is from God’s point of view. From man’s point of view, the saved ones, the believers, still need to go to preach and announce the Lord who died and resurrected so that, one by one, all those chosen by God throughout the ages may believe into Him.
In God’s eyes, on the day that the Lord Jesus resurrected, we all were also resurrected in Him (Eph. 2:6). But in our experience we believe in the Lord and are saved one by one in time. Today, by the Lord’s mercy, although our practice of door-knocking according to the God-ordained way is very effective, it is also very tiring. We should expend all our strength because this is according to the law of God’s ordination. In principle, all those chosen by God will come. If we had not been chosen by God, no matter how much people preached to us, we would not have believed. But once we believe into Him, He comes into us and we enter into Him. Then we are baptized into Him and have an organic union with Him (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:3; Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 12:13; 6:17). Thus, the Triune God is mingled with us.
The divine revelation concerning the Triune God desiring to work Himself into man extends throughout the entire New Testament. From Matthew to Revelation, every book was written according to this principle. The four Gospels were written according to the principle of the Triune God’s working Himself into man. Acts also shows us this principle, and none of the Epistles is an exception to this rule. Let us take Romans as an example. Romans 1 speaks of the gospel of God, which is a gospel of the forgiveness of sins, a gospel of justification by faith. Then Romans 8 speaks about God coming into us. Verses 9 and 10 say that the Spirit of God dwells in us, that we have the Spirit of Christ in us as the indwelling Spirit, and that Christ is in us. Here we see God, Christ the Son, and the Spirit; we see the Triune God. This is different from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the Triune God was outside of man; by Romans 8, the three of the Triune God are all in man. This is also different from Matthew 1. When Matthew 1 speaks of God’s entering into man, it is individual; by Romans 8, God’s entering into man is corporate. This can be proven by Romans 8:29, where it says that Christ is the Firstborn among many brothers. The many brothers are we who have God in us.
If we continue reading, we come to 1 and 2 Corinthians. At the conclusion of 2 Corinthians Paul blesses the believers with the blessed Triune God: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (13:14). The Triune God is with us and in us.
Then in Ephesians the first chapter begins with God the Father’s selection and predestination (vv. 3-6), God the Son’s redemption (vv. 7-12), and God the Spirit’s sealing and pledging (vv. 13-14). The result is that, by His transmission to the church, the Triune God enters into us to produce the Body, which is the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23). This is God’s economy. This means that God’s economy is to dispense the Triune God into man to produce a result, which is the church as His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. In Ephesians 3 Paul says that he bowed his knees unto the Father and asked that He would grant us to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith (vv. 14-17). The result is that we are filled unto all the fullness of God (vv. 18-19). This is the dispensing of the Triune God into our entire being, resulting in our becoming the fullness, the expression, of God. What is spoken of in all the Epistles ultimately is related to this matter.
Finally, in Revelation, at the very beginning it says, “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ” (1:4-5). This indicates that the processed Triune God, including all that the eternal Father is, all that the sevenfold intensified Spirit does, and all that the anointed Son has obtained and attained, has been dispensed into the believers with the result that the golden lampstands are produced to be His corporate testimony (vv. 9, 11, 20). At the end of Revelation, in chapter 22, again we see “a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street” (v. 1). Here we have God, the Lamb (the Son), and the Spirit (signified by the river of water of life). This depicts how the Triune God dispenses Himself into His redeemed under His headship. Then in verse 17 the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” This means that the Spirit and the bride, having become one, speak as one. The Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, who has worked Himself into us and constituted us into a corporate bride. In other words, the Triune God is the Husband, and we who have been filled and transformed by Him become His bride to be one with Him. This is the most important matter, and the central matter as well, revealed to us in the entire Bible.
I repeat, my burden is not merely to show you the crucial points; it is not enough just to do that. You must have the realization and the experience. But how do we have the realization and the experience? It is not at all difficult. Many Christians feel that it is hard because they have been influenced by wrong teachings. When the teaching is wrong, it is very difficult to have the realization and experience. If we have the proper knowledge of the truth that the Triune God is in us and is united and mingled with us, then it is very easy to experience this truth.
When a saved person feels that he has the Lord’s presence inwardly, that means the Spirit is in him. Where the Spirit is, there the Lord is (1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Cor. 3:17), and where the Lord is, there the Father is (Rom. 8:9-10). The three are all in the believers; when One comes, all three of Them come. This is because the Spirit is the reality, the realization, of the Son (John 14:17), and the Son is the embodiment of the Father (10:30; 14:10-11). Thus, the three are really just the One, but this One has the aspect of being three distinctly.
I am from Shantung Province, so I have eaten wheat for eighty years. If today you ask me what the element in wheat really is, I still do not know. If I must understand wheat to eat it, then I would have died long ago. Recently, I started to like eating yogurt. My wife probably understands what its ingredients are because she pays close attention to nutrition, but I do not know anything about it. I only know how to eat and enjoy it. Some days I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, and I begin working in my head while I am in bed. When 6:00 comes, I get up and continue working. By 7:20 I am hungry. Then I eat some yogurt, which is nutritious and easy to digest and assimilate. As soon as I have eaten it, my entire being is refreshed and satisfied. Today we have the best “yogurt” within us, which is the Triune God. What is He like? It is hard for us to describe. The Father is the Son, and the Son is the embodiment of the Father; the Son is realized in the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reality of the Son. What is this all about? I have spoken about it for decades, and I can only speak according to the Bible. I still do not know fully what the mystery of the Triune God is all about.
My point is this: While you are here being trained, you should not just be learning the truth; it is even more important for you to learn to eat the “yogurt” every day, to enjoy the Triune God daily. To eat the physical yogurt you do not use your nose or your ears; rather, you use your mouth. Likewise, to enjoy the Triune God, you do not need to work your brain, use your ears, or bow down before the Lord. You just need to use your spirit, open your heart, and open your mouth to pray to the Lord; then you will be able to enjoy Him.
You are being trained here to learn how to use your spirit. From the time you get up in the morning, you must learn to use your spirit. This is just like when you want to breathe, there is no need for you to beg others or expect any kind of help. You just need to exercise your breathing organs; once you inhale through your nose, the air gets right in. In the same principle, if you want to enjoy the Triune God, you need to exercise your spirit. For example, as soon as you get up in the morning, you feel that you are tired. The more you think about it, the more tired you feel. But if you immediately turn from that condition back to your spirit, then your entire being will be revived. The secret of turning to your spirit is to call, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” You do not need to call loudly. When you call softly from the depths of your being, immediately you will return to your spirit, and your entire being will be revived.
I believe that when you are living together with others, you will face many troubles as soon as you get up in the morning. This is because Satan has many messengers. Many times the sisters who are your roommates can give you many problems. For example, you have just gotten up, and your roommate at that exact moment breaks your toothbrush mug. You dare not lose your temper, but you are very angry inwardly. At this time you just need to call, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” The more you call, the less you will be bothered. Instead, you will feel that inwardly you have the enjoyment and the watering. I believe that to some extent you all have had this kind of experience. You must know that Satan always stirs up some trouble in our environment to disturb us and force us into anger. When you are angry, Satan is happy. Moreover, when you are angry, all the truths that you have ever heard become nothing; they are all made void and vanish into thin air. Everything you have heard about the Triune God and God’s salvation are all gone. You are here being trained and have heard so many truths and received so many visions, but because of Satan’s bothering, whatever you have learned all leaks out.
Matthew 1:21 says, “Jesus...will save His people from their sins.” Christianity explains this verse by saying that the Lord Jesus washed away our sins through His crucifixion and the shedding of His precious blood. I dare not say that this is not so, but this is only dealing with our sinful deeds. On the positive side, the Lord still wants to save us from the power of sin. We must know that the Lord Jesus has two names: Jesus is Jehovah, and Emmanuel is God. This indicates that the Lord Jesus is both Jehovah and God. He saves us from our sins mainly by becoming the Spirit to enter into us to save us from the power of sin.
According to the preceding example, when a sister breaks your toothbrush mug and you get angry, is that sin? And if another sister tracks dirt all over the floor that you had scrubbed clean the previous night, will you get angry? Then another sister carelessly gets her hands, which are greasy with vegetable oil, all over your hair, which you just washed the night before. What will you do? Do you experience Jesus saving you from your sins? I believe that if each time you would call, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus,” instead of getting angry, you will be full of the enjoyment of the Lord. This is your realization, your experience. The result of such realization and experience is that you have the real enjoyment of the Triune God. Consequently, the church is produced. However, if Satan comes to disturb you, and you are defeated, and if he comes again, and you are defeated again, then the result will be that you are completely defeated and the church cannot be manifested. You are disgusted with the sister who troubles you, and she also despises you; so how can there be the church? However, if you overcome whenever trouble comes upon you, and if you call on the name of the Lord whenever something disturbing happens to you, then even though the sisters continue to offend you, you will still love them and love the church. When you learn to live constantly in this kind of a spirit, the reality of the church is spontaneously there.
In the record of Matthew 16, the Lord asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Having the accurate knowledge, Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Lord said that the vision of Him being the Christ, the Son of God, which Peter saw was correct. Then He went on to say, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (vv. 15-18). This shows us that the church life is manifested only when we realize and experience Christ. The church is not a human club or a worldly organization but an organism. When we have an inward union with the Lord and live in Him by this life union, the reality of the church is produced.
I hope that you will pray much over these points and pursue them. I have no intention of merely showing you some high visions or teaching you some truths as if you were students in a theological seminary. My burden is to help you realize and experience these visions and truths after you have seen and heard them. The way to realize and experience them is in your spirit. If you have not seen or heard these truths, you could not understand them even if you had realized them, because you do not have the knowledge. Now these truths have all been completely unveiled and richly placed before you. The more you know them, the more you will realize them. The way of realization is to pray adequately to the Lord and have intimate fellowship with Him. Thus, the Lord will be the light in you, and every day you will be bright inwardly. Not one bit of shadow could remain hidden; He will correct every mistake. The law of life within you will regulate you, and you will be saved from your natural self. The last stanza of Hymns, #501 says,
God’s building is the church. This is the practical way to experience Christ and realize the church.
I hope that you will not just learn to know the truths but also will truly pursue to subjectively realize and experience them. I regret that when I was young, I wasted so much time. I did not waste it in pursuing entertainment, but I wasted it in studying the Bible improperly. Why do I say this? Because I did not receive the proper teaching. Those who taught me mainly taught about the “husks” and the “pods.” We know that wheat needs the husks and that the peas need their pods to grow. In the same way the Bible has some “husks” and “pods”; you do not need to get into them too much. But when I was young, I was taught to focus on these matters. I do not know how many times I studied the seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24-27. Yet I was never told that I have a spirit in me (Job 32:8; Zech. 12:1), that the Lord Jesus wants to abide in me (John 15:4-5), and that the Lord Jesus today is the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17).
Today you are surely a blessed group of people! In the Lord’s recovery you are nourished, are taught, and have all the riches laid out before you in a delicious, rich, and easily digestible way. Of course, you need to learn so that your learning may help you in your understanding and enjoyment. But in particular, I hope that you will be able to have a real enjoyment of the Lord in a practical way. You must live in fellowship with the Lord and abide in the Lord. We have many books among us which speak about this point, that is, that you must always contact the Lord and continuously touch Him. When you do this, you are realizing and experiencing the truths that you have heard. Today the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—is in us. The more you use your spirit to contact Him and call O Lord Jesus, the more you will sense His supply inwardly. The more you remember Him, appreciate Him, and consider His glory, beauty, and honor, the more you will be inwardly filled with His Spirit.
The Pentecostal movement in Christianity today pays attention only to whether or not people have spoken in tongues. They always encourage people to speak in tongues; some even want people to roll around and to shout and jump. They think that this is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But the real filling by the Holy Spirit is when we inwardly appreciate and enjoy the Lord Jesus to the uttermost. The more you enjoy Him, the more you are filled with Him inwardly. Every day you need to spend some time before Him to open yourself, to call on Him, and to appreciate Him. Then you will be filled with the Spirit inwardly. If you do not appreciate Him but still want Him to fill you, it will be impossible. This is why the experienced ones say that the more you praise the Lord Jesus, the more you will be filled with Him; it is really true. This, however, is not an outward skill. You must truly appreciate Him inwardly and from the depths of your being say, “Lord Jesus, I love You. Lord, You are exceedingly precious. It is not that I can love You, but it is because You are so lovable.” If you do this, He will certainly fill you.
The main topic of Romans 1—3 is living by faith. Where does faith come from? Romans tells us that this faith is the faith in Jesus Christ or the faith of Jesus Christ (3:22). Galatians 2:20 says, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Therefore, this faith is the faith of the Son of God. Faith has an object and a goal, and it is derived from that object or goal. If there were no object, how could there be faith? For example, if I were to show you a rock, you would not have any faith; on the contrary, you would be disgusted. If, however, I were to show you a big diamond, the more you look at it, the more you would have faith. This shows that faith comes from its object. The Lord Jesus is worthy of our attention. If you were to look at me, the more you look, the less faith you would have. If, however, the Lord Jesus were here, the more you look at Him, the more you would have faith. Thus, our faith comes from Him. Furthermore, our faith brings Him into us; He is one with our faith. Therefore, our faith is the faith in Him and the faith of Him.
In the same principle, we cannot be filled just by praying; unless we touch the Lord, we cannot be filled with Him. The best way to be filled by the Lord is to behold and appreciate His beauty. The more you appreciate Him, the more you will be filled by the Holy Spirit because the Lord is the Spirit. When you appreciate and love the Lord, He enters into you and fills you as the Spirit. Furthermore, every time you touch Him, you will sense the Father’s care and presence and receive the supply and transmission from the Father as the source. You will have an unutterable, indescribable enjoyment of Him. If you daily realize and experience the Triune God in this way, the reality of the church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all, will be manifested.
From the first chapter of Matthew to the last chapter of Revelation, we see this kind of vision. Matthew 1 tells us how He came into man and mingled with man. Then through the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles to the end of Revelation, we see God, the Lamb, and the Spirit as the river of water of life proceeding out of the throne. Ultimately, the Spirit and the bride become one, speaking and announcing together. This means that the bride is full of the Spirit, full of the enjoyment of the Spirit, and that the Spirit has all the ground in her. This is God’s economy. I hope that you can all pursue, realize, and experience this.
