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Scripture Reading: John 3:3, 5-6; Acts 13:52; Eph. 3:19b; 5:18; Acts 4:8, 31; 2:17-18; Luke 24:49
According to my study of the Bible and my Christian experiences, I realized that in my Christian life the things that I experience of Christ, of the Triune God, of the Spirit, and of the divine life with the divine nature, are altogether normal to me. They are a normality. At the beginning of my Christian life, I read the writings of some inner-life teachers who taught that all these spiritual and divine things were great miracles that were not easy to attain. They indicated that a number of requirements had to be fulfilled for us to reach a point at which we were qualified to receive these miracles. I tried to experience these things according to the instructions given in their books. Eventually, I found out that the experiences of the Spirit in God’s New Testament economy were not according to what they taught. Actually, all the spiritual and divine things that are provided by God for our enjoyment are altogether normal. They are normalities. But I also found out that these normalities are miraculous to the uttermost.
About six months ago I had a burden to release the truth concerning this matter. As I was writing an outline for my message, I was considering what term I should use to describe my experiences of these spiritual and divine things according to the holy revelation. I realized that what I had experienced was really normal but that it was also miraculous to the uttermost. Thus, I picked up the words normal and miracle to come up with the phrase miraculous normality. If we desire to properly and adequately visit people by knocking on their doors for gospel preaching and have the proper home meetings, we must have the experience of the miraculous normality. We must know what the miraculous normality is to be adequately qualified to carry out God’s New Testament economy.
When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we receive the processed Triune God. To open up our mouths and call is most normal. It is normal to call “O Lord Jesus.” We can call on the Lord’s name in any way, at any time, and in any place. Thank the Lord for the normality of calling “O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus.” But when we call “O Lord Jesus,” do you realize what we get? We get the processed Triune God! This is miraculous. To get the processed Triune God is the top miracle, the greatest miracle among all the miracles. In order to receive Him, there is no need for me to dress up, make myself extremely neat, and be reverent by kneeling down in a proper way to pray in a formal way. There is no need for me to “wait on the Lord” for a number of days before I can contact, receive, and enjoy Him. All that I need to do is call “O Lord Jesus,” and I get the processed Triune God for my enjoyment. This is the greatest miracle in this universe and the totality and absolute aggregate of all the miracles throughout all the generations. This is altogether miraculous, yet it is so normal. We can call on the Lord’s name while we are driving or before we go to bed. Quite often when I go to bed at night, I call “O Lord Jesus” right before I go to sleep. What an enjoyment! This is both normal and miraculous, a miraculous normality. Calling on the name of the Lord is a normality that transpires with me all the time, yet it is miraculous that when I call, I receive the totality of the processed Triune God.
According to my Christian experience, in God’s entire economy, all the Christian experiences such as salvation, redemption, justification, sanctification, transformation, renewing, conformation, glorification, and speaking with the authority of the Lord in the power of the Spirit can be classified into three categories: regeneration, being filled with the Spirit essentially, and being filled with the Spirit economically.
Regeneration is a miraculous normality. Some inner-life teachers said that it was not so easy to be regenerated, and they called regeneration the “first blessing.” I read a number of writings in an attempt to understand what regeneration is, but I could not find the answer until I read an article by Brother T. Austin-Sparks. He said that regeneration was to receive God’s divine life in addition to our human life. I was happy when I read that definition. From that day I understood what regeneration is. To be regenerated is to be born of the Spirit in our spirit (John 3:3, 5-6), thus obtaining God’s divine life to become the sons of God (1:12-13).
When I checked with my experience and the experiences of other believers, I found out that regeneration is not difficult to experience but that it is a very normal experience. Regeneration is instantaneous. It is like taking a picture with a camera; at the appropriate time a click captures all the scenery onto the film. This click takes less than one second. After we began to preach the gospel by visiting people, some wondered how people could be regenerated within fifteen minutes. But regeneration takes place instantly. We instructed the full-time trainees in Taipei to use the booklet entitled The Mystery of Human Life in their preaching of the gospel. This booklet talks about God’s creation, man’s fall, Christ’s redemption, and God’s dispensing. After reading a portion of this booklet to a person, we can say, “Please follow me to call on the name of the Lord Jesus.” After leading him to call on the Lord in a strong way, we can read Romans 10:13 to him to assure him of his salvation—“Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Then we can read Mark 16:16—“He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” When we preach the gospel like this in a proper way, we are “taking the lens cover off of the camera.” Then we can lead this one to the water of baptism, and when we are baptizing him, we can pray, “Lord, we baptize this one into the Triune God.”
Is such a person genuinely regenerated? Actually, only the Lord Himself knows who is genuine and who is not, who is real wheat and who is a tare (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). It is impossible to discern the tares from the wheat until the fruit is produced. The fruit of the wheat is golden yellow, but that of the tares is black. When they sprout, blossom, and bear fruit, everyone can discern the difference between them. Our responsibility is to get the “camera” ready by pointing it toward the “scenery” and “taking the lens cover off.” This is all that we can do, and this is all that we have to do. We leave the actuality and reality to the Lord. We have observed, however, that many have been genuinely regenerated instantly. This is miraculous yet normal. It is a miraculous normality.
To be filled with the Spirit essentially (Acts 13:52) is to be filled in our spirit (Eph. 5:18) for our spiritual living. To be filled with the Spirit economically (Acts 4:8, 31) is by the outpouring of the Spirit of power (2:17-18), clothing us with power from on high (Luke 24:49) for our spiritual work. Some inner-life teachers said that after being regenerated, a person had to receive what they called “the fullness of the Spirit.” This terminology is not so accurate. Fullness is the expression of the riches. But they used the word fullness for the infilling. What they meant by this term was the inward filling of the essential Spirit. They referred to this matter as the second blessing. They did not differentiate the infilling of the Spirit from the outpouring of the Spirit. The infilling is within us, and the outpouring is upon us.
The disciples received the Holy Spirit within when the Lord came back to them on the day of His resurrection and breathed the essential Spirit into them (John 20:22). On the evening of the day of resurrection, the disciples received the Spirit of Christ essentially. Later, the Lord charged them to wait in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. To be clothed is different from drinking of the Spirit as revealed in 1 Corinthians 12:13. To drink is to take the water into us, and to be clothed is to put the clothes upon us. To drink of the water is something related to the inner life, whereas to be clothed is related to our outward work in our duty or position.
Forty days after the disciples had received the Spirit, the Lord charged them to wait for the promised Spirit, which would come in another ten days. At that time they would receive another aspect of the Spirit, the economical aspect. The essential aspect of the Spirit is for our life and living, and the economical aspect of the Spirit is for our ministry and work. The Spirit entered into the disciples essentially when the Lord breathed into them, and on the day of Pentecost, fifty days later, the Spirit came upon them economically (Acts 2:2-4, 14-18). The economical Spirit of power equipped them to accomplish their commission.
It is difficult to determine when Peter and the other disciples who followed the Lord in His earthly ministry were regenerated. Bible teachers hold different opinions on this matter. Some say that Peter received the Lord Jesus when he first came to Him. Others say that Peter was regenerated when he saw the Lord Jesus transfigured on Mount Hermon. Still others say that Peter was not regenerated until the day of the Lord’s resurrection when the Lord breathed the Spirit into him. Another school maintains that Peter was regenerated on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit came upon him, and he stood up to speak. In considering this matter, we need to realize that Peter was in a transitional period. When Peter called on the Lord in this transitory period, he was on the way to being saved. There was a period of transition for the Lord to accomplish and to complete Peter’s regeneration. Peter’s regeneration began at the time of his calling on the name of the Lord and was completed on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. On the day of resurrection, Peter was actually and practically regenerated, not only positionally regenerated.
Today we are not in a transitory period like Peter was. We did not need to call on the name of the Lord and wait three and a half years for our regeneration to be completed. We did not even have to wait three and a half seconds. When we called “O Lord Jesus,” we immediately received the Spirit within. Our calling on the name of the Lord and our regeneration transpired at the same time.
Soon after Peter’s regeneration was completed on the day of the Lord’s resurrection, he was tested concerning the need of his living. Peter and his colleagues were full-timers who had been called by the Lord to give up their occupations and follow Him (Matt. 4:19-20; Luke 5:3-11). Due to the trial of the need of their living, Peter returned to his old occupation and some others followed him, backsliding from the Lord’s call (John 21:2-3). Peter was called by the Lord when he was fishing on the sea of Galilee, but after the day of resurrection he told the others that he was going fishing, and they followed him. They might have lacked a sufficient supply of food and were very concerned about it. Do you believe that while Peter and the others were fishing the entire night that they were filled inwardly with the Spirit? Do you believe that before going fishing, they knelt down and prayed for twenty minutes to make a thorough confession of their sins and failures to the Lord? If they had prayed in such a way, they surely would have been filled inwardly with the Spirit and would not have gone fishing. Despite fishing for the entire night, they caught nothing. They did not get any fish, but they did get Jesus. Jesus appeared to them (vv. 4-14).
However, there was a great difference with these same disciples when they were in the upper room in Jerusalem as part of the one hundred and twenty. They prayed for ten days in one accord, and Peter stood up to expound some verses in the Psalms (Acts 1:14-20). Surely by that time all of them were filled inwardly with the Spirit. Without the inward filling of the Spirit, how could they have prayed together for ten days in one accord, and how could they have withstood the opposition and persecution of the Jews in Jerusalem? Although the Jewish leaders were persecuting the followers of Jesus, they stayed together to pray for ten days in one accord. Surely all the one hundred and twenty were completely filled with the Spirit inwardly during those ten days.
They were filled inwardly with the Spirit, but they still had not received the outpouring of the Spirit. The Spirit had not yet fallen, or descended, upon them economically. After the ten days were completed, the Spirit in the economical sense came from the throne of the ascended Christ to descend upon them. This was not the inward filling of the Spirit of life but the outward outpouring of the Spirit of power (2:16-18). The outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2 was the disciples’ being clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). It was then that the Spirit became their uniform, their authority for their work.
If a policeman attempted to direct traffic or do any of his work without his uniform, he would not command the respect of the people. But when a driver sees a policeman in his uniform, the driver is full of a fearful respect. The uniform of the policeman signifies the authority, power, position, duty, and responsibility of the policeman. We realize that we have to respect and regard a man in a police uniform because he is a man in authority, in his position, and in his responsibility. He is a man who, doing his duty, has the power to enforce the law.
When Peter and the eleven stood up on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14a), they were clothed with the economical Spirit of power, the power from on high, as their uniform. They stood there with authority. The heavens, the earth, and all the demons respected them because these were the men in the universe who had the power and the authority of the ascended Christ. This was not the inward filling of the Spirit essentially but the outward clothing of the Spirit economically.
These three items—regeneration, being filled with the Spirit essentially, and being filled with the Spirit economically—cover the entire Christian life. Justification, redemption, forgiveness of sins, and the washing away of sins are included in regeneration. Sanctification, transformation, renewing, conformation, and glorification are included in the inner filling of the Spirit. The authority of the Lord, the position in the ascended Christ, the clothing of the Spirit of power as the uniform for ministry, the miraculous gifts such as speaking in tongues and healing, and all the activities of power are included in the outpouring of the Spirit upon us.
Regeneration, the infilling of the Spirit, and the outpouring of the Spirit, though miraculous, are very normal. If a sinner would be regenerated, he merely listens to the gospel and believes every item of the gospel. Then based on his believing, he calls on the Savior’s name. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” One minute before, this person was an unregenerated sinner, but the next minute, he is a regenerated saint. One minute ago, he was a son of the devil, but the next minute he is a son of God. Although regeneration is normal, it is also a great miracle. D. L. Moody said that regeneration was the greatest miracle among all the miracles. Regeneration is a great miracle because a devilish man becomes a divine man; that is, a son of the devil immediately becomes a son of God. Regeneration is the greatest miracle, yet it takes place in such a normal way. Thus, regeneration is a normality that is miraculous. It is a miraculous normality in our Christian life.
To be filled with the Spirit is also very normal. In order to be filled with the Spirit, we just need to fulfill the conditions, or terms. We need to make a thorough confession of our sins, pray to the Lord, and exercise our faith. When we believed in the Lord and were regenerated, we received an allotted faith (2 Pet. 1:1). This faith is within us, and we must use it. We must exercise our faith. I usually eat a very nourishing breakfast every morning that supplies me with much energy. But during the day I have to energize; that is, I have to exercise my energy. A starving person could not exercise his energy, because he has no energy with which to exercise. The food that we have taken in is converted to the energy that we exercise. In like manner, we all have received the God-allotted faith. We have faith within us, so we can exercise this faith.
We need to make a thorough confession of all our failures, defects, shortcomings, mistakes, and sinfulness to be filled with the Spirit. Even something small between a husband and wife is good enough to frustrate them from being filled with the Spirit. We have to confess in a detailed way. A husband may need to apologize to his wife. We must be a clear person inwardly with the Lord and outwardly with others. I believe that the one hundred and twenty in the upper room in Jerusalem were cleared-up people. This is why they had the faith to pray and even to claim from the Lord what He had promised them.
If we are going to visit people with the gospel by knocking on their doors, we have to pray and make a thorough confession of our defects, shortcomings, mistakes, wrongdoings, failures, defeats, and sinfulness from within and without to get ourselves completely cleared up. Then we can say, “Lord, here I am under Your blood. Through Your washing, I am clean. Now I have the full position to claim and enjoy Your infilling.” Standing on what the Bible says, we can claim the infilling of the Spirit by exercising our God-allotted faith. Then we can go to preach the gospel with faith. We can say, “Lord, I am going with You, and I have the confidence and the assurance that You are going with me. I believe that not only I but also You will be there knocking on the doors.” Formerly, we may have been afraid when we knocked on people’s doors; some of us may even have been shaking. But when we pray and exercise our faith in a proper way, we will never shake. Our hand will be like steel, and our arm will be like brass. When we knock on the doors, we will say, “Devil, get away. Door, open to me.”
When you are filled with the Spirit, you will not talk to people in a routine way. When someone comes to open the door and face you, you will surely have something from the Spirit to say to him. When you say something to this man, you will be under the outpouring of the Spirit. Under the outpouring of the Spirit, you have the freedom to speak and the boldness to speak. You have the utterance and the assurance that you are under the Lord’s authority. You are speaking things to people with the authority of the ascended Christ. This is so normal, but it is also so miraculous.
How marvelous it is that we can experience the miraculous normality in God’s New Testament economy! We are regenerated persons who can be filled with the Spirit essentially and economically. We can go out to visit people with the heavenly, ascended Christ, with the very Christ who is sitting on the throne and who has received all the authority in heaven and on earth. We can exercise our God-allotted faith to believe that we have received the infilling and the outpouring of the Spirit. When we are filled inwardly and outwardly with the Spirit, we have the assurance that we are not speaking with our words but with Christ. This makes a great difference.
It is not necessary for us to fast for three days to experience the infilling and the outpouring of the Spirit. These are normal experiences but miraculous. My drinking of the living water is normal, but the transpiration of such a thing is the greatest miracle. The Triune God is the water of life. In order to receive the miraculous infilling and outpouring, we do not need to do miraculous things. All we need to do is fulfill the normal requirements and conditions in God’s New Testament economy. Then we will receive these miracles. Whatever we receive is a miracle that is normal in our experience, so it is a miraculous normality. Let us exercise to experience this kind of normality under God’s miraculous power.
