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In this chapter we shall consider some symbols of the Spirit. Second Corinthians 1:21 and 22 say, “The One who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God, He who has also sealed us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.” In these verses we see the Spirit as the anointing, as the seal, and as the pledge, or the foretaste. Romans 8:23 speaks of the firstfruits of the Spirit. If we would know the riches of the all-inclusive Spirit, we must know how to interpret these symbols. We need to allegorize the figures used in the New Testament to portray this rich Spirit.
Second Corinthians 1:21 says, “The One who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God.” Us refers to the apostles, and you denotes the believers. God has attached the apostles and the believers unto the anointed One, who is Christ. All the ointment has been poured upon this unique anointed One, and from Him the ointment runs down to all His members. If we were not attached to this anointed One, we would not have any ointment. But the ointment has been poured upon the anointed One, and since we are attached to this anointed One, the ointment runs down to reach us.
It is difficult to explain anything related to life. Life is mysterious and difficult to understand but easy to experience. We all have a wonderful physical life. Without this physical life I could not stand here and speak to you in such a living way. But who understands our physical life? Not even the medical doctors understand it. Although we do not understand it, we experience it every day. Even ignorant babies experience it from the moment they are born.
Christ has been anointed by God (Heb. 1:9). Hence, He is the anointed One. Since we believe in Him and partake of Him, we participate in His anointing, sharing the same ointment. Thus, we are firmly attached to Him, the anointed One, enjoying His anointing. When you call, “O Lord Jesus,” do you not sense the anointing within you? This indicates that you are firmly attached to the anointed One. There is something within you anointing you all the time, flowing and even running throughout your inner being. This is the moving of the ointment that is upon the Head running down to reach you as one of His members. It runs down to water you, to saturate you. Thus, you can no longer be a dry member; rather, you are one always under the anointing.
This anointing adds to us the very essence of God, the divine element. This is similar to the process of painting a table. As you paint the table, the element of the paint is added to the table. Likewise, as the ointment runs through us, it brings the divine element into us. In the Lord’s recovery we have the assurance that day by day something is running through us, doing an inward “painting” work. The more this ointment moves, the more it paints us with the divine element. Hallelujah, the divine element is being added to us in the Lord’s recovery! This is not a matter of teaching. Something is running over us and through us, and the divine element is being accumulated within us. The more we enjoy the flowing of the inner life and the more we enjoy the Lord together in the meetings, the more we have God within us. Although we may still feel that we are weak, we nevertheless have God within, for the anointing is constantly adding the divine element into our being.
This is a strong sign that the Lord’s recovery is different from religion. You may stay in religion for years without receiving anything of the divine element into you. However, simply by being in the Lord’s recovery for several months, you will be able to testify that God has been painted into you. It is not simply a matter of acquiring the knowledge of God, but it is a matter of having the element of God added into your being by the anointing. Oh, the all-inclusive Spirit, the compound ointment, is anointing us all day long! We have a divine paint, the compound ointment, the all-inclusive Christ, the all-inclusive Spirit, who is painting us day and night. We all have had some amount of the divine element added into our being.
After the anointing comes the sealing. The sealing is rather easy to understand. Any kind of painting is also a sealing. Sometimes we mark things by painting them. To mark something with a seal is to declare that we own that particular thing. Although there may be thousands of copies of a certain book, by putting my mark, my seal, upon a particular book, I declare that it belongs to me. In like manner, the anointing within us as the sealing declares to the universe that we belong to God. God possesses us, and He has put Himself upon us as a seal. This seal is actually God Himself. Oh, I would like to proclaim to everyone, to the angels, to the demons, and to the universe, “Don’t touch me! I have a mark upon me, and this mark is God, the all-inclusive Spirit.” Do you not have such a mark upon you, showing that you belong to God? Yes, you do, for you have been sealed with God. Hence, the ointment is within you, and the mark is upon you.
If you put your seal upon a piece of paper, the paper will bear the image of the seal. The anointing within us becomes the seal, and the seal bears the very image of God. In this way, we bear the image of God. This means that we express God by being anointed and by being sealed. Because God has sealed us, marked us with Himself, the image of God is upon us. We do not bear the image of God by trying to imitate God. Many Christians have been taught to imitate Christ. They were told, “Now that you are a child of God, you must glorify Him by improving your behavior.” This improvement of behavior is not Christ; it is religion. There is no need to try to improve your behavior. God has sealed you with Himself as the all-inclusive paint. Has not God painted you? Has He not put Himself upon you? Has He not put Himself into you? You have been sealed with God both within and without. We all have been sealed, painted, anointed with God, inwardly and outwardly. Hence, we bear the image of this seal.
Take the example of a young person who has recently been saved. In a sense, after someone is saved, he does not need anyone to teach him, for spontaneously, religiously, and naturally he will have the concept of improving himself. A young sister may say, “Formerly, I did not treat my mother very well. Now that I am saved, I should be a nice daughter. I must be gentle and mild toward my mother. I shall make up my mind never to be unkind to her again. O Lord Jesus, You know that I am so weak and sinful. Lord, help me to be gentle and kind to my mother from now on.” However, after praying in this way, she will behave either like a scorpion or like a turtle, not like a mild, gentle dove.
I tried to change my behavior for years, but I was never successful. One day I realized that I had been anointed and sealed. When I saw this, I was happy, beside myself, and full of praise to the Lord. It seemed that I forgot where I was. Spontaneously I began to be kind to my mother, yet I had no realization that I was being kind to her. This was the bearing of the seal. One day I heard my mother telling a friend, “You know my son, Witness, is a quick person. I don’t know what has happened to him. For the last several weeks he has been so kind to me.” After hearing this, I said, “Mother, I am not really so kind. I didn’t have any change.” According to my feeling, I had no change, but actually I was altogether a different person, a person bearing the image of God. This was not the result of trying to improve my behavior; it was the result of His anointing.
Do not try to be good or to improve your behavior. If you are bothered with your temper, do not try to adjust it, for the more you try to adjust yourself, the worse your behavior will be. Forget about your temper and your behavior, and praise the Lord for His anointing. Praise Him that you are attached, anointed, and sealed. If a married sister did this, she would spontaneously become an excellent wife. However, if she tries to be a good wife, she will become worse as a wife. Some may ask, “What kind of teaching is this? We have been teaching people to improve their behavior. Now you are telling them not to try to change themselves.” Yes, I do say that you should not try to improve. Instead, simply enjoy the anointing and the sealing. If a married couple did this, they would have the best married life. But if they forget to praise the Lord for His anointing, the wife may be like a turtle, and the husband may be like a cat trying to catch the turtle. We need to praise the Lord for the anointing that brings in the divine element and for the sealing that gives us the image of God.
The anointing and the sealing are the pledge, the foretaste, the guarantee. The Greek word for pledge has an interesting background. When an ancient Greek purchased a parcel of land, the seller gave the buyer a box of soil from that land. That box of soil was called the pledge or guarantee. It assured the buyer that he was not purchasing poor land. By receiving a sample of the soil, he could be assured that the land was rich and fertile. The sample, the foretaste, was the guarantee that all the land was exactly like the soil in the box. It was the guarantee of receiving a good parcel of land. God is our inheritance, our parcel of good land. We have not yet possessed the whole of this land. What we are enjoying today is simply the box of soil, the foretaste. This foretaste is the pledge, the guarantee, assuring us that the day is coming when we shall receive our inheritance.
The whole of our inheritance will be the same as the foretaste, just as the whole piece of land was the same as the soil in the box. Hence, the foretaste is the guarantee that the full taste is coming; it is the guarantee of the whole inheritance, which is God Himself. An illustration of the foretaste of the Spirit is seen in cooking. Before sisters serve a meal, they often enjoy a foretaste of that meal in the kitchen. The day will come when we shall inherit God in a full way. What we are enjoying of Him today is the same in element, in taste, and in substance as what we shall enjoy in the future as the full taste. The difference is only in quantity, not in quality. We are enjoying the foretaste, and we are looking forward to the full taste. Although the anointing we enjoy today is rich and wonderful, it is simply the foretaste; the full taste is yet to come.
The anointing brings us the divine element, the sealing gives us the divine image, and the foretaste gives us the divine taste. Now we have the divine element, the divine image, and the divine taste. How wonderful! Day by day the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit brings us the divine element. At the same time it gives us the divine image and the divine taste. Now we are tasting our God, who is our inheritance.
This foretaste is the firstfruits mentioned in Romans 8:23. We all have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Suppose you have a peach tree in your yard. Although the tree may be full of fruit, only a few of the peaches will ripen first. These are the firstfruits. Today the Spirit of God within us is the firstfruits. The harvest will take place when we are raptured. At that time, we shall enjoy God as our full crop, our full harvest. But today we are enjoying Him as the firstfruits.
In this chapter we have seen four things: the element, the image, the taste, and the enjoyment. The anointing brings in the element of God, the sealing produces the image of God, the foretaste affords us the taste of God, and the firstfruits are our enjoyment of God. By the all-inclusive Spirit, we receive the element of God, we have the image of God, we taste God Himself, and we also have God as our enjoyment of the firstfruits. All this is the anointing within us. Thus, we come back to the anointing. The element, the image, the taste, and the enjoyment of God are all in the anointing.
The anointing refers to the moving of the ointment in us. The ointment is something acting, moving, flowing, and even running in us. The divine element in us does not stand still. The image does not stand still either; rather it is running within us. Furthermore, the taste is something that moves, works, and impresses us. Even the enjoyment of God is something living, working, and moving within us. For example, you may desire to sleep late in the morning, but the anointing will tell you to rise up early to attend morning watch. A brother may feel that his wife is not treating him well and may intend to argue with her about it. However, the anointing helps him to keep from losing his temper. Have you not had this kind of experience? Something is moving in you, but it is difficult to say what kind of movement this is. This is the anointing.
The Lord’s recovery stirs up the anointing within us. If you want to have a loose way of life, do not come into the recovery; for the recovery will stir up the anointing within you. This anointing is constantly moving, working, and living within us. Therefore, an experienced brother, the apostle John, told us to abide in the Lord according to the anointing (1 John 2:27). This anointing teaches us everything: what we should do and what we should not do, where we should go and where we should not go. Because the inward anointing teaches us all things, we do not need the outward teachings. Simply abide in the Lord according to this anointing.
This is what it means to live by the all-inclusive Spirit. How wonderful to live like this! We have the anointing, the sealing, the foretaste, the firstfruits, and finally the all-inclusive moving within us. This is not religion; it is God’s economy. God’s economy means that God dispenses Himself into our being so that we may live by Him and be one with Him. This is accomplished by the inward work of the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
