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Romans 8:9-11 says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” This portion mentions three times that the Spirit of God dwells in us.
The work of God throughout all the generations has been to reach one goal, to mingle Himself with man and, through this mingling, to work in man to the extent that man becomes exactly the same as He. Through His incarnation God put His life into man so that man would have the divine nature. Then through His death and resurrection He brought His humanity into Himself, mingling humanity with His divinity. God’s goal to mingle Himself with man is accomplished entirely through His Spirit.
God is Spirit. Thus, in order for Him to enter into man, He had to create a spirit in man (Zech. 12:1). Man’s spirit is a vessel to contain God and an organ to contact Him (2 Tim. 4:22; John 4:24). The human spirit receives the Spirit of God and interacts with His Spirit, and the two become one (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17). Man’s contact and relationship with God are altogether not in the mind, emotion, or will but in the spirit. The Lord Jesus told us that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:24). Our worship of God does not depend on any outward place; it is the same here or there, inside or outside. What is crucial is our spirit. Because God is Spirit, we must contact Him in spirit.
For the Spirit of God to enter into our spirit, Christ had to pass through incarnation, death, and resurrection. Christ’s incarnation brought God into man, and Christ’s death and resurrection brought man into God. This coming and going of Christ brought God into man and man into God. Christ who died, resurrected, and ascended is God with the human nature and man with the divine nature. He is God yet man and man yet God. Divinity and humanity have been completely mingled within Him as one.
Today in the universe the ascended Christ in the heavens is the prototype of God’s goal. God’s goal in the universe is to mingle Himself with man, and the resurrected and ascended Christ is God mingled with man. Divinity and humanity, humanity and divinity, are mingled within Him. The mingling of divinity and humanity within Him is the mystery of this resurrected and ascended Christ. Hence, today He is in the heavenlies as the prototype and model of God’s goal. In addition to being the prototype of God’s goal, after resurrecting and ascending, Christ sent the Holy Spirit (15:26). As the Holy Spirit, He comes into all those who believe in Him (14:15-18). Just as He passed through incarnation, death, and resurrection in order to bring God into man and bring man into God, now as the Holy Spirit, He is doing the work of incarnation in us—bringing God into us—and the work of death and resurrection in us—bringing us into God. From the time of our salvation, this principle of incarnation is applied to us.
After we are regenerated, the work of the Holy Spirit in us is to bring us through death and resurrection so that we will be mingled with God. God is in Christ, and Christ is in the Holy Spirit. Christ is not only God’s mingling with man but also man’s mingling with God. This model of mingling is entirely accomplished in the Holy Spirit, and as the One who accomplished this model of mingling, the Holy Spirit is sent out. No matter where a person may be, as long as his spirit is open to God and desires God, the Holy Spirit will visit Him by “looking at him.” God’s visiting us by looking at us is the way in which He cares for us. This is carried out through the Holy Spirit and is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the eyes of the Lamb, which are sent forth into all the earth to look at those who are on the earth.
When the Holy Spirit looks at a person, the lamps of the fire of God shine upon him, and when the lamps of fire shine upon him, the consuming fire of God burns within him. This consuming fire is both God Himself and the Spirit, because God Himself is both a consuming fire and the Spirit. Through this looking, shining, and burning, God who is in Christ, and Christ who is in the Holy Spirit are wrought into us. As a result, we receive the element of the Holy Spirit, the element of Christ, and the element of God. From that time on we have the element of God in addition to our human element. God is added into us. We are like a cup, and as such, we are able to contain the Spirit of God, the fire of God, the life of God, and the nature of God. This is the way in which those who are saved have the element of God within them.
From the day that we are regenerated onward, God not only lives within us but also moves and works within us in many ways in order to bring our soul and body into God. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us will eventually bring every part of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—into the Spirit.
When our mind, emotion, and will are gradually, step by step, brought into the Spirit, they will become the spiritual mind, the spiritual emotion, and the spiritual will. When this happens, we will become spiritual people. Today we are saved, and God who is the Spirit is in us. However, even though the Spirit is in us, our living may not be in the Spirit. Our mind, emotion, and will may not have entered the Spirit, may not submit to the ruling of the Spirit, and may not be directed by the Spirit. Our mind still may be the master, thinking whatever it pleases; our emotion still may be free to love and hate whatever it feels to; and, even more, our will still may be independent, choosing and determining as it wills. Although we have a spirit, and the Spirit of God is also in us, we may be living entirely by our soul—we may still make decisions and love, hate, and think by ourselves. We still may not care for the existence of our spirit or submit to the ruling of the Spirit of God. Hence, even though we are saved, we still may be soulish, fleshly, and of the self. In short, we still may not be spiritual.
The situation of a normal Christian should be that he is one who lives in the Spirit. His mind, emotion, and will should submit to the ruling of the Spirit and be directed by the Spirit. When the Spirit directs him to think a certain way, he should think that way; when the Spirit directs him to love in a particular way, he should love in that way; and when the Spirit directs him to make a certain decision, he should make that decision. Such a person is not lacking a mind, emotion, or will. In fact, he has a strong mind, emotion, and will, yet his mind, emotion, and will are no longer in the first place but in the second place. They entirely submit to the ruling of the Spirit, allowing the Spirit to have the preeminence and be the Lord. His mind, his preferences, his opinions, and his decisions are ruled and directed by the Spirit, and as a result, he is spiritual. This kind of Christian living is the normal Christian living. In this kind of living not only does God enter into man, but man is also brought into God by the Spirit of God. A person who lives this way not only has God in him but is also in God.
After we were regenerated and saved, God entered into us. But the question remains, have we also entered into God? If we have entered into God, we will live in God. God has entered into us, but have we also entered into God? Have our mind, emotion, will, preferences, and opinions entered into God? Is our living under the ruling of the Holy Spirit and directed by God? This is a very serious matter. I am afraid that we still may not have entered into God. Our mind, emotion, and will are still independent of God, we still have not submitted to the Holy Spirit, and we still have not entered into the Holy Spirit. Although God is in us, we do not live in God and are still independent.
We should never take this speaking as a doctrine. If we check with ourselves based on this word, we may find that the inner condition of our mind, emotion, and will are truly independent of God. Even though we may pray and ask the Lord for His forgiveness, sometimes when faced with a situation, we still may secretly resolve in our heart that we will fellowship with the Lord only after first considering the matter on our own. Do not think that this is a joke. This truly may be our situation. It may be that only after we deem that we have adequately thought about a particular matter on our own, and only after we have taken what we deem to be the necessary actions on our own, do we come back to the Lord to seek Him.
This is the case not only with our mind and will but also with our emotion. Many times the love even among the brothers is soulish, emotional, and fleshly, and the love among the sisters is entirely outside of the Holy Spirit and is not controlled or ruled by the Holy Spirit. For example, it is often the case that one sister really likes another sister and spends much time with her to shop, chat, and joke. Although the Holy Spirit gives this sister the feeling that she is too much and is improper, she ignores this feeling and considers that it is not important. She simply continues to act according to her own will. From this we can see that many times the more the Holy Spirit prohibits us, the more independent our emotion becomes. This is because we are still living in our soul—sometimes we live in our mind, sometimes we live in our emotion, and sometimes we live in our will. For us to live in God, we need death and resurrection, which will allow the Spirit of God to bring every single part of our being into God so that we may submit to the ruling and direction of the Spirit.
Philippians 2:13 says, “It is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” This means that outwardly there is a working, inwardly there is a willing, and both this willing and working are God’s operation in us. God operates in us in this way because it is His purpose that our will be brought under His ruling. Thus, we must experience God’s operating in us. God is in us, and His intention is to bring our willing and working under His ruling. For this, He operates in us to rule our willing and working so that we will no longer rely on ourselves.
As those who have been saved, we have God in us, but often our willing and working are not under God’s ruling, the ruling of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we decide to be ruled by the Holy Spirit, but other times we allow our will to be independent. Our willing has not submitted to and is not under the direction of the operation of God. This is even more the case with our outward working. If we want to go east, we go east, and if we want to go west, we go west. Whatever we want to do, we do it. Although outwardly this may not result in any big mistakes, the most obvious and greatest mistake is that we are not directed by the operation of the Holy Spirit while we do these things. While the Spirit is operating in His way, we continue to work in our own way. Sometimes we even press the Holy Spirit to the extent that He does not operate in us anymore. Because we ignore Him when He operates in us, eventually He stops operating in us.
Philippians 2 reveals that God wants to work in us to the point where both our inward willing and outward working are brought under the Holy Spirit and are directed by the operation of the Holy Spirit. If both our willing and working are under the operation of God, we will be brought into God and will spontaneously enter into the Spirit. When we are brought to this point, although we continue to have outward workings and continue to work, our working is no longer something of ourselves but of God and of the Spirit within us. When the Spirit within us moves in a particular way, we will work in that way, and when the Spirit within us moves in another way, we will work in that way. Our outward activities will come from the operating and moving of the Spirit of God in our spirit, and our entire being will be under the Spirit of God. When we are in submission to the Spirit of God, we will have spiritual reality, and when we are under the Spirit of God, spiritual reality will be expressed through us.
Romans 8 says that our mind may be set either on the flesh or on the spirit (v. 6). If our mind is set on the flesh, our mind will become the mind of the flesh, and if our mind is set on the spirit, our mind will become the mind of the spirit. The will of God is to bring our mind under the ruling of the Spirit so that our mind will become a mind of the spirit, a spiritual mind. When our mind has become a spiritual mind, then our thoughts will be the result of the ruling and direction of the Holy Spirit and not the issue of our independent mind. At this point our mind will be in God and of God.
Our mind, emotion, and will should be under the ruling of the Holy Spirit. Whether we are loving the brothers or fellowshipping with the sisters, all our emotions should be restricted and ruled by the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit agrees with our love, then we should love, but if the Holy Spirit is against our love, then we should not love. Our love must be under the ruling of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, our mind has to submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and our will has to follow the feeling of the Holy Spirit. In this way every part of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—may be brought into God. At this time we will be those who live in God and in the Spirit, and our living will have spiritual reality.
The Holy Spirit’s blessing and working in us are to bring us into God so that our entire being—our mind, emotion, and will—will be brought into God and directed and ruled by the Spirit. Then the Spirit of God will not only be in us but will also dwell in us and regulate everything within us. In this way we will no longer be soulish or fleshly but spiritual, and we will have the expression of a spiritual condition. This will be spiritual reality.
