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Scripture Reading: John 14:16-20, 23; 15:4a; Rom. 8:9-11; Eph. 3:16-17
Prayer: O Lord, we worship You because You are our God, our Creator, and our Redeemer. Lord, we come together to Your Word before You reverently. May You anoint us richly with Your Spirit and move within each one to shine forth the light of Your Word so that while we are reading, we may see the light and revelation and receive the supply of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, we thank and praise You from deep within because You died and resurrected for us and have become the life-giving Spirit, who not only is in heaven but also dwells in our spirit. Lord Jesus, we look to You from the depths of our being, expecting You to impart more of Yourself to us again and transfuse Yourself into us through Your words, which are spirit and are life. O Lord, we come here not only to hear Your words but even more to receive Yourself, because Your very self is in Your words. Your words entering into us are just Yourself entering into us. Lord, may You open our mind, enlighten the eyes of our heart, and remove all our veils. May You sprinkle Your precious blood upon us once again to cleanse us so that because of this blood we may have a pure conscience and be at peace before You without any barrier or fear. Lord, it is such a glory and a blessing that we are able to contact You and have fellowship with You. May You give us a comforting word, a solid word, an encouraging word, a healing word, and a life-supplying word. Lord, every one of us has a need. You are the all-sufficient Lord. May You give us a sentence, or even just a few words, to meet each one’s need. We really look to You to give us a living word.
Lord, we ask You to destroy Your enemy, who often troubles us. Destroy his power of darkness and even destroy his strongholds in our mind. We pray that You would eliminate any lukewarmness or hesitation within us so that our whole heart may incline toward You.
Lord, today is the morning of Your resurrection and the day of our salvation. May You gain us and gain more ground in each one of us. Lord, operate more and more among us that, with our spirits uplifted and burning, we may thank You, praise You, and worship You together. Your name is a victorious name. In this name we pray, and by this name we bind the strong man and plunder his house. May You gain all the glory this morning, and may Your enemy be put to shame. Amen.
In John 14:16 the Lord Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter.” The Greek word for Comforter is difficult to translate because it is a very particular word; its anglicized form is paraclete. The word refers to one who is called to your side to wait on you, to take care of you, and to bear all your responsibilities. If you are sick, he is both the doctor and the nurse to take care of you. If you have a legal case, he is the lawyer to help you handle the case and go to court to represent you in the lawsuit. Moreover, if you encounter any problem in your daily life, he is your counselor. He can solve your problem, and you can pour out your heart to him and enjoy his kind protection. This Greek word implies a great deal. First John 2:1 says, “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” This Advocate is our Comforter. The Greek word for Advocate is the same as that for Comforter; the two titles refer to the same One.
Originally, the Lord Jesus was God over all and the Creator of the universe (Rom. 9:5; John 1:3). One day He humbled Himself to become a man by being conceived and born of a virgin in a manger. He lived in the despised city of Nazareth and grew up in a poor carpenter’s home. When He was thirty years old, He went out to preach the word, heal the sick, cast out demons, perform signs and wonders, and teach the truth. He was with His disciples for three and a half years and was very thoughtful of them. He knew their problems and was able to meet all their needs. Parents love their children, yet often they are unable to render any help to their children when their children have problems. The Lord Jesus, however, was not only kind and thoughtful but also omniscient and omnipotent. He lived, walked, ate, and drank with His disciples. He solved all their problems and ministered to all their needs. He was not only their Doctor and Nurse but also their Lawyer and Counselor. He was truly their Comforter.
While the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He was with His disciples in an outward way for three and a half years; He was a tender, caring Comforter. However, after three and a half years, suddenly one day He told His disciples that He was going away from them and was going to Him who sent Him (16:5). The disciples were shocked by His word and felt sorrowful. Nevertheless, He told them not to be sorrowful, saying, “It is expedient for you that I go away” (v. 7). This was because, while at that time His physical presence with the disciples was wonderful, He could be among them only in an outward way since He was still in the flesh, limited by time and space. He could not be with His disciples if they were at the Sea of Galilee in the north while He was in the temple in Jerusalem to the south. Therefore, He had to go and have a change to become the life-giving Spirit. Thus, He would be able to enter into them to be with them at any time and in any place as the Comforter within them. For the disciples that would be His best presence.
The most precious result of our faith in Christ is that we receive Him into us. Although this is the pure and unadulterated yet mystical truth, it has been neglected by most Christians. They say that today Christ is sitting on the throne in heaven and that He does not dwell in His believers. The Bible tells us, however, that today Christ is in heaven at the right hand of God, but at the same time He also dwells in His believers (10, Rom. 8:34). Our experience also confirms that Christ is indeed in us today. In those days the Lord Jesus was with His disciples, and He walked, stayed, and lived with them, but He could not enter into them. Therefore, He had to go and have a change through death and resurrection; in His resurrection He would come back to enter into His disciples.
The Lord Jesus was with His disciples as a small Nazarene. Like a grain of wheat, He had nothing to be admired at outwardly, yet within Him there was the mystery of life, the riches of life, and the glory of life. First Corinthians 15 says that a grain bears a certain kind of body before it is sown and bears another kind of body after it grows (vv. 37-38). When the Lord Jesus was crucified and buried, that was His being sown into the soil. However, after a period of time, He came out of the tomb and was resurrected. In His resurrection He was different from before; He no longer appeared as a little man of Nazareth but rather became a man with another kind of body. The Bible tells us that in His resurrection the Lord was a pneumatic man with a body of glory. Furthermore, even though He was pneumatic, He was not abstract. On the evening of His resurrection, while His disciples gathered in a house with the doors tightly shut, suddenly the Lord came and stood in their midst. While they were in amazement, the Lord Jesus said to them, “Peace be to you.” Then He appeared to them another time and said to Thomas, “Bring your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side” (John 20:19-27). How wonderful! The Lord’s body was spiritual, yet it could also be touched and handled.
The Lord Jesus still had a physical body after His death and resurrection. But even though He had a physical body, He was also pneumatic; this is marvelous. In the evening of His resurrection, when He came to the house where the disciples were meeting, instead of preaching to them, He said, “Peace be to you.” And after He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Pneuma, the Greek word for Spirit, may be rendered also as “wind” or “breath.” The Lord Jesus was resurrected as the Spirit, and this Spirit was the Holy Breath, which He breathed into His disciples, yet He still possessed a spiritual body.
The Holy Spirit is the Holy Breath, and the Holy Breath is the Holy Spirit. When the Lord became the Holy Spirit, He became the Holy Breath. After the Lord Jesus breathed the Holy Breath into the disciples, and while they were in great amazement and rejoicing, He disappeared again. This was because at that time He had already entered into them. When He breathed into the disciples, He breathed the Spirit into them; this means that He breathed Himself into them. From that time onward, the disciples had a treasure abiding in them, a treasure that would never leave them again. Peter thought that the Lord came and left suddenly. Therefore, when he did not see the return of the Lord after waiting for many days, he returned to his former profession and went fishing, and the rest of the disciples also went fishing with him at the Sea of Tiberias. However, that night they caught nothing. As soon as the morning broke, the Lord stood on the shore and said to them, “You do not have any fish to eat, do you?” They answered Him, No. Then the Lord told them to cast the net on the right side of the boat, and they caught a hundred and fifty-three large fish. Furthermore, the Lord had already prepared bread and fish on the shore to feed them (21:2-13). In this way, for forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3), the Lord sometimes appeared to His disciples and at other times hid Himself from them with the intention of training them to enjoy His invisible presence. The Comforter who was formerly outside the disciples could now enter into them to be the Comforter within them through the process of death and resurrection.
John 14:16-17a says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality.” The Comforter is the Spirit of reality. Without the Spirit there is no reality, and everything becomes doctrines in letter. Verse 17b goes on to say that “the world cannot receive” the Spirit of reality, “because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you.” Before we were saved, we did not have the Spirit of reality, but after we have been saved, we have Him abiding in us. Sometimes He makes us happy, while other times He gives us trouble. For example, before you were saved, you did not have any uneasy feeling when you went to any department store to buy anything. However, after you have been saved, because the Spirit of reality dwells in you, sometimes when you want to buy something, He would not agree. If you disregard His feeling and buy it anyway, you will feel uneasy within, and you will not be able to pray. This is proof that the Spirit is truly abiding in you.
Verse 18 says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” First, verse 17 says, “He abides with you,” and then verse 18 says, “I will not leave you.” The subject is changed from He to I. This means that “He” is “I.” “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” This coming is the coming of the Spirit of reality. The Spirit’s coming is the Lord’s coming. Moreover, verse 19 says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” The Lord was going to die and be buried, so the world would behold Him no longer. However, the disciples beheld Him because He was resurrected. After His resurrection He became the Spirit to enter into the disciples and live in them. Therefore, just as He lived, so they also lived. They lived together with Him.
Verse 20 says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” This is truly a mystery! We are in the Lord, and the Lord is in the Father; so we are also in the Father. Furthermore, the Lord is in us, and because the Father and the Lord are one, the Father is also in us. The three—the Father, the Lord (the Son), and we—mutually dwell in one another. Hence, anyone who believes in the Lord Jesus has the Spirit of reality abiding in him. Thus, he is mingled with God and partakes of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). We who are believers of the Lord Jesus become a peculiar people. Since we have the Spirit of the Lord in us as our supply, we are able to attain to all endurance and long-suffering with joy, enduring what others cannot endure (Col. 1:11). Sometimes we have been wronged, but we do not complain; other times we have been rebuked, but we are not angry. Rather, we give thanks and praise to the Lord in everything. This is the story of “you in Me, and I in you.”
John 14:23 says, “Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” Verse 20 says, “I [the Lord Jesus] am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” This means that the Lord Jesus abides in the Father, and we abide in the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus abides in us. Thus, the Lord becomes our abode, and we become His abode. Moreover, He and the Father will come to us to make an abode with us. In 15:4a the Lord Jesus went on further to say, “Abide in Me and I in you.”
John 14 speaks about the matter of mutual abiding in one way, and John 15 goes further and speaks about it in another way. Chapter 14 says, “You in Me, and I in you” (v. 20); it also says, “If anyone loves Me,...We [My Father and I] will come to him and make an abode with him” (v. 23). Then chapter 15 says, “Abide in Me and I in you” (v. 4a). Not only so, Romans 8:9 goes further to say that “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” The Spirit of God here is the Spirit of Christ, even Christ Himself. Then Ephesians 3:17 goes even further to say that “Christ may make His home in your hearts.” In Greek the word for make...home is different from the word for dwells in Romans 8 and from the word for abide in John 14 and 15. The word for abide in the Gospel of John is used in a general sense. The word for dwells in Romans is the verb form of the word for house; it means to inhabit as one’s abode and is a stronger word than abide. Make...home in Ephesians is even stronger than dwells in Romans; it means not only to inhabit but also to settle down in a dwelling, to make home by being deeply rooted. Christ not only dwells in us but also makes home in us, and He even settles down in us by being deeply rooted in our heart. The experience of believing in the Lord Jesus is a matter of changing residence. Before we believed in the Lord, we dwelt in Adam; when we believed in the Lord, we moved into Christ. In Adam, all we had were the fall, sin, darkness, and death; in Christ, we have transcendence, victory, light, and life. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we move out of Adam into Christ; we no longer dwell in the old Adam but in Christ. Hallelujah, we are those who have changed our residence and have a new address!
From the Bible we can see that the Lord Jesus became the salvation of those who believe in Him through ten great steps. He passed through these processes to become their salvation.
In eternity past the Lord Jesus was God (John 1:1). He is the God who is without beginning, is self-existing, and is ever-existing.
The Lord Jesus, the God who created the universe, was incarnated to become a man. In order to accomplish redemption He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, possessing both divinity and humanity.
Through incarnation the Lord Jesus became a genuine man and grew up in a poor carpenter’s home. He passed through human life, living and moving on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, in which He fully tasted the poverty of human life and experienced all its sufferings. At the age of thirty He went forth to preach and work, extensively contacting different kinds of people. However, His words offended the Jews, the leaders in Judaism, and Caesar’s agents in the Roman Empire. He indeed passed through all the things of human life on earth.
After living on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, He delivered Himself to the place of death and was crucified. He died for our sins and brought us and all things with Him to His death. His death is all-inclusive, not only redeeming us from our sins but also terminating all things of the old creation.
After His death and burial the Lord Jesus was resurrected. In His incarnation He brought God into man; in His crucifixion He dealt with man’s sins; in His resurrection He brought man into God. This was truly an earth-shaking event and the wonder of all wonders in the universe. By His coming and His going He brought God into man and man into God. In Him God and man converged and were mingled as one. At this point the mingling of God and man was accomplished. Redemption for sins was made, and all negative things in the universe were cleared away. On the first day of the week He was resurrected, and there was a germination in the universe. Furthermore, in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) to enter into those who believe in Him that they may have the divine life and partake of the divine nature. God can enter into them, and they can enter into God. This is the effect of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
After His resurrection from death the Lord ascended to the heavens. That was God ascending to the heavens with man. This is a tiding of great joy. There is a man sitting on God’s throne of glory in heaven. This is truly a wonderful and glorious matter. He is sitting on the throne in heaven, having both God and man in Him. This One who has ascended to the heavens and is sitting on the throne is the Lord Jesus, in whom God and man converged.
It is such a One, the Lord Jesus, who comes into us to indwell us when we believe in Him. At this point we all have to shout with rejoicing because Christ is not only our Savior but also the glorious indwelling Christ. This resurrected Christ is the mingling of God and man. He passed through incarnation and crucifixion to become our Redeemer. Moreover, in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit to become our Savior. He also ascended to heaven and is now sitting there, having been made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). As the King of kings and the Lord of lords, He has received all authority and has been crowned with glory and honor. Yet such a One dwells in us! He not only abides in us but also dwells in us. Moreover, He is making home in our hearts. He is in us not only as our life but also as our person.
Not only so, Acts 1:11 says that the Lord Jesus will come again. At His coming again, we will be caught up to meet Him in the air and thus be always with Him (1 Thes. 4:17).
At His coming again, the Lord Jesus will set up His kingdom on the earth to reign over the earth for a thousand years. It is not possible for man to rule the earth and make it a better place. At the end of the First World War the League of Nations was formed, yet the world did not become better. After the Second World War the United Nations was formed, yet the more the whole world tries to be united, the more divided it becomes. Only when the Lord Jesus reigns as King at His coming again can there be real peace on the earth.
Finally, after the thousand years, in eternity future the Lord Jesus will reign forever in the New Jerusalem.
Today the key point, the most important point, in our enjoyment of Christ’s salvation is the indwelling Christ. Christ has ascended to heaven, but at the same time He is also dwelling in us. On the one hand, He is in heaven interceding for us as our great High Priest, our Advocate, to carry out God’s economy. On the other hand, He is the all-inclusive indwelling Christ who dwells in us as our Comforter to be our life and our life supply.
The Lord Jesus was originally the Comforter outside of us, but after His death and resurrection He became the Spirit of reality to come into us to be the Comforter inside of us. This indwelling Christ is our life and our person.
