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Scripture Reading: John 4:23-24; 3:6; 1 Pet. 2:2; Eph. 3:16; 4:13-14, 22-24; 2 Cor. 4:16b; Col. 3:9-11
In this chapter we need to learn something concerning reality. According to John 4:23-24, we need to be those who worship God, the Father, both in spirit and in reality. Although we may know how to be in spirit, we may not have that much reality. Reality is simply Christ as our experience. The more we experience Christ, the more reality we have. Little by little we have to gain more reality.
All the positive items in the Old Testament were only “a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ” (Col. 2:16-17). All the items of the ceremonial law were shadows. The body, the solid substance, the reality, of the shadows is Christ. Christ is the reality (John 14:6). Whenever we come to worship God, we have to come with Christ as our reality. In ancient times the children of Israel came to worship God with various kinds of offerings (Deut. 12:5-7; Lev. 1—5). All those offerings were types of Christ. Moses wrote four long books concerning the worship of God: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In these books Moses did not tell the Israelites how to kneel down, how to bow down, or how to prostrate themselves. He did not tell them how to be quiet, how to sing a song, a hymn, or a psalm, or even how to praise. Throughout these books Moses gave them thorough and detailed instructions on how to handle the offerings. He taught them how to bring the offerings and how to kill the sacrifices. He also taught them how to offer the sacrifices. He told them what part of the sacrifices they had to burn, what part they could keep, what part they could enjoy, what part they had to share with others, and even what part they had to enjoy with others in the presence of God. To worship God is altogether a matter of handling the offerings.
Today in much of Christianity, people worship in a quiet, formal, and organized way. This is the natural, human, religious concept of worship. From the books written by Moses, we can see that the worship God desires is not according to this religious concept. The genuine worship is fully, absolutely, a matter of handling the offerings. We have to worship God with the offerings, and all the offerings are types of the different aspects of Christ. We all must learn how to handle Christ.
In ancient times when an Israelite came to worship God, he had to have an offering (Deut. 16:16). In the same way, we must have something of Christ to bring to God (1 Cor. 14:26). For us to have something of Christ depends upon our daily experiences, our daily laboring on Christ. Every Israelite received a portion of the good land. He had to labor on that land so that he could have some produce, some harvest, and he had to keep the best part of his harvest for the worship of God. The top tenth of the produce of the land, the tithe, had to be kept aside for the worship of God (Deut. 14:22-23). Then when the time of the feast came, they all brought their offerings to God. They put all these offerings together, offered them to God, and enjoyed them together in God’s presence. How they handled and enjoyed the offerings meant everything. This is a clear picture showing us that the real, genuine worship is nothing other than to handle Christ, offer Christ to God, and share Christ with others.
Having Christ as your offering depends on your daily experiences. If you have not been experiencing Christ in your daily life, you will surely be dead and silent. This is because you have not gained Christ in your daily life. Because you have not gained anything of Christ, you come to the meeting with your hands empty, with nothing in your spirit. You have nothing of Christ to share with others, to please God, or to glorify the Father. Thus, you can only be a religious worshipper, sitting and keeping quiet. If you are laboring on Christ every day, experiencing and enjoying Him, you will surely gain something of Christ. You must gain Christ day by day, bit by bit. This morning you gain a little bit of Christ, this evening a little bit, tomorrow morning a little bit, and tomorrow evening a little bit more. Day by day something of Christ is being gained by you. Then you will come to the church meeting with the rich surplus of Christ in your spirit. You will have something of Christ to share with others. You could never remain silent, because something is bubbling up from within you. You are filled up and overflowing. You may say, “Oh, Hallelujah! I am so full of Christ. Brothers, last night Christ was so sweet to me.” This is the real worship that God desires. God cannot be satisfied with your being quiet in the church meetings. God can only be satisfied with His dear Son, Christ. We have to have something of Christ to bring to the meeting, to offer to God, and to share with one another. The best worship is to share Christ with others.
I can testify that Christ is my peace offering to God. He is my peace; He is your peace; and He is the peace between us. Without Christ I could not be at peace with the brothers. How can we be one? Without Christ we would fight with one another, but Christ is our Peacemaker. “He Himself is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). With Christ there are no problems. He has neutralized every difference between us. There is no room for any natural, religious, or cultural differences in the church as the new man. Only Christ is here. In the new man “there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). Now we can share Christ as our peace with all the saints. To share this kind of genuine experience of Christ is the real worship. The real worship to God is the handling of Christ.
Colossians 3:11 tells us that in the new man there is no natural person, but Christ is all and in all. However, the new man begins with the new birth in our spirit (John 3:6). We need to see the development from our new birth to the one new man where Christ is all and in all.
Man is of three parts—spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). Man’s human life is in the soul. This life in the soul is our being, our person, our self. Before being saved, man is a soul (Acts 7:14), a person, with two organs: the body as an outward organ to contact the outward, physical world, and the spirit as an inward organ to contact God and the spiritual world. When we believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him, He came into our spirit as life. Now in our spirit, we have another kind of life, the divine life of God. Formerly, we had only the human life in our soul, but now we have the divine life in our spirit. As a result, our spirit has now become a person. Formerly, it was only an organ because it did not have life, but now it has also become a person with a life. By being born again, you became another person. Formerly, you were a soulish person with the natural, soulish, human life; but now you have the divine, eternal, uncreated life in your spirit. By being regenerated, you have been converted to be another person. Formerly, your person was the soul, but now your person is your spirit. Now you must live not by your soul but by your spirit. You need to realize that you have a spirit, and you also need to realize that your spirit is your person.
John 3 tells us of the new birth in our spirit: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (v. 6). Then 1 Peter 2:2 speaks of the newborn babes: “As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow.” First, we are reborn; second, we have to grow. This growth has to be in our spirit. For newborn ones to grow does not mean that they pick up a lot of knowledge in their mind. To grow means that the very Christ within our spirit increases. The increase of Christ in our spirit is our real growth in life.
Christ is in our spirit, but to grow we have to enjoy Him. We have to eat Christ, drink Christ, and breathe in Christ. We have to take Christ in again and again. Day by day and bit by bit, Christ will be increasing within us. With some, this growth may have stopped. Although you may have been born again over twenty-five years ago, the amount of Christ within you may be nearly the same as when you were first saved. You may have picked up a lot of knowledge in your soul. You may have learned all the biblical teachings and all the regulations in Christianity. You may even have learned how to sing the hymns in a marvelous way. However, you have gained all these things in your soul. Where Christ is, in your spirit, there may have been hardly any increase. You may be an old babe, that is, a person who has been a Christian for many years with very little growth in life.
Some may boast that they have been saved for many years, that they have learned all the teachings in Christianity, and that they have heard many good, famous Christian speakers, but how much of Christ have they gained? Although a young brother may have been saved only a few years, he might have gained more Christ than they have. They may have a lot of knowledge in their soul, yet they may have gained very little of Christ in their spirit. Our unique need is to gain Christ in our spirit.
It is wonderful to be born again, but after our new birth, we need to grow. To grow simply means to have more of Christ added and worked into us. Formerly, we were people in the soul, but now we must be people in the spirit. Our soul, our former person, has already been “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). We have to take this fact and put it into our practice. Realizing that our former person has been crucified, we should not live in that person, by that person, or with that person anymore. We have to deny our former person, which the Bible calls “the old man” (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) and the “outer man” (2 Cor. 4:16), and we have to live by our new person, “the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). We have to realize that we are now another person, the new person in our spirit with Christ as life. Our person, our spirit, and Christ’s life are now one. This new person, our spirit plus Christ as life, is even our personality. Now our personality is not in the soul but in the spirit. We should not live in the old person anymore, nor should we allow or permit the old person to take any action. We have to live by the new person.
How do we apply this in our daily living? Suppose a brother intends to go to a department store to buy something. He should not check whether that is the Lord’s will or not. The first thing he has to check is whether his going is being initiated from his soul or from his spirit. Is it being initiated by his former person or by his present person, by the old man or the new man, by the soulish man or the inner man? It has to be initiated by his new person. It may be easy for us to learn this doctrine, but in most of our living, we may still be absolutely in our old man. To go to the department store to buy something is not bad or evil, but that may still be an activity of our former person. Although we are Christians in name, we may still be living in our old person. We may do things according to our consideration of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or evil, and not according to the principle of whether it is something of the old person or something of the new person. We, the reborn ones, may very rarely live in our new person.
God has no intention to ask you to be a good man. God’s intention is for you to live in the new person. It does not matter whether you buy something or not, whether you go shopping or not. What does matter is who goes, the former person or the present one, the person in the soul or the person in the spirit. If the person in the soul goes, Christ is not there, but if the person in the spirit goes, Christ goes, because in the spirit you are one with Christ. The new person is Christ as life in your spirit.
When these two, Christ as life and your spirit, are together as one, you have the personality of your new person. You need to see that you were not only saved but also reborn to be another person. Formerly, you were one kind of person, but you have been regenerated to be an absolutely different person. You were once a person in your soul. Whether that person was good or bad does not mean much. You may have been born gentle, mild, patient, kind, slow, and quiet. People always consider that this kind of person is very good. It may even be hard for you to lose your temper. Everybody would like this kind of person. On the other hand, I might have been born wild, tough, rough, and quick-tempered, without any patience. No one would like me. But whether you were born good or bad does not mean anything because we all need to be reborn. If you were born bad, you need to be reborn, but even if you were born good, you still need to be reborn. Regardless of our race, nationality, or natural disposition, we all have to be reborn. In this rebirth we are all the same.
After our rebirth we should no longer live by that old person but absolutely by the new person. The problem is that, even after our rebirth, we still live by our old person. We always consider whether a thing is right or wrong. If it is right, we will do it. If it is wrong, we will not do it. Thus, our standard of being a Christian is not a person but a behavior. This is the standard today in Christianity, but this is wrong. Our standard must be a person, not a behavior. Whether a matter is right or wrong, good or bad, we should only care for one thing: who is going to do it? Is our old person going to do it or our new person? It is not a matter of what you are going to do but of who is going to do it. The real subjective aspect of the work of the cross is to cross out your old person. It is no longer I, the old person, but Christ, the new person (Gal. 2:20). It is not a matter of adjusting or improving your behavior. It is a matter of shifting your being from the old person to the new person.
May the Lord open our eyes to see that the church life is in this new person and nothing else. Regardless of how good, patient, humble, kind, and mild you are, as long as you are in the old person, you cannot experience the church life. You may be a very easygoing person, yet if you are still in the old person, you are through with the church life, and the church life is through with you. The church life is absolutely something in the new person. There is a new person within each of us. All of these new persons added together equal the church. What is the church? The church is the summation, the sum total, of all the new persons within us. The church life is in our spirit. This is why we need to grow and must grow. By being born again, we become the newborn babes. Now we need to grow, not just in function but in a person, in our inner man. Our whole person in the spirit needs to grow.
This is why Ephesians 3 says that we need to be strengthened with power into our inner man (v. 16). Our inner man is our spirit, but it is weak because it is short of power—the resurrection power, transcending power, subduing power, and overruling power. To grow we need to be strengthened, and the strengthening is by these few things: feeding on, drinking, breathing, and inwardly being filled with Christ. The more we feed on Christ, the more we drink of Christ, the more we breathe in Christ, and the more we are inwardly filled with Christ, the more we are strengthened. The more we are strengthened, the more we are empowered with Christ’s resurrection power. No death can prevail against us. All the deadness around us and within us is conquered by the resurrection power. When we are empowered, we are also transcendent, subduing, and overruling. This strengthening is the increasing of Christ within us, the growth of our inner man. By this strengthening, our inner man, our new person, is growing every day.
We all need a change in our concept. We need the heavenly revelation so that we would drop all the wrong concepts that we have collected from our background. We all have to realize one thing: as those who have been reborn, we should not live in our old person anymore. We have to deny and renounce that old person, and we have to realize that we now have a new person, our spirit with Christ as its life. We have to live and do everything by this new person. We should not care whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad. We must only care for one thing: which person is going to do it, the old person or the new person? We should always be checked by this one point. If we feel that we are weak or empty in our new man, our new person, we need to be desperate and pray: “Lord, be merciful to me. Look at my situation. I am so empty, so weak, in my new person.” We need to deal with the Lord. Then we will be empowered.
If we know how to deal desperately with Christ, how to feed on Christ through pray-reading the Word, how to drink of Him by calling on His name, and how to breathe Him in day by day, we will be one with Him in our spirit. This will cause us, day by day, to grow in our new person. Today we cannot see or realize that our new person is growing, but one day we will “be no longer little children” and will “arrive...at a full-grown man” (4:14, 13). That full growth will be the accumulation of Christ as the reality in us through all our experiences of Him. It is not merely that we experience Christ a little bit as our patience, our strength, or our life. Rather, all day long we would live by the new person. If we are going to visit a brother, we have to check whether this is our old person, our self, or our new person, our spirit. We must check with this point and get a proper answer. Then we must go, not in our old person but in the new person. Even if a mother is going to talk to her children, she has to check whether her old person or her new person is going to talk. We are all born again, but are we living by the old person or the new person? Only by living in the new person can we have Christ as our reality. All day long, we must live by the new person. Even to study your lessons in school, you need to check this one point. For school you have to exercise your mind, but the new person, not the old person, should be using your mind. Whenever you study your lessons, you have to check: which person is going to study? If you study in the new person, your mind will work for you as an organ under the control of your new person. If you are going to dress yourself, do not check what kind of clothing you are going to wear. First, you have to find out who is going to dress, the old person or the new person. We are newborn Christians, yet most of the time we live by our old person and not by the new person, our spirit.
We all must see that, in the church life, all the members need to live by the new person. We should not live by a high moral standard or by an immoral standard. We should not live by any standard of behavior, but by a person. This is why 2 Corinthians 4:16 says that our outer man, the old person, is decaying, but our inner man, the new person, is being renewed day by day. The outer man has to be reduced, but the inner man needs to increase. We really have two persons within us; one is old, and one is new. The old one has to be consumed, but the new one needs to increase. Our problem is that we do not realize this and continue to live by the old person and not by the new. We need a revelation so that we may have a shift from the old person to the new. Then we will be renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new man (Eph. 4:23-24), the corporate church life. The apostle Paul says that we have to put off the old man, the old corporate man, and put on the new man (vv. 22, 24). We all have to put off the old communal life, the worldly social life, and we have to put on the new communal life, the church life. We put on the church life bit by bit. We may participate in the church life yet still have something to do with the worldly social life. While we are being renewed in the spirit of our mind, we are gradually putting off the old communal life, and the new church life is being put on. This is what we need in the church life today. Eventually, with our new birth and through the growth of our new person, we will arrive at the goal, the new man, “where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). This is the church life.
After our new birth, we must grow, not in a doctrinal way but in a very experiential way. We all need to grow with Christ and live by our new person. We should not care for the adjustment of our outward behavior, but only for the inward shifting from the old person to the new person. We must live and do all things, both great and small, by the new person. If we do this, we will be empowered, having the real increase of Christ and growth in life. Then the old communal life will be dropped, and the new church life will be picked up. Eventually, we will have the full growth with Christ as our all in all. Then we will be in the proper church life, worshipping God not only in spirit but also in reality. We will experience the reality of Christ as our life, and we will grow into a full-grown man (Eph. 4:13). One day the Lord will bring all the local churches to this point. He is waiting for this. Probably that will be the day of His coming back.
