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Scripture Reading: Phil. 2:5; 2 Cor. 2:10b; 10:1; 11:10; Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:25; 2 Cor. 3:18
By the baptism in the Holy Spirit, we were all put into Christ. Thus, we were put into a position that fits His work. His intention is not merely to put us into Himself but to put us into Himself for His working within us. After putting us into Himself, He started His work within us. It is just like a school. First of all we are enrolled; then we enter into the school. The admission into the school is to put us into the position that the school may work on us.
First Corinthians 12:13 says that we were all baptized in one Spirit into one Body. This is to be put into Christ. Also we have all been given to drink one Spirit. This means that we have all been put into a position to drink. To put us into Christ is one thing; to make us to drink Christ is another thing. The main purpose is not only to put us into Christ but to get Christ more and more wrought into our being. What we eat and drink is assimilated into our being and becomes something organic that belongs to our constitution. Eventually, what we drink becomes us. So to be put into Christ is to be positioned for Christ to work Himself into us day by day. To enter into school is for at least one semester, but to let the school work on you is a day-by-day matter. To be put into Christ is a matter once for all, and this has been accomplished through baptism. Now we are positioned for Christ to be wrought into us.
Christ is working Himself into us, and He is working by dwelling in us. In a sense He is in us, and in another sense He is getting more into us. He is adding Himself into us more and more. Today we may only have a little of Christ, but after two months we may have more of Him. Day by day He is adding Himself into us and multiplying Himself within us. This is why we have both peace and bothering at the same time. We have real peace by the indwelling Christ, yet we do not have peace, because He is constantly bothering us! If there is no bothering and troubling, there is no growth. Praise the Lord that we have all been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ! Now we are in Christ. This is our position and our standing. Christ is now the indwelling One, constantly working Himself into us.
In the last chapter we saw that it pleased God to reveal His Son in us (Gal. 1:15-16). God has revealed His Son in us! This is a great thing. Next we saw through Galatians 2:20 that we have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live, yet it is not we, but Christ who lives in us. This is really a strange language. We live, yet it is not we; it is Christ. Marvelous! He is the One living in us. Many Christians know this verse, but I am afraid that they do not see that this verse shows us that Christ is our person. It does not say that it is no more I, but the life of Christ that lives in me. It says that Christ, the person Himself, lives in me. Many Christians take the life of Christ, but they do not take the person of Christ. There is a big difference. By itself life does not bother us a great deal, but a person is always a problem.
Marriage is a very good illustration of taking another person. Marriage is wonderful; however, you not only get a helper but a person. Your husband is a person; he is not just a machine to take care of you. If he were a machine, that would not bother you. But he is a person; so when he takes care of you, he takes care of you in his way. And his way is not your way. A machine does not have a will. You can irritate it, and it will never lose its temper, because it does not have a temper to lose. But your husband is a person with feeling, emotion, and temper. The only way for you not to have any trouble with your husband is for you to take him as your person. If you do this, there is no problem. Marriage is a big responsibility, because you get a person who gives you a lot of problems. There is no doubt that we do get help from our wives and husbands, but at the same time there is a real suffering in order to get the help. The only way is to take your wife or your husband as your person. Then whatever they do will be all right. This is why in all the weddings, Western or Eastern, the wife has a veil to cover her head. Most people think that this is just a formality, but there is a deep significance. It means that in marriage there can only be one person; the other one is gone. There can only be one head; otherwise, there will be a divorce. The main reason for all divorces is the fact that one couple has two heads, two wills, two minds, two emotions, and two persons. No wonder they fight! One couple must have only one person. Then there will be peace in the marriage. If the young people are not ready to take another one as their person, they should forget about marriage. Otherwise, they will suffer.
This is why the teachings concerning marriage life do not work so well. Regardless of what kind of teaching we have, we still hold on to our own person. Real love means to take another one as your person. If you do love your wife, yet you would not take her as your person, your love is not genuine. Rather, it is a selfish love. If you love your husband in a genuine way, you will take him as your person. Then there is no problem. The same thing is true in God’s economy. It is not a matter of teaching. The Lord’s intention is to work Himself into us not only as our life but also as our person. If we were just a box, and the living Lord came into us to be our person, that would be easy. A box has no person. But we are living boxes, and so many of us do have a strong person. Some of us are strong in the mind, others are strong in the emotion, and others are strong in the will. Therefore, the Lord has some difficulty. But we must realize that the Lord will never give up His own person. We must be the ones who give up. The Lord has no intention of having us live as a person. We should simply be the vessel that contains Him. But the problem is that God created some living vessels. This is why in the very beginning of the New Testament, the Lord Jesus said that if we are going to follow Him, we must deny ourselves. This means to deny our person. To follow Jesus means to take Him as your person. In order to do this, surely we must deny our own person. If all the followers of Christ would deny themselves, there would be no need of so many pages in the New Testament. It would be so simple. Then we could really say that it is no more I but Christ who lives in me. He lives; we do not live. The “I” has been terminated. Now it is not only another life but another person who lives in us.
Another verse that we mentioned in the last chapter was Ephesians 3:17. Here we see that Christ desires to make His home in our heart. Many times when I am a guest in someone’s house, they tell me to make myself at home. But regardless of how strongly they say this, deep within I know that that is not my home. My home is the place where I have the full right and the full freedom to do whatever I like. If I am told where to put my suitcase and where to put my towels, that is not my home. A home is a place where a person is absolutely free. In my home I have the freedom to fulfill all my desires. That means that I am the real person of that home. If I do not have the freedom to do whatever I like in that house, it means that I am not the dweller in that home. Christ must have His full liberty and the full right to do whatever He likes. Then our heart will be His home. This means that we will no longer be the dweller but the dwelling place. He will be the Dweller to make His home in us. If He is the person as the Dweller in us, then we have to lose whatever we are. We are just the home. The home has no idea, no concept, no emotion, no will, no desire; it is all up to the dweller of the home. This is why whenever there is a wedding, the wife must be covered. In marriage there should only be one person. Galatians 2:20 and Ephesians 3:17 present strongly the point that Christ has to be our person. In a sense, simply to take Christ as our life is not so adequate. The real meaning is to take Christ as our person. When He is our person, then surely it will be easy for Him to be our life.
Now we can understand what Paul means when he says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). This is to take Christ as our person by denying our natural mind and taking His mind. When we take someone else’s mind as our mind, we certainly take him as our person. If we really mean to take Christ as our person, we must know how to deny our mind and to have our mind fully replaced by the mind of Christ. It does not mean that we do not need our mind or use our mind but that the mind of Christ replaces our mind.
In 2 Corinthians 10:1 Paul says, “I myself, Paul, entreat you through the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” This means that Paul entreated the early Christians not in his own person; he entreated them in the person of Christ. The meekness and gentleness of Christ had to become his. This is God’s economy; this is not religion. This is not a teaching, a philosophy, or any kind of instruction or regulation; it is a living, complete, practical, available, and present person. When we take Him as our person, His meekness and His gentleness become ours. This was the real living of Paul the apostle.
This is also seen in 2 Corinthians 11:10: “The truthfulness of Christ is in me.” It was not the falsehood but the truthfulness of Christ that was in Paul. This means that Christ the person was in him. It does not mean that Paul imitated the honesty, faithfulness, and truthfulness of Christ. No, instead Paul took the faithful, honest, sincere, and truthful Christ as his person. Therefore, this person’s truthfulness became Paul’s, so he could say that the truthfulness of Christ was in him.
Eventually, Paul gives us such a deep verse in 2 Corinthians 2:10: “Whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for also what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ.” Suppose you go to the department store. Could you say that you are going there in the person of Christ? When you buy something there, could you say that you are buying it in the person of Christ? If we were able to say this, I am quite sure that we would not buy many items. Almost all Christians know Galatians 2:20, but very few know 2 Corinthians 2:10. Here is a verse which tells us that we must do things in the person of Christ.
In the Greek text, the word for person in 2 Corinthians 2:10 is a difficult word to translate. It is not easy to find an equivalent for this Greek word. This word in Greek denotes the part of the face just around the eyes. It is sometimes called the index of the face. This part around our eyes is the index of our inward being. When we look at this part, we know whether a person is agreeable or not agreeable, happy or angry. Many times a wife’s “yes” is changed into “no” by looking at the index of her husband’s face. This means that at that time she was taking her husband as her person. This would make a very good marriage. Whatever the wife does, she does it in the person of her husband. This is what Paul meant when he said that he forgave in the person of Christ. He did not do anything in his own person; he did everything in the person of Christ because he was taking Him as his person. So in this verse we see the practical application of what Paul said in Galatians 2:20. It is really marvelous!
Now we must look at some verses in another category. Romans 8:4 says, “That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” In Greek there is not the definite article here before the word spirit, which makes it difficult to decide whether it is our human spirit or the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it must be the mingled spirit, the Holy Spirit and our spirit mingled as one. So now we must walk according to this mingled spirit, which simply means to walk according to the living Christ as the Spirit who indwells our spirit. Here there is the real fulfillment of the law. Whatever the law requires, we will spontaneously fulfill, not by ourselves but through Christ, the Spirit, moving in our spirit.
This shows us how to take Christ as our person, which is to walk and live according to the mingled spirit. Day by day we should not have our being according to teaching, feelings, concepts, or circumstances, but according to the mingled spirit. Praise the Lord that we do have a spirit and that Christ as the life-giving Spirit is indwelling our spirit to make these two spirits one. Now we must walk according to this mingled spirit, and to walk according to this spirit is to take Christ as our person. The wording is different, but the fact is the same. To practically take Christ as our person is to have our being wholly according to the spirit.
In the entire Bible, especially in the New Testament, there is not one verse which tells us that we must walk according to Bible teaching. This does not mean that I am against the Bible. I am absolutely for the Bible, but our walk should not be something according to the outward teachings of the Bible; it must be according to a living person. If we walk only according to the teaching of the Bible, we will get into trouble. This is because there are many things that the Bible does not mention. It never tells us how long or short to cut our hair; nor does it say whether we should smoke or not. If you read the Bible two hundred times, you will not find one verse about smoking. If the Lord meant for us to walk according to the Bible, the Bible would need to have thousands of pages! It would be difficult for us to carry such a book! But praise the Lord, it is so simple. We simply must learn to walk according to the mingled spirit.
It is by walking according to the mingled spirit and taking Christ as our person that we will be transformed. “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). We behold Christ as a mirror, and we reflect Christ with an unveiled face. While we are beholding and reflecting Christ in this way, we are being transformed. It is not correction, improvement, or adjustment, but transformation.
A very good illustration of transformation is the petrification of wood. This is caused by different logs being caught in a place where water is constantly flowing over them. By the flowing of the water, the minerals in the water discharge the old, wooden nature. Then the logs become petrified. Wood is transformed into stone. Praise the Lord, we are just like those logs! The water of life flows into us and brings all the divine elements into our being to replace our natural essence. All our natural elements are discharged, and we are transformed. Teaching can never do this because teaching does not have the flow of the living water with the divine element. But Christ as the life flow has all the divine minerals to flow through us to replace our natural disposition and discharge all the natural things. Then we are transformed into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. This is by the Lord Spirit whom we have learned to take as our person.
Eventually, when we come to the end of the Bible, we do not have anything built with wood. The whole New Jerusalem is built with transformed precious stones. Precious stones are not natural elements but transformed ones. In the New Jerusalem there will be nothing natural, for whatever is built into God’s building must be transformed. All the natural dispositions must be discharged and replaced by what Christ is. Today in the church, wherever there are some brothers who have some amount of transformation, that church will be living, rich, strong, and established. But wherever there is a church without such a measure of transformation, that church will be weak, poor, and shaky. We do look to the Lord that we may have a church built not by teaching but by taking Christ as our person. This person is the living flow of the water of life. Then we will become the precious stones that are good for the building up of God’s building, which is the Body of Christ. The building of the church is by the Christians who have been transformed by the Lord Spirit through taking Christ as their person in walking according to the mingled spirit.
