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As Christians we need to know God’s eternal plan in this universe, God’s plan for His unique purpose and desire. We should have a time with the Lord about this matter. Merely to understand the points of fellowship in this book in your mind is not good enough. You need some impression in your spirit before the Lord. You may even be clear about God’s plan, yet you should digest what you understand by praying. Then something will be impressed into your spirit, and what you understand will be a real strengthening, a real power, a real force within you. May we all pray about and with the truths and the fellowship contained in this book. In the previous chapter we saw Saul’s birth and religion. In this chapter we want to go on to see his life and his conversion. Saul was born and raised up in Judaism, and he spontaneously had a life fully according to that religion. His life before his conversion was one hundred percent according to his religion. He lived for and by what he believed.
Galatians 1:13 says, “You have heard of my manner of life formerly in Judaism, that I persecuted the church of God excessively and ravaged it.” Saul persecuted the church of God not because he was sinful but because he was religious. He was so zealous for his religion that he persecuted the church of God, because the church of God was something different from his religion. In Galatians 1:14-16a Paul continues, “And I advanced in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my race, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me.” Saul made progress in his religion beyond his contemporaries, and he was zealous for the traditions of his fathers, but it pleased God to reveal His Son in Saul.
In the passage that we have just read, there are four important items: religion, tradition, Christ, and the revelation of Christ. Saul was involved in the best religion, the Jewish religion, a religion ordained by God with good traditions, many of which were according to the teachings of the Old Testament. Yet this religion with so many traditions was something contradicting with Christ and with the revelation of Christ. If you read this portion of the Scriptures carefully, you will realize the difference between Christ and religion and between the revelation of Christ and the traditions of religion. Religion is versus Christ, and the traditions are versus the revelation of Christ.
Many of us may be like that young man Saul. He was born in a religion, and we also were born in a religion. In this religion we have many traditions. I was born into Christianity, and in today’s Christianity there are many traditions. Are you a Christian today living, walking, working, and serving the Lord according to the traditions of Christianity or according to the revelation of Christ, the Son of the living God? Are you dealing with a formed, organized religion, or are you dealing with a living person? Are you dealing with the living Christ, the Son of the living God?
Saul was a brilliant man with a superior makeup. From the human point of view he was not so sinful but rather good and religious. Yet he was dealing with a religion, not with the living Christ. He was serving Christ according to the tradition of his fathers, not according to the living revelation of the Holy Spirit. We have to realize even today that there is the possibility that people could serve God by dealing with a religion according to many traditions, not by dealing with the living Christ and not according to the living revelation of the Holy Spirit. I do not have any intention to help others to be religious. On the contrary, I would do my best to tear down all the religious matters in you. I do pray to the Lord that He would open your eyes to give you a turning point, that you could turn from a religion to a living person—Christ—and turn from the traditions to the revelation of Christ. This young man’s life before his conversion was apparently not evil but good and religious, yet he needed Christ to be revealed in him.
In Philippians 3 Paul speaks of all that he was and had in his natural being: “Circumcised the eighth day; of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to the righteousness which is in the law, become blameless. But what things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss on account of Christ” (vv. 5-7). In these verses are the life of this man before his conversion and his attitude after his conversion. What was this young man converted from? We think that a man is always converted from sin to God because man is sinful and has fallen away from God. According to the Scriptures, however, Saul was converted from religion to Christ. From the point of view of God, Saul’s persecuting of the church was something sinful, yet from the human point of view, from the religious point of view, he was not sinful but may have been appreciated, admired, and praised by many religious persons. Paul was converted from religion to Christ, not merely from sin to God.
In the past I met a number of people who were born Christians but were not converted Christians, not reborn Christians. They were born and raised up in Christianity and even lived for Christianity. They were good people, and they were very religious. Many of them were doing a religious work, yet they did not know Christ in a living, experiential way. They had a religion, but they did not have life. They had Christianity, but they did not have Christ Himself. They were engaged in many activities, programs, and works, but they did not have the inner life with the inner impact. Look at today’s Christianity and ask yourself what the percentage of activities, programs, and outward works is and what the percentage of inward life is. Christ as the living One should be realized, experienced, enjoyed, applied, and appreciated by us all the time.
You may have been regenerated, but maybe even today you need a real, practical conversion from the traditional things, from the religious things, unto the living Christ. A person can be regenerated only once. But in my experience I can testify that I have had a number of conversions. Regeneration is once for all, but conversion, to have some change in your life, is not just once for all.
I was born in Christianity, and I was taught and raised up in Christianity. But when I was nineteen years old, I was regenerated, and that was my first conversion. A real change in life transpired inwardly. Not long after I had been regenerated, I began to meet with a group of Christians who paid much attention to the teachings, to the knowledge of the Bible. I stayed with them for seven and a half years. After those seven and a half years, one day the Lord gave me another conversion, another change. He opened my eyes to see that the Christian life is not a matter of merely dealing with the knowledge of the Bible or with doctrine, but a matter of dealing with Christ as the living One. That brought about a great change in my life. I was so clear that to be a Christian is not a matter of knowledge, not a matter of just studying the Bible in letters, in black and white, but a matter of dealing with the living Christ as our life.
With this realization I then began to serve the Lord. In our experience, many times we get the grace and the deliverance, but after a while we drift away. When you are serving the Lord, it is easy to be tempted to pay attention to the work and not to pay attention to the flow of life and to the work that proceeds out of this flow. After I learned how to experience Christ as life and how to deal with this living Christ, the Lord really gave me the burden for the work. I worked diligently, heartily, and even fruitfully. I worked and worked day and night, day after day. But one day the Lord intervened and stopped me from the work. It would have been rather hard for anyone to keep me away from the work, but the Lord intervened and put me into a position where it was absolutely impossible for me to work. This was another conversion experience for me. I absolutely had no ability to work due to a serious illness that I contracted. I was kept absolutely away from the work by the Lord for nearly two and a half years. In that time I was converted from the work to the Lord Himself.
At the beginning of that time I was thinking that maybe I was wrong in something, so I did my best to confess whatever I thought was wrong to the Lord. Eventually, the Lord showed me that the problem with me was that I paid much more attention to the work than to the Lord Himself. I was converted at that time not from sin to God, but from the work to Christ Himself. Before that time the work for the Lord was my life. No one could stop me from working for the Lord. You could have taken away many things from me without my being concerned. But I would not have tolerated even a little bit of the Lord’s work being taken from me. Now I still work for the Lord, but the work by itself is not preeminent to me. The most important thing is the living Lord Himself. We should labor in the Lord, but our labor should not be something between us and the living Lord.
It may be quite possible that there are many good things between you and the Lord. It is possible to have something in religion, some work, some program, or some activity in Christianity to take the place of Christ in your life. We need a conversion not necessarily from anything sinful or evil, but from good things, from religious things, from substitutes for Christ Himself, which prevent Him from occupying, filling, saturating, permeating, and possessing our entire inward being.
We need to ask ourselves what we are seeking. Today’s religious system with its traditions is a big problem to many Christians. On the one hand, Christianity seemingly brings people to Christ. But on the other hand, it also becomes a barrier, a hindrance, keeping people from the inner experience and enjoyment of Christ. The many Christian activities, Christian works, and Christian programs, on the one hand, bring people to Christ but, on the other hand, keep people from Christ. They bring people to Christ up to a certain point. Then they become a barrier, a limitation, a hindrance. Even the desire to be spiritual can become something that takes the ground in our being to replace Christ Himself. I have seen some who take care of being “spiritual” more than the Lord Himself. We need many conversions from everything other than the living Christ Himself.
Another conversion that I experienced was related to my love for the study of the Word. After I was saved, I loved to study the Word. The Word was so sweet to me, just like honey. When I was a young believer, I would take the Bible to bed with me so I could look at it as soon as I awoke in the morning. Eventually, this love to study the Word became something taking the ground of Christ in my life. I loved the study of the Word much more than Christ Himself. Many times I had the anointing and the burden to pray, but because I was addicted to the study of the Word, I would not give up this study to pray. Eventually and sovereignly, the Lord intervened, and now I dare not study the Word in that way. I was also very fond of teaching the Scriptures. I loved to interpret and expound the Scriptures. Now I have to take care of the limitation within me whenever I give a message. Even this matter can become something between you and the Lord Himself. Now I am careful not to go beyond what the Lord is speaking in me (2 Cor. 13:3) and what He needs me to speak.
There could be many things in our life which take the place of the Lord Himself. My burden is to fellowship with you and help you to realize that God’s plan is to work Christ Himself into you (Gal. 1:16; 2:20; 4:19). This is God’s goal, His ultimate intention. Do not think God’s intention is to make you merely spiritual. Even spirituality might become something in you that is in contradiction to God’s plan. The work for the Lord, the activities in Christianity, the progress for the gospel, and so many other good things could possibly be a hindrance, a substitute for Christ. You need to be converted all the time from something other than Christ to Christ Himself. Whenever anything becomes a hindrance between you and Christ, you have to be converted from that to Christ Himself.
I knew some sisters who loved to fellowship with other sisters. This kind of fellowship eventually became a hindrance between them and the Lord and took the place of the Lord in their lives. They loved this kind of fellowship more than Christ Himself. With these sisters there was the need to be converted not from anything sinful but from this good fellowship to Christ Himself. You have to consider whether or not something in your life is taking the place of Christ. Is something in your life more important than Christ Himself? If so, you have to be converted from this very thing to Christ. Regeneration is a conversion, but a conversion to us Christians is not just once for all. We need many conversions. Anything, no matter how good it might be, can become a hindrance, a barrier between you and Christ, taking the place of Christ in your life and substituting Christ in your life. May we all be converted from everything other than Christ to the living person of Christ Himself.
We have to see what God’s plan is. Do you think that God’s plan is to make you zealous, religious, and spiritual? To be religious is much better than being sinful. To be zealous for Christianity is really better than being worldly, and to be spiritual is really better than being carnal. Yet you have to realize that even being spiritual could be a barrier between you and Christ and could be a substitute for Christ to you. One young man may be very worldly. He may love the world, seek the worldly things, and pursue after the world. Another young man may be very religious and may have given up the world totally. But what is the difference between these two young men as far as Christ is concerned? There may be no difference. In the worldly young man we cannot see Christ, and neither in this religious young man can we see anything of Christ.
We can use two bottles as an illustration. The purpose of these bottles is to contain some kind of beverage. One bottle may be dirty, and the other may be clean, but the bottles were not made merely to be clean. They were made to be filled with a certain beverage. In like manner, God does not merely desire to have many “clean people.” What God wants to have is many people filled with Christ. He does not want religious people but Christians. A Christian is a Christ-man, a man filled with Christ, a man mingled with Christ, a man lost in Christ. All over the world it is relatively easy to meet Christians, but it is not easy to meet some Christians who are filled with Christ and whose goal is Christ Himself. It is possible to meet many working Christians, religious Christians, and active Christians who act for Christ, yet it is not so easy to meet some Christians who are one with Christ, filled with Christ, and occupied solely by Christ.
I have the impression that many may be working for a religious system just like Saul of Tarsus worked for Judaism. You may be working for religion and have nothing to do with Christ. I hope that the Lord has opened our eyes to see that God’s plan is to reveal His Son in us so that we can be conformed to the image of His Son. God’s intention and God’s plan is not for us to be religious, good, spiritual, or knowledgeable of the Scriptures, but God’s plan is for us to be filled with Christ, to be occupied, possessed, saturated, permeated, blended, and mingled with Christ. This is why Paul tells us in Philippians 3:7-8, “What things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss on account of Christ. But moreover I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ.” Paul was brought to the realization that the only gain in the universe was Christ Himself. To him Christ was the one reality of all. Nothing was real to him but Christ.
In Philippians 3:3 Paul says, “We are the circumcision, the ones who serve by the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.” The phrase serve by the Spirit of God can also be rendered “worship God in the spirit” (KJV). This is similar to what the Lord Jesus said in John 4:24, that God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit. Philippians 3:3 also tells us that Paul did not boast in his religion, in his purity, in his cleanness, or in his religious activity. He boasted in Christ Jesus. We should worship God in the spirit and boast in Christ as the reality. Nothing other than Christ should be important to us or should be real to us. Our lives need to be occupied solely with Christ Himself.
We all have to pay the price in this matter. Many things can creep in, even good things other than Christ, to take the place of Christ in the life of Christians. It is not only the world and sin that can hinder us from seeking Christ, that can keep us away from Christ. Even good things, religious things, and even things concerning Christ can hinder us from seeking and being occupied with Christ Himself. Therefore, we have to learn the lesson always to count everything as a loss on account of Christ. The things that the apostle Paul counted as loss were not bad things. All the things that he counted as loss were good things, but those things were not Christ Himself. Even many Christians are seeking spiritual gifts, but the gifts can be substitutions for Christ. If we focus ourselves on Christ Himself to have the genuine experience of Christ, then any gift that we have will also be Christ Himself.
We must remember that God’s plan is to work Christ into us, and we have to pay attention to Christ Himself, nothing else. We do not agree that anything would come into our life to take the place of Christ. We like to count everything as a loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul’s desire was “to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (v. 10). Paul wanted to be mingled with Christ, to be transformed into Christ in order to become a real member of Christ. If you would seek and experience Christ in this way, you will have the power, the fruit, the spirituality, and everything which is good in the eyes of God. The reason for this is that everything which is good in the eyes of God must be something of Christ Himself. If you have Christ, you will have everything. As the chorus of Hymns, #513 says, “Everything is in Christ, and Christ is everything.”
Paul’s life was to live Christ (1:21a). To him, to live was Christ, not the law nor circumcision. He would not live the law but Christ, not be found in the law but in Christ (3:9). Christ was not only his life within but also his living without. He lived Christ because Christ lived in him (Gal. 2:20). He was one with Christ both in life and in living. He and Christ, they two, had one life and one living. They lived together as one person. Christ lived within him as his life, and he lived Christ without as his living. The normal experience of Christ is to live Him, and to live Him is to magnify Him always, regardless of the circumstances.
God’s plan is to work Christ into us, so throughout our life we need many conversions. Whenever there is something in your life substituting for Christ, you need a conversion from that very thing to Christ Himself. We should always keep ourselves in direct contact with Christ. Then we will be one with Christ in reality.
