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In this chapter I am burdened to share with you the two main aspects of the Lord’s recovery today. As you are preparing to do a work among the young people, you must know what the Lord’s recovery is. Today we should not follow degraded Christianity. In order to avoid this danger, we must know where we stand and what our commission is. In brief, the two main items in the Lord’s recovery today are the recovery of the experience of Christ and the recovery of the proper practice of the church life. In other words, the Lord’s recovery today is simply the recovery of Christ and the church. When we speak of recovery, however, we do not mean recovery in a doctrinal way. We are not interested in teaching about these things but in practicing them. We are in the practical recovery of the experiences of Christ and of the proper practice of the church life. We are not concerned with so many doctrinal points but with the adequate and full experience and practice.
Many of us were in Christianity for years, but, apart from salvation, we heard little about the experience of Christ as life in a subjective way. There were no such terms as the enjoyment of Christ and the very common term the experience of Christ. We never even entertained the thought of such things. Rather, we were told, correctly, that Christ died on the cross, that He resurrected from the dead, that He ascended to the heavens, and that He is now sitting at the right hand of God. However, whatever we were taught concerning Christ was altogether in the realm of the mind. Christ was preached as the Savior, and many believed in Him and were, in a sense, saved. But Christ was still in the heavens, and we were still on earth. At the most, we had been saved through His name. Although there is nothing wrong with this, there is a tremendous lack. For years, I was never told that the very Christ in whom I had believed was dwelling in my spirit. But the fourteenth chapter of John says clearly, strongly, and emphatically that Christ, our Savior, is in us. In John 15 He Himself said, “Abide in Me and I in you.” When I first heard that Christ was abiding in me and I in Him, I could not comprehend it, and I exercised my little mind to try to figure it out, asking how Christ could abide in me and I in Him. I immediately examined whether I was in Him or not, but I simply could not figure it out. Nevertheless, the main emphasis in nearly all the Epistles is that this wonderful Christ is in us.
For years, I was unable to answer the question of how Christ could be in me and I in Him. But one day the Lord opened my eyes, and I saw that after His resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Today Christ is not only sitting at the right hand of God in the heavens; as the life-giving Spirit, He also dwells in our spirit. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” If the Lord Jesus were not the Spirit, how could He be with our spirit? Even if we did not have the clear word of 2 Corinthians 3:17—“The Lord is the Spirit”—we would be able to conclude that the Lord must be the Spirit from the fact that He is now with our spirit. First Corinthians 6:17 says something even more definite: “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” According to your experience, do you realize that you are actually one spirit with the Lord?
Ephesians 3:16-21 reveals that Christ is making His home in our heart. How marvelous it is that we can experience Christ to this extent! When I was in Christianity, I heard nothing about experiencing Christ in this way. Gradually, through the help of some books, I came to know that Christ abides in me as my life, my righteousness, my holiness, and my sanctification, and I began to experience Him in a subjective way. But it was not until after many years of reading, study, and experience that I saw from Ephesians 3 that Christ is not only my life, but also He makes His home in my heart.
Christ’s making His home in our heart is His taking full possession of our inner being. Our heart is a composition of our mind, will, emotion, and conscience. As Christ makes His home in our heart, He saturates our entire inner being and possesses it. This is a great thing. Our mind, will, emotion, and conscience become the dwelling place of Christ. Eventually, according to the New Testament, as far as our inner being is concerned, Christ will become one with us. We all must experience Christ to such an extent that we are one with Him not only in our spirit but also in our whole heart—in our mind, will, emotion, and conscience. This must not be a mere doctrine to us; it must be our experience.
Let me relate a pitiful story of something that happened just several weeks ago. One night after a meeting, two teenagers came to the front of the meeting hall to deal with me. They said, “You teach that Christ became the firstborn Son of God. Haven’t you read John 3:16, which says that He is the only begotten Son? Why do you say that He became the firstborn Son? Also Hebrews 13:8 says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” How pitiful! This is typical of the situation in Christianity today. These boys have a little knowledge of the Bible and think they know something.
Others condemn us for saying that Christ has changed and that God has been processed. They claim that God and Christ could never change. What about the incarnation? Before the incarnation the Son of God was God. He only had divinity, having nothing of humanity. He did not have flesh, blood, and bones. But by incarnation He put on human nature, becoming a man of blood and flesh (Heb. 2:14). After He became flesh and lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years, He died on the cross, shed His blood, and was buried. Three days later He was resurrected. He had had the form of the flesh, but after His resurrection this form was changed into that of the Spirit. Was not this a change? Those in Christianity only care for their little knowledge, not for experience. But a little knowledge is dangerous. In the Lord’s recovery we are not fighting for terminology or doctrines. Why do we say that our God has been processed? I realize that, theologically speaking, it may sound strange to say that God has been processed. But according to the truth, God has been processed. He was God, He became flesh, and He was crucified on the cross, died, and was buried. Was that not a process? If it was not, then what was it? Through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit, not only with the divine nature but also with the human nature.
At this point it is well to quote some excerpts from Andrew Murray’s masterpiece, The Spirit of Christ. These quotations are taken from chapter 5, entitled, “The Spirit of the Glorified Jesus”:
We know how the Son, who had from eternity been with the Father, entered upon a new stage of existence when He became flesh. When He returned to Heaven, He was still the same only-begotten Son of God, and yet not altogether the same. For He was now also, as Son of Man, the first-begotten from the dead, clothed with that glorified humanity which He had perfected and sanctified for Himself. And just so the Spirit of God as poured out at Pentecost was indeed something new...When poured out at Pentecost, He came as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the Incarnate, crucified, and exalted Christ, the bearer and communicator to us, not of the life of God as such, but of the life as it had been interwoven into human nature in the person of Christ Jesus...Christ came not only to deliver man from the law and its curse, but to bring human nature again into the fellowship of the Divine life, to make us partakers of the Divine nature...In His own person, having become flesh, He had to sanctify the flesh, and make it a meet and willing receptacle for the indwelling of the Spirit of God...From His nature, as it was glorified in the resurrection and ascension, His Spirit came forth as the Spirit of His human life, glorified into the union with the Divine, to make us partakers of all that He had personally wrought out and acquired, of Himself and His glorified life...And in virtue of His having perfected in Himself a new holy human nature on our behalf, He could now communicate what previously had no existence—a life at once human and Divine. From henceforth the Spirit just as He was the personal Divine life, could also become the personal life of men...And the Holy Spirit could come down as the Spirit of the God-man—most really the Spirit of God, and yet as truly the spirit of man.
By this we can see that at least one other brother has seen this matter.
The Christ whom we experience is not as low as the Christ preached in today’s Christianity. In the Lord’s recovery we do experience a “different Christ.” Years ago, someone in Hong Kong condemned me, saying that I preach another Christ. I wrote a rebuttal saying that Christ certainly is different. For instance, in the Gospel of John Christ is the Lamb (John 1:29), but in Revelation He is the Lion (5:5). Is the Lion the same as the Lamb? Certainly not. Furthermore, with respect to the burnt offering, a type of Christ, in Leviticus 1 Christ is first likened to a bull, then to a goat, and last to a turtledove. Are all these the same? It would be ridiculous to say that they are. In Himself, Christ is not different, but in our experience He is different. In Christianity, people mainly experience Christ as their Savior. They know little more concerning Him.
According to Leviticus, some may experience Christ just as a little turtledove. Others, however, may experience Him as a goat, and still others experience Christ as a huge bull like the apostle Paul did. What is Christ in your experience—a pigeon, a goat, or a bull? Only the poor people offered a pigeon as a burnt offering to God. That is good, but it is poor. Likewise, it is good for you to experience Christ as a pigeon, but it is rather poor. Thousands of Christians have only received Christ as their Savior. Some others have progressed to experience Christ as their life. Gradually, I have discovered that Christ is everything to me. He is not only my Savior, my Redeemer, my Lord, my God, and my life—He is my everything. Even just in the book of 1 Corinthians we see that Christ is power, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, the deep things of God, the foundation, the Passover, the Head, the Body, the rock, the food, the drink, the second man, the last Adam, the firstfruits, and the life-giving Spirit. Oh, Christ is everything! Later, I began to see that this all-inclusive Christ is making His home in me. Now I not only take Him as my life and as my person, but I give myself to Him as His dwelling. We in the Lord’s recovery must experience Christ to such an extent that He can make His home in our heart. As you contact other young people on the campuses, you must be those who live by Christ and experience Him day by day. You must take Him as your life, as your person, and as the One who dwells in your whole being.
How can we experience Christ? Although experiencing Him may sound mysterious, it is actually very practical—as practical as electricity. If you would experience Him as the One making His home in your heart, you must pray to see the vision that Christ today is the Spirit. Most Christians, not knowing their human spirit and Christ as the life-giving Spirit, only care for doctrine. They do not know that today our Christ is everything. Christ is the all-inclusive One. He is God, the Creator, the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Lord, the light, the life, and so forth. I simply do not have the adequate utterance to express all that Christ is. Christ is wonderful. He is God, and He became a man, bringing God into humanity. Eventually, He also brought humanity into God. This does not mean that He made man God. Rather, it means that He brought humanity into divinity. Today He is the God-man. Recently, some have opposed the use of the term God-man. But in the selections we have quoted from Andrew Murray, we see that he also used this term. In Christ is the real God and the real man. Today He is the all-inclusive Spirit. From my experience I know that this is so. Thus, I am strong to proclaim, not in a doctrinal way but in an experiential way, that the very Christ in whom we believe is everything to us. Christ is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, our love, our patience, and our endurance. He can be everything to us by His being the all-inclusive Spirit.
In the history of the church, various well-known writers have commented on the matter of Christ as the Spirit. It is helpful to include here some quotations from their writings. In his Commentary on the Holy Scriptures John Peter Lange makes this comment on 2 Corinthians 3:17:
“But the Lord,” to whom their heart thus turns, “is the Spirit.” Many artificial explanations had been given of this verse. Without noticing those attempts which have been in direct contradiction to the meaning of the words and the scope of the context, we find here such an identification of Christ and the Holy Spirit, that the Lord to whom the heart turns, is in no practical respect different from the Holy Spirit received in conversion. The fellowship of Christ into which it entered, when it turned to the Lord, was in truth the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Christ is virtually the Spirit, inasmuch as He communicates Himself in conversion, and at other times by means of the Spirit; the Holy Spirit is His spirit; the animating principle of the Lord’s indwelling and influence in the hearts of believers is this Holy Spirit...But such a virtual identification of Christ and the Spirit can have reference only to Christ in His state of exaltation (comp. 1 Cor. 15:45).
Augustus H. Strong has this to say in his Systematic Theology:
The Scripture representations of this intercommunion [among the Father, Son, and Spirit] prevent us from conceiving of the distinctions called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as involving separation between them. This intercommunion also explains the designation of Christ as “the Spirit,” and of the Spirit as “the Spirit of Christ,” as First Corinthians 15:45: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit,” Second Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit.”
In the same place Strong quotes another writer as saying,
“The personality of the Holy Trinity are not separable individuals. Each involves the others; the coming of each is the coming of the others. Thus the coming of the Spirit must have involved the coming of the Son.”
In his book entitled The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, Henry Barclay Swete says this:
The Spirit in its working was found to be in effect the equivalent of Jesus Christ...where the possession of the Spirit of Christ is clearly regarded as tantamount to an indwelling of Christ Himself...‘the Spirit of the Lord’ and ‘the Lord, the Spirit’ (i.e. Christ in the power of His glorified life) are viewed as being in practice the same. Men who lived within a short space of time after the Ministry, the Ascension, and the Pentecost realized that where the Spirit was Christ was, and what the Spirit wrought was wrought in fact by Christ. Even in the word spoken by His Spirit through the prophets they recognized the voice of Christ. Though the Spirit of Christ, through whom the glorified Lord comes to His Church and sees as with eyes of flame and works and speaks, is neither the human spirit of Christ, nor the pre-existent Logos who was made flesh, yet it is so absolutely one in will and thought with the Divine-Human Christ that Christ is still in the Spirit present and at work on earth, dwelling in men and revealing Himself to them after a manner more expedient for them than if He were still visibly in their midst. Whether this equivalence is due to the perfect interpenetration of the Lord’s glorified humanity by the Spirit, or to His oneness with the Spirit in the mystery of the Divine Life, neither St. John nor any of the New Testament writers has taught us; the question did not lie within their scope, and possibly does not lie within the grasp of the human mind. The Spirit alone searches the depths of God, and where the Spirit is silent as to their contents it is hazardous and indeed vain to speculate.
The central and crucial line in the Bible is that Christ is everything to us. The Lord Jesus today is the all-inclusive Spirit in our spirit. Our only need is to give ourselves to Him, to love Him, to live by Him, and to take Him as our life, our person, and our everything. We need to practice this. If you are a husband and are about to speak to your wife, you must be sure that in your speaking you take Christ as life. If not, you should not say anything to her, even if it is something good. The Bible says that we do not need anyone to teach us (1 John 2:27). We have Christ’s life with His nature in us as the regulating law, and we also have His person, the life-giving Spirit, indwelling us as the anointing. If we would forget religion and dead teachings and care for this all-inclusive Spirit, living by Him, taking Him as our life and person, and giving ourselves to Him for His dwelling, we would truly be one with Him.
However, because of religion, people have selected various points found in the Bible and have passed them on as doctrines in their books. I have read many books about overcoming sin, but in my experience none of the methods advocated in those books ever worked. Eventually, after more than fifty years of experience, I have concluded that nothing works except the all-inclusive Christ as the life-giving Spirit. As long as I live by Him and take Him as my life, my person, and my everything, I have no need to overcome sin. He is the way. I do not need to seek holiness. Holiness is mine because Christ is mine. If the married sisters try to submit to their husbands, it will never work. The only thing that works is Christ as the life-giving Spirit. There is no need to retreat into your private room and pray. No, as you are about to do anything, stop and examine whether you are taking Christ as your life, whether you are living by Christ at that very moment and are taking Him as your person. You should say, “Lord, be one with me. I take You, Lord, as my life, my person, and my everything.” If you practice this, there will be a great difference in your daily living. You will have victory, holiness, and life.
We in the Lord’s recovery today must experience Christ in such a living and practical way all the time. This should not be a doctrine. It is a shame to be in the Lord’s recovery and yet not live by Christ. If some in the recovery do not live by Christ, we must pray for them that they might be brought into the real, living, daily, and even momentary experience of taking Christ as their life and person. What a shame to simply have knowledge and doctrine and not to live by Christ! How wonderful and glorious it would be if we did not know so much, yet we all lived by Christ. Are you about to argue with the brothers? Stop and ask, “Lord, am I living by You and taking You as my person?”
There is only one place where we can experience Christ—in our spirit. The mind, the emotion, and the will do not avail in this matter; only the spirit avails. We must constantly turn to our spirit. Some may ask how we can know whether or not we have turned to our spirit. Although it is difficult to say what the spirit is, you do know quite well what your mind, emotion, and will are. As long as you are not in the mind, emotion, and will, then you must be in the spirit. If you are a married brother and are about to talk with your wife, examine whether or not you are in the mind, emotion, or will. If you are in none of these places, then you must be in your spirit, and you can freely converse with your wife. There are only four chambers of your being in which you can dwell: the chambers of the mind, emotion, will, and the inner chamber of the spirit. If you are in your spirit, then you may say to your wife, “Dear, I’m not in my mind, emotion, or will. Therefore, because I know that I’m in the spirit, I have the confidence to talk to you.” I am certain that you could never attend a movie in your spirit. Try to lose your temper in your spirit. I doubt if you can do it. Whenever we get into our spirit, all the bugs and pests are exterminated. The most effective pesticide is our spirit, the unique place to experience Christ.
Young people, you need to experience Christ and to practice living by Christ. If you do a work among other young people without living by Christ, it will be a shame. To talk to people without taking Christ as your life is a disgrace. We all must learn to live by Christ. I do not care whether or not you are able to preach the gospel. I only care for one thing—whether or not you are living by Christ. As long as you live by Christ, your preaching of Christ will be prevailing. But if you attempt to carry on a work without taking Christ as your life, as your person, and as your everything, it will be a shame to the Lord’s recovery.
Now we come to the second aspect of the Lord’s recovery today—the practice of the proper church life. The genuine experience of Christ always issues in and demands the church life. The more you experience Christ, the more something within requires that you live in the proper church life. Satan is subtle. Throughout the centuries he has concealed the real experience of Christ, making Christ altogether objective, an object of human belief and worship. But once we experience Christ in a genuine and living way, He will require us to get into the church life because the dispensation of Christ into us is for the producing of the church. God dispenses Himself into us as everything for the purpose of gaining His corporate expression, which is the church.
The experience of Christ is somewhat hidden and mysterious, but the practice of the church life is quite complicated. How confused is the situation today regarding the church. Look around you. Where is the church life? We can see the Catholic Church with all its idols, images, and pagan things. The so-called Catholic charismatic movement even tolerates the worship of Mary, exposing the impurity of that movement. Consider all the denominations. They only have division and confusion. Every denomination is a deviation from God’s center lane. Some denominations are larger and others are smaller, some are farther away and some are closer, but none of them is in the center lane. What about the free groups? They are too free. When the members of the body are so free, the body is dismembered and ceases to be a body. As we survey the situation of today’s Christians, we see that there is no real church life. Hence, there is a need of the recovery of the genuine church life.
In order to have the proper church life, we must have two main things: Christ, the life-giving Spirit, as the content, and the standing on the ground of oneness in localities. In Anaheim we are not standing on any doctrine; we are standing on the oneness of the Body. Wherever we are—in San Francisco, Cleveland, New York, or any other city—we must be one. If we stand for doctrines, we shall be divided immediately, for one will have his concept, another his opinion, and still another his view. But when we take Christ as our life, as our person, and as our everything, this Christ within us will require the proper church life. In fact, the Christ in us will become the church life. Christ both requires and becomes the church life.
Eighteen years ago, some young learners under my training in Taiwan were influenced by a certain ministry of spirituality. As a result, they began to declare that they had seen the vision concerning Christ and that they wanted nothing to do with the church, saying that they cared only for Christ. We had the full assurance that this was not something of the Lord, and after a period of time their number gradually decreased. If we do not experience Christ, we shall have nothing, and if we experience Christ but do not want to have the church life, we shall also become nothing. Having Christ without the church is like having the head without the body. If there is no body, then there is no head. We must have both. What would you do if there were no church life in the United States? If there were no church life, I would feel that it would be useless to go on living. I cannot live without the church life.
We have seen that in order to have the church life, we must have the real experience of Christ and the proper standing on the ground of oneness in localities. Because we have seen this vision, we do not have any divisions. God’s intention is to have a corporate expression. According to the book of Revelation, each of the local churches was in its own locality, and there was never more than one church in a locality. For example, the church in Ephesus was in Ephesus, and the church in Smyrna was in Smyrna. The church in Smyrna equaled the city of Smyrna. Revelation 1:11 makes this very clear.
In Revelation 19:7-9 we are told that the Lamb’s wife has made herself ready and that the marriage dinner of the Lamb has come. One day, the bride, the wife of the Lamb, will be ready. But if there were no church life on earth today, how could the bride be prepared? It would be impossible. Could the bride be prepared in the Catholic Church or in the denominations? No! Could she be prepared in the free groups or in the charismatic movement? Certainly not! I believe strongly, not because I am in it but because I have seen the vision, that the Lord intends to spread His recovery to build up the proper church life throughout the world so that His bride might be made ready.
The wife of the Lamb in chapter 19 of Revelation is smaller than the wife in chapter 21, for the wife in chapter 19 is the bride during the millennium, composed of only the overcoming believers, and the wife in chapter 21 will be the wife in the new heaven and the new earth after the millennium in eternity, consisting of all God’s redeemed. This means that at the end of this age, the church will be ready but not in a general way. Rather, a small number, the remnant, the overcomers, will be ready. It is a shame to be in the Lord’s recovery and yet not be an overcomer. Everyone in the Lord’s recovery must be an overcomer. To be an overcomer means to overcome degraded Christianity.
We must leave religion and get into the Lord’s recovery of the full experience of Christ and of the proper practice of the church life. If we do this, whenever we come together, we shall be the testimony of Jesus. This will be a shame to the enemy and a preparation for Christ’s coming back. I believe that the preparation of the bride for the Lord’s coming back is in the church life. This is why I have the complete confidence that nothing will be able to suppress the Lord’s recovery. The recovery is like a ball filled with heavenly pneuma: the more you hold it down, the higher it rises. I hope that you will bring these two items into your prayer, saying, “Lord, show us the consummate experience of Yourself and the real, practical church life. Lord, we shall live in this and die for it.” May we all see the vision that the Lord’s recovery today concerns the experience of Christ and the practical church life.
