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Scripture Reading: Gal. 4:29; 3:2, 5, 14; John 3:6b; John 7:39; 14:17; 20:22; 6:63; Rom. 8:15b; Eph. 6:17-18; 1 Thes. 5:17-19; 1 Cor. 6:17; Matt. 10:19-20
The most crucial and mysterious matter revealed in the Bible is that God’s ultimate intention is to work Himself into His chosen people. God’s desire to work Himself into our being is the focal point of the divine revelation in the Scriptures. Because this matter is so mysterious, it is hidden in the Scriptures, although it is not altogether hidden. On the one hand, it is indeed a mystery; on the other hand, it is a mystery that has been revealed in the Bible.
Throughout the centuries, Christians have not seen this matter clearly. Most readers of the Bible have paid their attention to many things other than this crucial and mysterious point in the divine revelation. We admit that it is not easy to see this crucial point in the Bible. Just as a person’s physical life is mysterious and hidden within him, so it is with the matter of God’s intention to work Himself into His chosen people. It is hidden in the Word. Life is the most vital element in a person’s being. But who can analyze it or adequately explain it? With the Bible, as with a human being, there are many things that are outward and easily identified. But there is also a hidden element, which we may call the life factor in the Scriptures. We may say that this life factor is Christ or the Spirit. However, the life factor in the Bible is actually God’s intention to work Himself into us. This is the kernel of the Bible.
Many theologians and Bible teachers have not seen the kernel of the Bible. In their writings they speak of many other things, but they do not mention this basic life factor. They have not pointed out definitely and particularly that according to the divine revelation in the Bible, God’s intention is to work Himself into us. This is the reason that in the Lord’s recovery we have given message after message on this point. Even after hundreds of messages have been given on the subject of God’s intention, I still do not have the confidence that all the saints have an adequate understanding of it or that they have all truly seen it. I can testify that the vision of God’s eternal intention has never been more clear to me than it is now. Throughout the years, this vision has become crystal clear. God’s intention truly is to work Himself into us.
God has given us two great gifts by which He works Himself into us — the Spirit and the Word. These gifts are actually God Himself. God is the Spirit, and God is also the Word. The Gospel of John is a book which clearly reveals God, the Spirit, and the Word. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” According to John 1:14, the Word, God Himself, became flesh. Eventually, this incarnate Word was crucified, and after His resurrection He, the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). The Gospel of John also links the Word to the Spirit. “It is the Spirit Who gives life,” the Lord Jesus said in John 6:63, and, “the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” God is life, the Spirit is life, and the Word is life. According to the Gospel of John, these three are one. God is the Word, the Word is the Spirit, and the Spirit is God.
If you consider church history, you will see that throughout the centuries two great tragedies have taken place, one related to the Word and the other related to the Spirit. God’s intention is that the Bible be used to impart Himself as life into His chosen people. But many Christian teachers have neglected this proper use of the Bible and have taken the Bible only as a book of knowledge, not as a book of life for the divine impartation. Different opinions and interpretations of the Bible have led to controversy and debate. Many of these debates have been centered on Christology, the theological study of Christ’s Person. In their argument about the Person of Christ, some of the great teachers, including certain church fathers, neglected the living Person of Christ. They paid more attention to Christology than to Christ Himself. God’s intention is that the Bible should be the tree of life, but in their use of the Bible, certain teachers turned it into the tree of knowledge. First they brought themselves into death, and then they spread death in the church.
Today there is still controversy among Christians about many matters in the Bible. Take baptism as an example. Who can count how many divisions have been caused by differing opinions about baptism? There has been argument about the kind of water used, about the way people are put into the water, and about the name in which people are baptized. What a tragedy that the Word has been used in such a way as to become a factor of division! It has been used to divide Christians into thousands of groups. However, the Bible itself is not to blame for this. The blame rests with those who pay attention to knowledge, but neglect the living Person.
The second tragedy to occur in the history of the church concerns the Spirit. Concerning the Bible and its interpretation, there has been division, whereas concerning the Spirit there has been confusion. Because of this confusion, many fundamental Christians do not even want to hear about the Spirit. Some are actually frightened by any mention of the Spirit, regarding the Spirit as something too mysterious to talk about. What a tragedy is this neglect of the Spirit!
If we do not take the Word and receive the Spirit, what way is there for God to be wrought into us? If to us God is only on the throne in heaven as the object of our worship, how can He be our life and how can He be wrought into our being? It would not even be possible for us to be born of Him if He were only in heaven.
John 1:12 and 13 indicate that those who receive the Lord Jesus are born of God. Birth involves an intimate, organic relationship. Because we are born of our parents, we have an intimate, organic relationship with them. Because we have been born of God, God in a very real sense has been born into us. This is what makes us sons of God. If we were not born of God, how could we be sons of God? According to the Bible, we are not God’s sons-in-law nor merely His adopted sons. As those born of God, we are sons of God in life. In John 3:6 the Lord Jesus declared, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Once again we say, we have been born of the Spirit to receive the Spirit.
In the foregoing message, the matter of being born of the Spirit was made clear. But I do not have the assurance that we are clear about how to receive the Spirit. The word receive is used in many places in the New Testament (John 7:39; 20:22; Rom. 8:15; Eph. 6:17). In Galatians Paul speaks definitely about receiving the Spirit (3:2, 14). The Spirit we have received and whom we continue to receive is the processed Triune God. Some may object to this statement and may claim that the Spirit refers only to the Holy Spirit, the third of the Godhead, not to the Triune God. But according to the New Testament, especially Paul’s Epistles, the Spirit we are receiving is the processed Triune God.
Some find fault with the word “processed” and argue that it is impossible for God to be processed because He is eternal and unchanging. Although God is eternal and unchanging, He has nevertheless passed through a process. Was not incarnation a process? From eternity past until the incarnation of Christ, God did not have a body of flesh. But when He was born in a manger, He was the mighty God incarnated as a baby. According to Isaiah 9:6, the child born to us is called the mighty God. As we pointed out in the foregoing message, this child, God incarnate, lived in a carpenter’s home for years. Imagine that the Creator of the universe lived in the home of a carpenter in Nazareth! Was that not a process? Likewise, were not the crucifixion and resurrection a process? God certainly was processed through Christ’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. Our God today is not a “raw” God, but a processed God. Today He is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
Those who care only to debate about doctrinal concepts neglect the living Person of the Triune God. How sad! The Spirit we have received and are still receiving is the very Triune God who has been processed for us. The Spirit is the all-inclusive, compound Spirit. When we receive this Spirit, we receive the Triune God: the Father, the Son, and Spirit. The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit. We should not hold the concept that when we receive the Spirit, we receive only the Holy Spirit and not the Father and the Son, who supposedly remain far away in heaven. No, when we receive the Spirit, we receive the Triune God.
A certain preposition used in the Gospel of John indicates that the Son comes not only from the Father, but from with the Father (6:46; 7:29; 16:27). When the Son came, He did not leave the Father. On the contrary, He came with the Father. This was the reason the Lord Jesus said that He was not alone, for the Father was with Him (John 16:32). Just as the Father came with the Son when the Son came from with the Father, so the Spirit comes with the Father and the Son. It is not possible to separate the Father, the Son, and Spirit, for They are one. The Spirit is the realization of the Son, and the Son is the embodiment of the Father. To have any one of the Triune God is to have all three. They are inseparable. Praise the Lord that when we receive the Spirit, we receive the Father and the Son also!
Now we come to the crucial matter of how to receive the Spirit. According to your experience, how do you receive the Spirit? The proper Christian life is the life of receiving the Spirit continually. Our physical life is an illustration of this. Physical life depends on breathing. Our life is a breathing life. As soon as a person stops breathing, he dies. Many Christians today have stopped their spiritual breathing; therefore, their spiritual life has come to a standstill. To breathe spiritually is to receive the Spirit continually.
The way to receive the Spirit without ceasing is mainly to pray. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Paul charges us to pray without ceasing. This does not mean, however, that we should exercise our mind to pray about material needs. Instead, we should exercise our spirit to call on the Lord. Our greatest need is the Triune God Himself. Moment by moment, we need the Spirit. Therefore, continually we need to exercise our spirit to call on the Lord. Many of us can testify that when we call on the Lord from the depths of our being, telling Him that we love Him, we breathe in fresh spiritual air. We breathe in the pneuma, the Spirit. As Christians we need to be pneumatic, full of pneuma, full of the Spirit. The Spirit is the heavenly air for us to breathe. By exercising our spirit to call on the Lord, we breathe in the Spirit and thereby receive the Spirit.
For years I was troubled by Paul’s word in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 about praying without ceasing. I simply did not know how I could pray unceasingly. Eventually I came to realize that to pray is simply to breathe. Just as our physical breathing does not cease, neither should our spiritual breathing cease. This means that we must build up the habit of exercising our spirit to pray continually. The basic element in receiving the Spirit moment by moment is that we use our spirit to call on the Lord.
As we have already indicated, we may receive the Spirit by using the Bible in a proper way. However, when most Christians come to the Bible, they exercise their mind much more than their spirit. This is a serious mistake. To read the Bible without praying is to make the Bible merely a book of knowledge in dead letters. Whenever we read the Scriptures, we need to pray. Ephesians 6:17 and 18 say, “And receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit.” These verses indicate that we should take the Word of God by means of prayer. Let us use the reading of John 1:1 as an example. We may be tempted to exercise our natural mind to ask doctrinal questions concerning this verse. We may wonder what the beginning is, and ask about the distinction, if any, between the Word and God. We may go on to ask how the Word can be with God and also be God. If we do nothing except raise questions about this verse, we shall not receive the Spirit. But if we pray with the words of John 1:1, we shall receive the Spirit, for in our experience the Word will become spirit.
I know of a recent situation where one brother suggested to another that he could overcome his feeling about being mistreated when he was an elder if he would recognize that this whole experience came to him according to the Lord’s sovereignty. Apparently this is good advice, a sound teaching according to Romans 8:28. There seems to be nothing wrong with advising a brother to overcome his feelings about being mistreated by recognizing that everything is according to God’s sovereignty. Such advice, however, may encourage others to be religious and may not help them in life. If the brother who has been mistreated takes this advice from one who seems so knowledgeable and who seems to know God’s sovereignty, he may become a religious hero instead of one who receives the Spirit. He may be able to boast that even though he had been mistreated, he recognized that this mistreatment came to him under the Lord’s sovereignty, and therefore he does not blame anyone. In such a case the brother is helped in a doctrinal way to become religious, but he is not helped to receive the Spirit. Actually, in applying the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in such a way, this brother practices asceticism. The proper way to help one who has been suffering from mistreatment is to encourage him to open to the Lord and contact Him. He should not pay attention to the mistreatment, but should concentrate on the Lord Himself. Not even the teaching about the sovereignty of God should distract him from the Lord. As he opens to the Lord and contacts Him, he will receive more of the Spirit. As a result, his problem concerning any past mistreatment will be solved. We do not need doctrine to build us up as religious heroes. We need the life-giving Spirit to flow into us to kill the negative things, the “germs,” and to supply us with life. Only the life-giving Spirit can kill the germs within us and make us healthy spiritually. Through the supply of the Spirit, our spiritual sicknesses are healed. Therefore, day by day we need to receive more of the Spirit.
Another illustration of the proper way to receive the Spirit is related to married life. During a wedding ceremony, it is common for a pastor, according to Ephesians 5, to charge the bride to submit to her husband, and the groom to love his wife. Although both the bride and the groom may promise the pastor that they will carry out his words, they will find that they are not able to do so. However hard they may try, the wife will not be able to submit, and the husband will not be able to love. This will always be the case when the teaching about submission of wives and love of husbands is isolated from the context of Ephesians 5, which speaks of being filled in spirit. Instead of trying to submit or to love, a husband and wife should simply contact the Lord directly, exercising their spirit to call on His name. If they do this, they will receive the Spirit, and the Spirit will become their supply. Then automatically the wife will submit to her husband, and the husband will love his wife. Instead of being sickened by religious teaching, they will be supplied with life by receiving the Spirit. This is another illustration of the fact that what we need is not doctrine to make us religious, but the receiving of the Spirit that we may have life.
We all need to read the Bible, but we should exercise our spirit as we read it. This means that when we read the Bible, we must pray. If we read the Scriptures without praying, we shall misuse them. To read the Word with prayer is to pray-read it. This practice was not invented by us. Throughout the centuries, many godly people have practiced praying with the words of the Bible. According to Ephesians 6:17 and 18, we must take the Word by means of prayer.
Furthermore, we should pray at every time in spirit. If we take the Word in this way, we shall receive the Spirit, because the Word is spirit. We should not take the Bible merely as a book of doctrine and teaching. Our urgent need today is not to receive more doctrine; it is to have more direct contact with the Triune God. Do not separate the Bible from the Spirit. In your experience these two should be one. If you consider the Word and the Spirit as one and take the Word by means of prayer through exercising your spirit, you will receive the supply of the Spirit.
I wish to emphasize the fact that when we pray, we must exercise our spirit. If we want to walk, we use our feet, and if we want to see, we exercise our eyes. In the same principle, if we wish to pray, we need to exercise our spirit. We should not pray simply according to our mind. If we pray by exercising our spirit as we read the Word, we shall receive the Spirit.
Before we were regenerated, our spirit was empty. But now that we have been born of the Spirit, we are able to receive the Spirit. God’s purpose in regenerating us is that our spirit may function to receive the Spirit continually. The proper Christian walk is not a walk according to doctrines we have learned. It is a walk according to the Spirit and by the bountiful supply of the Spirit (Phil. 1:19). Day by day and even moment by moment, we should be open to the Spirit and exercise our spirit by calling on the Lord to receive the Spirit. I assure you that if you turn from the mere learning of doctrine to the receiving of the Spirit, you will see a change in your daily life. Many negative things will be swallowed up, and you will be healed and transformed.
Those who have been in the Lord’s recovery for a number of years have learned the doctrines and teachings of the recovery. They have gained much knowledge. What is needed is not more doctrine or more knowledge, but more receiving of the Spirit.
We praise the Lord that He is real, living, near, and available. How subjective the Triune God is to us! As the life-giving Spirit, He dwells in our spirit. To receive the Spirit continually means to give Him the freedom to spread within us. As we exercise our spirit to pray, calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading the Word, we shall breathe spiritually and receive the Spirit. Then the essence, the heavenly element and divine substance, of the Triune God will be added into our being. As this element spreads within us, we shall grow and be transformed, and the negative things in us will be eliminated. The more we grow by having the element of the Triune God added to us, the more we shall function in the church and be built up with others in our locality as the expression of the Body of Christ. May all the saints in the Lord’s recovery turn from receiving mere doctrine and knowledge to receiving the Spirit.
