Scripture Reading: Phil. 1:19-21a; Phil. 2:12-13a, Phil. 2:16a; John 1:1; 6:63; Eph. 6:17-18a; Eph. 5:18-20; Heb. 4:12; Col. 3:16-17; 2 Tim. 3:16a
In 1:19-21a we have salvation, the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the magnifying of Christ, and the living of Christ. In 2:12, 13a, and 16a we have the matters of working out our own salvation, of God operating in us, and of holding forth the word of life. In these two portions of Philippians we have two lines: the first line is salvation, the Spirit, and Christ; the second line is salvation, God, and the word. This comparison is quite revealing.
In 1:19 Paul says that his situation, environment, and surroundings will turn out to him for salvation. But in 2:12 he charges us to work out our own salvation. According to Paul’s word in 1:19, the difficult situations we face can turn out to our salvation. Whether or not our circumstances turn out for us to salvation depends on whether or not we enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. If we do not enjoy this bountiful supply, our circumstances will turn out to be for shame. Every situation we face will turn out either for salvation or shame. Suppose, for example, a brother’s wife gives him a difficult time. For the brother this situation can be either a salvation or a shame. It all depends on whether or not he enjoys the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. If he enjoys the supply of the Spirit, he will experience an instant salvation, and Christ will be magnified in him. If he does not enjoy the supply, but becomes angry with his wife, he will be put to shame. I repeat, if the brother’s situation with his wife turns out to be for his salvation, Christ will be magnified. In a very real sense, the salvation in 1:19 is Christ magnified.
In 2:12 Paul again speaks of salvation. This time, however, he does not speak of his salvation, but charges the saints to work out their own salvation. Concerning himself, Paul says that his circumstances will turn out for salvation. But concerning the saints, he tells them that they must work out their own salvation.
For the problems we face day by day, especially in our family life and in the church life, we need God’s salvation. We need different kinds of salvation for different kinds of problems. A brother needs one kind of salvation in his dealings with all the different saints. But he needs another kind of salvation in his relationship with his wife. According to God’s ordination, it is not good for a man to be alone. Every brother should have a wife. However, in married life problems are unavoidable. For all these problems we need God’s salvation. God ordained marriage so that we might have the opportunity to enjoy Him. If we enjoy the Lord, we shall experience His salvation in our married life.
God’s salvation as revealed in the Bible is of many categories. Day by day and even moment by moment we may experience different aspects of God’s salvation. Yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, and even moment by moment we need to experience salvation. I simply cannot live without God’s salvation.
When Paul tells us to work out our own salvation, he is not speaking of salvation from hell nor salvation from God’s condemnation. We are not able to work out that kind of salvation. Notice that Paul tells the saints to “work out your own salvation.” A husband should not pay attention to the salvation needed by his wife. Instead, he should concentrate on working out his salvation.
Paul’s word about working out our own salvation should be considered in relation to his charge concerning murmurings and reasonings in verse 14. In this verse he says, “Do all things without murmurings and reasonings.” As we have pointed out previously, murmurings are related to the emotions, and reasonings, to the mind. Furthermore, sisters in particular have a problem with murmurings, whereas brothers are troubled by reasonings. I have never heard of a wife who did not murmur. A sister needs to work out her own salvation with respect to her murmurings. She needs salvation from murmuring. Likewise, the brothers need to work out their own salvation with respect to reasonings. If our married life and church life are filled with murmurings and reasonings, this is proof that we are lacking God’s salvation. Our family life and our church life should be full of salvation and without any murmurings and reasonings. How marvelous it would be if in the church in our locality there were no murmurings or reasonings, but an abundance of salvation!
On the one hand, we work out our own salvation; on the other hand, God operates in us. In verse 13 Paul exclaims, “For it is God who operates in you.” God operates in us, and we cooperate with Him. This means that we work out our salvation according to God’s operation. At the very time a sister is murmuring or a brother is reasoning, God operates to enable them to work out their salvation from murmurings and reasonings. When we turn to the Lord and say, “O Lord Jesus, I love You,” we are saved from murmurings and reasonings.
The Greek word rendered “operates” can also be translated “energizes.” God is energizing us from within. Because it is not easy for us to experience God’s salvation in many situations, He energizes us. For example, a brother may be very strong in his reasonings. If this brother is to work out his own salvation from reasonings, he needs God to energize him.
In creating the heavens and the earth God simply had to speak. But to rescue us from murmurings and reasonings, it is necessary for Him to energize us. This indicates that it is more difficult for Him to save us from murmurings and reasonings than it was for Him to create the earth. When God wanted to create something, He simply spoke, and that thing came into being. However, if He tells us not to murmur or reason, we may not pay attention. Thus, there is a wrestling inwardly between us and God. Have you not wrestled with God many times? This wrestling is a proof that it is difficult for God to rescue us. In order to rescue us without damaging us, He energizes within us. The Christian life is a wrestling life, a life of wrestling with the God who operates in us.
The very God who operates in us is the supplying Spirit. Again and again we have pointed out that in 1:19 Paul says that his circumstances will turn out to his salvation through the bountiful supply of the Spirit. If God does not operate in us, it will not be possible for us to experience the supply from the Spirit. God operates in us in order to bring to us the bountiful supply of the Spirit. This is not mere doctrine; it is a fact of spiritual experience.
Through the bountiful supply of the Spirit, Christ is magnified in us. What Paul speaks of in 1:20 is the magnification of Christ, but in 2:16 he speaks of holding forth the word of life. Holding forth the word of life is equal to magnifying Christ. Christ Himself is the word of life. We hold forth the word of life, and this word is Christ.
I am very fond of these two portions of Philippians. On the one hand, we see from chapter one that it is possible for our environment to turn out to our salvation. On the other hand, we see from chapter two that we need to work out our salvation by cooperating with God’s energizing. However, according to our fallen disposition, our tendency is to go contrary to God’s desire. We need God to operate in us. Then if we cooperate with Him, we shall work out our instant salvation and hold forth the word of life.
We need to be impressed with the fact that the Spirit in 1:19 equals God in 2:13, and that Christ in 1:20 and 21 equals the word of life in 2:16. Actually, the Spirit, God, Christ, and the word of life are one.
We have seen that in order to magnify Christ and to live Christ, we need the bountiful supply of the Spirit. Now we must go on to see that this bountiful supply is stored in the Word. According to the Bible, the Spirit and the Word are one. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus says, “The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” This indicates that the Word is the Spirit. Ephesians 6:17-18 indicates that the Spirit is the Word. Second Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is God-breathed. Every word of the Bible is the breath of God. We have pointed out that this breath is the pneuma, the Spirit. Thus, because both the Word and the Spirit are the breath of God, they are truly one. The Spirit is the breath of God, and the Word also is God’s breath. Furthermore, God’s breath is His pneuma, the Spirit. On the one hand, the Word of God is the Spirit; on the other hand, the Spirit of God is the Word.
From our experience we know that we can contact the Spirit and experience the moving of the Spirit within us by saying, “O Lord Jesus, I love You.” This inner moving of the Spirit often issues in a word from the Lord. For example, suppose a brother is unhappy with his wife. But he turns to the Lord and says, “Lord Jesus, I love You,” and the Spirit moves within him. Then this moving of the Spirit becomes a word to him: “Do not think of your wife in that way.” First the brother contacts the Spirit; then the Spirit becomes the word uttered within him. Furthermore, this word becomes a light shining from within the brother, causing him to hold forth the word of life.
At other times in our experience we first receive the Word, and then the Word becomes the Spirit moving within us. Whether we first experience the Spirit and then the Word, or first the Word and then the Spirit, the Spirit and the Word are one.
The New Testament assures us that the Word and the Spirit are one. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word.” But in John 20:22, the Lord Jesus breathed upon the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” At the beginning of the Gospel of John, Christ is the Word, but at the end of this Gospel, He breathes out the Spirit. In 6:63 He says that the Word is the Spirit. Through the Word and the Spirit God reaches us.
If God were not the Word and the Spirit, He could not reach us. The Spirit is God reaching us. Whenever we touch the Lord or the Lord touches us, we experience a divine reaching. God reaches us as the Spirit. However, according to the concept of some Christians, the Spirit is simply a means used by God to reach us. No, the Spirit is God Himself reaching us. We may use the flow of electricity as an illustration. God is like the electricity, and the Spirit is like the electric current. Surely it is wrong to say that electric current is different from electricity itself. When electricity flows, it becomes the current. Hence, the current of electricity is electricity itself in motion. When the current reaches us, it is still electricity, not something apart from electricity. However, some Christians insist that when the Spirit comes to us, God the Father is left on the throne in heaven. No, when the Spirit reaches us, that is God Himself reaching us.
The Spirit is mysterious, abstract, and difficult to understand. But along with the Spirit, we have the Word. Once again using electricity as an example, we may speak of the antenna and the ground wire. The Spirit can be compared to the antenna, and the Word, to the ground wire. By the antenna and the ground wire we experience the transmission of electricity. If we have the Spirit without the Word or the Word without the Spirit, we shall not be able to receive the divine transmission. Both the Spirit and the Word, both the antenna and the ground wire, are necessary.
Among Christians today, Fundamentalists represent one extreme and Pentecostalists another. The Fundamentalists care for the Word, but often neglect the Spirit. This is one extreme. On the other hand, many Pentecostalists care for the Spirit, but neglect the Word. This is another extreme. We should not be at either extreme, but should be balanced, caring both for the Spirit and the Word. Within, we have the Spirit, and in our hands we have the Word, the Bible.
In Ephesians 6:17 and 18 Paul tells us to receive the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition. Here Paul covers the aspects both of the Word and of the Spirit. Furthermore, he tells us to receive the Word of God by means of all prayer, praying at every time in spirit. We may receive the Word of God by means of all kinds of prayer: audible prayer and silent prayer, long prayer and short prayer, quick prayer and slow prayer, private prayer and public prayer.
To take the Word of God by means of prayer is to pray-read the Word. Whenever we come to the Word of God, we should not merely exercise our eyes to read or our mind to understand, but also exercise our spirit. I can testify from experience that if we touch the Bible without prayer, using only our eyes and our mind, the Bible will be dead letters to us. Our reading of the Bible should be mingled with prayer. This is pray-reading. For example, in pray-reading Genesis 1:1, we may say, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, amen. Thank You, Lord, in the beginning. Oh, God was there in the beginning. Thank You, Lord, that You are the beginning, the origin.” When we pray-read the Word in such a way, the Word becomes to us the living breath of God, the Spirit. As a result, we are watered, nourished, refreshed, and enlightened. Far from being a book of dead letters, the Bible becomes in our experience the nourishing Spirit.
In Ephesians 6:17 and 18 Paul definitely charges us to receive the Word of God by means of prayer. Some who oppose the practice of pray-reading insist that these verses cannot be applied this way. However, according to the Greek text, we must say that we should receive the Word of God either by means of prayer or through prayer. Here Paul tells us to receive the Word of God and also gives us the way to receive it — by means of prayer. Therefore, we cannot deny that in the Bible there is such a thing as pray-reading the Word.
We need to read the Word and receive it by prayer. Throughout the centuries many saints have practiced this in principle. Some have said that we need to pray when we read the Bible. Others have pointed out that we should read the Bible prayerfully. To read the Bible prayerfully is to pray-read the Word. Many of the Lord’s people have practiced pray-reading without knowing this term. Spontaneously in coming to the Word they have prayed with the Word and over the Word. I believe that before you heard of pray-reading, you may have pray-read John 3:16. You may have read the words, “God so loved the world,” and then prayed, “O God, thank You for loving the world. Father, I thank You that You loved me. You even loved me to such an extent that You gave Your Son for me.” This is pray-reading.
When we pray-read the Word, we exercise our spirit. As saved and regenerated ones, we have the Spirit of God in our spirit. Thus, when we exercise our spirit in pray-reading the Word, we apply the Word to us and mingle the Word and the Spirit. Immediately, we receive the bountiful supply of the Spirit.
The Bible reveals that Christ is God and also the embodiment of God. One day, Christ became a man. During His years on earth, He lived the highest human life. Through His crucifixion and resurrection, His humanity was uplifted and brought into divinity. After living a marvelous and perfect life on earth, the Lord Jesus went to the cross and died there for our sins, accomplishing a full, complete, and perfect redemption. On the third day, He was resurrected. In His ascension He was glorified, crowned, and enthroned; He received the headship, the lordship, and the kingship. In addition to these crucial matters, the Bible also reveals that Christ in His resurrection became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Now this life-giving Spirit indwells our regenerated spirit.
The life-giving Spirit contains Christ’s divinity, His uplifted resurrected humanity, His perfect human living which was the expression of God, the effectiveness of His all-inclusive death for the accomplishment of redemption, the power of His resurrection which imparts into us the divine life and nature and Christ’s uplifted human nature, and His ascension with His headship, lordship, and kingship. All these are elements of the compound Spirit. However, if we did not have the Bible, we would not know about these things. We would not know what ingredients are contained in this all-inclusive dose. Oh, what marvelous riches constitute the bountiful supply of the Spirit! We may apply the riches in the bountiful supply to all our circumstances.
Praise the Lord that we have the Spirit and the Word! As we have pointed out repeatedly, the Spirit and the Word are one. The Word is the prescription, and the Spirit is the application. Through reading the Word we know what we are receiving in the bountiful supply of the Spirit. Through the Word we realize that we receive Christ’s divinity, humanity, human living, all-inclusive death, resurrection, and ascension. Furthermore, we understand that we are one with Christ in His headship, lordship, and kingship. All these elements are included in the compound Spirit. All are aspects of the bountiful supply of the Spirit. Hallelujah, we may now live Christ by receiving the Word through the Spirit!
