THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND US BEING A MATTER OF TWO SPIRITS BECOMING ONE SPIRIT
When we put together these verses in the six chapters of Ephesians, we can see a clear picture. Chapter one speaks of our receiving revelation in spirit; chapter two, of our being God’s dwelling place in spirit; chapter three, of our being strengthened into our spirit that Christ may make His home in our hearts; chapter four, of our mind being renewed in spirit that we may be transformed; chapter five, of our being filled with God in spirit; and chapter six, of our praying in spirit. These are altogether a matter of the spirit, a matter of enjoying the Triune God. Therefore, to experience the Triune God and enjoy the fullness of God, we must be in spirit.
Today, not only are the doctrines in Christianity too objective, not being able to touch people’s spirit, but even among us much of our speaking is objective doctrine that cannot touch people’s spirit. Any doctrine that does not touch our spirit is comparable to the theories of the moralists and philosophers. The teachings of the philosophers, moralists, and religionists have no spirit, nor do they speak concerning the spirit and thus cannot touch people deep within. Therefore, there is no need for people to pray after hearing and seeing something from them. However, in the Lord’s recovery, what we release and speak must touch people’s spirit. Therefore, after seeing and hearing something, you need to pray with your spirit. If you do not pray and digest with your spirit, what you have seen or heard is merely an objective doctrine or theory. Once you pray with your spirit, the objective doctrine is turned into a subjective supply. Likewise, when you read the Word, you need to do so with prayer. Pray-read the Word instead of merely reading it. In reading, you use your eyes to see and your mind to understand. However, in prayer, you use your spirit to take in and digest what you have understood, making it your subjective supply in spirit. In this way the Word of God becomes the bread of life supplying us in our spirit.
I hope that we can clearly see the matter of the two spirits becoming one spirit. The Triune God has been consummated as the Spirit, and we have a God-created human spirit within us. Today this spirit is the regenerated spirit indwelt by God’s spirit. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” This indicates that through our believing into the Lord and having an organic union with Him, He has entered into us to become our life. However, this may still be an objective teaching; in experience, our union with the Lord in resurrection can only be in our spirit. Through resurrection the Lord has become the life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), and He is with our spirit now (2 Tim. 4:22). Therefore, to have the experience of being united with the Lord, we must experience being one spirit with the Lord.
PRACTICING TO BE ONE SPIRIT WITH THE LORD THAT WE MAY BE BUILT UP TOGETHER AS THE REALITY OF THE CHURCH
How do we know that we are one spirit with the Lord? This is not difficult. Perhaps we do not know if we are one spirit with the Lord, but we know when we are not one spirit with the Lord. It is an amazing thing that when we are one spirit with the Lord, we may not have any feeling, but when we are not one spirit with the Lord, we are quite clear within. When a member of our body is functioning normally, we do not have much consciousness of it, but when it has problems, we immediately have a definite feeling about it. Therefore, to experience being one spirit with the Lord, we need only to practice to avoid not being one spirit with Him. This is sufficient.
To be one spirit with the Lord is the greatest salvation and the highest experience for a Christian. Only by being one spirit with the Lord can we enjoy God, experience the Lord, and be sanctified, spiritual, and overcoming. Only in this kind of experience can we have the growth and maturity in life and be transformed and built up together. Eventually, the issue of this kind of experience is the church.
(Four Crucial Elements of the Bible, The—Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee)
