THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT
Today we have two great gifts, God’s written Word and God Himself as the life-giving, indwelling Spirit. In our hands, we have the written Word; in our spirit, we have the Spirit (Rom. 8:16; John 4:24; 1 Cor. 6:17). In order to worship and serve God, we need to know what God wants us to do. In order to know this, we need the Word and the Spirit. In the Word, that is, in the Scriptures, the God-ordained principles are unveiled for us to keep. Because we have the Spirit, the instant leading is always with us, coming to us at any time in our spirit. To know the God-ordained principles in the Scriptures requires skill. Without the skill, we may read the Scriptures but understand them only according to our opinion. This is why there is the need of training. It is the same with the instant leading of the Spirit. With the Spirit everything is organic and living, yet there is still the need of training to learn to know the Spirit’s instant leading.
To have the God-ordained principles in the written Word alone is inadequate. All the God-ordained principles in the written Word must become an instant, organic leading to us. In our practice of being revived every morning, we first take the written Word, in which are the God-ordained principles. But these God-ordained principles must become an instant, organic leading to us. This is the reason that the Lord has given us the Bible and the Spirit. The Spirit comes to make every ordained principle organic to us.
AN EXAMPLE OF A GOD-ORDAINED PRINCIPLE BECOMING AN INSTANT LEADING
IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
Isaiah 6 gives an example of a God-ordained principle becoming an instant leading. In verse 1, Isaiah received the vision of Christ sitting on the throne, and in verse 3, the seraphim called to one another saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Jehovah of hosts; / The whole earth is filled with His glory." This praise of the seraphim reminded Isaiah that the Triune God desires His people to be holy. Many times in the Old Testament, the Lord says that His people should be holy as He is holy (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7). This is an ordained principle. God’s people must be holy.
In the first five chapters of the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah prophesied a great deal about Israel’s degradation, showing how God’s elect had become altogether unholy. As Isaiah prophesied, he may have felt that he was better than the children of Israel, but in chapter six, the Lord came in to give Isaiah a vision. Isaiah surely knew that God’s people must be holy, but this vision reminded him of that God- ordained principle. At this time the vision he received was not just a written principle; it became an instant, organic leading of the living Lord. Actually, this leading was a person. Isaiah saw a person—Christ in His holiness. Upon seeing this vision, Isaiah also saw himself. In verse 5, Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am finished! / For I am a man of unclean lips, / And in the midst of a people of unclean lips I dwell." The God-ordained principle of holiness had become an instant leading to Isaiah. Merely to have the written Bible with all the ordained principles is inadequate. All of the ordained principles in the Bible should become an instant leading to us organically.
(Messages to the Trainees in Fall 1990, Chapter 20, by Witness Lee)
