THREE BASIC MATTERS
During these sixteen or so years I have been in the United States, I have sought to impress you with three basic matters. I long for them to be wrought into your being.
The Life-giving Spirit
Our God today is the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45 is an important verse in the Bible. Who is the last Adam? It is Christ, the very God who created all things; who became incarnate, confined in a carpenter’s home in Nazareth for thirty years and then ministering for three and a half years; who entered into death and then into resurrection. In resurrection this One became a life-giving Spirit.
Now our God is no more just God, Elohim. He is Father, Son, and Spirit. Not only so, but the Father, Son, and Spirit have become a life-giving Spirit. It is in this form that God reaches us. Colossians 1:27 speaks of “this mystery…which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” How could Christ be in us if God had not become a life-giving Spirit? If “Christ in you” is a fact, not just a motto, He must be the life-giving Spirit.
The life-giving Spirit is the reaching stage of the Triune God. As the Father He cannot reach us. Even as the Son He can only reach us outwardly. But as the Spirit He can enter into us. Most Christians have no understanding or appreciation of this. Even we in the recovery, who have heard so many messages on this very subject, have very little realization in our daily walk that our God today is a processed God. The processed God is now within us as the life-giving Spirit. This is not only a fact, but also a key factor in our Christian life.
A Regenerated Spirit
God created us with a spirit, but this spirit was deadened. Then God came in and regenerated it with His divine life. We are not animals without a spirit, nor are we only humans with a deadened spirit. We are those whose spirit has been regenerated with the element of the divine life. This is the second factor in our Christian life.
Your enlivened spirit is not merely a fact for you to believe. It may be a fact, for example, that you have a large bank account. But nonetheless you may be walking the streets as a beggar. When your bank account becomes a factor in your daily living, you will begin to write checks and draw upon the money you have. Is it only a fact to you that your God is a processed God and is now the life-giving Spirit in your spirit? Is it only a fact to you that your spirit is no longer deadened but rather regenerated with the divine life? These facts are hardly known among general Christians. But for you in the Lord’s recovery, who know the facts, they still affect you very little. Otherwise, you would be writing checks and enjoying your riches!
Walking according to Spirit
If you read through your Bible, going on from the Old Testament through to the end of the New Testament, you will see that the Lord’s ultimate charge to you is not that you follow laws or teachings, but that you walk according to spirit (Rom. 8:4). The word translated spirit in Romans 8:4, and in several other verses in Romans 8, presents a problem to translators. It is hard to decide whether to regard spirit as referring to the Holy Spirit and capitalize it, or to consider that it is the human spirit and not capitalize it. The spirit here refers to the mingled spirit, our spirit mingled with the Holy Spirit. We need another size letter to denote this, neither a capital letter nor a small one! These two spirits, the divine and the human, have become one (1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:22; 2 Cor. 3:17).
Walking according to this mingled spirit is the third factor in our Christian life. To walk means to live, to act, or to have one’s being. We must live and act and have our being, not according to the Ten Commandments, or the so-called Sermon on the Mount, or some doctrines, but according to the mingled spirit.
Practice walking this way. Every day, from morning till evening, cease from your doing and seek to constantly remain in this mingled spirit.
(Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 9, by Witness Lee)
