Message One—The Relationship Between God and Man Being Subjective
Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
Eph. 3:16-17a That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.
Man’s Relationship with God Being a Subjective One
The main revelation of the Bible is the relationship between God and man. What this relationship should be also occupies very much of human thought. When man thinks of God, he thinks in terms of worshipping, fearing, and perhaps loving Him. God, in man’s concept, is far off in the heavens, dwelling in unapproachable majesty; the best mere man can do is to offer Him worship and try to please Him.
This natural concept is that man’s relationship with God is objective. Religion also promotes such a concept, whether that religion is Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Verses from the Bible can be used to support this idea of a God to be worshipped and revered from afar.
If we penetrate the heart of the Bible, however, we will see that man’s relationship with God is to be a subjective one. God wants to come into us and become our life and nature. Then He wants us to become His living. Colossians 3:4 says, “Christ our life.” Galatians 2:20 says, “It is Christ who lives in me.” Philippians 1:21 says, “To me, to live is Christ.” Since Christ is God, Paul was saying that for him, to live was God.
God is our life. We are the living of God. God lives within us. To us to live is God. These four sentences are the center of the New Testament. If they are not our daily experience, we are not up to the standard. (CWWL, 1978, vol. 1, “Life Messages, vol. 2,” ch. 69)
The Revelation of the Bible Being Not for Doctrine but for Experience
Concerning the person of Christ, who is a mystery, we must not merely have objective knowledge in doctrine. Rather, we must have the subjective experience in life. In Christianity there is the bad habit, the bad influence, of considering everything in the Bible to be merely a doctrine. When preaching God, many merely preach a doctrine, and when preaching Christ, many also merely preach a doctrine. In today’s Christianity nearly all the truths concerning God and Christ have become theology and are presented altogether in the way of doctrine and theory, and very few people stress experience. However, the purpose of the biblical revelation is not to give us doctrines. The ultimate purpose of the Bible in speaking about God and Christ is for our experience. We may speak about God thoroughly and speak about Christ fully, but if we do not have the experience, both God and Christ have nothing to do with us.
Both in the Far East and in the West, there are some, including even former “co-workers” among us, who say that we teach heresy. What is the point of their deviation? It is in their paying attention only to doctrines. They say that in our teachings we neglect doctrines and care only for experiences, which are entirely dependent upon and according to feelings. Therefore, some have even published books to slander us, saying that our teachings are “sensuous” and are altogether not according to proper doctrines. What we stress, however, is that doctrines are for our experience. Some have argued, saying, “It is not logical for you to say that Christ lives in you. Consider how big Christ is and how small man is. How can Christ abide in man, who is so small? Furthermore, Christ is the great sovereign Master sitting on the throne in heaven. How can man, who is so small, let Him come into him to abide in him? This is impossible.” In their consideration Christ, who is sitting high above in the heavens, has only a representative on earth, who is the Holy Spirit.
In Ephesians 3 Paul prayed that the Father would grant us to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith (vv. 16-17a). Christ’s making His home in our hearts means that He settles down deeply in our hearts and will never leave. During conferences people come from different places and stay with us only for a while without making their home here. I have been in the Lord’s ministry for fifty years and have always been traveling. During all this time I do not know how many people’s homes I have stayed in, yet I never made my home in any of their homes. It is only when I come back to my own dwelling place that I can make my home there. The Lord Jesus not only dwells in us but also makes His home in our hearts—in our mind, emotion, and will. From this we can see where the mistake of today’s Christianity is. They preach God only as an objective God; they do not preach Him as the subjective God who dwells in us.
The Secret of Experiencing Christ—Exercising Our Spirit
For us to experience Christ we need to see that Christ has become the life-giving Spirit in His resurrection. First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” Here became indicates a process with many things involved. If we link this verse with John 14:26 and 15:26, we can see that the life-giving Spirit is the Spirit who is sent by the Father in the Son and who is also sent by the Son from the Father and with the Father. Furthermore, the Son and the Father come with the Spirit. Therefore, became refers not only to the Son’s becoming the Spirit through His death and resurrection but also to the Father’s sending the Spirit in the Son and the Son’s sending the Spirit from the Father and with the Father.
Because Christ is the life-giving Spirit, He can enter into us. But which part of our being does He enter? To be sure, it is not our mind. The most our mind can do is help us to apprehend Christ, but it cannot contain Christ. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” The Lord is the life-giving Spirit, and we have a regenerated spirit within us. Today the Lord as the life-giving Spirit enters into our regenerated spirit to be one with us. Hence, in order to experience Christ we need to exercise our spirit. There may be a table spread with an abundance of food and drink, but unless we eat and drink, all the abundance has nothing to do with us. If we want to enjoy the rich food on the table, we need to open our mouth to eat and drink. Likewise, Christ our Lord is the One who is God over all, blessed forever. He is God who became flesh to be our Redeemer, and He is the all-inclusive One. However, if He were only on the throne, He would have nothing to do with us. Thank the Lord, today He is the life-giving Spirit, and we also have a spirit within that can contact and receive Him. Hence, by exercising our spirit we can obtain Him, receive Him, and enjoy Him. When we experience Him, at the same time we also experience the Father and the Spirit who are in Him. Hence, we experience the Triune God.
In John 20:22 the Lord appeared to His disciples on the evening of the day of His resurrection, and He breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This was the Spirit as the Comforter whom the Lord had promised in chapters 14 and 15. After the Lord promised His disciples in those two chapters, He indicated that He would go to die, be buried, and come back in resurrection. Through His death and resurrection the Lord became the life-giving Spirit, and on the evening of the day of His resurrection He came to His disciples to breathe Himself into them to be their life and everything for the fulfillment of His promise. Likewise, He is in us today as the life-giving Spirit. Simply by exercising our spirit we can experience Him subjectively. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 1, “The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible—Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church,” ch. 2)
