Week 1 The Revelation of Truth
LESSON ONE
THE WORD OF LIFE
Hymn 809
Scripture Reading:
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
2 Tim. 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
THE SCRIPTURES—ALL GOD-BREATHED
Those who have a heart to serve the Lord full time should know that humans are gregarious. It is impossible for us to live apart from a community. The propagation and multiplication of mankind depend on communities. There is no possibility for the human race to multiply, propagate, and develop without communities. Everything in human life, even the bad things, is developed in communities. Since humans cannot live apart from communities, sociologists study how to utilize the strong points and avoid the shortcomings of communities in order to develop a proper social arrangement.
Verse 16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” The Greek words rendered, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable,” may also be translated “Every Scripture God-breathed is also profitable.”
To confront the death, corruption, and confusion in the church’s decline, the eternal life upon which chapter one is based (vv. 1, 10), the divine truth emphasized in chapter two (vv. 15, 18, 25), and the Holy Scripture highly regarded in chapter three (vv. 14-17) are all needed. The eternal life not only swallows up death, but also renders the life supply; the divine truth replaces the vanity of corruption with the reality of all the divine riches; and the Holy Scripture not only dispels confusion, but also furnishes divine light and revelation. Hence, in this book the apostle stresses these three things.
The expression “God-breathed” indicates that the Scripture, the Word of God, is the breath of God. God’s speaking is God’s breathing. Hence, His word is spirit (John 6:63), pneuma, or breath. Thus, the Scripture is the embodiment of God as the Spirit. The Spirit is therefore the very essence, the substance, of the Scripture, just as phosphorus is the essential substance in matches. We must “strike” the Spirit of the Scripture with our spirit to kindle the divine fire.
As the embodiment of God the Spirit, the Scripture is also the embodiment of Christ. Christ is God’s living Word (Rev. 19:13), and the Scripture is God’s written Word (Matt. 4:4). (Life-study of 2 Timothy, pp. 50-51)
THE WRITTEN WORD BECOMING THE LIVING WORD
The Lord is the living Word, and the Bible is the written Word. Are the written Word and the living Word two kinds of words? If we consider the written Word to be something different from the living Word, the written Word will be dead knowledge to us. The written Word cannot be separated from the living Word but must be one with the living Word.
We have to deal with every verse of the Bible in this way. We read it by our eyes, understand it spontaneously by our mind, and deal with it by exercising the spirit to translate or transfer the written Word into the living Word, which is Christ Himself. Never pray in a way to ask the Lord to help you do something. That is the wrong way. Instead, always take Him as the fulfillment of His word. Suppose you read John 15:12, which says that we have to love one another. Do not pray, “Lord, I have to love my brother. But Lord, You know I am weak. Lord, help me to love.” After this prayer you will make up your mind to love the brothers and you will be exposed and see the failure. You have to expect nothing but failure. You may be successful for a short time, but eventually you will fail. Even if you were successful, that would not mean anything nor would it be worth anything.
The word of the Bible must be dealt with and taken in this way. Then we will really feed and feast on the Lord through the reading of the Word. Then the written Word will become the living Word, that is, Christ Himself. Christ and the Bible will be one. We need to taste and see. We have to help the brothers and sisters to contact the word of the Lord in this way. By the mercy of the Lord, we need to keep the Bible as a book of life, the tree of life, not as the tree of knowledge. Knowledge puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1). The more that many Christians learn the Bible, the more puffed up they become. They acquire knowledge just to condemn and to criticize others. Too much knowledge in dead letters results in pride. Do not make this living book a book of dead letters. Paul said that the letter kills (2 Cor. 3:6). That means that the Bible in the letter kills. We should not take the Bible as something in the letter. We have to take the Word as something in life and in the spirit. May we all taste and see that the Lord is good.
We have to change our way of reading this book. Always remember that we have to read with our eyes, understand with our mind, and receive and feed on the Word with our spirit by praying. Then day by day we will be nourished. Day by day the living Word will be made one with the written Word, and day by day whenever we receive something of the written Word it will be-come the Spirit. It is the Word before us, but it will become the Spirit within us. When it be-comes the Spirit, it becomes life. The words the Lord speaks to us are spirit and life. When the Word becomes the Spirit it is life, and when it becomes life it is the life supply, the food, that nourishes us. (The Tree of Life, pp. 105-108)
THE LORD’S WORD BEING SPIRIT AND LIFE
God’s Word is merely theological knowledge to many people; it is not life to them. But the Lord says that His word is spirit and life. The word of God touches our spirit and our life; it does not relate to our mind. It matters little if the mind does not understand. In reading a book or listening to a sermon, we can tell immediately whether we have touched spirit and life within or whether we have touched the mind. If we have heard only knowledge, the result is death, and we feel uneasy within. If we have heard spirit and life, the result is peace and assurance within.
Dividing the word of God does not mean merely breaking it down into sections and subdivisions. It has to do with the dividing of the soul and the spirit. It is like dividing the bone from the marrow by a sword. God’s word often can bypass our mind and go straight into our spirit. Christ did not say that His words are theology, teachings, or answers. We know that many people are anti-theology and anti-teaching, but we are not talking about that here. We are saying that the Lord’s word is spirit and life. Paul told Timothy to cut straight the word of the truth. However, only those who are cut by God can cut straight God’s word. In our Bible we have to put He-brews 4:12 before 2 Timothy 2:15. May the Lord speak to us within and deliver us from doc-trines and theology, and may we truly know that God’s word is spirit and life.
Prayer: Lord, remove our ambition for gaining knowledge. May we gladly prostrate our-selves in the dust. May we be delivered out of the superficiality of the Bible and into its depths. (CWWN, vol. 45, pp. 1016, 1018)
References: Life-study of 2 Timothy, msg. 6; The Tree of Life, ch. 11; CWWN, vol. 45, ch. 141.
