In the preceding chapter we said that to abide in the Lord is to enjoy the Lord’s life. I remember that not long after I was saved, I was helped to know that the Lord was in me and I was in the Lord. Although I knew this, I was very puzzled by it. Like today’s young people, I did not want to be one who just says what others say and follows mindlessly; I wanted to understand clearly. Therefore, I sought to understand what it is for me to be in the Lord and for the Lord to be in me. At the time, however, I did not know how to seek, and I felt that this would be very difficult because to me the Lord was vague, incomprehensible, and abstract. I lived in a house, and after eating I would have food in my stomach. These matters were easy to understand, but how could I say that I am in the Lord? What was the Lord really like? How could I be in Him? In addition, the most mysterious part was how could He be in me? I truly could not figure these things out.
I pondered over these kinds of questions, and I also prayed to the Lord. However, the more I pondered and prayed, the more I was confused. I also studied the Bible, but I felt that it was hard to understand; the Bible gives us only facts without any explanations. It tells us only that we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us, but it does not give any explanations. I spent much time and effort in this study. Gradually, however, I began to understand a little. The New Testament uses the word in many times. This little word is insignificant in Chinese, but the mysteries and the main truths in the New Testament all hinge on it. This word is en in Greek, and it is used mainly to speak of our being in the Lord.
Actually, in the Chinese language we do not use the expression in.... For example, we say that we should walk by love; if we were to say “walk in love,” it would sound to us like a foreign language formed with Chinese words. This kind of expression does not sound Chinese at all. Strictly speaking, the Greek does not have words for by or depend upon; it has only en (in), and dia (through). Furthermore, the Chinese words for in and through are mostly used as verbs, but in Greek the words en and dia are always used as prepositions, having the same meaning as the English words in and through.
When the Western missionaries were translating the Chinese Union Version of the Bible, although they were bold to coin a few new expressions, they were not bold enough to properly translate in... in many places. For example, Philippians 4:13 says, “I...in Him who empowers me.” Because this sounds too much like a foreign language, the Chinese Union Version translated it, “I...by Him who empowers me,” again using the word by. This sounds Chinese, but the meaning is wrong.
The more I studied this truth, the clearer I became. However, I also felt that this matter became more complicated. Later I made another discovery, that the New Testament not only mentions the word in but also uses the word abide. John 15 says that we should “abide” in the Lord, but the Chinese Version says that we should “always be” in the Lord. This disregards the main verb. Here it does not mean to be in the Lord always; it means to abide in the Lord. In John 15 the word abide is not a light word but a very important one; it means to dwell, not merely to stay awhile. In Greek the words for home are oikos and oikia. When Paul wrote Romans and 1 Corinthians 3:16, the word he used for dwells has the noun oikos as its principal root, and it was made into the verb form oikeo which means “makes home.” Then in Ephesians 3:17, Paul strengthens the meaning of this word by adding the preposition kata (meaning “deep down”), making it katoikeo, which means “deeply make home.” This shows us that the matter of abiding mentioned in the Bible is not so simple. There are altogether four steps: the first is “in,” then “abiding in,” then “making home in,” and finally “deeply making home in,” that is, making home by sinking in deep roots.
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