If you get into the spirit of Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians, you can see that at the time Paul wrote these two books he had the history of the children of Israel as a background. The whole history of the children of Israel is a complete type of the experiences of the New Testament Christians (1 Cor. 10:6a, 11). Many Christians are clear that the Passover (1 Cor. 5:7), the exodus from Egypt (1 Cor. 10:1-2), the wandering in the wilderness (Heb. 3:7-19), and the enjoyment of the heavenly manna and the water out of the cleft rock (1 Cor. 10:3-4) are all types of our Christian experience today. But most Christians are not so clear that the entering into the good land and the living, walking, working, and laboring in the good land are also a type of our Christian experience (Col. 2:6-7). Our need is to know more and more about the living, the walking, the working, the laboring, and also the fighting of the people of Israel in the good land.
When Paul wrote these two letters, he must have had the background of this history. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 he said that Christ was our Passover. Then in chapter ten he told us that today we are enjoying the heavenly manna and are drinking the living water out of the cleft rock (vv. 3-4). This means that in 1 Corinthians the people had been brought out of Egypt and were wandering in the wilderness. This was the real situation of the Corinthians, and in this respect, many of today’s Christians are Corinthians. We should not think that we are better than the Corinthians. Some talk about the heavenly church in the book of Ephesians, but not many are heavenly themselves. One can talk about the good land, about Canaan, but he may still be in Egypt or in the wilderness. When you are in your spirit, you are in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:6) because the heavenlies cannot be separated from your spirit. The heavenlies are in the spirit, and the spirit is in the heavenlies (see note 161 in Heb. 4-Recovery Version). Whenever you are living in the spirit, you are uplifted and you are in the heavenlies. But do you think that today you are walking completely in the spirit?
The Corinthians talked a lot about spiritual things, but they did so in a fleshly and soulish way. The Apostle Paul told them in the first book that they were fleshly and not spiritual (3:1). And in chapter two of the first book he spoke of soulish men (v. 14). A spiritual man (2:15) is one who does not behave according to the flesh nor act according to the soulish life, but lives according to the spirit, that is, his spirit (Rom. 1:9) mingled with the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17). Such a one is dominated, governed, directed, moved, and led by such a mingled spirit. Although the Corinthians spoke much about spiritual things, the Apostle Paul designated them as fleshly and soulish. They were talking about spiritual things in the soul and in the flesh. Some may talk about the heavenly things in Ephesians, but they do so as Corinthians-in the soul or in the flesh.
Paul’s second Epistle to the Corinthians is much deeper than the first. It seems that not many have paid attention to this second book. In Romans there is justification by faith, and in Ephesians is the church as the Body of Christ. But what is the subject of 2 Corinthians? What is the impression that you get from this book? I must tell you that this book is absolutely in the spirit. Many Christians are living in their flesh or soul, not in their spirit. Many know something about the Holy Spirit, but too few know about their human spirit in which the Holy Spirit dwells. (See Our Human Spirit published by Living Stream Ministry.) After the flesh and the soul in 1 Corinthians, we come to the spirit in 2 Corinthians. After the outer court and the holy place, we come to the Holy of Holies; after Egypt and the wilderness, we come to the good land, the land of Canaan. In this book you can see the good land. You can also see the practical life in the Holy of Holies. In this book you can see some human beings absolutely in the spirit.
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