We have seen that the Apostle Paul shows us in 2 Corinthians how he was a person absolutely in the spirit. He was a person taught by God, tested by God, and even trained by God not to live in the flesh but in the spirit. In previous chapters, we began to see that what the church needs today is not a person full of knowledge, full of education, or full of gifts and power, but a person who is reduced in the natural, outward man (4:16). The outward man has to be consumed, reduced, all the time. Then we will be reduced into the spirit, and we will learn how to live absolutely in the spirit. This is the kind of person the church needs today. Throughout the history of the church, there have been many spiritual giants, gifted persons, and great teachers, but the church has not been built up. The Lord needs some people who have been reduced to the spirit for the building up of the church, His Body.
We must realize that the Lord is coming back soon. The Lord told us that He would come quickly (Rev. 22:20), but one may think His coming has been slow because it has been nearly two thousand years since His ascension. But do not forget that to Him one thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8). Through my study of prophecy, I was deeply impressed that the prophetic writings stressed the reformation of the nation of Israel (see Matt. 24:32 and notes). The nation of Israel was reformed in 1948, and Jerusalem was returned to Israel in 1967. This was the marvelous doing of the Lord. No one dreamed that the nation of Israel could be reformed or that Jerusalem could be returned to Israel in such a way. The fulfillment of this prophecy shows us that the Lord is preparing Israel and the church for His coming back. The Lord has done something to fulfill His prophecy concerning Israel, and I do believe that the Lord will do something quickly to prepare His bride. We have seen that the Lord prepares His bride not merely by gifts or by teaching but by the working of the cross and the anointing of the Spirit. We have to be reduced, and we have to be conquered, captured, by Christ.
We all have to be reduced to the spirit. Our spirit is not empty, is not vacant, but it is occupied by Christ. Christ is in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). When we are reduced into the spirit, we meet Christ. Therefore, to be reduced to the spirit means to be reduced to Christ, to be reduced to live by Christ. Second Corinthians 3:17 is a vital and precious verse telling us that Christ the Lord is the Spirit. Christ today is the indwelling Spirit within our spirit. As the indwelling Spirit, He is now living, moving, acting, and even waiting for us to be reduced into the spirit. We have to be reduced into the spirit. Once we are reduced into the spirit, we meet Christ. Second Corinthians, on the one hand, shows us that the Apostle Paul was reduced to the spirit. On the other hand, it shows us how this apostle lives, acts, and works in the spirit by Christ.
Second Corinthians 2:10 mentions “the person of Christ.” The American Standard Version translates this phrase as “the presence of Christ.” In the original Greek text the common word for presence is parousia. But the word for person here is prosopon. Paul said, “But whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ.” Paul forgave a brother in the person of Christ. This Greek word means the face, the part around the eyes, which is the index of all the inward thoughts and feelings to signify the presentation of the whole person. The part of the face around the eyes is the index of all the inward thoughts and feelings, signifying what a person is thinking and how he feels within. Paul forgave that brother in the person of Christ, according to the index of His whole person expressed in His eyes. Paul lived not only in the presence of the Lord but also in the index of the inward feelings and thought of Christ. This is so deep, so tender, and so delicate.
Once I was invited to the home of a dear Christian couple. As I was there, I observed that the brother behaved himself not only in the presence of his wife but also in the person of his wife. Just by looking into her eyes, he could tell whether or not she approved of what he was doing. Not a word needed to be spoken. This particular husband had learned to move in the person of his wife.
I cannot fully express the feeling I had within when I discovered the meaning of this word “person.” I bowed before the Lord and said, “Lord, for all these years I have never realized that I have to live not merely in Your presence but in Your person in such a tender way.” It is not just to live in His presence, but even more in His person. I do not think that we Christians behave ourselves in the person of the Lord in such a tender way. We may say that we live, act, and behave in the presence of the Lord, but who behaves himself in the person of Christ, in the way that brother behaved himself in the person of his wife? But here in 2:10 there is a phrase telling us that Paul was such a person, behaving himself all the time in the index of the Lord’s eyes, the index of His inward feelings and thoughts, in His person.
Paul looked at the index of the Lord’s eyes, and he knew that he had to forgive that brother. He forgave him not according to his feeling, not according to his thought, but according to the feeling, the thought, of the Indweller within him. He was behaving himself in the person of Christ. When he forgave, he forgave in the person of Christ. He wanted to let the Corinthians know that he did not forgive according to himself or according to his flesh but in the person of Christ. This is what it means to live by Christ. The Apostle Paul had been reduced to such an extent that he never behaved himself in his person. He behaved himself in the person of Christ, in the face, in the thought, in the expression of the feeling and the thought of Christ. To live in the person of Christ is so tender and so deep. Paul was a person reduced to nothing except taking Christ as his person. He behaved himself in the person of Christ.
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