In Acts 1, the disciples who personally observed the Lord’s death and resurrection immediately became witnesses of the Lord. Verse 8 says, “You shall be My witnesses...unto the uttermost part of the earth.” By this we see that the Lord Jesus wanted the disciples to go out not to do a work but to be a certain kind of person. What kind of person should they be? They should be witnesses of Christ. To be a witness is not to go to court to testify of things you have seen and heard or to give details of a particular story. Rather, to be a witness means that the person for whom you are witnessing has become you, and you have become Him. Your going is His going; your being there is His being there. You are there to be His witness.
It is not easy for Christians to understand the Bible, and it is even harder to comprehend spiritual things. In the matter of being the Lord’s witnesses, we often like to say, “We need to witness for the Lord.” This saying is not accurate. As witnesses of the Lord, we often think that we need to give a good testimony for Him, testifying to people how lovely, real, reliable, and powerful our Savior is. However, such an understanding is not proper. Today we are the Lord’s witnesses, testifying nothing other than the Lord’s death and resurrection.
In fact, a witness of the Lord is one who has died and resurrected. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, every day He lived a life of death and resurrection. He said, “The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works” (John 14:10b). In other words, the Lord did not speak from Himself but from the Father. This means that the Father spoke His word through the Lord. This is the meaning of death and resurrection. To experience genuine death and resurrection means that a person lives not by himself but by putting himself aside. In other words, he puts himself to death. As the Lord put Himself to death, the One who was in Him was lived out. It is the same with us. Only when we put ourselves to death can the Lord Jesus be lived out from us.
The two—the Lord and the Father—are one. The Lord said that He was in the Father, and the Father was in Him (v. 10a). His speaking was the Father’s working in Him. His speaking was not His own, but He spoke what the Father spoke. When He spoke, it was the Father who was speaking in Him. Therefore, He and the Father not only lived one living, but they also lived by one life; the two were one. This is very hard to explain, but it is the same with us today. The Lord and we, we and He, are living one living and are living by one life. Therefore, we can say that it is no longer I but Christ (Gal. 2:20). This is the meaning of death and resurrection. It is no longer we. Our old man has died. Now it is Christ who lives in us. He and we, the two, are just one.
The Lord Jesus never acted alone in the Gospels. He said that the Father never left Him, but the Father was with Him all the time (John 8:29). He never spoke by Himself, worked by Himself, or acted by Himself. All His moving was one with the Father. His move was the Father’s move, and His speaking was the Father’s speaking. All that He did was the expression of the Father, so the two were one. The Lord Himself always stood in death, and once He stood in death, the Father was able to live out from within Him.
When the Lord Jesus began His ministry, the first thing He did was to be baptized. Baptism denotes death and burial. Through baptism, the Lord Jesus proclaimed to man that He needed to die and be buried. He came out to work not by Himself but by the Father. Therefore, He needed to die and be buried and let the Father live in Him. From that day onward, these two—the Father and the Son—were one life and had one living. The man Jesus Christ lived a life of dying, and God the Father lived out from Him. This was the Lord’s living of death and resurrection. He did not wait until His crucifixion to pass through death and resurrection. In fact, He died and resurrected daily while He was living on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. In principle, He always said, “Father,...not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39). Not as I will implies that the Lord was dying, while but as You will denotes that the Father was lived out. This is the meaning of death and resurrection.
We who serve the Lord today, either to go out to knock on doors or to perfect the home meetings, must see the truth expressed as, “I have died, and it is Christ who lives in me.” Paul said that we who serve the Lord die daily so that we may no longer live to ourselves but to Him who died for us and has been raised (2 Cor. 5:15). This means that we die, and He lives. This is death and resurrection. This is not an exchange of two persons, an exchanged life. Rather, this is the joining of two lives, as in grafting. To graft a branch into a tree is to join the two lives together. One is eliminated, and the other one is lived out. The result is that the two lives join together as one life.
If we pay too much attention to the number of people and to the outward activities in the church life, I am afraid that we will all become “athletes” who know only how to run a race; that is, that we will have only physical activities without functioning in spirit. If this continues, we will all become like robots, moving when the machinery moves and not moving when it stops. We may pray for twenty minutes before going out for door-knocking, and our prayers may be thorough. Moreover, we may truly be filled in our prayer and have the feeling that the Spirit is with us in our going. In spite of this, what worries me the most is that the Spirit is with us only at the time we pray. When we go out to knock on doors, our going may become a mere activity.
We must remember that we are not the ones who cause people to receive life. We may baptize people, but we cannot give them life. We must learn that it is no longer I but Christ. It is not I who goes door-knocking, who speaks, and who baptizes people, but it is Christ. Everything is Christ. We must use our spirit and exercise the life and faith within us, declaring to God and to all the enemies in the universe, “It is not I who goes door-knocking, but it is Christ who goes. It is not I who speaks to people, but it is Christ who speaks. It is not I who causes people to believe, but it is Christ who does it. It is not even I who baptizes people, but it is Christ who baptizes them.” If we have such an attitude, such a spirit, such a life, and such a faith, we will live a life that is always dependent on Him.
Depending on Him in this way moment by moment is our abiding in the Lord. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He abode in the Father day by day. He was never detached from the Father. His move was the Father’s move, and His speaking was the Father’s speaking. Today as we are serving the Lord, we must exercise to the extent that our going is the Lord’s going, and our move is the Lord’s move. At that time we will realize that we are not alone. Instead, it is the Lord and we together, two spirits joining as one spirit and two lives joining as one life. Although our body acts, visits people, goes door-knocking, and baptizes people, our spirit is joined to the Lord as one spirit.
We need to exercise to be joined to the Lord as one spirit and pray all the time, “O Lord, I have no way to impart life into others, but this is what You can do and should do. Lord, I rely on You in doing this. You and I have become one spirit. As I am here baptizing people, it is Your Spirit who baptizes people into the Triune God. Lord, I can only put a man into a bathtub and immerse him in water, but I have no way to baptize him into the Triune God. Only Your Spirit can do this. Thank you, Lord, that You and I have become one spirit. Whenever I am moving here, it is You who moves.” This is the faith we should exercise to have.
We also need to walk according to the spirit. Although we have received some training, we still need to follow the spirit when we go out. Sometimes we think that we should do something in a certain way, but the spirit within us directs us in a different way. We must follow the spirit immediately and walk according to the spirit. In this way, everything we do will have the spirit as its base and life as its content.