Many of you have learned many Christian teachings and doctrines. The burden in my heart in these messages, however, is to fellowship with you about definite ways in which you can experience the things you have learned. In other words, I am burdened that you come into the reality of what you already know.
Ephesians 4:20 says, “But you did not so learn Christ.” We must pay attention to the phrase learn Christ and understand it in the proper way. To learn Christ does not mean that because Christ loved people, we also should love people. When I was a child, I was taught that because Jesus loved poor people, we must love poor people as well. I was wrongly taught that such imitation is what it means to learn Christ. To learn Christ does not mean that we imitate Him; it means that we, within whom Christ dwells, have Christ as our life in everything that we do. It means that when we think about things, we take Christ as our life subjectively and live Him out. Learning Christ is not objective—it is not simply taking the Christ who is outside of us and following His example. Rather, learning Christ is very subjective. It has everything to do with Christ being in us, dwelling in us, and being life to us. For us to learn Christ means that His mind becomes our mind, His love becomes our love, and His heart becomes our heart. We must take His mind as our mind and therefore give up our own mind. This is the right way to learn Christ.
In the next verse, Paul says “If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus” (v. 21). All the reality that is in Christ must be enjoyed by us and must become our portion. For example, love and light are realities. These realities are in Christ. Since we have been regenerated, Christ is in us. Therefore, whatever He has within Himself—in this example, love and light—has become our portion. Hence, we need to enjoy all the realities that are in Him. The way for us to enjoy these realities is given to us in verses 22 through 24. First, we must “put off...the old man.” The putting off of the old man is something that we did once for all when we were baptized. Second, we must “be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind.” This is something we must experience constantly. Third, we must “put on the new man.” Like putting off the old man, this has already been fully accomplished. Hence, we have three matters: the putting off of the old man on one side, the putting on of the new man on the other side, and the renewing of the mind in the middle. Whether or not the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man are real in our daily experience depends upon whether or not we experience being renewed in the spirit of our mind. Our being renewed in the spirit of our mind is the central matter.
We may know the fact and the doctrine that in Christ we have put off the old man and put on the new man, and we may realize that we are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) and that the old things have passed away and have become new. But in our experience, are these facts a reality to us or merely doctrine? We may frequently speak of how we were crucified with Christ, how our old man was put to death on the cross, and how we have put on Christ and are therefore in Him (Gal. 3:27). But it is quite possible that these things are merely teachings to us. It is possible that we do not know how to make these things real in our living. We must challenge ourselves and concerning these facts ask ourselves, “Is this real to me? Is it real to me that I as the old man have been put to death? Is it real to me that I have put on the new man?” Again, whether or not these things are made real to us depends solely upon whether or not we experience being renewed in the spirit of our mind.
The way for us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind is very simple. First, we must love the Lord. We must simply love Him with our whole being. If we love the Lord to the uttermost, He will gain the ground in us and have the full liberty to occupy our entire being. Then our mind will be very much renewed by Him. Second, we must fellowship with Him; that is, we must remain in contact with Him. Day by day and moment by moment, we should never stray out of the Lord’s presence. Rather, we should always be in His presence.
Third, we need to learn to exercise our spirit by praying. The more we pray, the more we will exercise our spirit. In the physical realm, the parts of our body that we exercise the most become strong, and the parts we rarely use remain weak. A number of years ago, I became seriously ill and was confined to my bed for six months. Because I was in bed, I was unable to use my legs and feet during that time. It never occurred to me that I might not be able to walk at the end of my illness. I took for granted the fact that I could stand and walk. To my surprise, when I attempted to leave the bed, I was unable to stand up. Because I had not used my legs and feet for such a long period of time, those members of my body had become so weak that I was unable to stand. It is the same with our spirit. If you do not pray, be assured that you will remain weak in your spirit. The reason that many of you are weak when you come to the prayer meeting and the Lord’s table meeting is that you rarely pray. If you pray much day after day, when you come to the meeting, your spirit will be very strong, and it will be easy for you to pray in the meetings. We need to pray and exercise our spirit so that our spirit will become strong. In this way, the Lord as the Spirit will have an open way to spread into all the parts of our being.
In Ephesians 4 there are two expressions that describe the mind. Verse 17 speaks of the vanity of the mind, and verse 23 speaks of the spirit of the mind. These two verses describe two conditions in which it is possible for our minds to be. We can either have vanity in our mind or the spirit of our mind. What is the condition of your mind—vanity or spirit? In the minds of the people in the world there is nothing but vanity. Vanity occupies the minds of the people in the world; their minds can even be characterized by vanity. If the vanity of this world occupies our mind, our mind will remain in oldness and will never be new. Moreover, if our mind is full of vanity, it is absolutely impossible for us to grow in life even to a small degree. However, when our mind is occupied by the spirit, which, as we have seen, is expanding into our mind, we will have the spirit of the mind. When our spirit expands into our mind, our mind will no longer be occupied with vanity but will be occupied with the spirit.
Let us consider the passage of the Scriptures that concerns the two conditions of the mind, Ephesians 4:17-24. Please pay attention to the fact that this passage is divided into two parts. The first part, composed of verses 17 through 19, deals with the vanity of the mind. The second part, beginning with the word but in verse 20, deals with the spirit of the mind:
This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness in greediness. But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus, that you put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality.
When vanity occupies a person’s mind, his understanding is darkened, his heart is hardened, he is alienated from the life of God, he casts away all feeling (meaning he casts away all consciousness of his conscience), and he gives himself over to sinful things. When our spirit spreads into our mind, however, our mind is renewed. With that renewing comes the reality of putting off the old man and putting on the new man. When we are renewed, we are transformed into the Lord’s image (Rom. 12:2). If we have vanity in our mind, it is possible for us to commit any kind of sin. If, on the other hand, we have the spirit in our mind, we will be renewed, transformed, into the Lord’s image.
May the Holy Spirit show us the two ways of conducting ourselves in our daily life. The first way is to be controlled and directed by the vanity of the mind, that is, by the mind of vanity. The second way is to live and walk in the spirit of our mind, that is, by a mind that is of the spirit. If we take the way of being renewed in the spirit of our mind, we will be led to a point where we will be very much like the Lord—we will be transformed into His image. This wonderful and beautiful transformation takes place through our being renewed in the spirit of our mind. Our mind needs to be renewed from being a mind that is full of vanity to a mind that is full of the spirit. Then we will be delivered from all sinful things, transferred into the kingdom of His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9), and transformed into the image of the Lord.