A number of people today accuse me of teaching heresy because I say that Christ is the Spirit. However, the more they try to oppose this truth, the more they expose their own folly. First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” The last Adam is Christ. Therefore, Christ is surely the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 3:17). Some would challenge this truth by asking, “If Christ is the Spirit, how can He be the Son?” I cannot explain this mystery, but the Bible tells us clearly that Christ is the life-giving Spirit as well as the Son. Some say, “I admit that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, but He is not the Holy Spirit.” I answer them by asking, “Besides the Holy Spirit, is there another Spirit who gives life?” To say yes would be heretical. There is not another Spirit who gives life besides the Holy Spirit (John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6). Christ today is the life-giving Spirit. Thus, we should all declare, “The seed of the woman, who bruised the head of the serpent, is now the life-giving Spirit in me.”
Practically, if Christ today were not the Spirit, it would be impossible for Him to come into us. We know that Christ is in us. No genuine believer would deny this. There is no argument on this point. Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” There would be no way for Christ to be in us if He were not the Spirit. Some who oppose the truth that Christ is the Spirit say, “Christ is in heaven, and He is in us through the Holy Spirit.” This may seem to be a good utterance, but no one has been able to explain to me what it means for Christ to be in us through the Holy Spirit. I cannot find a verse in the New Testament that says that Christ is in us through the Holy Spirit, but I can immediately think of at least five verses that tell us that Christ Himself is in us (John 14:20; Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27).
Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” This verse says clearly that Christ is with our spirit. This truth is not mere doctrine; it is our experience. I can testify from my experience that wherever I go, Christ is with my spirit. If Christ were not the Spirit, He could not be with our spirit. Thus, it is not only unscriptural but also illogical to deny that Christ is the life-giving Spirit. We all need to proclaim, “Hallelujah, Christ, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption, is the life-giving Spirit.” I have heard that someone who was offended by my speaking of this truth is preparing a paper for distribution that accuses me of being heretical. I am pleased to hear this. The more such persons touch this matter, the more they expose their folly. The truth is the truth. When I say that two plus two is four, no one can dispute this simple fact. Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, and now He is with our spirit to be our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, our life, our patience, our humility, our boldness, and everything to us for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Now that Christ is living in us, according to Galatians 2:20, we need to say, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. I am through; I am finished. I am altogether not good for the church life. I am useless for the church life. For gossiping and for the world I am an expert, but for the church life I am nothing. I may be suitable for everything else, but I am unsuitable for the church.” We all need to see that we are not good for the church. However, we also need to see that we have One in us who is good for the church and who even is the church. We are not good for the church, but we have the church within us. As long as we live not by ourselves but by Christ, we will have the church.
I do not tell the brothers and sisters that they need to be humble, good, and gentle. I do not tell the saints that they need to learn how to behave themselves so that they will not put the church to shame or lose the testimony of the church. Such teaching would be ethical teaching, like that of Confucius. Rather than teaching that we must be ethical, I teach that in ourselves we are hopeless, we are nothing, and we are no good for the church. We need to be terminated and buried. If all the saints in a certain locality think that they are good for the church, that church is finished. We all need to say, “We are no good at all for the church, but we have One in us who is not only good for the church but who is the church.” The church is the extension, the expansion, and the enlargement of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth was the individual Christ, but today He is the corporate Christ, the church (1 Cor. 12:12). Because the church is the corporate Christ, every factor, element, and fiber of the church must be Christ.
The apostle Paul ministered the unsearchable riches of Christ to people in order to build up the church. Ephesians 3:8-11 reveals that the church is produced from the riches of Christ. The church is simply a composition of all the riches of Christ. Because the church is a composition of the riches of Christ, we need to eat Christ. When I came to the United States, I was amazed to see many tall, husky American men. When these men were newborn babies, they each weighed only about seven and a half pounds and were only about twenty inches long. However, after twenty years those small infants may weigh two hundred fifty pounds and be well over six feet tall. This great change occurs because day by day they eat all the riches of America: American chickens, American beef, Washington apples, California oranges, and Florida grapefruit. Eventually, they become a composition of all the riches of America that they have eaten.
The best dietitians tell us that we are what we eat. Our physical body is simply the composition of all the riches of the food that we have eaten, digested, and assimilated. However, strictly speaking, we are not the riches themselves but the fullness of the riches. All the riches added together and assimilated into the fibers of our being become the fullness. Thus, Ephesians mentions the riches of Christ and the fullness of Christ (3:8; 1:23; 4:13). We enjoy Christ’s riches, and we eventually become His fullness, just as we enjoy the riches of America to become the fullness of America. If I came to America and saw all the rich food but not one tall, husky person, I would see only the riches but no fullness. Some Christian groups apparently have the riches of Christ, but we cannot see the fullness of Christ among them. However, in the Lord’s recovery we can see not only the riches of Christ but also the fullness of Christ, constituted of all the eaten, digested, and assimilated riches of Christ. The church life is simply the fullness of Christ, the riches of Christ digested by His members. The church is not merely a group of good believers coming together—this definition is very shallow. The church is the Christ who has been assimilated into us and is expressed out of us. The expression of Christ in the many brothers and sisters who have eaten, digested, and assimilated His riches is the church, the fullness of Christ. The church is simply the expression, expansion, and enlargement of Christ.