Another way to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ is by following Him in His death to release the divine life and to receive the Father's honor (12:24, 26). In John 12:24 the Lord said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Here the Lord said that if He as a grain of wheat would fall into the earth and die, the divine life would be released, and He would become many grains and thus would increase and be multiplied. As the grains of wheat today, we must not learn first how to live; we must learn how to die. To die is to live. While Christ was on the earth, He was always being put to death. Now we need to follow Him in His steps of dying. If we learn to die, we will receive the Father's honor. The more one talks, insists on certain things, and expresses himself, the less honorable that one is. Such a one is too active and living. The most honorable person is a dying person. It is not glorious to be living and active in the natural life; the glory is in learning to die. Thus, every Christian should be a dying person.
The way to receive, experience, and enjoy Christ is by keeping His new commandment to love one another for the expression of His love that all the people may know that we are His disciples (13:34-35). In the Old Testament there were ten commandments, but in the Gospel of John the Lord gave only one: love one another. If we love one another, we will express His love, and all men will know we are Jesus' disciples.
We receive, experience, and enjoy Christ also by taking Him as the way, the reality, and the life to come to the Father. John 14:6 says, "Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me." This is an excellent verse concerning the way to receive and enjoy Christ. Without Jesus as the way, the reality, and the life, no one can come to the Father. This does not mean that no one can come to the place where the Father is, but that no one can come to the Father Himself. Some have misunderstood this verse to mean that the Father is in a heavenly mansion and that Jesus is the way for the believers to go to this heavenly mansion. However, since the way is Christ, a living person, so the place to which the Lord brings us must also be a person, God the Father Himself. The Lord Himself is the living way to bring man into God the Father, the living place.
The way refers mainly to the Son. The Son as the way was incarnated to bring God into man. Then He died to accomplish redemption and resurrected to impart the divine life. The reality refers mainly to the Spirit, for the Spirit is the reality and is called "the Spirit of reality" (14:17; 1 John 5:6). The Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father (John 14:11), and the Spirit comes as the Spirit of reality to be the reality of the Son. If we have the Spirit, we have the Son, who is the way.
The life refers mainly to the Father. We take Christ as the way to come to the Father. The way is the Son, and the destination is the Father as life. First John 1:2 says, "And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us." This verse says that the eternal life was with the Father. The Son is the way, the Spirit is the reality, and the Father is the life as the destination. It is by this way that we come to the Father and enjoy Him as the source with the Son as the course and the Spirit as the reaching, the reality, of the Divine Trinity.