Then, we need to be sanctified. We all are wrapped up with the world. I have discovered through my travels that all young people are the same in loving the world, regardless of their race or nationality. They were never taught to love the world, but spontaneously they know how to love the world. Because of this, all the young people are old. They all need to be subjectively sanctified.

However, sanctification is still inadequate. After being sanctified, we need to be renewed. In the biblical sense, to be renewed is to have a new element added into our being to replace and discharge our old element. This is the process of metabolism. In order to have such a metabolic renewing, another element must be added to our being. In the whole universe only God could be a new element that can be added into our being to replace our old element. Thus, we need to receive God into our being that we may be renewed.

Every part of our being is old, dirty, and sinful. Because our mind is old, dirty, and sinful, we have many thoughts during the day that we dare not tell others. Every part of our being needs to be renewed. We not only need to be washed; we need to be renewed. Washing only takes away the dirt, but it does not bring a new element into us. Only the renewing carried out by God brings in a new element.

Some of the ethical teachers and philosophers, such as Confucius, taught their followers that they must be renewed. However, the people who received their teaching had to renew themselves by themselves. These people received many teachings concerning renewing, but they did not receive an element that could renew them. The New Testament teaching concerning renewing, however, stresses that the Holy Spirit accomplishes the renewing. This renewing is not carried out by the Holy Spirit's working on us—this is the natural, human concept. The Holy Spirit renews us by infusion and by dispensing.

In my youth I learned the Chinese ethical teachings. Eventually, I came to the Bible. While studying the Bible, the thoughts of Chinese ethics troubled me. I found out that ethics does not work. Only the Spirit works. Actually, He does not work; He simply adds Himself as an element into our being.

The renewing that is according to the New Testament is accomplished by adding a new element into the believers' being. Chemistry is mainly a work of combining different elements together in order to obtain a certain compound. Hence, chemistry depends on elements. When two elements are added together, a certain reaction takes place. This is the work of chemistry, and this is also a picture of renewing by the Spirit.

God is wise. He did not do a lot of work; rather, He simply put His divine element as life into our inner being. This divine element is God Himself consummated to be the life-giving, indwelling Spirit. As the Spirit, He gives life to us. This life is a strong divine element. God's element, the strongest element, is the element of life. For God to put His life into us is not a small thing.

The Bible uses grafting to illustrate the organic process of renewing. When a branch from one tree is grafted to another tree, one life is put into another life. These two lives are two elements. When these two elements are put together, a biochemical reaction takes place. This is something organic; it is not a matter of work.

In John 15 the Lord Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches (vv. 1, 5). In Romans 11 Paul said that we, the Gentiles, are not the natural branches of the vine (v. 24), but we were wild olive branches (v. 17). One day God's mercy reached us and transferred us into Christ, and we were grafted into Christ. Through such a grafting another element entered into us.

I look to the Lord that in His church we will all learn to teach these things. To teach husbands to love their wives and wives to submit to their husbands does not work. We need to teach others the way to have God as the divine element dispensed into them. When husbands have more of God dispensed into them, they will surely love their wives. They will even love their enemies. This is renewing. Day by day we not only need cleansing, washing, and purging; we also need renewing by the dispensing of the Holy Spirit.