It is clearly revealed in the Bible that God’s intention is to work Himself into man so that He can be man’s life and that man may be His expression. It was for this very purpose that God created man in His own image; man thus had the possibility of expressing God. Man was also created with a spirit; this was so that he might be able to receive God the Spirit into him. As we know, man fell.
Then God came in the Son as a man. He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. At the end of His human living, He went to the cross and died there for man’s sin. Through that death He also destroyed Satan and terminated the old creation. After three days in the tomb, He entered into resurrection. When He was resurrected, He brought humanity into divinity, thus uplifting fallen humanity. This uplifted humanity is now in Him in resurrection. At this same time He became the life-giving Spirit, able and ready to enter whoever believes in Him.
Whenever and wherever a person believes in the Lord Jesus, this life-giving Spirit comes into him and regenerates his spirit. The divine Spirit then indwells that believer’s spirit and becomes one with it. He is saved, redeemed, regenerated. He possesses God’s life and nature. He is joined to the Lord and is one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). Now all he needs to do is to live Christ, to live one spirit with the Lord.
When man fell, he lost God. Because he had fallen away from God, certain things came in to replace God. Eventually in the fallen man God was replaced by the following things.
The knowledge of good and evil came in. Man began to know the difference between good and evil. He tried to do the good and forsake the evil. Whether he could succeed was another matter, but he did gain this knowledge and attempt to choose the good and reject the evil.
Culture is a development of the knowledge of good and evil. We can say there are many different cultures, like Egyptian, Babylonian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, European, American, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. Nonetheless, all these cultures promote the good and denounce the evil. Human beings of every race and culture like to do good and turn away from evil. This is what their culture teaches them.
Philosophy is a further development of culture. It is a higher stage, but its principle is the same as that of culture. It extols good and condemns evil.
Ethics promote morality. Among the various ethical teachings man has produced, those of Confucius rank the highest. Ethics encourage man to live according to certain principles of conduct. These principles are also based upon the knowledge of good and evil.
Religion is superior to ethics and philosophy. It is higher than culture and the knowledge of good and evil. It surpasses these others because it brings in God. Religion looks to God for help. Religion promotes the worship of God and asks His help in doing good and forsaking evil. Yet it has not forsaken philosophy nor rejected culture. It has rather adopted the positive aspects of culture and incorporated ethical teachings into its structure.
These five things—the knowledge of good and evil, culture, philosophy, ethics, and religion—are the controlling factors of fallen mankind. Wherever we may have been born and raised, we have been educated along the lines of these five things. Whether we are from the West or from the East, whether we are from one race or another, we have been taught from childhood the knowledge of good and evil. Our cultural backgrounds may seem quite different from others’, but the differences are only superficial. We have all been taught, for example, to honor our parents, to be honest, and to love others. This is our common cultural heritage, though we may have learned it in Europe, in Asia, or in Africa. The same is true of philosophy and ethics. Though they may have arisen in widely separated parts of the world, in essence all the philosophies and ethical teachings are concerned with promoting the good and rejecting the evil. They are the same in principle.
As for religion, there are only three major ones: Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism. Islam, the Moslem religion, is closely related to Judaism. In fact, the Koran, the Moslem bible, has many parts very similar to the Old Testament and to some of the New Testament. In Christianity Catholicism has developed as a religion. Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism all had their origins in the Bible. They worship the same God.
In India there is Buddhism, but we do not call that a religion because the Buddha is not a god. The Chinese follow mainly the ethical teachings of Confucius, which is not a religion either.
All religion utilizes God. It looks to God to help promote and uplift culture, to improve people’s knowledge of good and evil, to strengthen their philosophy, and to enable them to live by their ethical teachings.
This is the situation in which we were born and raised. We have been taught to live by the knowledge of good and evil. We act according to our culture. We are influenced by philosophy. We try to follow ethical teachings. We are governed and directed by our religious upbringing.
Before you were saved, your behavior was probably loose and sinful. Once you were saved, you repented and regretted your past. You tried not to do anything wrong. You asked God to help you not to sin nor to offend others, but to strengthen you to live in a morally upright way. You wanted always to walk in His presence.
The result of our background and then of our Christian experience is that we have become people living a certain way. The way we live is to do good, to try to walk in the presence of God, and to glorify Him. Dear saints, this is the wrong way to live! It is Satan’s subtle deceit. It is not God’s intention for us to live an upright life. He does not want us to be religious. His intention for us is neither to be good nor to be evil. Both good and bad are out of His intention.
What, then, is God’s intention? It is that He come into us and become our life. He becomes one with us and makes us one with Him that we may live Him. We are to live God, not good! He is not after good men but God-men! God wants to be our life and nature. He wants us to be His expression. He is not satisfied to have us merely express what is good; nor does He want us to express what is evil. We are to express simply God Himself: this is His intention.
This very God, in order to accomplish His intention, became a man. He went through incarnation, human living, and crucifixion. Then He became in resurrection the life-giving Spirit. Through incarnation He entered into man; through resurrection He brought man into Him.
Now He is in us, and we are in Him. We must no longer live according to the knowledge of good and evil. We are not to follow the dictates of culture. Philosophy is under our feet. Ethical teachings we must disregard. Religion is not for us. We no longer have any need of these things. In their place we have the very Spirit who is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God!
When we turn from these other things in which we were raised and educated, we are left with only this all-inclusive Spirit. Religion, ethics, philosophy, culture, the knowledge of good and evil—all are gone. Only the living God is left. We know Him as the Spirit. He is the Spirit, indwelling our spirit. Rather than practicing the presence of God, we practice being one spirit with the Lord. When we live, He lives. When He lives, we live. We and He are one.