In 2 Corinthians 3:3 Paul says that the letter of Christ is inscribed “not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.” This indicates that a letter of Christ is a letter of a human being. By the dispensing of the Spirit into our being, we human beings become a letter of Christ written by the apostles with the Spirit as the writing substance. Our heart, as the composition of our conscience (the leading part of our spirit), mind, emotion, and will, is the tablet upon which the living letters of Christ are written with the living Spirit of God. This implies that Christ is written into every part of our inner being with the Spirit of the living God to make us His living letters.
When the apostles preach or minister Christ, they minister Him into the heart and spirit of the believers. First, Christ as the life-giving Spirit is ministered into a believer’s spirit. This means that Christ is written in the spirit of that believer. Then by further ministry Christ spreads from the spirit into the mind, emotion, and will. Eventually, Christ will be written into every part of our inward being. In the words of Ephesians 3:17, this is Christ settling Himself, or making His home, in our heart. Christ making His home in our heart equals the writing of Christ throughout our inner being. This writing causes a believer to become a living letter of Christ. Such a person expresses Christ in whatever he says and does.
Christ today has come into our spirit, but He may not yet be written on our heart. Our heart, which mainly surrounds our spirit, is composed of our mind, emotion, and will, plus our conscience. Therefore, for the Spirit to write Christ on us as living letters means that He writes Christ into our mind, emotion, and will; that is, the Spirit takes our whole heart as the tablet for inscribing Christ. As He does this, we become a complete epistle of Christ, and others can read Christ upon us. When others “read” our mind, emotion, and will, they will realize that every part of our being is Christ; our thoughts, love, hatred, and intentions are all Christ (cf. Rev. 2:6). The transforming Spirit is waiting for the opportunity to write Christ into our mind, emotion, and will in order to make us complete epistles of Christ. The indwelling Spirit, who is the transforming Spirit, is doing the work of writing in us, but we need to give Him our cooperation. We must let Him have the free course to write something into our mind, emotion, and will.
Christ desires to be written into every part of our inner being, our heart, but we may be preoccupied by many other things. How can Christ be written into us and written on our heart when our heart is preoccupied with other things? Our heart may be preoccupied with our family, material possessions, education, job, or future expectations. There are many things that can usurp the place of Christ in our heart. We may have many preoccupations in our heart, giving no room for Christ to write Himself into us. Furthermore, our heart may be closed to Christ. The preoccupations and the closing of our heart should be dealt with. The filthiness, the uncleanness, of our heart also needs to be dealt with. Is our mind pure? Is our emotion clean? Is our will right? We all need to confess that to one degree or another there is dirt in our mind, emotion, and will. Although we may come to the church meetings, we need to ask ourselves how much of Christ has been written into us. There may be no possibility, no ground, and no opportunity for the Lord to come in to write Himself into us because our heart is filthy, impure, preoccupied with other things, and closed to the Lord. We need to ask ourselves what our situation, condition, and relationship are with the Lord. By the Lord’s mercy, we need to open our being to Him. When we open our heart to Him, He writes Himself into us.
The spirit is the innermost part of our being, the hidden man of the heart (1 Pet. 3:4). Christ as the life-giving Spirit has come into our spirit to make us alive, to regenerate us, and to indwell us. Christ lives in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). Ezekiel 36:26, which tells us that God gives us a new heart and a new spirit, indicates that the heart and the spirit are two things. The Lord wants to inscribe Himself as the Spirit into our heart, “in tablets of hearts of flesh” (2 Cor. 3:3). Thus, this letter is not written on our spirit but on our heart in order that Christ might be expressed and be read by others. A person expresses himself by his mind, emotion, and will. If Christ is written only on our spirit, He will be hidden; He will not be seen, read, or expressed. Christ as the living Spirit must be written on our heart so that He can be expressed and be seen by others.
Christ as the life-giving Spirit desires to be mingled with our mind, emotion, and will in order that there will be the description of Christ in our mind, the definition of Christ in our emotion, and the expression of Christ in our will. Then when others look at our mind, emotion, and will, they will see Christ. For example, a person’s love for his or her spouse should be full of Christ, describing and expressing Christ.
The Lord is gracious, patient, and merciful. The Lord is continually waiting for opportunities to mingle Himself with us. Whenever we call on His name, He takes the opportunity to mingle Himself with us. The Lord’s main concern is not what we do outwardly but what we are. He wants to dispense Himself, inscribe Himself, into our mind, emotion, and will all the time. He is taking every opportunity to write something of Christ within us little by little. We need to be patient with one another in the church life because more and more of Christ is gradually being wrought into us. This is the Lord’s transforming work. In the age of eternity we all will have become the complete letters of Christ. At that time the entire composition of Christ will have been inscribed into our whole being. Christ alone will be the content of our mind, emotion, and will.