The New Testament clearly reveals that God’s economy is to dispense Christ into all His believers. God’s economy is a dispensing work to dispense Christ into our very being, making Christ our life and even our person. In the previous chapter we saw that the Christ who is being dispensed into us is God, the Spirit, and life. Christ, God, the Spirit, and life are all mysterious, abstract, intangible, and invisible. However, these four mysterious items are all embodied in God’s word in the Bible.
The Bible, the word of God, is not a human writing composed according to human logic. It is absolutely different from a textbook, newspaper, or magazine. The Bible is God’s breathing (2 Tim. 3:16), and Christ is embodied in this breathing. Christ as the Spirit is the real element, essence, and constituent of the Bible (John 6:63). The Bible is tangible, for we can see it and read it, yet the reality, the living, prevailing element, within the Bible is Christ Himself, who is God (Rom. 9:5), the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and life (John 14:6). Therefore, whenever we come to the Bible with a sincere heart and an open spirit, we immediately have the deep sensation that we have come into the presence of God. When we take the words of the Bible into us, we immediately have the sensation and the conviction that we have received Christ into us, because Christ is embodied in God’s word.
In this chapter we will see that the word of God is the Spirit. We should not separate the word from the Spirit or the Spirit from the word. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Thus, the word is the Spirit. Newspapers, textbooks, novels, and other such writings can never be the Spirit, but the word in the Bible is the Spirit. When the word is outside of us, it is the word. When it enters into us, it immediately becomes the Spirit. When the Spirit is spoken out of us, He becomes the word once again. Then when the word enters into the person to whom we are speaking, it becomes the Spirit again. This process is repeated when any person receives the word and speaks the word. Thus, the word and the Spirit are actually one. We can never receive the word of the Bible yet not receive the Spirit. Whenever the word is received into our being, it immediately becomes the Spirit.
It is through the word, which is the Spirit, and through the Spirit, who is the word, that we contact Christ and remain in Christ. In other words, it is through the word and the Spirit that we abide in Christ. In John 15:4-5 the Lord Jesus told us that He is the vine, that we are the branches, and that as the branches we need to abide in Him as the vine. Just as our arms need only to remain attached to our body, so the branches need only to abide in the vine. In life and nature our arms are exactly the same as our body. Likewise, the branches are exactly the same in life and nature as the vine. Actually, the branches are part of the vine and are one with the vine. If the branches simply abide in the vine, the life-juice of the vine flows into the branches. This is the reason the Lord Jesus told us that we as His branches need to abide in Him as the vine. When we abide in Him, His life, His nature, and all that He is flows into our being, just as the life-juice of the vine flows into all the branches.
The key, the crucial point, that we need to see is how to abide in Christ. We can abide in Christ by two means—the word and the Spirit. Although Christ is real and living, He is altogether mysterious and abstract. We believe that He is present and lives within us, but we need to know the way to contact Him. We may illustrate this matter with electricity. Electricity is real and powerful, but we cannot see electricity. The distribution of electricity from a distant power plant into a building requires at least two wires. Christ as the divine electricity is mysterious yet real and powerful, and He is brought into our being by two “wires”—the Spirit and the word. By touching the word, which then becomes the Spirit, Christ is transmitted into us. Just as electricity is transmitted from a distant power plant into a building, Christ is transmitted from the heavens into our being through the word and the Spirit. When we touch the word and the Spirit, there is a transmission within us; something moves within us. This is the transmission, or moving, of Christ within us through the word and the Spirit.
Because Christ is transmitted into us through the word in the Bible and the Spirit, we Christians must daily come to the Bible and the Spirit. Our two great inheritances are the Holy Bible without and the Holy Spirit within. These inheritances are our real riches. The value of money and property cannot compare to the value of the Word and the Spirit. The Bible is more valuable than gold (Psa. 119:72, 127). We are the richest people because we have the Word and the Spirit. Our true wealth is the word of God in the Bible and the Spirit because these are the two “wires” that daily and hourly transmit the rich Christ into our being. Within us there is always a current, a transmission, of Christ through the word and the Spirit. For this reason, we must daily contact and receive the word and the Spirit. If the Bible were only letters printed on paper without the Spirit, it would be an empty book with no reality. However, the living word of the Bible is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reality of the word.