Today, the One that we believe in and worship is such a One. He has become the Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, for the purpose that we would partake of His divine dispensing. This is the mysterious economy of God, which is to dispense and to distribute to God’s children all the rich elements of God. Now this God has been processed and has become a holy breath, everywhere filling the earth. Even while you are preaching the gospel to others, He is in your mouth and in your heart. He will come out of your heart and will enter the mouth of those who listen (Romans 10:8-9). He is the Holy Spirit, the Triune God, Jesus Christ, becoming life and everything to those who believe and receive Him. He is so wonderful.
This wonderful One is in us mainly to be our life, operating and working quietly and gently in us. This can be compared to our physical life. Every day, twenty-four hours a day, it operates quietly and gently in us. While we are sitting here, an operation is working within, which is our digestion. However, we do not feel it. Whenever we feel it, that proves that there is something wrong with us. Not only is there the digestion, but there is the assimilation as well, which makes the digested food elements part of our blood and constitutes these elements as the cells and tissues of our body. When God’s Spirit works in us, He operates in a similar way.
He is coming to us not only to be our life, but to be our everything, that is, to be our person. He wants to abide in us, to make home and to settle down in our whole being so that He can become our all. He is waiting all the time within us for us to turn to Him and to receive His supply. Some always speak of the Lord’s dealing with them and His rebuking of them. But in my experience of sixty or more years of following the Lord, it seems that the Lord never has rebuked me severely. I have indeed offended Him many times. But He is always willing to supply me and to dispense Himself into me. Today, the Lord is definitely living in me. He is our life, to be our everything. He is our person, our Head, our Husband, and our Savior. He wants to make His home in us and to make our whole person His place of rest.
I have to ask the young ones sitting here among us: is the Lord a guest or the host in you today? Are you His home? Our natural concept is to improve or adjust the negative or bad things. After we believed in the Lord, we thought that the Lord was here to improve us and to make us a noble person. Actually, this is not the case. Before being saved, we sinned and made mistakes easily. After someone preached the gospel to us, we realized that we were sinners and that we needed a Savior. As a result, we accepted the Lord Jesus. He has died on the cross for us and borne our sins, accomplishing redemption, and He has become our Redeemer. He is even our Savior day by day. Although we are saved, we still have many weaknesses, lusts, and passions. At the same time, we are continually faced with many trials and sufferings. For this reason, we need His daily salvation so that we can be a person with God and can live a life that is above that of ordinary men.
Over twenty years ago, when I first came to the United States, I told the brothers that even if our ancestor Adam had not fallen and we had not sinned, we would still need to be regenerated. The reason for this is that God wanted to have many sons who would have His life and who would be His expression. Although He created man perfect and flawless, He Himself had not come into man and had not been joined to man. If man were merely perfect but did not have God within, this would still be short of what God wants. When God created man, He created him as a vessel. However, he was but an empty vessel. God’s purpose is to fill up this vessel with Himself. However, before God filled man up, man became defiled and corrupted. Hence, God came to redeem man and cleanse him. But this is only the means; it is not God’s goal. God’s ultimate desire is to enter into the created man to be his life so that he would gain Him and be joined and mingled with Him to live God’s living. For this purpose, He first came to be a man, to “man-ize” Himself. Then He enables us to partake of His life, thus to “God-ize” us. In this way, He and we become one and share one living.
This concept is not found in Christianity. Although the Bible does contain this truth, those in Christianity have not been able to see it. This can be compared to reading a book. If there are words that we do not understand, no matter how many times we read through it, we will not be able to understand its true meaning, and we will not be very concerned about its significance. The ultimate purpose of God is to work Himself into us that He may be our life and everything to us so that one day we can become Him. But this does not mean that we can become part of the Godhead and be the same as the unique God. We have to know that although we are born of God and have God’s life to become God’s children, His house, and His household, we do not have a share in His sovereignty or His Person and cannot be worshiped as God.
In church history, beginning from the second century, some church fathers who were expounding the Bible used the term deification, which means to make man God. Later they were opposed by others and were considered as heretics. But John 1:12-13 does say, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” We the believers are begotten of God. What is begotten of man is man, and what is begotten of God must be God. We are born of God; hence, in this sense, we are God. Nevertheless, we must know that we do not share God’s Person and cannot be worshiped by others. Only God Himself has the Person of God and can be worshiped by man.
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