Christ today is so real to us as the Spirit. If Christ were not such a current to us, how could we experience Him as our life? Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (6:48, 57). Christ is food to us, and we have to eat Him. If He were not the Spirit, though, how could we eat Him? I believe that in these days Christ as the indwelling Spirit is the main item of the Lord’s recovery. This will be more and more recovered among us. In the past six years, beginning from 1959, whenever I have had a time with the Lord, one thing has been within me: the matter of the Spirit and our spirit.
The apostle John saw all the visions of Revelation in spirit. In Revelation 4 there is the vision of the throne, and from chapter six to chapter twenty, there are the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. Verses 1 and 2a of chapter four say, “After these things I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, Come up here, and I will show you the things that must take place after these things. Immediately I was in spirit; and behold, there was a throne set in heaven.” From this throne come the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. Then in Revelation 21 and 22 there is the vision of the New Jerusalem. Verse 10 of chapter twenty-one says, “And he carried me away in spirit onto a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” The vision in chapter four is of the throne, the center of the entire universe. The vision in chapter twenty-one is of the city, the unique, universal expression of God. Both of these visions are a matter of spirit. Some versions capitalize spirit in these verses, while others render it in lower case. It is hard to know whether this is the Spirit or the human spirit of the apostle. Either way, this is a matter of spirit.
In these last days the matter of the Spirit and our spirit will be more and more recovered. We must come to know that Christ is the Spirit, and everything related to God is realized by us in this Spirit. Even five years ago I was not as clear as I am today. At that time I never gave a message telling people that Christ as the life-giving Spirit is like the air. Now I can tell this to people, and I have the assurance it is right, because on the evening of the day of resurrection, the Lord came to His disciples, breathed into them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Spirit was the breath of Christ; when the Lord breathed into His disciples, the breath that came out of His mouth was the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for spirit is pneuma, which means “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind.” Our car tires have pneumatic pressure; when they are out of pneuma, they are flat. Many Christians today are flat, out of pneuma, out of spiritual breath.
Christ is so available to us today, just like the air. We can live for seven days without eating and three to five days without drinking, but without air, we cannot live for three minutes. After three minutes of not breathing, we will die. This physical air is not the real air; it is merely a shadow. The real air is Christ, in whom we live, move, and have our being. Christ is so vital and so available to us. Is this miraculous? On the one hand, it is the biggest miracle, but on the other hand, it is just something normal. Day by day we are living in the air. Christ is the miracle of air. He is the breath, the wind. Even the mighty rushing wind on the day of Pentecost also brought in fresh air; the wind always brings the air.
Perhaps we would not be able to adequately understand these things without scientific discoveries. Today science has proven that even in small substances there is atomic power. If within these poor items there is such a power, consider what power there is in Christ. Today this Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is in us. We are not talking about a mere religion. I hate to have a religion. In this universe there is the reality of the Triune God-the Father as the source, the Son as the course, and the Spirit as the current, the flow. Oh, we have the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit within us! Such a reality of the Triune God is dispensed into us through the Spirit. Therefore, we are not dealing with a religion, with the gifts, or even with the Bible alone. We are dealing with the living God and the living Christ in the living Spirit, not in a miraculous way but in a very normal way, just like the air. I do not have the adequate words, even in my mother tongue, to express what is on my heart and what I have understood in my spirit. It is very hard to explain, but I truly have seen something in my spirit about this. I can never exhaust speaking about this. In a sense I am “crazy” about this.
The Father is in the Son, the Son is the Spirit, and the Spirit today is the very current of the Triune God. This current flows into us and flows within us. While He is flowing, all the essence, elements, and fullness of the Godhead are transmitted into us. This is wonderful! This is not a religion, a set of teachings or gifts, or even the Bible by itself. This is the living Triune God in the Son and through the Spirit flowing into us day by day, constantly, like electricity and like the air. The Christ in whom we believe is such a living, life-giving Spirit, real and available as the air. Do we realize Him to such an extent? We need to realize Him.
This is the Christ that is revealed in the four books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. The apostle Paul, the writer, gives us the vision of Christ and then shows us the secret to experience this Christ in the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. If we have this Spirit flowing within us, we have Christ living in us. Then Christ will be magnified through us, and He will become our pattern, example, goal, prize, mark, and aim, and He will be the One who empowers us within. In this way He becomes the secret. If we have Him, we can do all things. The secret of the secret, however, is the Spirit. Just as the “mark” of electricity is the switch, the mark of God’s economy is the Spirit with our spirit. If we exercise our spirit and give heed to it, we will realize how rich, how real, and how living the indwelling Christ is. Again I say, this is not in the miraculous way but in a very normal way. The more spiritual we are, the more we are normal and powerful in a normal way. The life, expression, example, pattern, goal, mark, empowering, and secret are in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who has the bountiful supply. Praise Him, He is in us! This is wonderful, and this is the secret of experiencing Christ. For this reason, I love the book of Philippians.
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