We will now ask the second question: What is the experience of life? Once we have seen what life is, we may easily know what the experience of life is.
We have seen that life is God Himself. God Himself flowing into us, being received and experienced by us, is life. Therefore, to experience God is to experience life. All experience of life is the experiencing and touching of God. Any experience that does not touch God is not an experience of life.
For example, some repentance is not due to God’s enlightenment, but to man’s own introspection. Since it does not cause man to touch God, it is not an experience of life. Repentance which results from God’s enlightenment surely will cause man to touch God, and is therefore an experience of life.
That which is derived from man’s own behavior is not an experience of life. It is artificial and of man’s own work; it is not the result of God passing through man nor man passing through God; therefore, it cannot be counted as an experience of life.
What then can be considered an experience of life? An experience which results from God passing through man and man passing through Him is considered an experience of life. For example: in our prayer we meet God, become enlightened, see our own fault, and deal with it before God. It is not that we detect our own fault, but rather, when we draw near to God, we are inwardly met by God, and thereby we see our own fault. God is light; hence when we meet Him, we see our fault in His light. We naturally confess to God and ask for the cleansing of the Lord’s blood. As a consequence, God passes through us, and we also pass through God. Such experience causes us to experience God; therefore, it is the experience of life.
All experiences of life are from God and are His working within us; therefore, they can cause us to touch God and experience Him. All experience that is not such is not the experience of life, for life is God, and to experience life is to experience God. Hence, any such experience of God will show forth life (Phil. 2:13-16).
To experience life undoubtedly is to experience God, yet God is in Christ to be experienced by us. Christ is God’s manifestation and embodiment; He is God becoming our experience. Therefore, all our experience of God is the experience of Christ and is in Christ. Thus, since to experience life is to experience God, it is also to experience Christ.
Though God is life, He cannot be our life except He be in Christ and become Christ, and thus be experienced by us. In order to be experienced by us, He must be our life. But He cannot be our life while in heaven, in the light which no man can approach (1 Tim. 6:16). Furthermore, in order to be our life, He must have our human nature. His divine life must be mingled with human nature so that it can be united with us, who possess the human nature, and be our life. Therefore, He came out from heaven, became flesh, and mingled with human nature. Thus, God became Christ and becomes our life in the human nature for us to experience Him. When we experience Him as our life, we experience Christ.
In short, when we experience Christ, we will experience the following aspects:
This is our initial experience of Christ when we are saved. We experience God revealing Christ in us through the Holy Spirit, thus enabling us to know and receive Him as our life and our all.
This is our continuous experience of Christ living in us as our life after we are saved. In other words, we experience Christ abiding in us and living for us. This, the continuous experience of Christ in our daily life as saints, constitutes the major part of our experience of Christ.
This is our letting all that is of Christ be the element of our inward life, that Christ may grow and be formed in us. Christ is in us not only that we may experience Him as our life, as the One who is living for us, but that we may experience Him even more as our all, thus enabling Him to grow and be formed in our life that His life may reach maturity in us.
This is our letting all that is of Christ become the expression of our outward living, that Christ may be manifested outwardly. Whether it be by life or by death, in any circumstance we let Christ be magnified in our body. In other words, for us to live is Christ. This, of course, is a somewhat deeper experience of Christ: it is not only experiencing Him being formed within us, but also experiencing Him being magnified out from us. Christ being formed in us is the maturity of the inward life; it is then that we have all that is His as our inner elements. Christ being magnified in our body is the expression of the outward living; by this we allow all that is His to be our outward manifestation. Hence, in this experience, we experience Christ not only as the elements of our inward life, but also as the manifestation of our outward living.