Christ is the spiritual alphabet for inscription and also for completion. The Christ whom we experience is the One who is inscribed into us. But even though we may have a great deal of Christ inscribed into us, we are still missing something of Christ. When we realize this, we may say, “I cannot have this completion in myself, but I can have it through the church.” However, if you try to find this completion in the church, you will not be successful. The church itself also needs this completion. Therefore, even if you have the church, you still need Christ as your completion.
The fact that Christ is the alphabet for inscription and completion indicates that He is inexhaustible. We may have Him as the letters for inscription, but we still need Him as the letters for completion. We can never exhaust Christ, for although we may enjoy His inscription, there is still something more of Him that we need for completion.
By the Lord’s mercy and grace, I have been experiencing Christ for many years. When I went to Shanghai the first time, I was helped to experience Christ in a way I had not experienced Him in the past. After that visit to Shanghai, I returned to the north, where I held a conference and gave messages on Christ. I learned that no matter what my experience of Christ had been, while I was giving those messages, I realized that I had actually experienced very little of Christ. Regarding the experience of Christ, I then tried to receive help from the saints and from the church. However, I discovered that others were even more poor than I in experiencing Christ. In Shanghai I thought that I had experienced Christ to a great degree. But when I returned to the north and gave messages on Christ, I learned that I had not experienced Him very much at all. That was when I discovered what a great shortage there was among us with respect to the experience of Christ. Some saints had very little experience, and other saints had virtually no experience at all.
If you carefully examine the situation of Christians today, you will find out what poverty there is concerning the inscription of Christ. A certain believer may be very good, but he may still be opaque, lacking both in transformation and in the inscribing of Christ. Although such a believer has truly been saved, he has not yet been inscribed with Christ.
One day Brother Nee, referring to certain persons, asked me if I thought they had been regenerated. I knew those persons rather well and answered that it seemed to me that they had been saved. Brother Nee, somewhat in a joking way, replied, “Perhaps they have been saved, but not regenerated.” When I asked him how it was possible for someone to be saved without being regenerated, he answered, “Doctrinally, there is no such thing as a person who is saved but not regenerated. But according to actual experience, it seems that certain ones have been saved without being regenerated. No doubt, they have been redeemed by the blood, but although we have known them for years, we have never met their regenerated spirit. There is no question that they have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, but there is no indication of the Spirit that they have a regenerated spirit. They just don’t know to exercise their spirit.” It was surely the case that with these ones there was no inscription of Christ.
A particular saint may be a good brother or a nice sister, but how much of Christ has been inscribed into that one? How much of Christ has been inscribed into you? You may have to admit that little of Christ has been inscribed into your being. Because this is the situation with so many saints, in recent years my burden has become more and more heavy. It is possible to have thousands of local churches with tens of thousands of saints, but with little experience of Christ. How much have the saints in your locality been experiencing Christ? How much inscription of Christ do they have? If we consider our situation in this way, we may be somewhat disappointed.
At this point I would say a word to those who live in a brothers’ house or in a sisters’ house. How much of Christ has been inscribed into those with whom you live? We have seen that each of the twelve precious stones on the breastplate was inscribed with one of the names of the tribes of Israel. However, if you consider those with whom you live in a brothers’ or sisters’ house, you may find that no one has even one complete word inscribed on him or her. In some cases, only a part of a letter may be inscribed. The brothers and sisters may be very good, but it is difficult to see in them the clear and definite inscription of Christ. It is one thing to be a good brother or a nice sister; it is a very different matter to have the definite experience of Christ.
Consider once again the precious stones in the breastplate. Each stone was transparent, and each had been inscribed properly and definitely. For example, the name of the tribe of Judah had been inscribed into one of the stones. But, with many saints today there is a shortage of the clear and definite inscription of Christ. However, with some saints there are the definite experiences of Christ and the clear inscription of Christ. These saints have experienced Christ as the spiritual alphabet.
The situation of most of today’s Christians is far short of what God desires. The experience of Christ has been almost completely neglected by Christians throughout the centuries. Many have received edification, but few have had Christ inscribed into them. Before you came into the church life, you may have been edified in certain ways, but how much of the inscription of Christ did you have? You may have to admit that, although you were saved and regenerated, you did not have anything of Christ inscribed into you. Some among us were missionaries before they came into the Lord’s recovery. But although they labored on the mission field for years, they still did not have the clear and definite experiences of Christ. Rather, their experience was vague and indefinite.
Before I went to Shanghai in 1933, I spent more than seven years with the Brethren, from whom I learned a great deal about typology and prophecy. But after spending a number of weeks in Shanghai, I realized that during those years I had very little experience of Christ. Many of us have been in a similar situation. We gained knowledge about the Bible, but not very much of Christ was inscribed into us. For this reason, I am deeply concerned that the saints in all the churches have the proper experiences of Christ.
Even if we are like the twelve precious stones on the breastplate—transformed, transparent, and inscribed—we still are not complete or perfect. Therefore, we need to humble ourselves and say, “Lord Jesus, we are not yet complete. Because we are still imperfect, Lord, we need You to be our addition and completion. Lord, as an individual member of the church, I need You. Not only so, Lord, the whole church needs You. Even if as the church we are rich in experiencing You, we are yet missing something of You. Lord, we still need You to be added to us.”