In the Bible light is one with life, life is one with love, love is related to holiness, and holiness, to righteousness. When all these are put together, we have power. These divine attributes—light, life, love, holiness, righteousness, and power— are actually the Triune God Himself coming to us as the Spirit through the Word. When we contact the Triune God as the Spirit through the Word, we experience Him as our light, life, love, holiness, righteousness, and power. This is Christ in our experience. Experiencing Christ in such a subjective way, we spontaneously live Him.
The word of life is not only identical to Christ; it is identical also to these divine attributes. From experience we can testify that whenever we strike the Word with our spirit, we have light. The word of life becomes light to us in our experience. Furthermore, the Word becomes life, including love, holiness, righteousness, power, strength, and might. This is the word of life being identical to the living Christ and also to the various attributes of the Triune God.
We should not regard the Bible simply as a book of theology revealing who God is, what God is, and what God wants us to do in order to contact Him. The Bible is not just an objective revelation of God and His requirements. The Bible should also be the tree of life for us to eat. To us the Bible may be either a book of knowledge or a book of life, either the tree of knowledge or the tree of life. The tree of knowledge brings death, but the tree of life brings the divine life supply. I can testify that in the past I acquired a great deal of knowledge by approaching the Bible as the tree of knowledge. The result was that I was deadened, even killed, by the Bible in black and white letters. This is according to Paul’s word, “The letter kills” (2 Cor. 3:6). The Scripture in letters can kill. This comes from taking the Bible as the tree of knowledge. But if we exercise our spirit to feed on the Word, the Bible will become in our experience a book of life, even the tree of life. We shall then be supplied with life through every verse. Many Christians have been killed by the Bible in dead letters. What they need is not more doctrine, but the life of the Spirit. They need to come to the Bible as the tree of life.
I can testify that I am living and energized because I receive the life supply from the Word as the tree of life. The Word is the embodiment of the very Lord whom I love. Because I love Him, I contact Him through the Word, which is identical to the Lord Himself. Two verses in John 15 indicate this. In verse 4 the Lord Jesus says, “Abide in Me and I in you.” But in verse 7 He says, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall come to pass to you.” Notice that in verse 4 it is the Lord who abides in us, whereas in verse 7 His words abide in us. This indicates that the Lord’s words abiding in us are equal to the Lord Himself abiding in us. If we do not have His words abiding in us, it will be difficult for us to experience Him abiding in us. The Lord is abstract, but His word is concrete.
We need to contact the Word not only with our mind, but also with our regenerated spirit. When we exercise our spirit to contact the Word, the Word becomes identical to the Lord Himself in our experience. Then the Word is living, energizing, and filled with the divine attributes of light, life, love, holiness, righteousness, and power. By taking the Word in this way, we live Christ.
I have no doubt that Paul’s life was a life of living Christ. He could say, “To me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). He also charged us to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). As we have pointed out, the word dwell in Colossians 3:16 means to inhabit, to house itself, in us. To let the word of Christ house itself in us is to let the Word saturate our whole being. Eventually, when in our experience the Word, Christ, and the Triune God are mingled together as one, we live Christ. We have a life full of the divine virtues of light, life, love, holiness, righteousness, and power. This is the proper Christian life.