Today we must see that the central teaching of the Chinese sages was to promote and develop the innate knowledge of good and the innate ability to do good. This innate knowledge and ability is our conscience, which is a part of our spirit. However, the Bible does not merely speak of the function of our conscience, which causes us to repent and confess our sins. The Bible also tells us that as soon as we repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, His redeeming blood cleanses us from our sins and His Spirit enters our spirit. The Lord in whom we believe is the God who created the universe; He is the real and living One. This God who is Spirit has actually entered into us. However, before He could enter us, He first had to be incarnated as a man, go to the cross to die for us, and shed His blood to redeem us from our sins. After He accomplished His redemptive work, that is, after His death and resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. This Spirit is the Savior in whom we believe. Therefore, our Lord Jesus is not only the Savior and the Redeemer, but He is also the life-giving Spirit.
In Christianity today this point is greatly ignored. Today’s Christianity mainly tells us how the Lord Jesus is God, how He became a man, died on the cross, washed away our sins, became our Savior, ascended into the heavens, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and how now He is in the heavens as the object of our worship. They almost completely ignore the other half of the ministry of Jesus Christ, which is that after the Lord Jesus died and rose, He became the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us that the last Adam, the Lord Jesus our Savior, became a life-giving Spirit. This Spirit has also come into our spirit. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 6:17 says that we have become one spirit with the Lord. Within us there truly is the fact that the two spirits are mingled as one spirit. Second Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.” In 2 Timothy 4:22 Paul says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” This implies that the Lord is Spirit; otherwise, He could not be able to enter our spirit and be with our spirit. This again proves that the Lord Spirit has become one spirit with our spirit.
The highest Christian life is a life of the two spirits becoming one spirit. This surpasses ethics and morality. Today you and I do not merely have a conscience, the innate knowledge of good and the innate ability to do good, or the bright virtue, nor do we only have a created spirit. Within our created spirit we also have the Spirit of God, who is our Redeemer and who became the life-giving Spirit. Today I want to help everyone to practice living by this mingled spirit, that is, to practice being one spirit with the Lord. Your being saved is not just a matter of your sins being forgiven, your being cleansed by the blood, or your being redeemed and regenerated. More than that, the Lord as the Spirit has entered your regenerated spirit and mingled with your regenerated spirit to become one spirit. This is the most precious point.
There are many brothers and sisters among us who have been saved for decades. They love the Lord, and they read the Bible and pray, but their experience of the Lord remains the same as it was forty or fifty years ago. This may be compared to a person living today in the age of the jet airplane but still using an old-fashioned ox cart. The Lord has already shown us that He is with our spirit and that our spirit is one spirit with Him, but some people today, thinking that their old “ox” is not strong enough to pull well, plan to get a bigger ox to pull their cart; while everyone is flying in a jumbo jet, they are looking for a bigger ox. Today the Spirit of the Lord is in your spirit. This is clear enough, and we must practice and exercise according to this.
The condition of our spirit is completely dependent on our exercise. Even I myself up to today condemn myself for not exercising enough in this matter. We must know that we humans are not simple. We have a biological aspect and a psychological aspect. The biological aspect is our body, and the psychological aspect is our soul. Our soul, too, is very complicated; it is composed of the mind, emotions, and will. We can use three circles to illustrate this. The outermost circle is the body, the middle circle is the soul, and the innermost circle is the spirit. Man has three parts: spirit, soul, and body. For example, to become angry and hit someone is a two-layered operation. One layer is the soul getting angry, and the other layer is the hand, which is a part of the body, hitting someone in cooperation with the soul. Many people think that one cannot commit sin without the cooperation of the body. However, one can commit sin solely in the realm of the human mind. For example, one does not need to use the body to hate others. To curse others, however, requires the use of the body because one must move his mouth and tongue. Thus, when the soul and the body function together, the result is that people commit sin. For this reason, we must be delivered from the bothering of the soul, and we must exercise our spirit in the Spirit that we may become one spirit with the Lord.
Since the Lord is mingled with our spirit, and the two spirits have become one spirit, how do we need to exercise? We need to exercise in all our daily living and actions that the body will not be our starting point nor will the soul be our consideration, but that the spirit will be our center. We need to exercise according to this spirit. Are you going to argue with your wife? You must do it according to the spirit. Are you going to be angry? You must be angry according to the spirit. Some may then say that once we are according to the spirit, we will neither argue nor be angry; this is right. To be according to the spirit is simply to exercise the spirit.
In the preceding chapter, we fellowshipped about walking according to the spirit. I told you that the word walk in Greek means to live and walk. You have to exercise your spirit when you are angry and want to argue, but even in your ordinary speaking to others, you should stop for a minute and speak from your spirit. When you speak in the meetings, even more you must be according to the spirit; you must exercise your spirit and speak from your spirit. Once you are according to the spirit, the words that you speak will have a different flavor; therefore, you must learn how to speak from your spirit. As one who speaks for the Lord, I often practice this. My desire is that every sentence I speak will come out from my spirit. We all must confess that our exercise is still not adequate or perfect because we are still in the habit of speaking and acting according to our soul and ourselves.