The Bible shows us that God’s basic desire concerning us is to work Himself into us to be our life, our life supply, and even our enjoyment that we may be full and satisfied so that He may live Himself out of us and be expressed through us.
However, for God to work Himself thus into us to be our life and life supply, two means are necessary. Our God is great and holy, and He is also very mysterious. On our side we contact Him daily and receive Him into us as our life, our life supply, and our enjoyment, while on God’s side He works Himself into us. The Bible tells us that it is through His Word and His Spirit that God is able to work Himself into us to be our life and our life supply. God gave us two exceedingly great gifts: the first is God’s Word, and the second is God’s Spirit.
The word of God is the Holy Bible. The Bible, which is the word of God, is given to us by God as an exceedingly great gift. The word of God is not abstract at all; it has been written out and solidly put into our hands, and we can read it every day. Not only so, we can also ruminate, consider, and even research the word of God. However, we must not imagine wild things about it with our mind. Rather, our thoughts must center around the words of the Bible. We should fix our mind on the words of the Bible, digest the words of the Bible, and masticate the words of the Bible. In this manner at the very least we will have touched the revelation of God and His expressed desire.
We may illustrate this as follows. This morning you may want to contact me, and I also may want to get in touch with you. However, you may sit there silently, and I may stand here mutely, neither of us speaking a word. If after an hour and a half of silence we walk away from each other, we will have received nothing. Nothing from me got into you, and nothing from you got into me. We know that it is through speaking that we contact each other and flow into each other. Sometimes we also have to use our eyes to convey our feelings. When you look at me and I look at you, we can understand each other. When you see me laugh, you know that I am happy, and when I see you shed tears, I know that you are sad. However, no matter how much we convey through our eyes, we still may not know the real situation. Therefore, we still need to talk to each other. I need to ask you, “Why are you shedding tears? Tell me about it.” When you talk to me, your story gets into me, and I receive your view. Your elucidation and explanation are a revelation. After your speaking, I see your side of the story. Then I know that you were, perhaps, wrongly accused by your father this morning. At the same time I also understand why you do not shed tears in front of people on the street; rather, you shed tears before me because you know that I can show a little concern and sympathy for you. In other words, you have a place to pour out your feelings. This makes me understand why you are shedding tears. However, this is only a revelation; you still cannot come into me. Although I may say a word to comfort you that you may also have my view, I still have no way to enter into you.
If God gave us merely His Word, we could understand only His intention and at the most know His revelation, but He could not enter into us. Therefore, He must take the second step, that is, He must become the Spirit. I have repeatedly said that in order to redeem us the Lord Jesus was incarnated; He put on a body of flesh and blood, and then on the cross He died for us, suffered the judgment of God, and shed His precious blood to redeem us from our sins. After He accomplished the work of redemption, He resurrected from the dead and became the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” When we believe in Him, confess our sins, and receive Him as our Savior, He as the life-giving Spirit enters into us. This truly is a mysterious matter.
In Greek the word for spirit is pneuma, which can also be translated as breath. After His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus became the Spirit, and this Spirit is breath. In this point the Chinese language is very meaningful. When someone dies, we do not like to say that he died, but we say that he expired, that is, he breathed his last breath. To expire is to have no more breath, and to have no more breath is to have no life. Therefore, John 6:63 says, “It is the Spirit who gives life.” In this verse life is connected with the Spirit. The Spirit of life is the breath of life. Breath is spirit, and spirit is breath. Our Savior Jesus is God who became a man to be our Savior. However, He did not stop there. Instead, He died and resurrected, and in resurrection He is the Spirit of life, the breath of life. Therefore, He said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (v. 63b). Here, spirit and life are put together again. That which is spirit is life. This means that spirit, breath, and life are all one. If we do not have breath, we do not have life. Our physical body can illustrate this. Sometimes when we are sick, we may feel that we are short of breath. In the hospital patients who are short of breath are given oxygen. Another example is that when a car tire does not have sufficient air, it needs to be taken to the gas station and pumped up. Similarly, when our body is short of breath, we need to go to the hospital to be “pumped up.”