However, this point has been neglected by many Christians today. Many dear Christians pay attention to the fact that our Lord Jesus is our Redeemer and our Savior. Regrettably, they neglect the fact that this Lord Jesus, who is our Redeemer and Savior, is also today the life-giving Spirit, who has entered into our spirit to be our life. Because of such negligence, I am particularly burdened to help people see from the Bible that the Lord Jesus is not only our Redeemer and Savior but that He is also the life-giving Spirit who dwells in our spirit, living with us moment by moment and supplying us unceasingly.
Since this Redeemer, this Savior, is in our spirit to be our life, we should contact Him and enjoy Him to receive His supply. The Bible uses many figures to tell us how we should contact and enjoy the Lord. First, the Bible says that this Savior of ours is food to us; as the bread that we can feed on, He can be received into us for our supply. This is like taking our meals. Meal after meal we receive the life supply into our stomach to supply the need of our entire body.
Sometimes, not understanding what we speak, some may say, “You are belittling the Lord Jesus by such a teaching. How can the Lord Jesus, who is the great Savior, become a small piece of bread to be taken into your stomach? Your words are blasphemous.” Actually, they do not understand that this is not our own word but the word of the Lord Jesus in the Bible. In John 6:35 the Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Since He is the bread of life, He is to be eaten; He is edible.
We all know that, as Gentiles, the Canaanites were despised by the Jews. To the Jews the Canaanites were like dogs. One day when the Lord Jesus was proclaiming God on the earth to carry out God’s salvation, a Canaanite woman came to seek help from Him. The Lord said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs” (Matt. 15:26). The children are the Jews, who are God’s chosen people. The bread of the children no doubt refers to the Lord Himself. The Lord came as the bread of life to be enjoyed by God’s chosen people.
The Lord said that it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. This word indicates that not only the Jews considered the Canaanites as dogs, but even the Lord Jesus, figuratively speaking, likened this Canaanite woman to a dog. The Lord seemed to be saying: “You, who are a Canaanite dog, are trying to take a bite of Me, but I am the bread for the children, not for you.” However, this Canaanite woman answered very wonderfully. She said, “Yes, Lord, for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (v. 27). This is very meaningful. How can the bread become the crumbs under the table? Because the naughty children are unruly and disorderly, when they eat their meal, the food they are eating goes under the table instead of getting into their stomach. Therefore, what the Canaanite woman meant was, “Lord, I am neither a chosen one of God nor a child of God. Consider me then as a dog. The dogs also have their portion; the things on top of the table are the children’s portion, whereas the things under the table are the dogs’ portion. If the children eat the bread on top of the table, then as a dog can I not eat the crumbs that are under the table?” When the Lord heard this, He was moved. This answer touched His heart. Hence, He immediately did something for her and was gracious to her.
This is what I have been speaking all these years. Some people, not having seen this light in the Bible have criticized, saying, “You liken the Lord Jesus to a small piece of bread. Such a teaching is a blasphemy to the Lord Jesus!” Actually, the Lord Jesus is not only great but also small. He is both the greatest and the smallest wonderful One. In Christianity, there is a famous hymn that says, “How marvelous! How great Thou art!” Although that is a very good hymn, there is the need to write another hymn that says, “How marvelous! How small Thou art!” If the Lord were not small, He could not be eaten and get into us. Anything that can be eaten must be small. The Lord is small in order to enter into man to be man’s life and life supply.
Upon hearing this word, the faultfinders might say, “You see, according to what they say, the Lord Jesus is so much smaller than they are, and they are bigger than the Lord Jesus.” Today we are not here to argue but just to let all men see that when the Bible speaks of the Lord Jesus as our supply within, it uses all kinds of words and parables. The Bible says that He is the tree of life to be food for man to eat; it says that He is also the living water to be water for man to drink. The Lord Jesus Himself told the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever” (John 4:13-14). If the criticizers hear this word, they will consider this word as altogether derogatory, since to them it makes the Lord Jesus completely worthless. This is because they do not know how much it pleases the Lord Jesus to be the spiritual food to the believers and to supply them within. It is for this reason the Lord Jesus spoke using so many figures.
The Lord Jesus came into the midst of His disciples on the night of His resurrection and breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The word Spirit in Greek is pneuma, meaning breath. Therefore, Receive the Holy Spirit can also be translated as Receive the Holy Breath. This means that the breath which the Lord breathed is the Spirit. This indicates that in the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus is our bread, our food, our living water, and also our spiritual air.
According to our physical body, we have three great necessities in order to live: food, water, and air. Without taking any food, a person will die in eight days; without drinking water, he will die in three days. However, without breathing in air, he will be finished in only five minutes. Therefore, if a person wants to die quickly, the best way is to stop breathing. However, it is hard to stop breathing because God created man in such a way that it is hard for him to stop breathing. To breathe or not to breathe is not up to you. You have to breathe even if you do not want to. Therefore physically, man must breathe, and of course he also needs to drink and eat for his existence.
Likewise, for our spiritual life we need the Lord Jesus to be our food, our living water, and even the more, our air. All these are figures of speech, using physical and visible things to describe the spiritual and invisible reality. The Lord Jesus is our spiritual life, food, drink, and air; we cannot be separated from Him even for one moment. If we leave Him for only five minutes, we will die. Because of this, in the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus told us repeatedly, “Abide in Me and I in you” (15:4).
In 1968 I was invited to speak in Indiana, and my topic was on our abiding in the Lord and the Lord’s abiding in us. While I was speaking, one sister rose up to interrupt me, saying, “Please tell me, how can we abide in the Lord, and how can the Lord abide in us?” I replied, “Physically, we are living in air, and air is also living in us. This is why we are alive. In like manner, today the Lord is the Spirit, the pneuma, that is, the breath. He abides in us, and we also abide in Him. It is thus we have breath and life and thereby live.”