How can we drink of Him? When we call on His name, we have the sense that we have had a refreshing drink. Throughout the day, if we call “O Lord Jesus!” a few times, we shall have a good drink. Oftentimes during the course of my day, I feel weary from my writing, studying, reading, and listening to people. When I pause to call “O Lord Jesus,” I am refreshed. I like to tell the Lord, “Lord, I still love You. O Lord Jesus, I still love You.” It makes a big difference to my day. People in this country like to stop and have a cup of coffee. The real refreshment comes, not from a cup of coffee, but from calling on the name of the Lord.
Romans 10:9 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from among the dead, you shall be saved.” We have been criticized for saying that we are saved by calling on the Lord’s name. Is it sufficient to listen to a gospel message and believe what is preached without calling on the Lord? Suppose an unsaved one hears the gospel. He recognizes that he is a sinner and believes that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for his sins; that He was resurrected and is now the Redeemer and Savior. Is this adequate? Romans 10 says further, “For there is no difference between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord of all is rich to all who call upon Him. For, Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (vv. 12-13). There are two sides here: one is believing; the other, calling on the name of the Lord. The one who believes the gospel may say, “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. Do forgive me. I believe You died for me.” He is calling on the Lord, though only a little. We may say that he is saved, but he is scarcely saved. Later, however, while he is alone in his room, he may call out, “O Lord Jesus! Hallelujah! You died for me! I am a sinner, but Your blood was shed for me!” Now he is more saved. The louder he calls, the stronger will be his experience of salvation.
I have a friend who was an unbeliever. When he got saved, he was rolling on the floor, repenting and calling out that he was a sinner. No one told him to roll on the floor nor to shout. Then he called out, “Lord Jesus! Jesus!” He got thoroughly saved.
It is not only sinners whose thirst is quenched by calling on the Lord. Though I have been in the Lord for over fifty-five years, I still find that every time I call on the name of the Lord Jesus, I am refreshed. People may say it is not refined to call out like this. Possibly this is true, but I do enjoy it. I care more for the enjoyment of eating than for table manners.
In this compound Spirit are the death of Christ with its effectiveness, His resurrection, and the power of His resurrection. This Spirit is embodied in the Word. The Spirit and the Word cannot be separated from each other. It is the Spirit who gives life....The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life! We have both the Word and the Spirit. The Spirit is compounded with all the excellent, divine elements as well as the humanity of Christ and His death and resurrection. He is the all-inclusive Spirit!
“But ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things....But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John 2:20, 27, lit.).
The more we pray-read and the more we call on His name, the more His humanity will be anointed into our being. This compound ointment is like paint. When we have our house painted, it gets one coating of paint and then another added to it. By pray-reading and calling on the name, the spiritual painting will add coating after coating to us. Then within us there will be both the humanity and the divinity of Christ. There will be the effectiveness of His death, by which all the negative things of our natural being will be killed. We shall also have the power of His resurrection to nourish, strengthen, and sustain us with its heavenly supply.
In the church life we enjoy the Triune God. We enjoy Christ. We enjoy both His humanity and His divinity; His death and its effectiveness; His resurrection and its power. Our enjoyment cannot be denied, even by those who criticize us as being emotional. Let us disregard such criticisms. Let us keep on pray-reading. Let us keep on calling on the name of the Lord Jesus. The enemy Satan hates the church life. The pray-reading and the calling he also hates. But to us they are an enjoyment.
By means of the pray-reading and the calling we experience the compound ointment. This ointment within us is moving and active. Anointing is the noun form of the verb “to anoint.” The anointing is the moving of the ointment; in other words, the action of the compound Spirit.
In the New Testament this compound Spirit is called “the Spirit.” Many times Paul uses this term rather than Holy Spirit or Spirit of God. For example, he says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit” (Rom. 8:16). It is by this compound all-inclusive Spirit that we enjoy Him, that we live Christ, and that we have the church life. It is the Spirit who makes the church life so living, rich, and uplifting.
When John spoke of the anointing in his Epistle, he must have had in mind Exodus 30:23-25. This reference in Moses’ writings is the source of this matter of the anointing. In the time of Moses there was only the type. Today we have the reality, the all-inclusive compound Spirit. We enjoy Him by pray-reading and by calling on the name of the Lord. Then John in his Revelation, the last book of the Bible, used “the Spirit” more than other terms or titles for the Spirit of God (2:7, 11, 17, 28; 3:6, 13, 22; 14:13; 22:17). This indicates eventually the Bible stresses “the Spirit” for our experience of the Triune God with all His achievements and attainments.
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