John 15:4 says, “Abide in Me and I in you.” We abide in the Lord, and He abides in us. It may be that we will never be clear whether it is He abiding in us or we abiding in Him. The word “abide” in Greek has the meaning of staying, remaining, and living. For example, to say that we abide in a house includes, of course, the sense that we live in the house. When we say that we abide in the Lord, it means that we stay, remain, and live in the Lord. In the same way, the Lord stays, remains, and lives in us. His abiding in us is the mingling of God and man.
According to God’s New Testament economy, the relationship between God and man is a matter of the mingling of God and man. On the one hand, we are in Him; on the other hand, He is in us. When the two are added together, we have the mingling. For example, we may have flour dough here. It is the result of mingling oil with flour. The flour is full of oil, and the flour is mingled into the oil. The northern Chinese make tasty nut cakes out of this kind of dough. Another example is tea added into hot water. After a few minutes, the water turns into the color of tea. The tea element in the tea has entered into the water, and the water has entered into the tea. The first mingling is a mingling of oil with flour. The second mingling is a penetration of tea into water, “tea-ifying” the water.
As early as the second century, there were people who saw the truth concerning the mingling of God and man. But at that time, they did not see that the mingling of the divine nature with the human nature does not take away the original element of each nor produce a third element. This mingling is not a taking away of the nature of God or the nature of man. Neither are these two natures turned into a third nature. The two natures still exist; there is no change. We will never become God through this mingling. This mingling only makes us partakers of His life (1 John 5:12) and nature (2 Pet. 1:4), thus making us the children of God (1 John 3:1). This is the same as a son and a father having the same life and nature. It does not mean that the son’s having his father’s life and nature makes him the father. In person, the son is still the son, and the father is still the father. But in nature, the two are the same.
John 15 says that the Lord is the true vine and that the believers are the branches. As such, the believers have to abide in the vine. Because of the way this is said, it may appear that this is an illustration. But 1 John 4 is definitely a fact. There it says, “In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given us of His Spirit” (v. 13). The Spirit given by God who abides in us is the witness in our spirit, testifying that we abide in God and that God abides in us. Here man is mingled with God. This is the principle of incarnation. In the whole universe, at least there is One among all of God’s creation, Jesus of Nazareth, who is a product of the two natures of God and man. He is God, yet He is also man. He is the God-man. God is not only with Him but is mingled with Him. They share the same life, the same living, the same move, and the same work. Thus, in heaven or on earth, the Lord Jesus walks and works together with God. This togetherness is not only one of being alongside one another, but one of being mingled with one another.
All of Christianity talks about working for God and serving God but fails to realize that to co-work with God is a matter of mingling. Brother Andrew Murray once said that the best prayer is one in which the Christ within prays to the Christ in heaven. The best prayer is one where the heavenly Christ prays to Himself from us the earthly people. In other words, the highest prayer is one where Christ prays with us by putting us on and “wearing” us. Romans 8:26 says, “For we do not know for what we should pray as is fitting, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” When this verse says that the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, does it refer to a groaning without or a groaning within the believer? Doubtless this groaning of the Spirit refers to something within. We may have never realized that while we are groaning, our groaning is the prayer of the Holy Spirit. In our experience, sometimes we have a feeling and a burden toward a certain matter, but there is no word for utterance; we can only groan. Actually this groaning affords an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to express the feelings within us. We cannot utter this groaning. It is something that even we ourselves do not understand, but God understands. God who hears our prayer understands this groaning.
If we read these verses carefully, we will see that God’s New Testament economy is to work Himself into man and to work man into God that God and man would be mingled as one. All of man’s worship and service to God and all of his work for God are a matter of living, walking, and laboring together under this principle of incarnation. Everyone in the church, whether they be old or young, must learn from the start of their service to God that a worker for God is just a man in God. When you step into a car, He steps into the car with you. When you are happy, He is happy with you. When you are sad, He is sad with you. When you lose your temper or when you do something that makes Him suffer or gives Him a hard time, you are working alone. When your spiritual condition is normal, you should not do anything alone. Rather, you should work together with God. Let me repeat-the togetherness here is not one of being alongside one another. It is not an outward togetherness. The togetherness here is one of being mingled with one another. It is a togetherness in mingling.
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