At the very moment that the Lord Jesus died on the cross, blood flowed forth, and with the blood, water also flowed forth. Now both are flowing on. Blood is for the judicial aspect of God’s salvation, whereas water is for the organic aspect of God’s salvation. When the Holy Spirit moved us, we repented, confessed our sins, and received forgiveness. This forgiveness is based on the judicial aspect, signified by the redeeming blood. However, we still need the organic aspect of God’s salvation, signified by the water which flowed forth with the blood, that we may attain the eternal purpose of God in us. Blood is for redemption; water is for life dispensing. Through His resurrection from the dead the Lord became the life-giving Spirit, and as such He dispenses His life into the redeemed ones for the fulfillment of the organic aspect of God’s salvation. This is the third stage.
Hymn #450 [in the Chinese hymnal] says, “Spirit begets spirit, and spirit worships Spirit/Thus I am filled with the Spirit;/The Spirit becomes the word with abundant life/ Flowing forth rivers of living water.” “Spirit begets spirit” means that God is Spirit and we have to be born of Him in our spirit that we may be regenerated. Furthermore, since God is Spirit, we must worship Him with our spirit. In this way we will be filled with the Spirit. Moreover, the Spirit becomes the word with abundant life flowing forth rivers of living water. This is the conclusion of the entire Bible-a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1).
God’s salvation in its judicial aspect required only thirty-three and a half years for its accomplishment, but the organic aspect is endless. The judicial aspect is very simple, consisting of only five items: forgiveness of sins, washing away of sins, justification, reconciliation to God, and positional sanctification. However, the organic aspect comprises eight items-regeneration, shepherding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building up, conformation, and glorification-which need to be defined with twenty-two Epistles from Romans to Revelation. The Lord Jesus needs eternity to accomplish His organic work, and the apostles needed twenty-two books to define it.
In the preceding messages we saw God’s organic salvation in regeneration, shepherding, dispositional sanctification, and renewing. In this message we will go on to see transformation and building up.
Transformation is not an outward change or correction but the metabolic function of the life of God in the believers. Transformation is not to make some corrections from without; it is the function of metabolism from within and is manifested without. This is expressed in a line of the new hymn for this conference: “Manifesting the metabolism in life.”
Suppose a person is undernourished and appears thin and sickly. He cannot improve by merely applying some powder to his face. Rather, he needs to be supplemented with nutrition; then his physical condition will improve and his facial color will spontaneously become rosy. Luke 15 tells us that when the prodigal son returned home, he had a robe put on him for his covering, yet he still appeared thin and sickly. Merely to have the robe was not sufficient; he still needed to eat the fattened calf for several days. When metabolism began to work in him, he would naturally become strong and his facial color would look pretty. Thus, the beauty that comes by applying powder is not genuine beauty; only that which is expressed outwardly through the inward metabolism is genuine health and real beauty.
If the believers are willing to grow in the divine life, the element of the divine life will increase in them and bring forth a metabolic change. Thus, their inward disposition will be transformed, and their outward image will also be transformed to be the same as the image of the Lord. This is not moral cultivation by examining oneself and mending one’s ways as taught by Confucianism in China. That is man’s own moral cultivation. When we are transformed into the image of the Lord by beholding Him, this is not the result of our self-cultivation, but it is the Lord Spirit, the life-giving Spirit whom the Lord Christ became in His resurrection, who moves within us to bring forth a metabolic change through the increase of the element of the divine life in us (2 Cor. 3:18). This is altogether a transformation brought forth by the moving and working of the Lord Spirit and the divine life within us.
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