Suppose a missionary goes to a mission field, yet he exchanges unpleasant words with his wife every day. Do you think he is really employed by God? Yet he is there working on the mission field for God. He may present such a busy body to go to the mission field to do some mission work for God, but actually that is not a real service to God. You can never enter into the Body life by presenting such a busy body to God. The proper presenting of your body is a matter of presenting a body that is unemployed, that has been fired, that has lost every employment. When you offer such a body to God, this offering or this presentation may usher you into the Body life. You can enter into the Body life only by presenting an unemployed body to the Lord. If you present a busy, employed body, you have no way to enter into the practicality of the Body of Christ.
As you can see, this is more practical than the organic union, and this is more practical than the sonship. This is a matter of having an unemployed body to present to the Lord. Do you really have a body that is unemployed? By what is your body employed? I don’t think your body is that much employed by sin, but probably it is employed by many other things. In so many other things you are not led by the Spirit. When you read the newspaper, that may be a practice by the body not led by the Spirit. If you pick up a newspaper and read it not under the leading of the Spirit, that is a practice of the body. We have to be led by the Spirit daily to such an extent that we have no practice of the body apart from being led by the Spirit. In other words if the Spirit does not lead us, we would do nothing. This is a matter of God’s economy. If the Spirit does not lead you, whatever you do is a practice of the body. By this you can see that although you say you walk according to the Spirit, actually you do not. The real walking according to the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit.
Many Christians do not walk according to the Spirit. A few may walk according to the Spirit, but they are not led by the Spirit. They walk according to the Spirit, but they are led by ethics or other things. Whatever is ethical, they have the boldness to do. Whatever is not ethical, they would not do. This means they are not led by the indwelling Spirit; they are led by ethics. Most Christians today are led not by the Spirit, but by morality. Before speaking a word, they would consider whether or not that word is true or false. This means they are led by ethics, by morality. The crucial point is this: Is it the Spirit leading you to say a certain thing? Even if you are going to speak the truth but it is not the Spirit leading you to speak, you shouldn’t speak. We have to be led not by ethics, not by morality, but by the Spirit. Although we may say that we walk according to Spirit, actually in the practical practices of our body we are led by good standards, by ethics, by what is right, by morality, and not by the Spirit.
Do you realize who are the most troublesome members in the Body of Christ? The most troublesome members in the Body life are the most ethical ones. If you are so ethical you will just kill yourself in the Body life. You will have no share in the Body life. A self-righteous person is simply a person who is led in everything by ethics. An ethical person can hardly know anything of the Spirit’s leading. Many believers are very good, moral, righteous, ethical, and right in many things. But within they are condemning others. They condemn the elders and they condemn other brothers and sisters. Only they are the righteous ones. Such persons have no way to be actually and practically in the Body life. All their right practices are the practices of the body. This means they are walking not according to the Spirit but according to the flesh. You may say that they are walking according to the good flesh. Those who are not right, not ethical, not moral are living according to the bad flesh. But both good flesh and bad flesh are of the same source. One fruit may be rotten and the other perfect, but both are sour fruit. One may be so ethical, so right, so righteous, so moral, so good, but altogether according to the flesh. Another may be bad to the uttermost according to the flesh. You have to see that the source is the same. In Romans 8:13 Paul doesn’t say that you should kill the sinful deeds of the body. He says by the Spirit you should kill all the practices, whether good or bad. As long as it is a practice of the body, you have to kill it.
You have to see that if you are not a person all the day long killing every activity of your body by the indwelling Spirit, you cannot have a practical share in the Body of Christ. You may think that you are in the Body, but actually you are not. You are still by yourself. I admit this is a kind of hard word, but I would not cheat you. For nearly nineteen hundred years the Lord has been unable to have the practical and actual Body life in an adequate way. Even today where is the practical Body? It is only when you and I are willing by the indwelling Spirit to put every practice of our body to death that we are actually and practically in the Body of Christ. At that time we can present an unemployed body, a fired body, a released body to God. Then we will be a person fully edified and fully qualified to have the Body life.
Next week we will come to another point. So far we have covered the matter of the organic union, the sonship, and now the unemployed body, a body that is good for us to present to God. Whatever sacrifice you are going to offer to God must be unemployed. If your body is so much occupied and employed and yet you offer it to God, that will be a kind of cheating.