On the day of Pentecost the Triune God-man poured Himself out as the Holy Spirit. Today in the Holy Spirit there is not only the divine nature but also the human nature. Andrew Murray’s book The Spirit of Christ refers to the Spirit of the glorified Jesus. This book says that Jesus was a man and still is a man in His glorification, that is, in His resurrection (Luke 24:26, 46). After this man ascended to the heavens, the Spirit of this man came down with the nature of this man. Andrew Murray writes, “When poured out at Pentecost, He came as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the Incarnate, crucified, and exalted Christ, the bearer and communicator to us, not of the life of God as such, but of that life as it had been interwoven into human nature in the person of Christ Jesus.” Therefore, the Holy Spirit who came down from the heavens on the day of Pentecost is not only the Holy Spirit with the divine nature but also the Holy Spirit with the human nature interwoven with the divine nature, that is, with the human nature mingled with the divine nature. Now the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of the divine nature mingled with the human nature. Moreover, the human nature in the Holy Spirit was redeemed, sanctified, and uplifted through the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 1:3-4). Thus, the Holy Spirit today, who works with us and in us, is a Spirit of the divine nature interwoven with the redeemed, sanctified, and uplifted human nature. The Holy Spirit has come down to present such a wonderful One, the Triune God-man, to us as our Savior, our Lord, our God, our life, and our everything for us to receive. Now such a One is within us.
We are men who are contained in a body as a vessel, with a receiving organ, a spirit, as the center of our being. By means of the receiving organ within us, we can receive God. God comes into our spirit to dwell in our spirit as the very center of our being. However, we need to know what kind of God we have received. The God whom we have received is the Triune God-man, who has become our Savior, our Lord, and our God. Furthermore, He is all these things to us not in an objective way but in a very subjective way. He has entered into us and is now in us subjectively. Christianity today emphasizes that we must worship a God who is far away in the third heaven, but we must realize that today our God is not far away from us. In fact, He is within us and He is one with us. When I was young, I was taught that the Savior Jesus Christ is now in the heavens. Although this is right, it is not the full picture. He is in the heavens, but He is here also. When I prayed, I had the thought that the Lord was in the heavens, far away from me, but the more I prayed, the more I felt that He was within me.
Today this wonderful Savior, who is the Lord and God, is within us. But if He is merely the Savior, the Lord, and God to us, there is no need for Him to come into us. For example, a cow may help me by pulling a cart for me or by carrying me. To render such help, there is no need for the cow to be in me. However, if I am very hungry and need the cow to be my life supply, the cow must come into me. Now we can understand why this wonderful Savior God must come into us. He must come into us not only to be our Savior, our Lord, and our God, but even more to be our life. There is no other way for Him to be life to us. Moreover, for me to take in a large cow, the cow must first be slaughtered, sent to the supermarket, brought into the kitchen, and put into an oven to be cooked. This is a picture of what the wonderful Savior did in order that we might receive Him as our life. He was slaughtered on Mount Calvary, and then He was brought to the “supermarket,” that is, to the church, for us to gain Him as “groceries” and then bring Him home and take Him in as life. Now He is within us. How wonderful this is!
Furthermore, when He enters into us, He does it in a quiet way. When a cow is eaten by us, it enters into us not in a noisy way but in a quiet way. Then, after we have digested it, the cow becomes even more quiet. We must be impressed that the way of life is the quiet way. Life is ordinary, normal, and apparently not at all special. After we have eaten our breakfast, the breakfast remains within us, and we live by this breakfast, not in a peculiar, strange, excited way, nor in a noisy way, but in a quiet and ordinary way. Although we are living by the breakfast within us, we do not feel it, for there is nothing special or particular about it. Many Christians today are looking for something special and peculiar, not realizing that they have the Lord as the quiet One within them. This indwelling Lord is the all-inclusive Christ, who is infinite, unlimited, and unsearchable, yet He is so quiet and normal that some people do not believe that He is within us.
Many Christians today do not know the normal way to enjoy Christ as their life and as their food. They have forgotten that they already have Christ within them, who is wonderful yet very quiet. They neglect the indwelling Christ and look outside for something peculiar, strange, and extraordinary. This is not the proper way. We must be clear that since we have received Christ as our Savior, He, the wonderful One, is now within us in a very quiet and normal way. Breathing, which is essential to our physical life, is very quiet and very ordinary. The normal experience of Christ as life may be likened to breathing. The most normal Christian life is one in which Christ is experienced by us as life in a quiet and ordinary way.
The very Christ who is life to us is also the light shining within us (John 1:4-5; 8:12). Christ shines within us not in a peculiar way but in a very ordinary way. Day by day we have something within us giving us a little light. If we declare that we have received a great light, greater than the light of the sun, this may not be the genuine experience of Christ as the divine light. When Christ shines in us, the light within us is normally small. The greater the light we think we receive, the more likely it is to be false, but the smaller the light we receive, the more genuine it is likely to be. When it seems that something within us is shining as a little light that, to our consideration, may or may not be of the Lord, this is genuine light. We need to trust in this light. It may be perceived by us as just a little feeling, sense, or registration, and we may have some doubt that it is from the Lord, but this kind of light is genuine. The best experience for a Christian is to have some light within, but not to be absolutely sure that it is of the Lord (1 Cor. 7:40).
As we have seen in this chapter, in order to experience Christ in a proper and normal way, we need to know what kind of Savior, Lord, and God He is, and we also need to know that He is within us. Then we need to know the right way to experience Him, that is, the normal, quiet, and ordinary way, which is the inner way of life.