In these chapters we have seen three main items: the light of life, the law of life, and the anointing. The Lord Jesus Christ today is the all-inclusive One. He is the Triune God incarnated as a man. He is man as well as God and God as well as man. He passed through human living on the earth, He entered into death and passed through death, and He entered into resurrection and ascended to the heavens. Although He is now in the heavens, today such a wonderful One is also within us as life. If He were merely God, the Lord, and the Savior to us, there would be no need for Him to come into us. It would be sufficient for Him to be only in heaven. But in order for Him to be life to us, He had to come into us. Now we are very clear that we have this wonderful One within us as our life (Col. 3:4). On the one hand, this life works within us as light to shine within us (John 1:4-5). On the other hand, it works as the law to regulate us and as the ointment to anoint us. Hence, we have Christ Himself, the living One, within us, continually shining in us, regulating us, and anointing us.
To be a normal Christian is simply to take care of this inner shining, regulating, and anointing. Day by day and moment by moment we have these three things within us. If we take care of them and go along with them, we will be normal, spiritual, and even mature Christians. We will also sense the need of a corporate life with other Christians. If one day you go along with the inner shining, regulating, and anointing, the next day you will sense that you need to fellowship with other Christians, to meet together with them, and to serve and worship the Lord with them. In other words, you will sense that you need the church life, the corporate life. The church life comes into existence by the inner shining, regulating, and anointing. The more we experience Christ in the way of the inner life, the more we will sense the need of a proper church life; moreover, the more we have a proper church life, the more we will be helped to experience Christ in full. Indeed, the more we have the full realization of Christ as the inner life, the more we will have a full expression of the Body as the corporate expression of Christ. This is the proper Christian life and church life, and this is the right way for us to follow the Lord.
I have the full assurance that the inner life and the church life are the two main items the Lord is going to recover in these last days. The inner life is Christ Himself experienced by us as our life, and the church life is the expression of Christ in a corporate way. Furthermore, I also have the full assurance that the Lord has begun to recover these two things in the United States. If you travel throughout the country, you will see that within just the last two or three years the Lord has raised up people everywhere who are seeking something better, something real, and something of Himself. This better and real thing is the inner life and the church life—Christ experienced by us as life and the church life as the expression of Christ in a corporate way.
There are two passages in the New Testament which tell us that there is no need for any man to teach us. First John 2:27 says that we have received an anointing that now abides in us. Because this anointing teaches us concerning all things, we have no need that anyone teach us. Then Hebrews 8:10-11 tells us that God has covenanted to put His law into us. This wonderful law is God Himself. It is the law of life within us that regulates us all the time and is the means through which we can know God. Therefore, there is no need for others to teach us and tell us to know God, because we know Him through the spontaneous capacity of the law of life.
However, although these two verses tell us that we do not need any teaching, throughout the Scriptures, including the New Testament, there are many passages which indicate that we still need teaching. Apparently the Scriptures contradict one another, but actually they do not.
Teaching has a twofold purpose. First, the proper Christian teaching does not replace the inner teaching but rather develops it. What I have been teaching in these days is not a substitute for the teaching within you; instead, these teachings help the inner teaching to develop. The more you receive these teachings, the more the inner teaching within you, the inner anointing and the law of life, will be developed. Second, the proper outward teaching is a check to the inner teaching. We have the Holy Spirit within and the Scriptures without. The inner anointing needs to be checked by the Scriptures. If the inner anointing is contrary to the Scriptures, our understanding of the anointing is wrong. The inner anointing is quite living, but because of our weakness it may not be accurate. The Scriptures are accurate, but they may not be living. If we have only the Scriptures and not the inner anointing, we may be very accurate but very dead. Conversely, if we have the inner anointing and forget the Scriptures, we may be very living but also very misguided. Therefore, we need to be balanced, having both the anointing within to make us living and the Scriptures without to balance and check us. With everything God has created, there are two sides; for example, we have two hands, two ears, two eyes, and two feet. In our Christian life we have both the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures. Today many fundamental Christians are too fundamental in caring for the black and white letters of the Bible, and many Pentecostal Christians are too Pentecostal in shouting, in speaking in tongues, in prophesying, and in healing. Consequently, the fundamentalists are dead, and the Pentecostals are mistaken in their emphasizing of Pentecostal things. However, the balanced way is to have the Holy Spirit within and the Holy Scriptures without. Day by day these two are our guidance.
We may illustrate this by the two pillars that were with the children of Israel in ancient times. During the day there was the pillar of cloud, and in the night, because there was no light, there was the pillar of fire (Exo. 13:21). The pillar of cloud was a type of the Holy Spirit, and the pillar of fire was a type of the Scriptures, the Word of God. These two pillars signify the Spirit within and the Word without.
Furthermore, the word and the Spirit are one (Eph. 6:17). When we receive God’s word into us, it becomes the Spirit. When the word is outside of us, it is the word, and when it is within us, it is the Spirit. When we speak the word, it becomes the word again, and when this word enters into someone else, it becomes the Spirit again. We must follow the Spirit within as well as the Scriptures without. The inner anointing must be checked by the Scriptures. This is why we must read the Scriptures. In our receiving the teaching of the Scriptures, the inner teaching of the anointing is developed. We experience more of the inner anointing, and we experience it in an accurate way. Therefore, by taking care of the inner anointing and the Holy Scriptures, we will be living and accurate. This is the way to follow the Lord.