We all know that God is the Spirit, that the Spirit is God, and that there is no difference between the Spirit and God. But as far as God’s relationship with man is concerned, there is a distinction. What is the distinction? When God comes to contact man, what man touches is the Spirit. Perhaps some people may ask why it is not enough to say that God is God. Why does the Bible say that God is the Spirit? When God was in the sanctuary, before He came to have a relationship with man, He was purely God. However, when He comes out of His sanctuary to reach and contact man, and when man worships and fellowships with Him, He is the Spirit. In brief, God coming to be touched by man is the Spirit.
What then is the distinction between the Spirit and life? Life is the content and substance of the Spirit. When the Spirit is received by us, He is life. When we touch the Spirit, we receive life. When God comes out and reaches man, He is the Spirit, and when the Spirit is received and touched by us, He is life. Thus, there are three simple steps that involve three items: God, the Spirit, and life. When God comes out, what we touch is the Spirit. When the Spirit is received and touched by us, He is life. Psalm 36 says that with God is the fountain of life (v. 9). The Gospel of John mentions that this life is in Christ Jesus and that He is the life (1:4; 11:25). Then the Epistles tell us that it is the Spirit who gives life (2 Cor. 3:6), that the Spirit is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), and that when we touch the Spirit, we touch life. They also tell us that to set our mind on the spirit is life (v. 6) and that he who has the Son has the life while he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life (1 John 5:12).
In summary, God is in Christ, and the life of God is in Christ. In Christ is God’s life. Christ is also in the Holy Spirit, and this life is in the Holy Spirit. Hence, when the Holy Spirit comes into man, life also comes into man. When man touches the Spirit, he touches life, and when man receives the Spirit, he receives life. In other words, God in the sanctuary is God. But when God comes out to contact us, He is the Spirit, and when the Spirit is received and touched by us, He is life. To say it in reverse, life is the Spirit being received and touched by man.
Perhaps some people may ask how we may know when we have contacted the Spirit, when we are living in our spirit, and when we have touched the Spirit. A normal Christian life is a life of living in the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit, we will be living in resurrection. In resurrection are the experiences of death and ascension. Hence, the key to the Christian living is to live in the Spirit. When we live in the Spirit, we will have a condition or feeling of life and peace. Whenever we live in the Spirit, we touch life, because when the Spirit is received by us, He is life. When the Spirit is enjoyed and touched by us, He is life.
Therefore, the greatest proof of our living in the Spirit is that we are receiving, contacting, and touching life. After we receive this life, inwardly there is a kind of condition, taste, and feeling in us that we are fresh, living, strong, and powerful, and we deeply sense the presence of God.
There are four great characteristics and expressions of the life in us. Once we touch life, there will be four definite expressions, that is, four kinds of conditions or feelings that we will have. First, we will have a sense of livingness. To be living is to be enlivened. Sometimes we are strangely deadened inside. We feel as if we are deflated, and we are unable to be uplifted. This condition is proof that we have not been living in our spirit. When you talk to a brother or pray with a sister, you will know whether this person’s spirit is depressed or living. If their spirit is depressed, nothing will come out of them, and they will be unable to pray out their burdens. Whether a person is inwardly deadened or living is especially manifested in prayer. If a person is enlivened when he prays, this proves that he is filled with life inwardly, but if he is unable to utter a word in prayer, this proves that he is disheartened and has not been living in the spirit.
Many saints are unable to open their mouths in the Lord’s table meetings and the prayer meetings because they are inwardly deadened and have not been living in the Spirit. Throughout the whole day or the whole week they have been living not in their spirit but in their soul or even in their flesh. They have not been touching their spirit and are not in their spirit, so they are lifeless. When people contact them in the Lord’s table meetings and the prayer meetings, they find that they are inwardly deadened and depressed. When they want to pray, they cannot pray, and when they want to speak, they have nothing to speak. However, if throughout the whole week or the whole day they learn to live in their spirit and to touch the spirit, they will surely touch life. Then once they pray, their spirit will come out. Once they pray, they will touch life because their spirit will be living.
It is the same with those who speak for God on the podium. If they have not turned to their spirit or touched their spirit, they will dry up after a few sentences because they are cut off from the source of life in them. When we are in the spirit, we touch life, and the first expression of life is livingness. Our determination to pray more will not enliven our spirit. The only way for us to be enlivened is to turn from our outer man back to our inner man. Once we touch the Spirit inwardly, we touch life.
The Spirit is life, and life is the Spirit. The Spirit is God coming out to be touched by us, and life is the Spirit coming into us to be received and touched by us. Our spirit is our inner man, whereas our soul and our flesh are the outer man. If a Christian lives in his outer man all the time, living by his flesh, his soul, and his mind, emotion, and will, and does not turn to his inner man, he will be in death and will not touch life. Whenever man touches the Spirit, he lives, because it is the Spirit who gives life (John 6:63). In this verse the Greek word for life is used as a verb, indicating that the Holy Spirit “lifes” man. The Holy Spirit is life itself. Once He contacts us and touches us inwardly, He “lifes” us. It is the Spirit who gives life because the Holy Spirit Himself is life.
The Spirit is not in our thoughts, in our emotion, in our mind, or in our flesh. Rather, He is in our spirit. Whenever we are in our outer man, we are unable to contact the Spirit or touch life, but whenever we turn back to our spirit, we contact the Spirit and touch life. This is like an electrical switch. If we take off the cover from an electrical switch and touch the electrical wire, once we touch the electrical wire, we touch the electricity itself because the electricity is in the electrical wire. In the same way, the Spirit of life is in our spirit. Every time we turn to our spirit to touch the Spirit, we touch life, and once we touch life, we are “lifed,” that is, we live and become strong. Immediately, we will rise up from our feeling of depression, and our deadness will be made living. Hence, the first expression of life is livingness.