Ephesians 3:17 says that Christ makes His home in our hearts through faith in order that, as verse 19 says, we may be filled unto all the fullness of God. The issue of Christ’s making His home in our hearts is that we are filled unto all the fullness of God. The unique goal that God desires to accomplish in us who are saved is to work Himself into us and to work us into Him so that He and we, we and He, would be mingled as one.
Spiritual reality is the result of the Spirit of God touching the spirit of man. This means that the proper and genuine Christian living is the living that issues from our spirit touching the Spirit of God. The way we conduct ourselves in our life, our living, our work, and all of our actions should be the issue of our spirit touching the Spirit of God and not the issue of our relying on ourselves. If we live by ourselves and rely on ourselves, then strictly speaking, our living is not the living of a Christian but the living of an ordinary person or, at the most, the living of a religious person. People in general regard Christians, or those who believe in Jesus, as religious people. Actually, those who truly know the Lord’s salvation and live in spiritual reality by the grace of God have their living mingled together with God.
God is true and living, and the Spirit is also true and living. Just as God is real, the Spirit is also real and spiritual, not empty or vague. The Spirit of God has come into our spirit, and once our spirit touches the Spirit of God, there is an effect. This effect enables us as saved Christians to have a certain kind of living—the Christian living. This kind of living is in spirit and in resurrection, and this kind of living is spiritual reality.
Generally speaking, there are three kinds of living. First, there is an ethical living; second, there is a religious living; and third, there is a spiritual living. A person should at the very least have an ethical living. As those who live in human society, we should be ethical people. This should be obvious. Second, an upright person should have a religious belief and a religious living. It is generally acknowledged that those who have a religious living are nobler than those who merely have an ethical living. However, the purpose of God’s salvation is not to make us merely ethical or religious people. The purpose of God’s salvation is something higher than this. It is not enough to be either ethical or religious. God’s purpose in His salvation is to work in us to the extent that we would have a kind of living that surpasses the ethical and religious living. This kind of living is a spiritual living.
A spiritual living is a result of our spirit touching the Spirit of God. Often a spiritual living may appear similar to an ethical and religious living, but actually an ethical and religious living is not a spiritual living. For example, outwardly brass looks like gold, but it is not gold. The expression of a spiritual living is similar to that of an ethical and religious living. However, an ethical and religious living is not a spiritual living but a living of the human will. There is no spiritual element or flavor in an ethical and religious living because there is no spiritual reality or weight in it.
What is an ethical and religious living, and how is it different from a spiritual living? For most of us, what we live out every day is either ethical or religious. For example, a husband’s relationship to his wife may be mostly ethical, and a wife’s relationship to her husband may be mostly ethical. A husband may have the concept that as an upright man, and particularly as one who believes in the Lord Jesus, he should love his wife, sympathize with her, be considerate toward her, and take care of her. According to his concept this is the way to fulfill the requirements of being a husband. The wife may have the concept that she should be submissive to her husband, respect her husband, and not quarrel with him, or else she will not meet the biblical standard of a wife. The children may have the concept that they should honor their parents, obey them, and respect them, and that they should not be careless in their attitude and speaking toward them. This is filial piety, which is one of the most important items in an ethical living. Most of us are just like this. We do not act loosely but are ethical toward our relatives, colleagues, classmates, and the saints in the church. We have the thought that since we are upright people who believe in the Lord, our living should be proper, regulated, careful, and serious.
An ethical living is merely the good that a man does. It is not the result of man’s touching God, nor does it require man to touch God. An atheist can be an upright person and behave uprightly yet be entirely apart from God. This kind of upright behavior is an ethical living. It is a living that is apart from God and that has no need of God. This kind of upright living is the highest kind of living among the unbelievers. The unbelievers focus on ethics, but they do not have God, nor do they worship or serve God.
Then how do we describe our living? We believe in God, pray to God, worship God, and serve God. Many times we also rely on God. We may have the desire to be ethical, but we do not have the ability to be ethical. We may desire to do good, but we are not able to do it. Hence, we are always praying that God would grant us strength in times of temptation and that He would help and support us so that we would be able to stand. From this we see that in our living there is more or less some flavor of God, something that issues from the help of God.
The purpose of God’s salvation in us is to save us to such an extent that we would not only be moral but that the nature of our morality would be the mingling of God with us. In other words, we would no longer be “brass” but “gold.” We would have not only the outward appearance but also the inward substance, and the nature of our morality would not be out of man but of God. It would be the mingling of God and man. Real morality in God’s salvation is produced by our spirit touching the Spirit of God.