Answer: After being resurrected, the Lord Jesus cannot die again but lives forever. However, in our experience, we may not live in resurrection continuously. Our experience of death and resurrection may last for only one day or only half a day before we turn back to our flesh. When this happens, we need to die again. Most of us stay in the Holy Spirit for a very short period of time and then leave. This is very real. Hence, in terms of our experience, we do not have a solution to this problem, because in this age we still have the flesh and the old creation in us. This is why we always say that a Christian is a dual person, having a dual condition. This dual condition cannot be resolved until we are raptured and delivered from the old creation and the flesh. At that time in eternity, we will live in resurrection in reality and will never go back.
Presently, our flesh and old creation are with us. Therefore, we need to experience the death of the cross every day. Every time we experience death and live in the Holy Spirit, we enter into resurrection, but when we do not live in the Holy Spirit, we are not living in resurrection. When we turn back and live in the flesh and the self, we immediately sense that we should live in resurrection. At that time we need to pass through death again. In brief, most of us may be living in our self, our soul, being motivated and directed by our mind, emotion, and will. However, the cross requires us to put our mind, emotion, and will to death. By this, we deny our soul, our self, and turn back to our spirit. Then we are in the Holy Spirit, in resurrection and then our mind, emotion, and will are brought into our spirit. This is to bring man into God, to pass through death and enter into resurrection. Then our spirit within, that is, the Spirit of God, will direct our mind, emotion, and will from our soul. We will be living in the Holy Spirit, in resurrection.
Sometimes we leave the realm of resurrection as soon as we wake up from our sleep. Our mind thinks by itself, our emotion loves by itself, and our will makes decisions by itself, and as a result we live in our flesh. However, through fellowship and prayer, we may enter into resurrection and allow God to direct our being. This condition is very normal and spiritual because we have been mingled with and joined to God. In this situation the Spirit of God reigns in us and dominates us, directing our mind, emotion, and will in order to bring our spirit under the ruling of the Spirit of God. This is resurrection.
For example, we may wake up in the morning with our own ideas, and with them come our mind and emotion. We may neglect our spirit and turn back to the self. At such a time we are going backward and are not in the Holy Spirit. After we suffer a blow and encounter some difficulties, we may be enlightened and turn back. In other words, we may pass through death and enter into resurrection again. This experience is repeated in us continuously. We may wish to stay in the spirit all the time, but most of the time we enter into the spirit and then leave it again. Sometimes we go in and out several times a day. When we kneel down to pray, we enter into the spirit, but when we rise up and contact people, we leave our spirit again. We may quickly get out of our spirit and just as quickly enter into our spirit. This is very normal. However, the most normal situation is that once we enter into our spirit, we remain there all the time. This is what the Lord desires.
The incarnation of Christ took place in us once at the time we were saved. After we are saved, all of our experience is in the principle of death and resurrection. Incarnation is God coming into us. This took place in us when we were saved. Each one of us experienced the principle of incarnation at that time, and there is no need to repeat it. After that time, what matters is the principle of death and resurrection. The principle that we must apply in our work, our service, our living, and our experience is not incarnation but death and resurrection. Incarnation was accomplished in us once for all. All of God’s riches came into us on the day of our salvation. But our entering into God depends on our experience of God after our salvation. God’s work in us is to bring us into Him through death and resurrection. The final step of death and resurrection is our rapture in transfiguration. The principle of rapture in transfiguration is still death and resurrection, that is, to enter fully and completely into God.
Question: If we say that God saves us that He may live in us, then what is the purpose of reading the Bible and praying?
Answer: The purpose of all our activities—whether reading the Bible, praying, meeting, or preaching the gospel—is for God to live in us. At the time of our salvation, we received all of God’s riches, but now the big question is how to know and experience these riches. After we are saved, we receive God by coming to the meetings, reading the Bible, and praying, but this does not mean that we receive more than what we received at the time of our salvation. Rather, it is through reading the Bible, praying, attending meetings, preaching the gospel, and our daily living that we know and experience what we have received. On the day of our salvation, everything of God entered into us, and we cannot receive more than that. In our experience, however, we may know, experience, or enjoy only a little of what we have received. We have already received the riches, but when we have more experiences, then we will have the feeling of being filled with all of God’s riches.
Question: In our experience, the Holy Spirit comes out through our soul, but if our soul is blocked, will our soul restrict the work of the Holy Spirit in us?
Answer: The coming out of the Holy Spirit from within us is not affected by us. The Holy Spirit Himself is exactly the same, being no different, regardless of whom He comes out of. However, the Holy Spirit does not nullify us but mingles us into Him and thus comes out from us. Due to the differences in each one of us, the results of this mingling in each one of us are not the same. The Holy Spirit Himself is the same in all of us, but His mingling with us varies from person to person. The result of this mingling is different for each one of us.
Paul, Peter, John, and James all wrote parts of the Bible, but Paul’s writing bears Paul’s flavor, Peter’s writing bears Peter’s flavor, John’s writing bears John’s flavor, and James’ writing bears James’ flavor. All these writings are the Word of God and the moving of the Holy Spirit, and all of them came out of the Holy Spirit. However, because they were written through man’s cooperation and man’s mingling with the Holy Spirit, the four of them are different and have their own flavor. The reason is that man’s personality is not nullified in the mingling of the Holy Spirit. Rather, it still exists.
Question: How do we discern our soul from our spirit?
Answer: In order to see the distinction between the soul and the spirit, we must realize that the soul is the mind, emotion, and will. Every time we live and walk by our mind, emotion, and will, we are living by and in our soul. One who pursues the Lord should not be like this. He should not live directly by his mind, emotion, and will. Rather, he should turn to his innermost part and take care of the sense deep within his being.
The deepest sense within us is from the spirit. There is a sense in our innermost part that comes from the spirit and represents the spirit. We should allow this sense to direct our mind, emotion, and will so that they do not take the first place but the second place in our living. In other words, our spirit should have the first place in our living, directing our soul—our mind, emotion, and will. In short, our soul is the totality of our mind, emotion, and will, and our spirit is the sense of our innermost part. It is enough to know the spirit and the soul in this simple way. Do not try to analyze. The more we analyze, the more confused we will be.
Question: When we were saved, God’s light came in, and we received the Holy Spirit. Why do we still need to be enlightened again?
Answer: When we were saved, the Spirit of God looked at us and shined into us, and at that point the Holy Spirit entered into us. But after our salvation, God’s eyes still look at us continuously, again and again, from the outside in and from the inside out. Sometimes we sense that the heavenly eyes are looking at us, and other times we sense that He is looking from within us. This is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Fellowship is not a one-way traffic. Christ is in the heavens, and He is also on the earth. He is in us, and He is also outside of us. Because He is the Holy Spirit, Christ is omnipresent. Sometimes He comes to us from the heavens, and sometimes He comes from within us. These comings and goings are for us to touch His presence and thus increase our experience of Him.
Question: Concerning the experience of death and resurrection, how is man’s personality brought into God through the Spirit of God? Does it involve getting rid of the old creation in Adam?
Answer: This question, in fact, does not require any analysis because the more you analyze, the more confusion there will be. We must hold on firmly to the principle that death and resurrection have already brought us into God. However, one thing is certain—all our defilement, sins, worldliness, and corrupted nature cannot be brought into resurrection. Before we enter into resurrection, we must pass through the cleansing of the precious blood and the dealings, and what remains after that is the man before the fall, the man originally created by God, which can be brought into God. Therefore, before we can be raptured in transfiguration, we must enter into God, which depends on the cooperation of our mind, emotion, and will with the Holy Spirit.
God transforms us by mingling our mind, emotion, and will with the Holy Spirit, so that the entire organ of our soul is controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit. Our mind must be mingled with the Holy Spirit, our emotion—our joy, anger, sorrow, and delight—must be mingled with the Holy Spirit, and our will must also be mingled with the Holy Spirit. Our entire living must issue from the mingling of the inward organ of our soul with the Holy Spirit. Our body, however, will not be brought into God’s glory until the day that we are raptured. On that day, our body will be brought into glory.
When God’s life comes into us, transformation begins. Then throughout our entire lifetime, He has to change the body of our humiliation into the body of His glory, from being finite into being infinite, from being weak into being strong, and from being temporal into being eternal. Romans 8 says that we will enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (v. 21). We have to enter into a realm that is free and belongs to the glory of God.
Today our body is still full of limitations, but when our body is fully transfigured, we will enter into the glory of God, and there we will be free from any limitation. Before the transfiguration of our body, we already have the Spirit of God in our spirit. Our spirit has already been regenerated. Now the Spirit of God needs to enter into our soul to control and direct our soul. In this way the organ of our soul will be transformed. Originally, our soul was merely our mind, emotion, and will, but now our soul is being mingled with the Spirit of God. Our mind, emotion, and will are becoming spirit. Eventually, we will have a spiritual mind, a spiritual emotion, and a spiritual will, and what we live out will be something spiritual—spiritual reality.
When the Holy Spirit first comes into our spirit, our spirit is regenerated. This is the first step of the working of the Holy Spirit in us, and this is in the realm of the spirit. After we are saved, God requires us to submit to His Spirit. This submission includes putting our mind, emotion, and will under the ruling of the Holy Spirit so that our entire soul becomes the sphere for the work and operation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit operates in us to direct our whole soul—our mind, emotion, and will. Eventually, our whole soul will become the sphere for the work and operation of the Holy Spirit.
When we proceed and become more spiritual, the power of the Holy Spirit will permeate our mind, emotion, and will and direct our body, so that it will be changed—our weakness will be made strong, and our sickness will be healed. Romans 8 says that He will give life to our mortal bodies (v. 11). At that time, our body will also become the sphere for the operation of the Holy Spirit. However, it is not until we are raptured that the Holy Spirit will operate in our entire body, causing our body to be changed into a glorious body. At that time, our whole being will be the sphere of the operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we see that in our experience of the process of death, resurrection, and transfiguration, the sequence is first the spirit, then the soul, and then the body.
Question: It is easy for our emotion to submit to the Holy Spirit, but it is not that easy for our mind to submit. What shall we do?
Answer: If it is easy for your emotion and will to submit to the Holy Spirit but not your mind, this may be your own particular problem. In brief, the meaning of having our mind, emotion, and will ruled by the Holy Spirit is to not allow our mind, emotion, and will to have the preeminence. You have to consider whether a certain matter comes from your mind or from the feeling of your spirit. If it comes merely from your mind, you have to stop it, but if it comes from the feeling of your spirit, you have to submit to it. This is to have your mind under the ruling of the spirit. In speaking about this we may analyze in this way, but in our practical experience we should never analyze, because too much analysis is not healthy. You have to learn not to live in your mind, emotion, and will but in the feeling of your spirit. Just bear this principle in mind, and do not analyze too much.
Question: How does the Holy Spirit direct our mind and emotion?
Answer: This kind of question is dangerous because it may bring us into analysis. Please remember that we cannot live directly and simply in our mind, emotion, and will. We have to allow our spirit to rule over our mind, emotion, and will. For instance, you may want to love a brother, but this may be just the reaction of your emotion. Therefore, you should not love him right away, but you should ask whether or not your spirit agrees with you. Does your innermost part allow you to do this or not? Once you ask, you will be able to know. If it is you making the decision, this is the activity of your soul, and you have to stop it immediately. You have to wait until there is the motivation in your spirit for you to love that brother, and then your emotion has to cooperate with it.
Sometimes your spirit may require you to love a brother, but your emotion does not prefer him. In such a situation, would you say that your emotion is under the direction of your spirit? If there is another brother whom you like in your emotion, but your spirit forbids you to like him, will you listen to your spirit? Your emotion may be like metal and that brother like a magnet that attracts the metal. What can you do? Regarding the first brother, your spirit requires you to use your emotion, but you are not willing to do so. Regarding the second brother, your spirit forbids you within and does not allow you to use your emotion, but you choose to. This shows what the activity of the emotion is and what the ruling of the Holy Spirit is. If you learn to love the Lord, live in the spirit, and put aside your own emotion, you will not do things directly and simply from your emotion but from your spirit, and your emotion will cooperate. The mind and will also function in the same principle.