Our Christian living is a living in which we first die then live. We died at the time of our baptism. When we believed in the Lord, God entered into us. This is incarnation. From then on, God’s goal is to share one living with us, a living of man being mingled with God. Only when man is mingled with God can God be mingled with man. However, if man wants to live a life of being mingled with God, he must die. When we believe in the Lord, the first thing we must do is to be baptized. Romans 6 says that through baptism we died and were raised with the Lord (vv. 3-4). A genuine Christian living is one in which man is mingled with God and in which God mingles with man. Without resurrection, there is no mingling of God and man.
Strictly speaking, incarnation put God and man together but did not fully mingle God and man as one. What kind of procedure can accomplish this matter of mingling God together with man? Only resurrection can. Incarnation simply put God and man in one place but did not fully mingle God and man, man and God, together. It was after resurrection that man entered into God, and God fully mingled with man. God and man were then fully mingled as one. In other words, when we were saved, there was only incarnation in us. There was only Emmanuel—God with man. God and man, man and God, were not yet mingled as one. It was not until the day when man had the element of resurrection that man and God, God and man, were mingled as one. At that time God was not only with man, but God was mingled with man as one.
This shows us that the Holy Spirit’s coming into us is for the purpose of mingling God and man together as one. The Holy Spirit possesses both the divine element and the human element, and in addition to the divine and human elements, there is also the element of resurrection. There are the three main elements in the Holy Spirit—the divine element, the human element, and the element of resurrection. When the Holy Spirit enters into us, He brings God into us, and He also mingles into us the human element, Christ’s resurrected humanity. Thus, we may be noble people, because the divine element and the uplifted humanity have been brought into us. Furthermore, there is another element, the element of resurrection. This element includes both death and ascension. Where there is resurrection, there is death, and where there is resurrection, there is ascension. These three elements are one, and their totality is resurrection. All these elements have entered into us through the Holy Spirit that we may be mingled with God in resurrection.
When you contact someone who is living in the Holy Spirit and is filled with the Holy Spirit, you will sense the flavor of God. However, this is not enough. You should also be able to sense the flavor of man in him. All those who are filled with the Holy Spirit know how to be men of the highest standard. A person who is genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit has the flavor of God, the flavor of man, and the flavor of resurrection. He is not snobbish or puffed up but full of love. The more a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, the more he has the human appearance and the human flavor. Not only are the flavors of God and man in him, but the flavor of resurrection is also in him. He is mingled with God. Only in resurrection can man be mingled with God.
What is the flavor of resurrection? We all know that following resurrection is the heavens and before resurrection is death. There are two kinds of death in the Bible—one comes from Satan whereas the other comes from God. The death that comes from Satan is from Adam and causes us to perish. The death that comes from God is from Christ and causes us to be saved. In other words, the death that comes from Adam causes us to perish, but the death that comes from Christ causes us to receive life. The death in Genesis 2 is a negative death, a perishing death, but the death in Romans 6 is a positive death, a life-receiving death. Many Christians pray unceasingly and even fast and shed tears in order to obtain the death in Romans 6 because they regard such a death as good and precious.
This good and precious death deals with everything in us that is against God, incompatible with God, opposed to God, and of the world, human affections, the self, and the soul-life. When we say that such a death is in a person, we mean that the world, sin, human affections, corruption, and the soul-life have been eliminated and terminated in him. Suppose someone speaks ill of a brother to his face, but that brother does not lose his temper. He remains silent without having to suppress his reaction or exercise patience. This is a sign of death. Such a person lives in resurrection and has the sign of death in him.
Moreover, many times we are able to see the condition of the heavens and savor the taste of the heavens in the saints. Once we see them, we know that they are living in resurrection because we sense the realm of the heavens—a realm that is clear and filled with authority—and we see the mingling of God and man in them. The reality of the mingling of God and man is possible only in the Holy Spirit. However, it is not sufficient to say that this reality is in the Holy Spirit. We must also say that the reality of the mingling is in resurrection. There is no resurrection outside of the Holy Spirit. Resurrection is in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is resurrection, and resurrection is the Holy Spirit. A person who is filled with the Holy Spirit surely has resurrection in him.
Hence, we can see that a person who is in resurrection surely has two signs—the sign of death and the sign of the heavens. In other words, a person who is in resurrection has the death of the cross as a mark and the condition of the heavens as a sign. Death rids us of anything that is incompatible with God. If we have death, we will not have anything in us that is incompatible with God. The heavens refer to everything in us that is compatible with God. If we have the condition of the heavens, we certainly are those who are compatible with God.
Death is a mark on the negative side, whereas the heavens are a sign on the positive side. Death is the deliverance from the old creation whereas the heavens are the entrance into the new creation. Death delivers us from the old creation, the world, and everything that is of man—which is corrupted, fallen, of human affection, and fleshly. The heavens cause us to enter into the heavenly sphere and to be mingled with God. Therefore, when we see a person who has both death and the heavens in him, we know that he is living in resurrection. To live in the Holy Spirit is to live in resurrection. In the living of such a person, we see the mingling of God and man.