What is it to receive? I would like to give you a demonstration. For example, I may give you a glass of water. You do not take this glass of water back to your home to be displayed; rather, you drink the water. This is to receive. When the water in the glass comes into me, then I have received the water. In exactly the same way we receive Jesus. Where do we receive Him? We receive Him into our whole being.
The opposers say, “How can you receive Jesus into you? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the Triune God are clearly three separate Persons. The Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is just like a dove. Jesus is the Son who is sitting high above on the throne in the third heaven. How can you receive Him into you? It is not Christ who is in you; it is His representative who is in you.” I have believed in the Lord and have been saved for fifty-two years, and I have also read many Christian books. However, I have yet to read a book which says that Christ’s representative is in us, that today He is in the heavens and not in us, and that if we say that He is in us, this is a heresy. I know that some of the brothers and sisters here were pastors and theologians. Surely you did not hear this kind of saying either. This is truly a new saying by the opposers.
The Bible tells us, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name” (John 1:12). Does it speak of becoming people of God? No! It says to become children of God. There is too great a difference between becoming God’s people and becoming God’s children. We may be the people under a king, but we may not be his children. What does it mean to be children? Children are born of the father; the father’s life and nature and what the father has and is are all in the children. We are the children of God. We are not only the people of God; that is too outward. We are also the children of God, and we have the divine nature in us.
However, the opposing experts say that the statement, “We have the divine nature in us,” is heretical. They say, “We do not have the divine nature in us at all.” In saying this they completely negate the word in 2 Peter 1:4: “He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature.” In other words, they have overthrown all the subjective truths in the holy Scriptures. They think that Christ does not live in us, that we do not have the divine nature, and that it is unimaginable to talk about the mingling of God and man. All that they care for is the outward and objective relationship with God; they have totally annulled and overthrown the inner and subjective relationship with God. The opposers exposed their evil roots in the two and a half hours of opposing.
Please consider this. We have received into us this One who is the incarnated God and thus have the authority to become children of God. We have the divine life and divine nature in us. Are we then mingled with God or not? If you say that we are not mingled with God, how can we have the life and nature of God within us? We say that we are the children of God, having the same life and nature as God. But the opposers say, “By saying this you are making man God. You are deifying man.” Therefore, when the brothers were writing the rebuttals, the burden came to me, and I felt that this would be a great chance, a golden opportunity, to release all the subjective truths in the holy Scriptures.
After that time we had a conference in Anaheim. I did not say much. I gave only a short declaration at the end telling everybody that the opposing speakings were due to man’s blindness and ignorance. I gave an illustration on the platform: Suppose that a man is here. If you look at him from the front, there are seven openings: two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and one mouth. However, if you look at him from the back, there is not even one opening. The opposers are like those who look from behind. Because they have no light, after groping for a long time, they cannot find even one opening. Therefore, when I tell people that a man has seven openings, they say that I speak heresy. This is to be blind and ignorant. Would you say that a man has no openings at all or that he has seven openings? You have to say both are true.
All the truths in the Scriptures are of two sides. In the universe there is a basic principle in God’s creation. This principle is that nothing can exist without two sides. A sheet of paper has two sides. One side is full of writing, whereas the other side is blank. Only the blind will say that there is only one side. Those who can see will say that there are two sides. There is heaven, and there is earth. There is above, and there is below. There is inside, and there is outside. There is left, and there is right. There is front, and there is back. These are the two sides. Nothing can exist with only one side; anything that exists has two sides. Every truth is of two aspects. Yes, Romans 8:34 says, “It is Christ Jesus...who is...at the right hand of God.” Yet verse 10 of the same chapter says that Christ is in us. There are two sides. You have to see that, on the one hand, Christ is in the heavens, and on the other hand, Christ is in us. When you need to breathe, you do not have to consider whether there is any opening on the back of your head. All you have to do is breathe with your nose. Yes, Christ is in the heavens, but when I enjoy and contact Christ, He is in me.
The reason the opposers dare not say that Christ is in them is that according to their traditional concept, the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit, and these Three are completely separated. Therefore, they cannot say that Christ is in them. If they say that Christ is in them, then that is to admit that Christ is the Spirit because Christ can be in us only by being the Spirit. However, even up to now, they have been opposing the statement, “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). They say that this “Lord” refers not to Christ but to God. Since they are reluctant to admit that the Lord is the Spirit, they dare not admit that Christ is in us. Nevertheless, whether or not they admit this, we do know that today the Lord is the Spirit and that He is in us. As the Spirit, He is like the air. We just need to say, “O Lord! O Lord!”, and we will feel that we are full of fresh air within. This is the Spirit, this is life, this is our enjoyment, and this is our Christ within us. Today Christ is not only in the heavens but also in us. This is subjective, not objective.
In the Scriptures there are more subjective doctrines than objective doctrines, and more subjective truths than objective truths. This is why the subject of our conference this time is “The Subjective Truths in the Holy Scriptures” or “The Subjective Viewpoint in the Holy Scriptures.” For the sake of helping you all understand the subjective viewpoint in the Scriptures, I will point out some items.
Home | First | Prev | Next