Our spirit is our inner man, and this inner man is a person—the Lord Himself. Formerly, the person in our soul was ourselves. Now the person in our spirit is the Lord Jesus.
In Ephesians 1 Paul prays that we would experience the power of Christ, and in chapter 3 he prays that we would experience the person of Christ. The power of Christ is one thing, whereas the person of Christ is another thing. Many brothers and sisters experience only the Lord’s power. For example, a sister may pray, “Lord, my husband is harsh, and I cannot bear it anymore. I need Your resurrection power.” After the Lord’s resurrection operates in her, however, she may quickly forget about the Lord and even put Him aside. When she enjoyed the Lord’s resurrection power, she was full of joy and testified in the meetings, but when she puts the Lord aside, she is outside of the church experientially and cannot live the church life. Those who experience only the Lord’s power may see and know the church according to Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1, but they do not have the church life according to his prayer in Ephesians 3. Only when we experience the Lord as our person will we live the church life.
If we would take Christ as our person, we must see that our spirit is not merely an organ for us to contact God; we must see that our spirit is our person. Thus, we must deny our soul-life, our own person, and live by our spirit, our new person. The Lord Jesus is this new person. In Ephesians 1 our spirit is an organ; in chapter 3 our spirit is our inner man. In chapter 1 our spirit is an organ for us to experience the power of Christ; in chapter 3 our spirit is our inner man for us to take Christ as our person.
Ephesians 3:17 says, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” Here the word hearts is crucial. Our soul has three parts: mind, emotion, and will. The heart also includes the conscience. Hence, the heart consists of the mind, emotion, will, and conscience. This shows that the heart is linked with both the spirit and the soul because the conscience is one of the three parts of the spirit. The other two parts of the spirit are intuition and fellowship.
In order for Christ to make His home in our hearts, He has to enter into our conscience, mind, emotion, and will. Many people leave Christ outside their conscience. We need to allow the Lord Jesus to touch us in our conscience. Sometimes, when He touches us in our conscience, we say, “Lord, please stop. You are in my spirit, but do not touch my conscience.” Hence, our conscience is neither good nor pure (1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9). With regard to our heart, we may treat the Lord as a guest rather than the host because we do not want Him to touch our conscience or our mind, emotion, and will. Thus, the Lord Jesus cannot make His home in our hearts.
In my travels I often stay in the saints’ homes as a guest. I know the blessing as well as the restriction of being a guest. Staying in the saints’ homes is a blessing because when I am a guest, I am treated very well. Nevertheless, as a guest, I am restricted because I cannot make their house my home. In the United States when I am received into the homes of the saints, they often say, “Please make yourself at home.” Even though I politely reply, “Thank you,” I am clear that I am only a guest and not the host. Consequently, I am more restricted than I am in my own home.
Although the Lord being a guest is not as good as the Lord being the host in our hearts, it is better than His being a “prisoner,” who has no freedom whatsoever. Some people put the Lord Jesus into a “prison” so that He has no ground to touch them. It is as if they confine Him to a small corner in their living room, saying, “Lord, I have prepared this place for You. Do not step outside of this area, and do not interfere with my affairs. My affairs are my affairs, and I do not want to talk to anyone about them, including You.”
This situation occurs because our inner man is weak. Therefore, Paul prayed that the Father would strengthen us with power through His Spirit into the inner man (Eph. 3:16). When our inner man is strengthened, the Lord Jesus will be released. We can be strengthened into the inner man simply by calling, “O Lord.” When we call, “O Lord,” the Lord Jesus gains ground in us and spreads in us. He will spread into our conscience, and from our conscience into our mind, emotion, and will. He can have a home in our hearts only when He occupies every part of our heart.
When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be rooted and grounded in love and be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth (vv. 17-18). These four dimensions are the dimensions of Christ. How broad is the breadth? How long is the length? How high is the height? And how deep is the depth? They are all limitless. Christ is the breadth, Christ is the length, Christ is the height, and Christ is the depth. When we let Christ make His home in our hearts, we will be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints the limitless dimensions of Christ. Our Christ is unlimited in His breadth, in His length, in His height, and in His depth.
When we comprehend our unlimited Christ, we also will know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ and will be filled unto all the fullness of God (v. 19). Then we will have a church life that glorifies and expresses God in the church and in Christ Jesus (v. 21).
We all must learn to not only experience Christ’s power but also to take Him as our person. Our former person, our old man, has been crucified. Now our spirit is our person so that we can take Christ as our person.
If we want to live the church life but do not take Christ as our person, we can never be blended together with others, because we are all different according to our nature. Each of us has our own tastes and preferences. We may experience the resurrection power of Christ when we are by ourselves, but when we come to the meeting hall, our tastes and preferences can easily rise up within us. We may experience the resurrection power before coming to the meeting hall, but when we are asked to clean chairs in a specific way, we can easily be bothered. For example, when a brother says to another brother, “Please do not wipe the chairs with a wet cloth,” he may become angry and say, “I have many servants at home, and I never have to clean any of my chairs. I am doing you an honor by cleaning the chairs, yet you are not grateful. In the future I will not serve with you.” It is not possible to have the church life when our old man is allowed to be our person. Those who want to have the church life must deny their soul-life, their self, their old man. We should all cover our heads and take Christ as our person. Those from northern China should take Christ as their person, and those from southern China should also take Christ as their person. Eventually, in the church there will be no northern or southern Chinese; there will be only Christ. Although we are many, we are one because there is only one person in us.
The church is a man. The person of the church is neither a southerner nor a northerner and neither a Chinese nor an American. In the church there is only Christ as our person. When Christ is our person, the church will be one, and there will not be any problem for us to live the church life. We should not only experience the power of Christ so that we may know the church and enter into the church; we should also experience the person of Christ so that we may have the church life for God to be glorified in the church.