In the previous lessons we saw that in the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the believers’ experience and enjoyment of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation is by being transformed, by being conformed to the image of Christ, by being conformed to the death of Christ, by entering the Holy of Holies, by following Jesus, by living to Christ, by walking according to the Spirit and by the Spirit, by sowing unto the Spirit, by walking by faith, and by living in the organism of the Divine Trinity and participating in the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The believers also experience and enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation by being filled in spirit by the processed Triune God and letting the word of Christ dwell in them richly.
We enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by being filled in our spirit by the processed Triune God and letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. Ephesians 5:18 says, “Be filled in spirit,” and Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” These two parallel portions of Scripture admonish us to be filled in our spirit by the Triune God and to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. When we are filled in our spirit by the processed Triune God and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, we enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation.
Being filled in spirit is to be filled in our regenerated spirit, the human spirit indwelt by the Spirit of God. In Ephesians 5:18, according to the original Greek language, Paul does not say that we should be filled by the Spirit; he says that we should be filled in our spirit, that is, our regenerated spirit. Our spirit should not be empty; it should be filled with the riches of Christ unto all the fullness of God (3:19). If our spirit is filled with the riches of Christ, we will have no problems in our Christian life.
All the items in Ephesians 5:18—6:9 are related to being filled in spirit. All virtues are the issue of being filled in spirit by the processed Triune God. When we are filled in our spirit by the Spirit, wives are subject to their husbands, husbands love their wives, parents care for their children, slaves obey their masters, and masters treat their slaves in a proper way. The living out of these human virtues is the issue of being filled in spirit.
The phrase be filled in Ephesians 5:18 is in the active-passive voice. Be is active, and filled is passive. Therefore, be filled is active-passive. In God’s economy, active-passive is a great matter.
The words of Peter in Acts 2:40 help us understand how be filled in Ephesians 5:18 is an active-passive matter. Peter exhorted the people, saying, “Be saved from this crooked generation.” Be is active, and saved is passive; hence, be saved is in the “active-passive voice.” Salvation is carried out by God, but man needs to be active to receive what God has done. At the time of Pentecost everything concerning God’s full salvation was prepared, and the Holy Spirit was poured out as the application and full blessing of God’s salvation, ready for man to receive. Now God is waiting for man, and man needs to take the initiative. Although we cannot save ourselves, we must be willing to be saved by God. God is willing and prepared to save us; we need to take the initiative to receive God’s salvation.
The exhortation of Paul to “be filled in spirit” is in the same principle. Just as God has done everything necessary for us to be saved, He has done everything necessary for us to be filled in our regenerated spirit. Hence, just as we need to take action to be saved, we also need to take action to be filled in spirit. The Holy Spirit has been given to us and now dwells in our spirit with all the riches of Christ as God’s fullness, prepared to fill us in our spirit. We need to cooperate with Him by taking action to be filled.
Many have the experience of not being wholly filled by the Spirit; they are filled only partially. This is due to the fact that they have many reservations. Instead of giving the Holy Spirit the ground to gain every part of their entire being, they are filled with many things and matters other than the Holy Spirit.
We need to empty ourselves completely and give all the room in our spirit, mind, emotion, and will to the indwelling Spirit. The Spirit, as the consummation of the processed Triune God, indwells us, longing to fill our entire being. If we desire to have our spirit filled by the Spirit, we need to eliminate everything that occupies our spirit and allow the indwelling Spirit, as the consummation of the Triune God, to fully occupy us. If we are filled by the Spirit in our spirit, we will have a proper Christian life, church life, personal life, and family life.
We not only need to be filled in spirit by the processed Triune God; we also need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. In Colossians 3:16 Paul says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” The word of Christ is the word spoken by Christ. In His New Testament economy, God speaks in the Son, and the Son speaks not only in the Gospels but also through His members, the apostles and prophets, in Acts through Revelation. All these books may be considered as His word.
The word of Christ includes the entire New Testament. We need to be filled with this word. This means that we should allow the word of Christ to dwell in us, to inhabit us, to make home in us. The Greek word rendered “dwell” in Colossians 3:16 means to be in a house, to inhabit. The word of the Lord must have adequate room within us so that it may operate and minister the riches of Christ into our inner being. Furthermore, the word of Christ must dwell in us richly. The riches of Christ are in His word (Eph. 3:8). Such a word must inhabit us. We should not simply receive it and confine it to a small area of our being. On the contrary, it should be given a free course to operate within us. In this way the word will inhabit and make home in us.
The word dwell in Colossians 3:16 indicates that the word of Christ actually is a person—Christ Himself. Since the word can dwell in us, make home in us, it must be a living person. Therefore, to let the word of Christ dwell in us indicates that we allow a living person—Christ Himself—to dwell in us.
Day by day when we come before the written Word, we should feel that this living and personified word of Christ is waiting for us and longing to dwell in us richly. Whenever we come before the written Word, we should have the assurance deep within that we are contacting the Lord Himself as the living Word. Therefore, when we receive the word of Christ, that is, Christ Himself, we should give the word the full freedom to make home in us. We should pray, “Lord, I offer my whole being to You and to Your word. I give You access to every part of my inner being. Lord, make my inner being a home for Yourself and Your word.”
Ephesians 5:18 charges us to be filled in spirit by the Triune God; Colossians 3:16 tells us to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. Colossians is focused on Christ as our Head and life. The way for Christ to exercise His headship and minister His riches into us is through His word. Hence, the emphasis in Colossians is on the word of Christ. Ephesians is concerned with the church as the Body of Christ. The way for us to live a normal church life is to be filled in our spirit unto all the fullness of God. Hence, the Spirit is emphasized. In Ephesians both the Spirit and our spirit are emphasized again and again; the word is even considered to be the Spirit (6:17). However, in Colossians the Spirit is mentioned only once (1:8), and the human spirit is mentioned only once (2:5). In Ephesians the word is for washing away our natural life and fighting against the enemy (5:26; 6:17); in Colossians the word is for revealing Christ in His preeminence, centrality, and universality (1:25-27). This word, like the Spirit, is prepared to dwell in us, to occupy us, and to fill us, but we need to let the word dwell in us richly.
According to Ephesians 5:18-20 and Colossians 3:16-17 and the revelation in the New Testament, the word is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the word. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” In this chapter the Lord Jesus indicated that He would become the Spirit in order to give life. Then He said that the words which He speaks are spirit and life. This shows that His spoken words are the embodiment of the Spirit of life. He is now the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, and the Spirit is embodied in His words. When we receive His words by exercising our spirit, we receive the Spirit, who is life.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word,” and in John 20:22 the Lord Jesus breathed into the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” At the beginning of the Gospel of John, the Lord was the Word; at the end of the Gospel, He breathed out the Spirit. This indicates that the Word and the Spirit are one. A further proof of this matter is seen in Ephesians 6:17, which says, “Receive...the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God.” This verse indicates that the Spirit is the word of God, both of which are Christ (2 Cor. 3:17; Rev. 19:13).
Our Christian experience also proves that the word of God and the Spirit are one. It is wrong to think that we can take the Spirit without taking the word of God or that we can take the word of God without taking the Spirit. Without taking the word of God, we cannot have the Spirit. In our experience, we receive the Spirit mainly through the Word. When we contact the Word in a living way, it becomes the Spirit to us. Christ is both the Spirit and the Word. He cannot be the Spirit without being the Word, nor the Word without being the Spirit. Since He is both the Word and the Spirit, we need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and we also need to be filled in spirit by the Spirit.
Another portion of the Scriptures which proves that the Spirit and the word of God are one is 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed.” This shows that the Scriptures, the Word of God, are the breath of God. Every word of the Holy Scripture is God’s breath, and this breath is pneuma, that is, spirit. The breath of God is His pneuma, the Spirit. The Spirit is the breath of God, and the word of God is also the breath of God. Therefore, the two are one. On the one hand, the word of God is the Spirit; on the other hand, the Spirit of God is the Word. Since God’s speaking is God’s breathing out, it is also the Spirit. This indicates that the Scriptures are the embodiment of God as the Spirit. The Spirit is the very essence, the substance, of the Scriptures, just as phosphorus is the essential substance in matches. We must strike the Spirit of the Scriptures with our spirit to catch the divine fire.
Since Christ is the Spirit, and He is also the Word, we must not separate the Spirit from the Word. It is dangerous to have the Spirit without the Word, because we would be unregulated and unrestricted. But having the Word without the Spirit is to be lifeless, because apart from the Spirit, the Word is just dead letters. Actually, the essence, the substance, the constituent, of the Word is the Spirit. Hence, we need to be filled in spirit by the Spirit and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.
In God’s economy, the Spirit is the Triune God’s ultimate and consummate reaching of man. The Spirit’s coming to us is the Triune God’s reaching us. God gives us the Word with the Spirit. On the one hand, we have the Spirit as the ultimate and consummate reaching of the Triune God; on the other hand, we have the Word as the embodiment of the Spirit. Just as our life and our physical body are one entity, forming a complete, living organism, the Spirit and the Word are one. A person must have a visible and tangible body as well as an invisible and intangible life. In like manner, a believer needs the Word as well as the Spirit. That which makes the human body living and active is the invisible life within; that which makes the Word living and effectual is the Spirit. This indicates that the Spirit and the Word are one. God’s New Testament economy depends on the Word and the Spirit. We need the Word as the body and the Spirit as life.
Since the Word and the Spirit are one, we should let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, and we should also be filled in our spirit by the Spirit. We should avoid two extremes: one extreme is that of the fundamentalists, who care for the Word but often neglect the Spirit, and the other extreme is that of the Pentecostals, who care for the Spirit but often neglect the Word. We should not be in either of these two extremes; we should be balanced, caring for the Spirit and for the Word. We have the Spirit in us, and we have the Word, the Scriptures, in our hand.
To enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for our divine conformation, we need to be filled in our spirit by the processed Triune God, who is now the all-inclusive Spirit, and we also need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, making home in our heart.
For the divine conformation we, the believers, need to be filled in spirit by the Spirit and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. To be filled in spirit is to be filled in our regenerated spirit, our human spirit indwelt by the Spirit of God. Our spirit should not be empty; it should be filled with the riches of Christ unto all the fullness of God. In this way we will have a normal Christian life, church life, personal life, and family life, and we will live out all the virtues of humanity with wives being subject to their husbands, husbands loving their wives, parents caring for their children, slaves obeying their masters, and masters treating their slaves in a proper way.
Be filled is in the active-passive voice. God has done all the necessary things, and the Holy Spirit has been given to us, the believers, and is now abiding in our spirit with all the riches of Christ as the fullness of God, ready to fill us in our spirit. Now we need to take action to cooperate with God so that we may be filled with the Spirit. We need to completely empty ourselves and give all the room to the indwelling Spirit in our spirit, mind, emotion, and will, thus allowing the indwelling Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God to fully occupy us.
We should let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. The riches of Christ are in His word. The word of Christ is the word spoken by Christ; it includes the entire New Testament. To be filled with the word of Christ means to let the word of Christ dwell in us, that is, to let it richly make home in us, having adequate room to operate in us, so that it may minister the riches of Christ into our inner being, making our inner man the home of Christ and of His rich word.
According to the revelation of the New Testament, the Word is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Word. In resurrection the Lord is the life-giving Spirit, and the Spirit is embodied in the Word. When we exercise our spirit to receive the word of the Lord, we receive the Spirit who is life. The Spirit is the consummated Triune God reaching man; God always gives the believers the Spirit with the Word. Hence, in the experience of the believers, the Word of God and the Spirit are one and both are Christ Himself. Because Christ is both the Word and the Spirit, we need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and we also need to be filled in our spirit by the Spirit.