Prayer: Lord, how we thank You for this gathering, that You have gathered us together around You, through Your Word. Oh Lord, how we love You, and how we love Your Word. We thank You that You are the very God, the very Word, and the very Spirit. We thank You that You are even the life, the divine life, which we are enjoying every day. Lord, we believe that You are with us, and that we are really one spirit with You. We praise You that we are here in the church enjoying You as the Spirit, as life, and as the very God. Thank You for the cleansing blood. Thank You for all the enlightening words, and thank You for the anointing Spirit. We put our full trust in You. Thank You, Lord Jesus. In Your precious name, amen.
In the two preceding chapters we have covered three factors which are vital to the recovery of the church life: Christ, the Spirit, and the divine life. In this chapter I wish to speak a further word regarding the factor of the Spirit and the factor of the divine life.
In the previous chapter, we saw that the Spirit of God became the Spirit after Christ was glorified (John 7:39; 2 Cor. 3:17). It was at this time that the Spirit was first breathed into the disciples. On the day of the Lord’s resurrection, He came back to the disciples in the evening, breathed Himself into them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Greek word pneuma, translated Spirit in this verse, also means breath. When the Lord Jesus said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” He meant that they were to receive the holy breath. The Holy Spirit is the holy pneuma, and the holy pneuma is the holy breath. Thus, the Lord likened the Spirit to breath by which we live.
The Spirit as the holy breath was breathed into the disciples essentially for their existence that they might live by this life-giving Spirit. This is the Spirit of life, the Spirit of the divine essence. When this Spirit of life was breathed into the disciples, this meant that the divine essence of God was breathed into their inner being. The processed Triune God as the Spirit in His divine essence was breathed into the disciples’ inner being. God’s divine essence thus became the very element in their inner being. From then on the disciples had the divine element in their being. This was for their existence, for their spiritual living. All this happened in the Lord’s resurrection.
To repeat, in His resurrection the Lord became a life-giving Spirit, and in His resurrection He came to the disciples and breathed Himself as the Spirit into them as the divine essence. Now they had something divine in their being. This was for their spiritual being, their spiritual existence, and their spiritual living.
After He was resurrected, the Lord Jesus stayed with the disciples for forty days in order to train them to enjoy His invisible presence (Acts 1:3). The Lord had been with them in the flesh for three and a half years. During those three and a half years, the disciples had enjoyed the Lord’s physical presence which was visible to all of them. But to their great dismay, the Lord Jesus was crucified and was buried. They thought that was the end of Him, and they were very disappointed. It was a great surprise to them when on the third day the Lord Jesus was resurrected.
That night He came back to them, not in a physical way but in a spiritual way. The doors of the room in which the disciples met were closed, yet the Lord Jesus came and stood in their midst (John 20:19). They did not know how the Lord entered the room, yet He came into the room, appeared to them, and breathed into them. Then after a while He disappeared. The disciples had never experienced this before. This was the Lord’s spiritual presence, a presence invisible to human eyes. In those three and a half years the Lord’s presence with them was physical and visible. But now in resurrection the Lord Jesus came back to the disciples in a spiritual way, and His presence was no longer physical but spiritual and invisible. However, because of the weakness of the disciples, they sometimes needed His invisible presence to become visible for a short time. He then would disappear. For forty days the Lord Jesus was with the disciples in this way, appearing and disappearing, becoming visible and invisible. This might have troubled the disciples. After the Lord had appeared to them and then disappeared, Peter, John, and the other disciples might have asked one another what this meant. Was that not the Lord Jesus who had appeared to them? Surely it was He, but where was He now? They did not know where the Lord had gone. They needed to realize that Jesus never left them, for He was within them. In this way the Lord Jesus trained them for forty days to practice and to enjoy His invisible presence.
Although we cannot see Him, we believe the Lord Jesus is here. He is not visible, but He is very real in us. I have the assurance that Jesus is in me. While I am speaking, I believe that the Lord Jesus speaks with me. If you really believe that the Lord Jesus is within you, it is impossible for you to remain silent or stay still. Because you have Jesus within you, you cannot help but jump for joy and shout, “Hallelujah!”