Some may think that if a person who is outwardly bad gets saved by God’s Spirit and life, he should endeavor to have good behavior and conduct. However, this is merely self-cultivation, which is the work of a religious person. God does not save us in this way—He does not correct our shortcomings from the outside. God saves us by causing His Spirit and life to expand and spread out from our spirit, our inner being, so that we are completely changed. After a person who has a bad nature receives God’s Spirit and life, God desires that His Spirit and life would spread out from within this person until he is completely swallowed up and transformed. Man’s way is to outwardly improve and correct himself; God’s way is to swallow us up and transform us from within. What is the basic material that God uses for this transforming work? The basic materials that He uses are His Spirit and life.
Throughout the ages, the aim of the teachings of the great theologians and philosophers has been to improve, reform, and beautify people outwardly. However, this is not the way of God’s salvation. The way of God’s salvation is to put His divine life into man’s spirit to regenerate man. Then God causes His divine life to spread out from man’s spirit to saturate and permeate him. We can liken this to putting yellow liquid into the center of a cotton ball. If we do this, then the yellow liquid will slowly flow and permeate out from the center. Eventually, it will saturate the whole cotton ball, causing the white cotton ball to become yellow. This yellow color does not come from outward painting but from inward saturation. This is the same way that a Christian becomes mature in life.
A saved person may have a fiery disposition and a bad temper, but on the day that he got saved, the Spirit of the Lord and the life of the Lord entered into his spirit. If from that day on he truly loves the Lord and is willing to give the Lord the opportunity to do the work of permeation in him, the Lord will permeate him to the extent that his temper will be changed. His naturally fiery temper will become gentle and will gain a little of God’s “color.” Then the Lord will continue to permeate him. As a result, although he was not a man with sympathy before, he will now have a heart to care about others, and will have a little bit more of God’s color. These changes will not happen as a result of outward reform or from an outward painting of color onto him. They will happen as a result of the expansion and permeation of God’s life within him. We can say that when this man first got saved, he was merely saved. His temper had not been changed and was still bad. After half a year, however, he changed quite a bit. This change is not simply a matter of a change in behavior; it also enables others to sense the presence of the Lord and to feel that there is the taste of the Lord in him.
Some people may be very meek, but there is no taste of the Lord within them. Yet with others, there is the taste of the Lord in their meekness. Why is this? It is because the meekness of some people does not come from inside, it is like something that has been painted on them outwardly or an outward decoration. The meekness of others, however, comes from the permeation of the Lord’s life within them. These ones not only have meekness, but they also have the Lord in their meekness. In fact, we can say that their meekness is just the Lord Himself.
For example, suppose there are two brothers. By nature the older one honors his parents, but by nature the younger is disobedient to his parents. One day the younger one gets saved, and the Spirit of the Lord and the life of the Lord entered into his spirit. At this time, outwardly, the younger one is not as good at honoring his parents as the older brother. However, although the older brother is good at honoring his parents, God’s Spirit and God’s life are not inside of him. Thus, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, the older brother honors his parents in his natural way. When the young brother got saved in the summer, his outward behavior at that time was not as good as his older brother’s. However, at the end of the year, after six months, the younger brother also honors his parents. Yet how does he honor his parents? He honors his parents by the Lord’s Spirit and life that have permeated him. The Lord’s Spirit and life permeate his disobedient nature and begin to work on his disobedience. Eventually, his disobeying becomes honoring. Thus, by the end of the year, both of them honor their parents.
At this time, the older brother’s honoring is just his natural honoring, but the younger brother’s honoring is different. When others touch the younger brother’s honoring, they not only touch his honoring, they also touch the Lord. There is the taste of the Lord in his honoring. The difference between these two kinds of honoring is that the older brother’s honoring is of his natural man—it is human behavior—and the younger brother’s honoring comes from the inward permeation of the Lord—it is the Lord’s life living out from him. Both honor their parents, but their honoring has two different natures and tastes. One is merely behavior, but the other is life. One has the taste of man, whereas the other has the taste of the Lord. This kind of virtue, which comes as a result of being permeated with the Lord’s life and the Lord’s Spirit, is the expression of the maturity in life, which takes place step by step. This kind of growth and maturity in life is the result of the permeation of the Lord’s Spirit and the Lord’s life. This permeation begins from our innermost center, our spirit, and continues outwardly into our soul.