We all know that God works in us in three Persons. He is God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. These three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—are actually one God, the Triune God. The Triune God’s purpose is to work Himself into us and also to work Himself out from within us. The apostle Paul said that in God’s building, He uses gold, silver, and precious stones as the materials (1 Cor. 3:12). Gold refers to the life and nature of God. At the time we were saved, God entered into us, and we received God’s life and nature. God’s life and nature are typified by gold. In other words, when we were saved, God added His life and nature into our being as gold.
There is no doubt that every person who has been saved has received God with His life and nature. This is to say, once a person is saved, he experiences the first step of God’s work—the element of the Triune God is worked into him and he receives the golden element of God. The second step is the work of silver. This refers to the work of Christ. In the Bible silver refers to redemption, and Christ’s redemptive work is the work of the cross. There is a twofold meaning to the cross. On the one hand, it rids us of what we should not have, and on the other hand, it recovers what we originally received that became degraded. These are the two aspects of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross.
When God first created us, He gave us everything that we would need. He created for us a mind with the ability to think, an emotion with the ability to love, and a will with the ability to make decisions. We need all of these things, so all of them were created for us by God. However, man fell and all of these items fell into an improper position. Moreover, because man continued to fall, man was mixed up with much uncleanness, sin, and corruption. The redemption of the cross of the Lord Jesus saves us from all the things that we do not need and also recovers the things that we do need, including a normal mind, emotion, and will.
In short, we were created by God with everything that we would need. However, we fell and because of this fall, sin and the world were added into us. The Lord Jesus’ redemption on the cross takes away the sins and the world from within us and is recovering us so that we can be used by God. This is the principle of Christ’s redemption on the cross. This is the work of silver, of God the Son.
At the time we were saved, God entered into us as the Spirit; thus, we received the golden element of God. Then based upon Christ’s redemptive work, every day the cross takes away the sins and the world from within in us and recovers us. When we allow the cross to take away the sins and the world and to recover us back to God in this way, we receive the work of silver and the silver element of Christ. All those who have been fully saved have this silver element. Bit by bit we are allowing the cross to take away the sins and the world from within us and at the same time to recover us back to God.
Some saints, however, do not have this experience of the cross. They have only the golden element; they do not have the silver element. For example, a person who is truly saved and regenerated has the life of God within him. Thus, he has the golden element of God. However, this person is fallen, and he has a weakness. His weakness is that he loses his temper easily. Some have fallen into playing mah-jongg, others have fallen into going to the movies, but this person has fallen into losing his temper. He loses his temper easily. If his wife, children, relatives, colleagues, or even the brothers and sisters displease him in the slightest bit, he loses his temper. He does not care whether this is pleasing to God or what God’s will is—his entire person falls into his temper. Such a person is genuinely saved—he has God’s golden element—but he does not have Christ’s silver element. He has God’s life, but he has not experienced the redeeming and dealing work of the cross. He has the golden element but not the silver element.
Although he has allowed the blood of the cross to save him from God’s condemnation, he has not allowed the redemptive power of the cross to recover him from his temper. Likewise, some people have not allowed the cross to save them from movie theaters or from their addictions. It would not be fair to say that they have not been saved. However, although they have been saved, they remain in their temper or their addictions. This shows that they have gold in them but not silver. They have the life element of God in them but very little of the work of the cross.
There are some, however, who although they used to have quick tempers, addictions, and different kinds of weaknesses, they have all allowed the cross of Christ to deliver them from all these things. The cross of Christ has saved them from their temper, addictions, and various kinds of wickedness and brought them back to God. The cross has taken away the temper, addictions, and sins that they should not have. At the same time, the cross has also recovered the things that they should have and brought them back to God. Such ones have both gold and silver. Thus, when we come into contact with such persons, we can testify that they have both gold and silver.