In the book of Revelation it is altogether a matter of the Spirit. There is nothing to do with forms, regulations, or any kind of religion. Whether you are quiet or noisy, whether you wear long hair or short hair, whether you are circumcised or uncircumcised is not the question. It is altogether a matter of a new creation in the Spirit. This is to have Christ wrought into a resurrected humanity. Poor Christianity just follows the Jews. The Jews used the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament to form their Jewish religion. Poor Christianity followed by using their thirty-nine books plus twenty-seven more in the New Testament to form a Christianity religion.
Some time ago I was invited to a Jewish brother’s home. He told me that when he was an orthodox Jew, they did everything based upon the verses of the Bible. He even put his shoes in a certain order according to their teaching of the Bible. They were very scriptural. Whatever they did was based upon their Scripture. But they did not have Christ. They had the type, and they had all the verses, but they did not have Christ. When Christ came to the Jewish people, according to their point of view, He did things against their Scriptures. He was not scriptural. He did not keep the Sabbath. He did not worship properly in the temple. He did things against their Scriptures. Yet He was the very God. This shows that to reach God’s goal is altogether not a matter of religion. It is a matter of the Holy Spirit in our spirit.
When the Lord Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman, she spoke to Him about religion. But at that very time she had had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband. So the Lord told her that it was not a matter of religion, but of worshipping God in her spirit. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and reality; for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and reality” (John 4:23-24, Recovery Version).
In the book of Revelation John said four times that he was “in spirit.” This is because this book is composed of four major visions. The vision of the church is in the first three chapters. The vision of the world under God’s administration is in chapters four through sixteen. The vision of the harlot, the false church, is in chapters seventeen through eighteen. Following this, there is the vision of the New Jerusalem in chapters twenty-one and twenty-two. Every time John saw one of these four visions, he was in spirit. “I was in spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet....And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the midst of the seven lampstands one like unto the Son of man” (Rev. 1:10, 12-13a, Gk.). Then in Revelation 4:2 John said, “I was in spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne” (Gk.). In this vision John saw the judgment of the world from God’s throne. In Revelation 17 John was “carried away in spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns” (Rev. 17:3, Gk.). This was the great harlot, Babylon. The final vision is in Revelation 21 where John says, “And he carried me away in spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:10, Gk.).
John did not see these visions in his mentality. He saw them in spirit. The book of Revelation is a book of the harvest of these two spirits, the divine Spirit and the human spirit. The seed was sown in John 4:24: “God is Spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit.” Those who have fellowship and contact with God must be in their spirit. In Revelation, this divine Spirit becomes the sevenfold intensified Spirit (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6), and this Spirit is seven eyes to burn, enlighten, search, observe, and visit. What should we do with this burning Spirit? We should not use our mind. We must be in our spirit. It was in spirit that John saw the churches, the judgment of the world, the great Babylon, and the New Jerusalem. God is Spirit, and those who contact Him must use their spirit. John did not see any of these visions until he was in his spirit.