«　WEEK 24　DAY 1　»

　　Lev. 26:1-2 You shall not make for yourselves idols, nor shall you raise up for yourselves a graven image or a pillar, nor shall you place a stone figure in your land to bow down to it; for I am Jehovah your God. You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary; I am Jehovah.

　　In Leviticus 26:1-20 we are given a basis for our obedience, and this basis includes three matters. First, we should not have idols (v. 1). This signifies that besides God we should have no other goals that we are seeking after, so that we may not lose the position to enjoy our divine possession. Second, we should keep God's Sabbaths (v. 2a). This signifies that we should know that the work of God was done entirely by Himself that we might enjoy it, and that there is no need for us to do any work. Third, we need to reverence God's sanctuary (v. 2b). This signifies that we should regard with reverence all that God is and has accomplished in Christ as God's dwelling, embodiment, and expression (John 1:14; Col. 2:9), and in the church as the enlargement of Christ for God's dwelling and eternal manifestation (Eph. 2:22; Rev. 21:10). We need not only to understand these points in letter but also to see their intrinsic significance. (Life-study of Leviticus, p. 535)

　　We are in the jubilee. But if we seek something other than God, we may lose the enjoyment of the jubilee. Whatever we seek as a goal other than God is an idol....We should have one goal, a unique goal—God as our one aim. (Life-study of Leviticus, p. 528)

　　In 1 John 5:2 1 John goes on to conclude, "Little children, guard yourselves from idols." The word guard means to garrison ourselves against attacks from without, like the assaults of the heresies. Idols refers to the heretical substitutes, brought in by the Gnostics and Cerinthians, for the true God, as revealed in this Epistle and in John's Gospel and referred to in the preceding verse. Idols here also refer to anything that replaces the real God. We as genuine children of the genuine God should be on the alert to guard ourselves from these heretical substitutes and all vain replacements of our genuine and real God, with whom we are organically one and who is eternal life to us. This is the aged apostle's word of warning to all his little children as a conclusion of his Epistle. (Life-study of 1 John, p. 356)

　　According to the New Testament revelation, the Spirit has passed through a number of stages. Of course, He was the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, and the Spirit of holiness throughout the Old Testament. Throughout these four thousand years of human history, the Spirit of God never changed. But to say that God the Spirit has never changed is a big mistake. This is because after four thousand years of human history the Triune God Himself entered into a period of time in which He passed through many processes. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, "The Spirit with Our Spirit," p. 153)

　　The Triune God took several crucial steps in being processed to be the life-giving Spirit.

　　The word consummation indicates that a work or a process has been completed, or finished. This may be illustrated by the cooking of food....Before His incarnation God was "raw," having the divine nature but not the human nature. Through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, God was processed and consummated. Now, He is no longer the "raw" God; He is the consummated and completed Triune God with divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death, the powerful resurrection, and the transcendent ascension. All these are elements, or ingredients, in the processed and consummated Triune God. (CWWL, 1990, vol. 1, "The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man," pp. 266-267)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1990, vol. 1, "The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man," ch. 5; Life-study of Job, msg. 12