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Everyone who truly sees a vision of the Lord in His glory is enlightened in his conscience regarding his uncleanness; how much we realize concerning ourselves depends on how much we see the Lord—Isa. 6:5; John 12:41; Job 42:5-6; cf. Luke 5:8:
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The more we see the Lord and are exposed, the more we are cleansed; our fellowship with the Lord needs to be maintained by the constant cleansing of the Lord’s blood—1 John 1:7, 9.
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In the New Testament sense, seeing God equals gaining God in our personal experience; to gain God is to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature that we may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
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Seeing God transforms us (2 Cor. 3:16,18; Matt. 5:8), because in seeing God we receive His element into us, and our old element is discharged; to see God is to be transformed into the glorious image of Christ, the God-man, that we may express God in His life and represent Him in His authority.
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The very God whom we look at today is the consummated Spirit, and we can look at Him in our spirit; in our morning watch, even if only for fifteen or twenty minutes, we have time to be with the Lord, time to remain in the Spirit.
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We can pray-read His Word, talk to Him, or pray to Him with short prayers; then we will have the sensation that we are receiving something of God’s element, that we are absorbing the riches of God into our being; in this way we are under the divine transformation day by day; this is altogether by our looking at the very consummated God as the Spirit in our spirit.
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The more we see God, know God, and love God, the more we abhor ourselves and the more we deny ourselves—Job 42:6; Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23; 14:26.
Morning Nourishment
Isa. 6:5 Then I said, Woe is me, for I am finished! For I am a man of unclean lips, and in the midst of a people of unclean lips I dwell; yet my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.1 John 1:7 …If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.
Before his experience in Isaiah 6,…Isaiah had been cleansed, but he realized that he was still unclean. This indicates that we all need to realize that we are a totality of uncleanness. No matter how many times we may be washed, we are still unclean. We all must come to know ourselves to this extent. In our experience, whether we are clean or unclean depends on the feeling of our conscience; and the feeling of our conscience depends on our seeing the Lord. How much we see the Lord determines how much we will be cleansed. The more we see the Lord and are exposed, the more we are cleansed. When our conscience is cleansed and is void of offense, we are able to contact God. According to our enlightened conscience, we are clean, but according to the actual facts of our situation in the old creation, we are not clean….As long as we remain in the old creation, we can never be completely clean, for the old creation is unclean. We need the redemption of our body. Once our body is redeemed, we will get out of the old creation. At that time, we will be completely clean. (Life-study of Isaiah, p. 39)
Today’s Reading
When we live in the divine light, we are under its enlightenment, and it exposes, according to God’s divine nature and through God’s nature in us, all our sins, trespasses, failures, and defects, which contradict His pure light, perfect love, absolute holiness, and excelling righteousness. At such a time we sense in our enlightened conscience the need of the cleansing of the redeeming blood of the Lord Jesus, and it cleanses us in our conscience from all sins that our fellowship with God and with one another may be maintained. Our relationship with God is unbreakable, yet our fellowship with Him can be interrupted. The former is of life, whereas the latter is based on our living, though it also is of life….Our fellowship, which is conditional, needs to be maintained by the constant cleansing of the Lord’s blood. (1 John 1:7, footnote 3)“I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, / But now my eye has seen You; / Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent / In dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). This indicates that Job gained God in his personal experience (in addition to knowing God in his vain knowledge by tradition) and that he abhorred himself. Seeing God equals gaining God (Matt. 5:8). To gain God is to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature. Eventually, this not only makes us one with God—it even makes us a part of God. I prefer not to use the phrase one with in describing our relationship with God because to be made a part of God, to be constituted with God in His life and nature, is more than being one with God. We see God that we may be constituted with God, yet we do not have any share in the Godhead.
All God’s redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, conformed, and glorified people will see God’s face (Rev. 22:4). Seeing God transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18), because in seeing God we receive His element into us. As we receive God, a new element comes into us, and the old element is discharged. This metabolic process is transformation. To see God is to be transformed into the glorious image of God. This makes us a part of God that we may express God in His life and represent Him in His authority.
Job said not only that He saw God but also that he abhorred himself. According to our experience, the more we see God and love God, the more we abhor ourselves. The more we know God, the more we deny ourselves. (Life-study of Job, pp. 157-158)
Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msgs. 19, 21, 30-31; The Holy Word for Morning Revival: Job, pp. 30-37, 40-41