Ⅲ
To live with the Divine Trinity is to have the resurrected Christ living in us—Gal. 2:20b; Phil. 1:19-21a:
A
Resurrection is a person because Christ said that He is the resurrection (John 11:25); the life-giving Spirit as the Spirit of reality is the reality of the resurrected Christ and of the power of Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45b; John 14:17; 16:13; 1 John 5:6; Phil. 3:10; Exo. 30:22-25).
B
In our Christian life we are under the killing of Christ’s death by the indwelling Spirit and through our outward environment; the outward environment cooperates with the inward Spirit to kill our natural man for the manifestation of the resurrected Christ within us—Rom. 8:9-10, 13b, 28-29; 2 Cor. 4:7-18:
１
If we try to escape from the environment that God has arranged for us, we will not have joy and peace; when we stay in this limited environment, we can experience resurrection—Eph. 4:1; 6:20; 2 Cor. 1:8-9, 12.
２
To experience the Spirit as the reality of the resurrected Christ, we need to turn to our spirit to pray, praise, sing, or talk to God; the title of Psalm 18 indicates that this was David’s human talk with the divine God, implying David’s intimacy with God; after ten minutes of talking to God and consulting with Him, we will be on fire and be full of the Spirit as the reality of resurrection.
Morning Nourishment
John 11:25 …I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live.Rom. 8:13 …If by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.
2 Cor. 4:11 For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
Resurrection is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the processed and consummated Triune God. God, Christ, and Christ’s death and resurrection have been compounded into this one compound Spirit, who is the very reality of Christ’s resurrection.
Resurrection is a person, because Christ said that He is the resurrection. Life and light are also a person. Christ said that He is the life (John 14:6) and the light (8:12)…. But no verse says that Christ is death. We can say Christ’s death, using the possessive case, because death is not the consummation. The consummation is resurrection. The processes through which the Triune God passed consummated in resurrection. Thus, resurrection is the very consummated God. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” pp. 442-443)
Today’s Reading
Human life is full of troubles, worries, and all kinds of sorrows. We can rid our being of these things only by our God who is resurrection, which is the Spirit. The Spirit kills, and the Spirit also resurrects. This is because Christ’s killing death and His uplifting resurrection are compounded in the compound Spirit, whom we are enjoying. As we enjoy the compound Spirit, we are experiencing the inner killing and the inner resurrecting. As long as we have this killing plus the resurrecting, we have God. Killing plus resurrecting is God. God moves in us, works in us, functions in us…. He gives us Himself as everything we need to live the Christian life.We need to experience the Spirit’s application of Christ’s resurrection and its power all the time…. Five sisters may live in one apartment unit. In this apartment each of them has to do everything carefully. Otherwise, they can offend one another.… If we try to escape from the environment that God has arranged for us, we will not have joy and peace. When we stay in this limited environment, we can experience resurrection.
In order to experience resurrection, we also need to be limited in our speaking….To experience the Spirit as the reality of resurrection, we need to turn to our spirit to pray, praise, sing, or talk to God….We need to talk to God and consult with Him. After ten minutes of talking to God, we will be on fire and full of the Spirit as the reality of resurrection.
Under God’s divine and sovereign arrangement, our entire environment is a killing. All the things in our environment are like knives to kill us. The wives, the husbands, the children, the brothers, and everything in our environment are used by the Lord as knives to kill us. The killing of the cross, the killing of Christ’s death, ushers in resurrection. When we are willing to suffer and be killed, we live Christ, we magnify Christ, and Christ is manifested in us. Then we are transformed…. As we are under the killing of Christ’s death, Christ as the genuine One needs to be manifested in us.
Everything related to us is under the Lord’s sovereign arrangement. What kind of job we have and whom we marry are altogether not up to us. A brother may choose a sister to be his wife, but later this brother may think that he made a mistake. This is why the Lord charges the husbands to love their wives (Eph. 5:25). Under the Lord’s sovereign arrangement, we are like lambs brought to the slaughter every day (Rom. 8:36)…. Every day we are under the killing of Christ’s death that His life may be manifested in our body in the renewing of our inner man. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” pp. 443-444, 481-483)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” chs. 7, 10, 14