Outline

«　WEEK 4　DAY 3　»

　　Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God…

　　Phil. 3:10 To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

　　We are the believers in Christ, who are transferred out of Adam into Christ, regenerated to be the new creation, united with Christ in the divine life, and joined to Christ as one spirit. Also, we are the disciples of Christ. We all need to be discipled to be God-men.

　　Christ called Peter with the intention of discipling him from being a Jew to being a God-man. The One who called Peter, Jesus Christ, was a God-man. He was a Jew, but He did not live a Jewish life. He lived the divine life by denying His Jewish life. Living the divine life made Him divine. Denying the Jewish life made Him mystical. Thus, He was a man in the divine, mystical realm. Peter was in the Jewish, natural realm, but Christ called him with the intention of discipling him for three and a half years to show him what kind of man he should be.

　　We should not be Jewish men, Chinese men, or American men, but God-men…The Lord Jesus…charged Peter to follow Him so that Peter could observe what He did, how He lived, and how He spoke. Apparently, Jesus was a Jew, but actually, He lived the divine life by denying the Jewish life. This was the way He discipled His followers. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” p. 85)

　　[The disciples] saw a God-man living the divine life by denying the natural life through being crucified and resurrected. On the evening of the day of Christ’s resurrection, the disciples were meeting in sorrow and fear. Suddenly, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be to you” (John 20:19). Then He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). At that time He entered into the disciples. Before that time Peter frequently spoke in a foolish way. But after the Lord breathed Himself into Peter and poured out His Spirit upon him to empower him, Peter gave a marvelous message on the day of Pentecost.

　　In the four Gospels we see Jesus living the life of a God-man, and in Acts we see the disciples also living such a life. Because they had been discipled by the Lord, He told them that they would be His witnesses. They were also the members of Christ, the parts of Christ, to spread God, multiply Christ, and increase Christ…God’s spreading, Christ’s multiplication, and Christ’s increase are by our speaking the word of God to dispense Christ as life for the producing and building up of the Body of Christ. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” pp. 85-86)

　　We must learn to come to the Word of God as those who are approaching God, not to receive proverbs and teachings but to receive nourishment and enlightenment, so that we may know that, according to God, we should always be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10), which is the consummated Spirit, who is the reality of the resurrection of Christ.

　　We need to turn the Bible from a book that teaches us to cultivate the self and to build up the natural man to a book that is full of life, spirit, spiritual nourishment, and spiritual enlightenment. This will tear down our self, break our natural man, and supply us with the consummated Spirit of the Triune God. Then we will live a life not by our natural man, by our old man, and by our self but by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit. We need to learn to exercise our spirit every day in our daily life…We need to turn ourselves from the mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit. If we come to the Bible in this way, we will be touching the Word by the new man, and it will become to us a book of Spirit and life. (Life-study of Proverbs, p. 29)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” ch. 9