The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 22, No. 5

The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures (2)

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the final eight messages given during the fall 2017 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures." God's ultimate intention is to gain a corporate God-man for His corporate manifestation. The intrinsic element of God's eternal economy is that the Triune God in humanity, the wonderful Christ as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, is sown into God's chosen people as the seed of life, the seed of God, so that He might grow in them, live in them, develop in them, and be expressed from within them as the farm of God for the building up of the church as the house of God and the kingdom of God. The seed of life is actually God in Christ as the Spirit through His word sown into us. This seed contains everything related to God's economy, to the divine life, and to the growth, development, and function of that life. The seed of life is not only a substance, a reproductive element, or an essence but also a person--the all-inclusive Christ. The seed of life sown into us needs to grow to maturity so that we may be the kingdom of God. In resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit for imparting life. The life-giving Spirit is the extract, the essence, the concentrated form of the all-inclusive Christ. The totality of all that the all-inclusive Christ is as the life-giving Spirit is for our experience and enjoyment. Without the experience of Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the Lord cannot have His Body. If we never have any experience or enjoyment, we will never grow. There is always a spiritual war related to the growth in life. If the enemy cannot stop the sowing of the seed, then he will do everything he can with every believer to prevent the seed from growing to maturity. However, there is a fighting element in this seed. The only way to enter into the coming kingdom is to grow into the kingdom. Second Peter 1:5-11 reveals that our growth in life to maturity becomes an entrance into the kingdom richly supplied to us. The law of the Spirit of life is the subject of Romans 8. God's life is the highest life, and the law of this life is the highest law. The law of the Spirit of life is not a thing but a person--the processed and consummated Triune God embodied in Christ and realized as a living law in our spirit. This law of life is the spontaneous power, the natural characteristic, and the innate, automatic function of the divine life. While we remain in touch with the Lord, staying in contact with Him, the law of the Spirit of life works automatically, spontaneously, and effortlessly to dispense God as life into our being and to overcome the law of sin and of death (vv. 10, 6, 11). We activate the law of the Spirit of life by remaining in touch with the Lord. We need to cooperate with the indwelling, installed, automatic, and inner-operating God by prayer and by having a spirit of dependence, thus maintaining our fellowship with the Lord of life and the Lord of work. Romans 8 reveals that the processed Triune God as the law of the Spirit of life gives the divine life to the believers for their living. There are four laws in Romans 7 and 8. One law is outside of us, and the other three correspond to the three lives that are within us as regenerated persons. Outside of us is the law of God, the law of moral commandments, which is a portrait of God. Within us is the law of sin and of death in our flesh, the law of good in our soul, and the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit. The only way we can match and become the living portrait of God is by living according to the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit. God's desire and goal are that we live by the divine life and minister life to others for the building up of the church. The all-inclusive, indwelling Spirit is constantly transmitting this life into each one of us to build up the church, edify the saints, and minister the riches of Christ to everyone who contacts us. In Romans 8 we also see that the desire of God's heart is to have many sons for His corporate expression (v. 29). The Father sent His Son--who was born under the law and born through a woman--to redeem us out from under the law. Having redeemed us, He "sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!'" (Gal. 4:6). Now our spirit has become a spirit of sonship. As the divine life grows within us and transforms us, it spontaneously shapes us into the form, the image, of the firstborn Son of God. We are to be conformed to the image of God's firstborn Son, Christ as the first God-man, that we may be a group of God-men who are exactly like Him. Paul's Epistle to the Romans reveals God's complete salvation in two aspects. God's judicial redemption is the procedure of God's complete salvation for the believers to participate in God's organic salvation as the purpose of the complete salvation of God. Redemption entails the forgiveness of all our sins, reconciliation, positional sanctification, and justification. God's organic salvation is the organic aspect of God's complete salvation through the life of God (Rom. 1:17b; Acts 11:18; Rom. 5:10b, 17b, 18b, 21b) as the purpose of God's salvation, accomplishing all that God wants to achieve in the believers in His economy through His divine life (Gen. 2:9; Rev. 22:14). Organic salvation entails regeneration with God's life, sanctification with God's holy nature, renewing with God's element, transformation with God's being, conformation into God's image, and glorification, which is our full sonship. Glorification sonizes our whole being, from spirit to soul to body. All the items of God's organic salvation are carried out by Christ as the life-giving Spirit in His heavenly ministry organically and subjectively. Being saved in His life is actually the process of resurrection, with the resurrection life of Christ as the element, increasingly taking place in our inner being so that we are sanctified, which is to be saturated with God's holy nature. It is in resurrection that we are renewed, we walk in newness of life, and we serve in newness of spirit (Rom. 6:4; 7:6). The experience of God's organic salvation equals reigning in Christ's life. The issue of our reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life (12:1-4, 9-12, 15, 18). The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.