The Compound Spirit applies the Killing of Christ’s Death to us for our Transformation

In order for us to be transformed, that is, to be transferred from the form of the old man to the form of the new man, we need to experience the killing of Christ’s death in the compound Spirit in our spirit.

On one hand, we need to turn our heart to the Lord and behold Him face to face, so that He may infuse us with Himself and make us His reproduction, His very duplication on earth, even the same as He is in His image.

On the other hand, the work of transformation is accomplished by the killing of Christ’s death in the compound Spirit in our spirit.

On the positive side, we need to come to the Lord in His word day by day and have a deeper seeking after Him; we need to turn our heart to the Lord and learn to open every part of our being to Him.

On the negative side, God is working in our environment and all those around us to help us experience the discipline of the Holy Spirit so that the outer man may decay and the inner man may be renewed.

There’s no way to have the renewing without the putting off of the old man, the decaying of the natural man, so that the inner man may be renewed.

On our side, we turn our heart to the Lord and we open to Him in all things, learning to stop and contact Him, and invite Him into our situation and condition when we’re about to do something, say something, love something, decide something, or even think about something.

We simply learn to open our being to Him and pray; we may offer Him a simple prayer saying that we love Him and we want to please Him.

Such a prayer causes our inner being to open to Him, and He can come in to dispense Himself into us.

The more we open to Him, the more we turn our heart to Him, the more we behold Him face to face, and He infuses Himself into us to make us His duplication, His reproduction.

He infuses Himself into us to replace our old element with His new, divine, eternal element.

We are believers in Christ, but so much of our inner being is still old, still in the old creation, and still natural; therefore, the Lord has to come in and not only add Himself to us but also bring us in the experience of the killing of Christ’s death so that the natural elements may be discharged, even as the new, divine element is being added to our being.

In this way, we are inwardly reconstituted with God Himself as our outer man is decaying and our inner man is being renewed. Also, we are brought into freedom – we enjoy real freedom, real liberty, for the Spirit applies to us real freedom, which is Himself as our freedom.

We are freed from anything that suppresses, oppresses, and depresses us, and we are also freed from boredom or mere knowledge. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! Hallelujah!

Transformation is accomplished by the Killing of Christ’s Death applied by the Spirit to our being

For us to be transformed is for us to be transferred from one form – the form of the old man – to another form – the form of the new man; the Lord accomplishes this transformation work by the killing of Christ’s death (see 2 Cor. 4:10-12, 16-18).

In 2 Cor. 4:10 Paul says that we are always bearing about in our body the putting to death of Jesus; this “putting to death of Jesus” means killing, which means that the death of Christ kills us (1 Cor. 15:31, 36; John 12:24-26; 2 Cor. 1:8-9).

Even though we are believers in Christ, a new man, yet outwardly we are still old, simply by our old birth and by our living in our natural man.

God is not satisfied to leave us in the old man; He wants our old man to be renewed by transformation, and this is accomplished by the killing of Christ’s death applied to us by the Spirit.

The death of Christ kills us, for it has the killing capacity. The death of Christ is in the compound Spirit; the Spirit Himself is the application of the death of Christ and its effectiveness (Exo. 30:22-25; Rom. 8:13).

This means that one of the many, abundant ingredients in the Spirit – which include everything that the Triune God is, everything He has passed through, all His attainments and obtainments, all being compounded together – is the killing of Christ’s death.

One of the elements in the compound Spirit is the death of Christ; when we enjoy Him as the compound Spirit, we enjoy the death of Christ; this death of Christ kills the germs in us, killing the negative things in our being, and at the same time infuses us with the resurrection life.

In 1 Cor. 15:31 Paul said that he dies daily; I die daily. This is our experience as believers: we die daily; we die one day at a time.

We are not people who dwell on our past or desire to do things in the future – we are people of today, and we daily die to the self to enjoy the Lord and have the killing of Christ’s death applied to our being.

As we enjoy the Lord, He as the Spirit applies the death of Christ to our being and all the natural elements in our being are slowly discharged so that the new elements of Christ, the new divine elements, would be added to us.

In Exo. 30:22 and 25 we see how the compound ointment was made; it was composed not only of oil but oil with four kinds of spices, which signify both God as the Spirit (the oil) and the death and resurrection of Christ with its effectiveness and power.

Through the processes He went through, God became a man, and He then became a life-giving, compound Spirit; in this Spirit are God, man, divinity, humanity, human living, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and everything He went through.

Our Christian life is a life that is all the time under the killing of Christ’s death applied by and in the compound Spirit; this daily killing is carried out by the indwelling Spirit with the environment as the killing weapon.

The Spirit is the “killer”, and the “weapon” used by the Spirit is the environment.

Under God’s divine and sovereign arrangement, our entire environment is a killing; our wife, our husband, our children, the brothers and sisters in the church life, and everything in our environment is used by the Lord as a “knife” to kill us.

This accomplishes the work of transformation in our being; on one hand, we behold the Lord and enjoy Him, and on the other hand, the Spirit works through our environment to apply the killing of Christ’s death to our being to remove the natural elements from us.

The Lord may use our wife, our husband, our professor, our manager, our co-workers, and our neighbours to put us to death so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in us.

Everything related to us is under God’s sovereign arrangement; we may think we chose a certain person to our spouse and that we worked hard and earned that promotion, but everything is up to the Lord, not up to us.

He arranges all things for us to be put to death and for the life of Jesus to be manifested in us; when we’re willing to suffer and be killed, dying to our old man and the self, we live Christ, we magnify Christ, and He is manifested in us.

This causes us to be transformed, for we enjoy Christ under the killing of His death.

We may choose the best and most wonderful sister or brother to be our spouse, but later we may think that we made a mistake; however, the Lord charges the husbands to love their wives (Eph. 5:25) and the wives to obey their own husbands.

He uses all things, all people, all matters, and everything in our environment to work out for good, that is, for us to be transformed through the killing of Christ’s death (Rom. 8:28).

All things in our environment work together for our good, for our transformation; the good in Rom. 8:28 is related not to physical matters, things, or persons, but to God Himself, the only One who is good (Luke 18:19).

As the Lord sovereignly arranges our environment, all things and persons and matters to match His work within us so that we may be transformed and conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God (Matt. 10:29-31).

Lord Jesus, we love You! Transform us into Your image by the addition of the divine element and the discharge of the old man. Amen, Lord, may we be renewed into our inner man even as our outer man is decaying. Have a way through the environment with all its things, matters, people, and situations, to apply the killing of Christ’s death to our being through the Spirit so that we may be renewed and transformed. Keep us enjoying You, Lord, and turning our heart to You, even as the putting to death of Jesus operates in us. May the life of Jesus be manifested in us as the Spirit applies the death of Christ with its effectiveness to our being. Hallelujah, our environment with all its things, persons, and situations work out for good for us so that we can be transformed into the image of Christ! Yes, Lord, have a way to load us with good, with the Triune God Himself! May all persons, situations, and things related to us work match the work You are doing within us for us to be transformed and conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son of God!

Transformation is Carried out in us as we Experience the Discipline of the Holy Spirit

God loves us; He loves us, His children, so He has to discipline us so that we may partake of His holiness (Heb. 12:5-14).

Every child whom He loves, He also disciplines, He deals with us as with sons. If we are without discipline, then we’re not a son, we are not true children of God.

Just as we have fathers in the flesh who discipline us, and we respect them, so much more we need to be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live!

We need to recognize that God is arranging everything around us, not rebel or disagree with His arrangement, but be in subjection to the Father of our spirit.

We may not like the set of circumstances we’re in and the people around us; however, we need to accept that all these things are the outward environment sovereignly arranged by God to tear down every aspect of our natural man to reconstitute us with God Himself.

The work of the Spirit within us is to constitute a new being for us; the work of the Spirit without is to tear down every aspect of our natural being through our environment (see Jer. 48:11).

As believers in Christ, we need to realize that whatever we are by birth – whether good or bad, whether useful or not – is natural, and everything natural is altogether a hindrance to the Holy Spirit in constituting the divine life into our being.

We may think that there are some good aspects of our being which the Lord can use; we may think that we can be useful to the Lord because we were trained in this aspect, we acquired that knowledge, and we have certain skills in a certain realm.

But God is not after using our skills, knowledge, and virtues which we have in our natural being; what He is after, what really really matters to Him, is a new creation.

So He works both within and without to constitute a new being in us through the process of transformation. Inwardly, He works to infuse us with Himself, adding His holy element to our being to replace our old element.

Outwardly, we experience the discipline of the Holy Spirit through our environment for the tearing down of our natural man.

Our natural strength, our natural wisdom, our natural cleverness, our natural shortcomings, our natural virtues, our natural attributes, plus our character and habits, all must be torn down in order that the Holy Spirit may form in us a new disposition, new character, new habits, new virtues, and new attributes.

How does He do that? He does it by moving as the Spirit both within to reconstitute us with Himself, and without arranging every detail in our environment to tear down what we are naturally.

How can we cooperate with the Lord’s inner operating as the Spirit and outer operation through the environment?

It is simply by accepting the environment that God has arranged for us, believing that He who has begun this work will also do it, and He works out in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure (Phil. 4:12; Eph. 3:1; 4:1; 6:20; 1 Cor. 7:24).

May we say Amen to what He is doing in us and around us; though we may not like it or agree with what is measured out to us, may we simply accept it and say Amen to the Lord’s work as the Spirit.

When we accept the discipline of the Holy Spirit through the environment, a new being is constituted in us, and we are being transformed into the image of Christ.

Dear Lord Jesus, we open our whole being to You to be transformed into the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God. Thank You for being the Spirit working in us to constitute a new being for us and make us a new creation. We acknowledge that You are operating as the Spirit in our environment to tear down our natural being. Oh Lord, gain our whole being to be transformed and reconstituted to be a new creation. We allow You to do what You need to do in us and around us, Lord, so that we may be enlightened, inspired, lead, and saturated with the divine life. Save us from standing against or opposing Your work in us and around us. Have Your way in us, Lord; reconstitute us with Yourself, transform us, and make us the same as You are! We simply open to the Spirit’s applying of the killing of Christ’s death to our being through all things around us so that we may gain more of God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” chs. 9, 14-15, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 6, Gaining God to Be Transformed by God for the Purpose of God.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – God hath us regenerated / In our spirit with His life; / But He must transform us further- / In our soul by His own life. / Spreading outward from our spirit / Doth the Lord transform our soul, / By the inward parts renewing, / Till within His full control. (Hymns #750)
  – Transformation is my need, / To be broken more indeed, / That the clay may change in form, / To the treasure to conform. (Hymns #548)
  – May the Cross put me to death / That on Christ I may rely; / May His Holy Spirit fill, / That Himself I may apply. / May His death so work in me / Daily deeper than before, / That my self may be destroyed. (Hymns #412)