The Lord desires to recover the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures; His salvation has both an outward, objective aspect, and an inward, subjective aspect, and all the objective doctrines in the Bible are for our subjective experience.
This week in our morning revival we come to a new topic, The Recovery of the Subjective Truths in the Gospel of John, where we focus mainly on this Gospel to see what are the subjective truths and how we can experience them.
The four Gospels present a complete picture of the wonderful Christ in His earthly ministry; three of them are synoptic gospels, while John has a different view – it presents Christ as God.
Matthew introduces Christ as the King-Savior, Mark speaks of Him as the Slave-Savior, Luke speaks of Christ as the Man-Savior, but John speaks of Him as God, God becoming our life and everything.
This particular gospel gives us a unique view of Christ that is both divine and mystical, focusing not on the physical Jesus, the man Jesus, but Christ who is God becoming a man, the Word becoming flesh.
This makes the gospel of John very special, and this week we will explore the subjective truths in this book.
The Lord desires to recover the subjective truths, not just the objective doctrines in the Bible.
It is a great thing for us to realize that the truth has these two aspects: the objective side and the subjective side.
The Lord wants us not only to know the truth in an objective way, in the way of knowing or memorizing a doctrine, but in our experience, for us to experience the truth in a subjective way.
The Lord’s heart’s desire is not merely for us to know the objective aspect of the truths but have the subjective experience of the truths in the Scriptures.
The Bible is an amazing book, presenting to us a wonderful and all-inclusive Person, Jesus Christ, and there are many types, figures, symbols, and stories concerning Him; furthermore, there are many teachings in the New Testament given either by Him or by the disciples.
We need to see the intrinsic significance of the truths in the Bible and enter into the organic experience and enjoyment of these truths so that they become our daily supply and experience in our Christian life.
Intrinsic means that something is not extrinsic, something is not outward or external but it is inward, of the essence; it is something central, something that touches the essence and constitution.
It is possible for us to gravitate or just remain in the outward, non-essential, and extrinsic aspect of the truth as we read the Scriptures and live our Christian life.
We may study the truth and seek to know and learn the truth, but we may still remain only in the extrinsic or outward aspects of the truth, merely knowing the doctrines, yet not touching the intrinsic and organic aspects of the truth so that we may experience the subjective truths.
Organic means that it relates to life; it relates to a living organism. May the Lord recover the subjective truths in our experience today so that we may live out the truths that He has shown us and wrought into us.
The Lord Desires to Recover the Subjective Truths in the Holy Scriptures in our Experience
The truths in the Holy Scriptures are always of two aspects – the objective aspect and the subjective aspect (Rom. 8:34, 10; Col. 3:1; 1:27).
This is not the so-called twofoldness of the divine truth; rather, every truth in the bible has two aspects – the objective truth and the subjective truth.
Actually, God’s salvation has two aspects: the objective aspect and the subjective aspect.
We see this in Luke 15:22-23 in the parable of the prodigal son returning to his father.
On one hand, the father clothed him with the best robe to qualify him to be his son and sit at the table with him; on the other hand, the fattened calf was slaughtered and they all ate and drank and were merry.
The outward, objective aspect of God’s salvation is signified by the best robe, which is Christ as our objective righteousness to be our salvation outwardly.
The inward, subjective aspect of God’s salvation is signified by the fattened calf which became a feast to supply the people; this is Christ as our subjective life for our enjoyment, our salvation inwardly (Rom. 5:10).
The prodigal son represents us not only initially but again and again as we sin, backslide, or simply forget about the Lord, when we forsake Him and do not continually enjoy His riches.
As the Spirit is seeking us out, we come to our senses, and we return to our Father in repentance; the first thing that the Father does is to cover us with the best robe, Christ as our righteousness, and then He gives us this all-inclusive Christ for us to eat and enjoy to be supplied and satisfied.
Christ as our objective righteousness is our salvation outwardly – we need this salvation, this glorious robe, this robe of beauty, Christ as our objective righteousness, to cover us before God!
In ourselves, we have no merit or standing before God, but when Christ becomes our righteousness, we can stand before Him and fellowship with Him.
Christ died on the cross, shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and accomplished redemption on our behalf so that we may be accepted by God, reconciled to God, and be qualified to enter into the enjoyment of God.
We need this objective righteousness, the robe that covers us before God and qualifies us to sit with Him at the feast. but this is only our outward salvation; Christ is also our subjective life and life supply for our enjoyment – this is typified by the fattened calf.
On one hand, we need to be justified before God, reconciled to God, forgiven of our sins, and covered by Christ as our righteousness; on the other hand, we need to go on to enjoy God’s full salvation.
These are the two aspects of the truth in the Bible which the Lord wants to recover today – the objective truths (Christ as our righteousness covering us before God) and the subjective truths (Christ as our life and life supply for our organic salvation).
We may have God’s redemption but we may not have the full salvation of God; many believers know that Jesus died for them and believe in His redeeming death, but not many enter into the enjoyment and experience of His organic salvation.
What God is doing right now is not only covering us with Christ to make us acceptable to God; He gives us Christ as our life and life supply, even as our everything, for us to experience and enjoy Him and thus be saved in His life organically.
May we cooperate with the Lord in our experience for Him to recover the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for dying for us to redeem us, reconcile us with God, and justify us before God. We take You, Lord as our righteousness; You are our covering before God, and You qualify us to enter into God’s presence to fellowship with God and to enjoy God. Amen, Lord, we thank You that You are our life and life-supply for us to enjoy God, partake of God’s riches, live because of God, and be conformed to Your image! Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You to recover the subjective truths in the Holy Scriptures! We want not only to know the objective truths but experience the subjective truths in our Christian life!
All the Objective Doctrines are for our Subjective Experience in our Christian Life
We need to realize that all the objective doctrines in the Word of God are for our subjective experience; hence, we need to cooperate with the Lord for the recovery of the subjective truths in our Christian experience.
The objective Christ is “the best robe” of the God-satisfying righteousness to cover us as penitent sinners (Jer. 23:6; 1 Cor. 1:30), and we praise and thank God for this objective aspect of His salvation.
Furthermore, the subjective Christ is “the fattened calf” as the rich Christ (Eph. 3:8) who was killed on the cross for our life supply and enjoyment in resurrection (John 10:10; 6:63; 11:25; 12:24; 4:10, 14; 20:22).
We have to realize that all the objective doctrines are for our subjective experience in our Christian life.
The doctrines we see in the Word of God are not an end in themselves; we need to study them, prayerfully consider them, and even more, we need to experience them, for they need to become subjective truths to us.
It is not sufficient for us to realize that, when we return to God and repent, He covers us with Christ as the best robe, our objective righteousness; we need to go on and experience Christ as our life, our supply of life, and our everything for our organic salvation.
We thank and praise the Lord for positionally sanctifying us through the blood of Christ; we thank Him for moving us and even removing us out of Adam into Christ through His redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).
But there’s even more: we are not only clothed in Christ objectively before God to be acceptable before Him – we are given this rich Christ to enjoy and be transformed with subjectively in our Christian life so that we may be built up as the Body of Christ for His corporate expression.
The blood of Christ changed our position to sanctify us; then, we are regenerated to be made a new creation, and the Spirit is continually sanctifying us dispositionally to change us in our very nature by the Christ who is enjoyed and experienced by us.
After realizing that we have been redeemed by God and put into Christ, we need to continue to grow in life and be transformed, going through different stages of spiritual growth until we become mature in life to express Christ.
On one hand, the Spirit sanctifies us positionally by bringing us to God and making us separated unto Him, those clothed in Christ as our righteousness.
On the other hand, the Spirit is dispositionally sanctifying us to transform us in our very nature with the all-inclusive Christ whom we enjoy, experience, and partake of.
For this to take place, we need to realize that all the objective truths, the objective doctrines, in the Word of God are for our subjective experience, and we need to have the experience of the subjective truths in our daily Christian life and church life.
In John 19:34 we see that, when the Lord was dying on the cross, a soldier pierced His side, and blood and water flowed.
The blood that flowed from Him was for our redemption, for us to be cleansed and brought into a proper position before God.
The water that flowed from Him was for us to receive God’s life, the rich life that Christ released through His death and resurrection.
May we go on in our experience with the Lord and convert all the objective doctrines into subjective truths, and may we experience the subjective truths in the Word of God in our Christian life and church life.
Lord Jesus, cause us to realize that all the objective truths in the Bible are for our subjective experience in our Christ life. Hallelujah, the objective Christ as our God-satisfying righteousness covers us before God so that we may enter into the enjoyment of the rich Christ as our life and life supply! Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You in our experience to both know the truth and apply the truth, both learn the truth and experience the truth in our daily life. May we be those who experience the subjective truths in the Word of God day by day for our renewing, sanctification, and transformation into the image of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1993, vol. 2, “The Spirit with Our Spirit,” chs. 9, 11, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing the Truth, being Absolute for the Truth, and Proclaiming the Truth in this Present Evil Age (2021 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 4, The Recovery of the Subjective Truths in the Gospel of John.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Thou the prodigal hast pardoned, / “Kissed us” with a Father’s love; / “Killed the fatted calf,” and made us / Fit Thy purpose to approve. / “It is meet,” we hear Thee saying, / “We should merry be and glad; / I have found My once-lost children, / Now they live who once were dead.” (Hymns #43)
– So subjective is my Christ to me! / Real in me, and rich and sweet! / All-inclusive is my Christ to me! / All my needs He fully meets. (Hymns #537)
– Objective and subjective Christ is to us, / In heaven He’s pleading objectively thus; / Subjectively now in His members He lives / And inwardly to them His being He gives. (Hymns #536)
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