Experiencing Christ’s Death and Resurrection by the Bountiful Supply of the Spirit

For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19)

The process of becoming a pearl as a gate into the New Jerusalem is very subjective and experiential: as a grain of sand, we wound Christ and are imprisoned in His wound, and He secretes His resurrection life around us and in us to transform us from a grain of sand into a precious pearl. As long as we stay in the oyster, that is, as long as we stay in the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection, we are in the process of becoming a pearl.

Specifically, the pearls signify the issue of Christ’s secretion in two aspects – His redeeming and life-releasing death, and His life-dispensing resurrection. This is an organic matter and an organic process, and if we as seeking believers stay in the death of Christ by the power of Christ’s resurrection, we will be conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10) and are being changed into a pearl.

In our daily life, we need to experience the death of Christ subjectively by the power of His resurrection so that we may be conformed to His death, and we need to daily experience the resurrection of Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ so that we may be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son (see Phil. 1:19; Rom. 8:29).

As seeking believers and loving pursuers of Christ, we need to experience Christ’s death and resurrection so that, on the one hand, we would be conformed to His death and, on the other hand, we would be bountifully supplied by the Spirit and be conformed to the image of Christ.

The only way we can experience Christ’s death is through His resurrection, and the only way we can experience Christ’s resurrection is by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This bountiful supply of the Spirit is with our spirit; whenever we exercise our spirit, we are being inwardly supplied with the bountiful supply and we are strengthened with the power of Christ’s resurrection to be conformed to His death.

May the Lord have a way to bring us into the daily experience of His death and resurrection through His bountiful supply, so that we may have a foretaste of the New Jerusalem, becoming pearls as the entrance to the holy city.

Daily Experiencing Christ’s Death and Resurrection

The twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are twelve pearls, and today we can have a foretaste of the New Jerusalem by being those who are being produced as pearls through our daily experience of Christ’s death and resurrection.

As believers in Christ, we are now in Him as the oyster, a grain of sand wounding Him and remaining in Him, being imprisoned in Him. We are being produced as pearls as the issue of Christ’s secretion in two aspects – His redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-dispensing resurrection.

Through His death, Christ has redeemed us and He released His divine life, and in His resurrection, He dispensed His divine life into us. Christ’s death and resurrection has some “secretions” that coat us, the imprisoned grain of sand, to transform us into a pearl.

We need to daily experience the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection so that we may be conformed to His death (see Phil. 3:10). The Bible tells us that we are crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20), but this needs to become our experience. Through baptism we declare that we are dead to the world – we are finished.

However, in our daily experience, is it us who still lives, or is it Christ? Are we experiencing the cross day by day, or do we merely KNOW the teaching of the cross and mentally understand it?

No one wants to die, and when it comes to bearing the cross, we struggle and we many times reject it. We all like to argue, we think we’re right, we stand for our opinions, and we want to do and say what we desire – and not what God wants. But our old “I” needs to remain on the cross, crucified with Christ, by the power of Christ’s resurrection.

We need to have Christ’s death and resurrection subjectively applied to our experience. Daily, even moment-by-moment, we need to experience Christ’s death and resurrection subjectively. Our daily Christian life and our church life should be through death and resurrection.

However, it’s not that we have to stay in the death of Christ for a long period of time and we somehow hope that His resurrection will be applied to us, but rather, we are in His death all the time, and we are at the same time experiencing His resurrection.

As we remain in the death of Christ, we simultaneously and spontaneously experience His resurrection; we are being conformed to Christ’s death by the power of His resurrection.

Christ’s Resurrection is Real to us by the Bountiful Supply of the Spirit

Christ’s death can be experienced only through Christ’s resurrection, and Christ’s resurrection can be real to us only by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (see Phil. 1:19-21a). [quote from W. Lee]

In order to follow the Lord, we need to deny our self, take up our cross, and follow the Lord. But how can we experience Christ’s death? Only by the power of His resurrection. How can we experience Christ’s resurrection? Only by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (see Phil. 1:19-21).

Christ’s death can be experienced by us only through Christ’s resurrection, and Christ’s resurrection can be real to us only by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, and He is within us. When we turn to our spirit, we meet Christ as the life-giving Spirit, who is the very reality of Christ’s resurrection. It is by this Spirit that we experience Christ’s resurrection. To experience Christ’s resurrection is to contact the life-giving Spirit. (Witness Lee, The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers, pp. 20-22)

Christ’s death with its effectiveness and His resurrection with its power is in the Spirit who now is bountifully supplying us as we turn to our spirit. We are joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), and whenever we turn to our spirit, we are being conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection.

How can we deny our self? Turn to the spirit. How can we take up our cross and follow the Lord? Turn to the spirit. How can we have Christ live in us? Turn to the spirit.

When we turn to our spirit and remain in our mingled spirit all the time, we will enjoy Christ as the Spirit, who is the reality of resurrection. When we turn to our spirit and remain in our spirit, living in the spirit in our daily life, we have the power to remain on the cross; the power of Christ’s resurrection keeps us on the cross, and Christ lives in us.

When we turn to our spirit, Christ’s death is applied to our being and His resurrection operates in us.

The best way to turn to our spirit and remain in the spirit so that we may enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17). When we open to the Lord in prayer and touch Him, the Spirit of Jesus Christ bountifully supplies us with the experience of Christ’s death and resurrection, of which the Spirit is the reality.

In our Christian life and church life we have many opportunities to subjectively experience Christ’s death and resurrection. We are not physically in prison, but there are many applications and opportunities to set our old man aside and deny our self so that the church may be built up and we would become a part in the New Jerusalem.

Even the good things we are made up of need to be put aside in the church life as we experience Christ’s death through the power of His resurrection by the bountiful supply of His Spirit, so that we may be produced as a gate, an entrance to the New Jerusalem.

Lord, make us those who pray unceasingly so that we may enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. May everything we go through turn to our salvation through this bountiful supply of the Spirit and the petition of the saints. Give us the experiences that we need so that Christ’s death and His resurrection would be our daily experience. May we choose to follow You by denying our self, losing our soul life, and taking up our cross by experiencing Christ’s death by the power of His resurrection. Produce us as the pearls, the gates to the New Jerusalem!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers (msg. 2), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Aspects of the Christian Life and Church Life Seen in the New Jerusalem, week 3 / msg 3, The Pearl Gates and the Golden Street.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # If God thru th’ Eternal Spirit / Nail me ever with the Lord; / Only then as death is working / Will His life thru me be poured. / If no death, no life! (Hymns #631)
  # We need to work out our own salvation / By obeying the inner operating God. / We need to be conformed to the mold of Christ’s death / By the power of His resurrection that we may attain / To the out resurrection from the dead. (Hymn on Experiencing Christ)
  # ’Tis not hard to die with Christ / When His risen life we know; / ’Tis not hard to share His suff’rings / When our hearts with joy o’erflow. (Hymns #481)