Today God speaks not only in and through His word, but He speaks in the principle of incarnation, that is, He speaks through His people as they live one spirit with the Lord.
Paul was such a one; he was one with the Lord, so when he spoke, the Lord spoke with him and through him.
He didn’t have to say, Thus saith the Lord; rather, he simply had to be one spirit with the Lord and speak, even utter his own opinion, and he thought he also has the Spirit of God. What a marvelous yet mysterious matter!
Moses did the same thing; he was a prophet in the Old Testament, and God spoke to him face to face; he was so infused with God that even his face shone, and the words he spoke became the word of God.
Moses might have spoken something of his own feeling, but even this became the word of God; his speaking in the book of Deuteronomy was like Paul’s speaking in 1 Cor. 7.
Both Paul and Moses were constituted with God and filled with the word of God; they had a clear view of God’s plan, they spoke the word of God, and they spoke what God gave them to spoke.
At the same time, however, they spoke something of their own feeling, and they were so one with the Lord, that the Lord had a way to be expressed through their feelings and opinions.
Even as Paul dealt with such a hard matter as fornication, he brought out one of the greatest truths in the Bible, the one expressed in 1 Cor. 6:17, But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Wow!
We are one spirit with the Lord, and we can do all things in this organic union with Him!
This is what God desires; He doesn’t want us to do great works for Him or speak eloquently and do miracles; He wants us to live one spirit with the Lord – this is the greatest miracle!
When we live one spirit with the Lord, He can live in us, we can live in Him, and He can speak in us as we speak in Him.
May we be those who love the Lord, are filled with His word, and care for His interest on earth; may we be those who are absolutely for the Lord and one with the Lord!
This should not only be our aspiration, but even our prayer to the Lord. Again and again throughout the day we can tell Him,
Lord, keep me one spirit with You today. I want to love You more; increase my love for You. Lord, give me a heart for Your interests on earth. May I care much more for Your interests than for my interest. Amen, Lord, make me a person who is absolutely for You and fully one with You in everything I do and say.
According to the Principle of Incarnation, God Speaks in Our Speaking today
It is very interesting to realize that, even though Paul was clearly God’s mouthpiece and he spoke and wrote so much of the New Testament, he never uttered those “prophetic words” that many say today, Thus saith the Lord.
Even though Paul wrote his opinion and gave his feeling concerning some matters in the church, he still didn’t say that expression.
Rather, what we see in Paul’s speaking is the principle of incarnation; the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament is altogether based on the principle of incarnation. According to this principle, God speaks in man’s speaking.
This doesn’t mean that whenever a Christian speaks something, God speaks in his speaking; rather, we need to be one spirit with the Lord and live in the mingled spirit, and when we do this, the Lord has a way to speak in our speaking.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth and spoke to the people, it seemed to many that He was just an ordinary person, a Nazarene, with not much education or a high background.
The Pharisees considered Him as an ordinary person without learning.
However, Jesus was God incarnate, and He lived in the principle of incarnation; when He spoke, God spoke through Him, and when He did something, God did His works through Him.
With the Lord Jesus there was the reality of incarnation; God’s speaking was His speaking, and God’s works were His works, for whenever the Lord spoke, He spoke what God gave Him to speak, and when He did anything, He did it because He saw the Father doing it.
Beginning from the day of Pentecost, the apostles and disciples also began to speak according to the principle of incarnation; this is the reason that the writings of Peter, John, and Paul as recorded in the Bible could become God’s words.
So it was man who spoke, it was man who wrote letters and gospels, but it was God who spoke through them; this is the principle of incarnation.
Paul in particular lived and spoke in the principle of incarnation; in some things that he wrote he had a clear commandment from the Lord, but in some things he didn’t but he still gave his opinion, as one who has been shown mercy by the Lord.
Paul was a person absolutely one with God, and everything that he spoke and wrote became part of the divine revelation in the New Testament.
The Lord is looking to gain such ones today, those who are not distracted by doing supernatural and miraculous works for God but who live in the principle of incarnation so that God may have a mouthpiece today.
God is so great that He would not force us, His people, to go His way, do His work, or speak His word; He is waiting for our cooperation.
He has been waiting for thousands of years for His people to cooperate with Him, and today He’s waiting for the believers in Christ to live absolutely one with God and express God especially in their speaking.
Lord Jesus, may our living today be in the principle of incarnation so that You may live in us and You may speak in us. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to fully be one with You and live one spirit with the Lord so that You may be expressed through us and You may speak in us. Keep us contacting You in our mingled spirit. Keep us one spirit with You today. May we be persons who are absolutely one with God to the point that whatever we do and say would be an expression of what You would do and say today! Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You and we give ourselves to You!
Being One Spirit with the Lord in our Living and Speaking so that He may Speak in us
If we read 1 Cor. 7 what we will deeply sense is not merely Paul’s commandments concerning virgins, marriage, etc, but rather, we will sense Paul’s spirit.
He answered some of the questions raised by the Corinthian believers, and in doing so, he expressed his spirit, and we could see that he lived one spirit with the Lord.
We can have a clear feeling that he also had the Spirit of God; he did not boast of this fact, but he practiced what he spoke in 1 Cor. 6:17 and he humbly said, I think I also have the Spirit of God.
This is the New Testament teaching and the way we should follow today; we shouldn’t follow the Pentecostal way of copying the Old Testament manner of prophesying; rather, we should follow Paul’s way to touch the depths of the New Testament mystery.
The deepest mystery in the New Testament is that we are one spirit with the Lord; we and the Lord, the Lord and we, have become one spirit.
When Paul spoke of marriage, divorce, or remaining unmarried, he sometimes had a clear commandment from the Lord and at other times he didn’t, but he expressed his opinion, believing that the Lord was with him.
This is speaking in the principle of incarnation, which is that God enters into man and mingles Himself with man to make man one with Himself; thus, God is in man and man is in God (John 15:4-5). Wow!
The Lord Jesus spoke of this organic union when He told us that He is the vine and we are the branches, and we need to abide in Him so that He may abide in us.
The principle of our daily living and the principle of our prophecy is that we are one spirit with the Lord; when we realize and live in this organic union with the Lord, our living and our speaking will be His living and His speaking in us, and it will also be our living and speaking in Him.
This is a great mystery – even the great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:15).
Therefore, what we see in 1 Cor. 7 is the deepest spiritual experience that we can see; here we have a man who tells us that he doesn’t have the Lord’s commandment, and then he proceeds to give his opinion, concluding with, “I think I also have the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 7:40).
Those who are presumptuous declare that they have the Spirit of God, but Paul was humble and not very bold to declare with assurance that he has the Spirit.
Those who are childish and shallow may say with assurance that they have the Spirit of God, but Paul couldn’t do it; he simply lived one spirit with the Lord, and the Lord was expressed in his living and manifested through his speaking, even when he uttered his own opinion.
May we be such ones. May we live one spirit with the Lord, abiding in the organic union with Him, so that in our living and speaking He may be expressed.
May we live in the Lord and allow Him to live in us; may we live the Lord in this one spirit, so that what we do would be His doing in us, and what we say would be His speaking in us.
Lord Jesus, we want to live one spirit with You today. Live in us, Lord, and cause us to live in You and with You today. May we realize that we are joined to the Lord as one spirit, and may we live in this organic union today. Amen, Lord, we thank You that You live in us and we live in You; You and us, us and You, have one life and one living. Keep us in the organic union with You today. May we do nothing out of this union, but may all our being, our living, and our speaking would be in this wonderful organic union so that we may live one spirit with the Lord! Amen, Lord, grant us such a realization that we also have the Spirit of God, so we can speak for God even as God speaks in us and through us!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, CWWL, 1983, vol. 2, “The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity,” ch. 28, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 7, Christ — the True Prophet Typified by Moses.
- Hymns on this topic:
– He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. / Our life is a life that’s in organic union. / As a branch is in the vine, / Grafted, His life and mine intertwine. / Lord, I am joined to You! / One spirit with You; / One spirit, not two. / Lord, we are joined to You: / One spirit… with You. (Song on, He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit)
– Lord, teach me how to exercise / My spirit now to contact Thee, / That in Thy Spirit I may walk / And live by Thy reality. (Hymns #493)
– Lord, speak to me, that I may speak / In living echoes of Thy tone; / As Thou hast sought, so let me seek / Thy erring children lost and lone. (Hymns #903)
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