God is life, and eternal life is God Himself. Apart from God, there is no life, and all life depends on God.
However, many times we think that when someone is pious, devoted, has a good behaviour, is moral and ethical, has a gift, is powerful, knows the Bible, is full of activities and zealous for the Lord, then this is of life and it is of God. But merely doing all these things or knowing the Bible does not necessarily mean we express the divine life; these can be an expression of life but they are not an indicator of life.
The eternal life is God Himself: the Father is the source, the Son is the expression and embodiment, and the Spirit is the flowing out and realization of this life. Life is the Triune God being dispensed into us to be our life, become our constitution, and be expressed through us. To have life is to have God; he who has the Son has the life (1 John 5:12).
The way we should take in the Lord’s recovery is not the way of knowledge, power, gifts, or ability but the way of life – the way of the eternal, divine life. Actually, the intrinsic essence of the Lord’s recovery is life, because God Himself is life, He dispenses Himself into us as life, and He wants to be lived out in us as life.
The Lord’s recovery is a recovery of the truth and of life; on the one hand the truth in the word of God has been unveiled and brought to light, and on the other hand we are being brought into a proper knowledge and experience of the divine life so that we may have a living that is an expression of this life.
The Eternal Life is Dispensed into us to Save us in Life
The eternal life is first in God, and through a long process in His economy God became the Spirit of life; now life is in the Spirit (Rom. 8:2).
Through regeneration, the divine life – the eternal life – entered into our spirit to revive, revitalize, and regenerate our spirit with the life of God; now our spirit is life because of righteousness (Rom. 8:10). Our regeneration is the beginning of a process of being “lifed”, that is, of having the eternal life dispensed into our spirit, soul, and body until our entire tripartite being becomes life.
From our spirit the divine life spreads into our mind whenever we set our mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6) to make our mind life! Whenever we turn to our spirit by setting our mind on our spirit (and not on the flesh), the divine life spreads into our soul to sanctify us, renew our mind (Rom. 12:2), and transform our soul (2 Cor. 3:18) so that our whole soul would be filled with life. The mind is the leading part of our soul, so when the eternal life spreads into our mind, this life starts to fill our entire soul until every part is made life.
Eventually, the eternal life will permeate our mortal body: if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells us (Rom. 8:11).
The divine life which was in the Spirit is now dispensed into our spirit to make our spirit life, into our soul to make our soul life, and even into our mortal body to make our body life.
One day the Lord will transfigure our body, making our mortal body full of life, thus fully saving us in life through the regeneration of our spirit, the sanctification, renewing, and transformation of our soul, and the conformation and glorification of our body until our entire tripartite being is filled with life.
This is God’s economy, which is being worked out by His eternal life. This is our church life and Christian life today, and in the Lord’s recovery, we need to be persons in the process of being “lifed” by opening to this life, allowing God’s life to flow in us and spread within us!
Lord Jesus, thank You for coming into us as life to make our spirit life. Lord, we want to set our mind on the spirit so that our mind would be filled with life and the divine life would spread into our soul. Oh Lord, keep us open to You so that Your life would spread in us until it fills our mind, emotion, and will to make our inner being life. Amen, we are looking to that day in which even our body will be swallowed up by life at the time of our transfiguration. Lord, we want to be persons of life who allow Your life to spread in their whole being!
The Divine Life Flowing in the Divine Nature is our Unique Way in our Daily Life and our Fellowship
The New Jerusalem as a city of life shows us that the unique way for our daily life and for our fellowship with God and with one another is the divine life (typified by the river of water of life) flowing in the divine nature (typified by the golden street in the middle of the city).
In the New Jerusalem as the consummation of God’s salvation and as our foretaste today in the church life the foundation is gold, the street is of pure gold, in the middle of the street there’s the river of water of life, and on both sides, there is the tree of life growing (see Rev. 21:21; 22:1-2).
Gold signifies God’s divine nature, and the fact that there’s one street of pure gold signifies that we should walk daily by the divine nature, and we will have the flow of life (typified by the river of life flowing). I was helped by the following paragraph by brother Lee on this matter,
The one tree of life growing on the two sides of the river (Rev. 22:2) signifies that the tree of life is a vine, spreading and proceeding along the flow of the water of life for God’s people to receive and enjoy. The fruits of the tree of life will be the food of God’s redeemed for eternity. They will be continually fresh, produced every month, twelve fruits yearly. This means that when we walk and move in the divine nature of God, we not only sense the flow of life within us but also sense the supply of life, the nourishment of life, the spiritual food. When you take the divine way, the street of God’s divine nature, you have the divine life flowing in you, and you also have the life supply nourishing you. Day by day, as we are living such a life and walking according to God’s divine nature, we enjoy the water of life and the tree of life as our supply. We all need a day-by-day experience of the divine street of gold with the river of water of life and the tree of life in its middle, signifying that the life water and the life supply flow in the divine way. (Witness Lee, God’s New Testament Economy, pp. 375-376)
This is a “fellowship street” in which there’s going and coming; when we are in the divine fellowship, God is brought to us and we are brought back to God to be under His throne for His golden administration within us (see Rev. 21:18b; 22:1-2; 21:21b; cf. Ezek. 1:22, 26; 1 Kings 10:18).
If we exercise our spirit to walk according to the divine nature within us, we will have the supply of life and there will be a flow of life. If we exercise our spirit to remain in the flow of life in our fellowship with God and with others, God is brought to us and we are brought to God to be under His rule.
When we fellowship with others we need to “walk on the golden street” by walking according to the divine nature. We may think we know how to fellowship with others, but we can all testify that many times our fellowship is not on the golden street with the flow of life and the tree of life.
Genuine divine fellowship is a traffic, a communication, a mutual participation in and of the divine nature. When we fellowship we should have much prayer to touch the Lord, and we should be brought under His divine rule.
We should experience the flow of life from the throne into us and to all the saints, and we all should be brought back to God to be under His throne in our fellowship. Real fellowship brings us to the throne, and prayer keeps us on the golden street of the divine nature, bringing us the divine supply.
When we walk and move and fellowship in the divine nature of God, we are brought under God’s “golden administration” to enjoy the flow of life and the supply of life (see Rev. 22:1-2). We need to enter into the divine fellowship to experience the flow of the divine life!
The result of our fellowship should not be dryness, deadness, or confusion, but the life supply, the life flow, and the ruling of God.
Lord Jesus, we want to walk according to the golden divine nature in us so that we may have the flow of life and the supply of life in our daily life and in our fellowship with the saints. Lord, may we enter into the divine fellowship to experience the flow of the divine life and have the supply of life and the ruling of God. May our daily living with all its activities be under Your throne, and may we walk according to the divine nature within to receive the supply of life, be in the flow of life, and be under God’s golden divine rule!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and God’s New Testament Economy, ch. 36 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Crucial Points of the Major Items of the Lord’s Recovery Today (ITERO 2015 fall), week 5 / msg 5, The Eternal Life.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# For the mind set on the flesh is death, / But the mind set on the spirit is life. / So I will walk in the Spirit today, / Being filled with life and peace! (Song on Setting our mind on the spirit)
# Through God’s dispensing, abundance of grace, / Christ’s saving life will reign and death displace; / God’s holy nature, our life sanctifies, / His saving life soon, our life glorifies. (Song on being saved in life)
# River of living water, / River that flows from the throne, / Fellowship giving and making / God’s own authority known. (Hymns #984)
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