THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
The Divine and Eternal Life
Message Seven—the Experience of Life—
Four Stages with Nineteen Points
Scripture Reading: Col. 3:4; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:17; John. 15:1; 1 John 2:28; Eph. 6:12-13; 4:13
I. From the experiences of the saints throughout the ages, and in the light that we have seen in these recent years before the Lord, we may say that the experience of life can be divided into four stages with a total of nineteen points—Col. 3:4; Gal. 2:20: (The Experience of Life, Introduction)
A. The experience of this stage, from our point of view, may be said to be the stage of salvation or the stage of regeneration, but from the standpoint of our relationship with Christ, it is simply being in Christ—2 Cor. 5:17: (The Experience of Life, The first stage—in Christ)
1. The first experience of the first stage is regeneration; from the point of view of knowing life, regeneration means that in addition to his original life man obtains the life of God—John 3:3-4, 7. (The Experience of Life, msg. 1)
2. The second experience of life is the clearance of the past; since a man who has been truly regenerated and saved will naturally bring all his past to an end—cf. Luke 19:1-10; Acts 19:18-19. (The Experience of Life, msg. 2)
B. The second stage of the spiritual life, the experience of “abiding in Christ”; “abiding in Christ” refers to the experience of our fellowship with Christ and of enjoying Christ—John 15:1; 1 John 2:28: (The Experience of Life, The second stage—abiding in Christ)
1. The first experience of the second stage of spiritual life is consecration; actually speaking, consecration itself is a part of life; and for that matter, it is a major part of life; the fullness of one’s experience of life depends on the fullness of one’s experience of consecration—Rom. 12:1; Lev. 6:12-13. (The Experience of Life, msg. 3)
2. After having consecrated ourselves, the first thing we need to deal with is sins; dealing with sins is the first lesson in our experience of dealings; if we desire our spiritual life to grow, we need to deal with sins; the day that we do not deal with sins, our spiritual life does not grow; by dealing with sins daily, our spiritual life will grow daily; this is an ironclad principle—Matt. 5:23-26; 2 Cor. 7:1; Prov. 28:13. (The Experience of Life, msg. 4)
3. Immediately after our consecration, sin should first be dealt with and then the world; the emphasis in dealing with the world is on dealing with the usurpation of people, activities, and things—James 4:4; Rom. 12:2; 1 John 2:15-17; cf. 2 Tim. 4:10. (The Experience of Life, msg. 5)
4. The sixth experience of life is dealing with the conscience; it is not the conscience itself, but rather the feeling of the conscience that is the object of our dealings—1 Tim. 1:19, 5; Acts 24:16; 23:1. (The Experience of Life, msg. 6)
5. The seventh lesson of the experience of life is that of obeying the teaching of the anointing; the main purpose of experiencing the anointing is that we touch God Himself and have His presence; the key to all our spiritual life is the anointing—1 John 2:27. (The Experience of Life, msg. 7)
6. We now come to the lesson of knowing the will of God or the leading of the Lord; since God’s will is lofty and eternal, man must come out of his own little circle and get into the larger circle of God—Eph. 5:17; Col. 1:9; Matt. 6:6; Heb. 13:21. (The Experience of Life, msg. 8)
C. The third of the four stages in our spiritual life, that is, “Christ living in me,” or, the experience of “the stage of the cross”—Gal. 2:20: (The Experience of Life, The third stage—Christ living in me)
1. The first experience in the third stage of our spiritual life is dealing with the flesh by the cross; the outcome of our dealing with the flesh is that we live in the law of the Spirit of life, depending on the Holy Spirit in all matters, never upon ourselves; it is not until this point is reached that we experience dealing with the flesh in its fullest measure—Rom. 8:7-8; 8:13; Gal. 5:2. (The Experience of Life, msg. 9)
2. Now we come to see the matter of dealing with self; this experience is very closely related to dealing with the flesh; this is an important experience in the stage of the cross; dealing with self is a life-long lesson; during our entire life, we should apply the death of the cross to our self and be one who denies self and bears the cross—Matt. 16:21-25. (The Experience of Life, msg. 10)
3. The eleventh experience of life is dealing with the natural constitution; the natural man is useless before God; only the resurrected one can be of use before God; for this reason the natural constitution needs to be broken and dealt with—cf. Gen. 28:20-22; 35. (The Experience of Life, msg. 11)
4. The twelfth experience in our spiritual life is accepting the discipline of the Holy Spirit; the discipline of the Holy Spirit refers to what the Holy Spirit is doing in our outward environment; it refers to His arranging of all people, things, and happenings, through which we are being disciplined—Rom. 8:28. (The Experience of Life, msg. 12)
5. Now that we have seen the discipline of the Holy Spirit, we will study dealing with the spirit; dealing with the spirit is dealing with its passage—Psa. 51:10; 2 Tim. 1:7; Gal. 6:1; Matt. 5:3. (The Experience of Life, msg. 13)
6. The fourteenth experience of life is being filled with the Holy Spirit; the filling of the Holy Spirit within and without is a glorious blessing under the New Testament—John 20:22; Acts 2:1-4. (The Experience of Life, msg. 14)
D. The fourth stage is the last and highest stage of our spiritual life—Christ’s full growth in us; this stage is also called the stage of spiritual warfare—Eph. 6:12-13: (The Experience of Life, The fourth stage—Christ’s full growth in us)
1. The first experience of this stage is knowing the Body; everyone who wants to engage in spiritual warfare must first know the Body; nothing requires us to know the Body so urgently as spiritual warfare, because spiritual warfare is not an individual matter, but a Body matter—Eph. 4:4-6. (The Experience of Life, msg. 15)
2. The sixteenth experience of life is knowing the ascension; ascension is the result of resurrection from death—Eph. 1:20; 2:6. (The Experience of Life, msg. 16)
3. In the previous chapter we have seen the matter of knowing the ascension; now we will go on immediately to see the experience of reigning; with regard to the goal of God’s salvation, we need to reign for Him; with regard to our growth in life, we also need to reach the stage of reigning; with regard to Satan’s unlawfulness, we need even more to rise and reign—Gen. 1:26; Rev. 2:26-27. (The Experience of Life, msg. 17)
4. The fourth experience of this stage is spiritual warfare; the purpose of spiritual warfare is to bring in the kingdom of God—Matt. 6: 9-10, 13b. (The Experience of Life, msg. 18)
5. We shall now study the nineteenth lesson concerning life, which is also the last experience of life—being full of the stature of Christ; being full of the stature of Christ, we mean that our life in Christ has attained to the realm of full maturity—Eph. 4:13. (The Experience of Life, msg. 19)
II. “Therefore, when the life experience of a Christian attains to the full stature of Christ, it has reached the climax. He shares the same position with Christ, and he reigns and deals with the enemy together with Christ. His whole being is filled with the element of Christ. Aside from the fact that the body has not yet been transfigured into the body of glory, all else has reached its highest or final point. The life experience of a saint in Christ thus comes to a conclusion. Other than waiting to be raptured and entering into glory, there is nothing else left to be desired.” (The Experience of Life, msg.19)