The Communion of the Holy Spirit

The apostle Paul ends his second letter to the Corinthians with the divine salutation-“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (13.14). We as Christians come to know the fullness of the Godhead through the love, the grace and the communion which proceed from the triune God. It is the love of God the Father that purposes all. It is the grace of God the Son that provides all. And it is the communion of God the Spirit that performs all. Love, grace and communion are all equally essential. What would love be without grace? It would have no expression. What would grace be without communion? It would be unattainable.

This present volume is a compilation of messages given by God’s servant Watchman Nee at various times and places. They all relate to the communion of the Holy Spirit. The first part consists of two messages on Resurrection, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. A proper perspective on the marvelous work of the Holy Spirit is therein given. The second part, entitled “The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit,” is composed of six messages on the Outpouring, one message on the Holy Spirit, and the Law, and two messages on the Anointing Oil. And the third part presents four messages on Spiritual Judgment, which is the fruit of the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Such discipline gives spiritual discernment for service.

May the blessed Lord who released these messages to the Church use them for the building up of the body of Christ in love.

PART ONE

RESURRECTION, THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE CHURCH
[1]

1 RESURRECTION, THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE CHURCH

In the Bible can be found three main subjects: resurrection, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. These three cannot be understood with the human mind because they are far beyond its comprehension. Nor can they be explained by human words. These three depend wholly on whatever the Spirit of the Lord gives us to see.

In order to know them we must begin with Genesis. We know that when man was created by the hand of God he was perfect and yet incomplete. All other created things were both perfect
and
complete. Man alone was perfect but not completed. The very fact that after God had created man He placed him before the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to let him choose between them proved that God’s creation of man was still unfinished. In the eyes of God man was incomplete, for he could not yet distinguish between right and wrong. He still needed God’s life as represented by the tree of life. Once man was made out of dust he still needed to add on God’s life. Indeed, when man was created, he was living and yet he did not have God’s life. This final step must be taken on by man himself. By taking in the life of God, as represented by the tree of life, he would then be completed. However, instead of eating of the tree of life, he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man had made the wrong choice, thus delaying the work of his completion.

For this reason, man did not attain to his highest level. In God’s eyes, man was altogether wanting. Therefore, the entire Old Testament-from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Malachi-speaks of the extended work of God’s creation. For however good Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and others might be, in the eyes of God they were all incomplete because they did not attain to His original plan of creation. Though they had God’s likeness, they did not have His image (likeness is outward appearance, whereas image is inward nature and character.)

Hence during the ensuing four thousand years God continues on with His work of the creation of man. At the same time God makes no further improvement on all his other created things. He has not thereafter created any superior flowers, birds, horses and other things, for these were created perfect and complete from the very beginning. On them there can be no more improvement, only man remains incomplete. In Genesis God is recorded as saying: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (1.26a). Man was created in God’s image and according to His likeness. “Likeness” refers to external form; it does not refer to internal quality. Adam, when created, became a living soul. He did not have God’s Spirit in him. Hence, at this stage he was unfinished and incomplete. Adam was still in need of God himself to be his inward nature as was represented by the tree of life.

From the beginning of Genesis to the time of the Lord Jesus, no one had ever before attained to God’s required standard of man. Adam looked like God in appearance, but he was not like God in character. The effect of his fall was to “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3.23), thus forfeiting God’s image. And so has it been with all who have followed Adam. Before the birth of our Lord Jesus there was not one typical or normal person in this world. No matter how the sages of the past disciplined and improved themselves, they failed to attain this goal. All fell short before God. It is by this, therefore, that we may understand the difference between the New and Old Testaments. The Old Testament shows that man has not attained to God’s purpose, while the New Testament tells us that God’s desired man is completed.

Thank God that the man whom He had longed for but had never before seen on earth is now seen and presented in the New Testament.
That
man, of course, is Christ. The one whom God had sought out for so many years is now finally found in the person of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the truly typical, normal man. He does not represent men but is himself the representative man. He is the Man whom God has always been after.

ONE - RESURRECTION
1. The need of resurrection.

When the Lord Jesus was on earth He was perfect in character but not absolute in power. Our Lord’s power was restrained. Therefore, His thirty-three years of living on earth are incomplete unless He is resurrected. This is beyond our comprehension. Yet this is a tremendous event that requires revelation. Why must the Lord be raised from among the dead? Because during His days on earth He was restricted by time and space. For people to find Him they must go to His presence. They might even have to uncover the roof of a house to get to Him (see Mark 2.1-4). They had to press through the thronging multitude in order to merely touch His garment (see Mark 5.24-27). The Roman centurion was an exception. Of all men, he alone had an “unthronging” faith. The Lord commended it as “so great [a] faith”: for he only asked for a word of healing from the Lord Jesus when his servant fell sick. And when the centurion professed his faith in acknowledging the Lord as being beyond the limitation of time and space, his servant got well instantly (see Luke 7.1-10). This centurion had revelation. Inasmuch as the Lord had been conceived and born of the Holy Spirit (see Matt. 1.20, Luke 1.35), He had in character reached the peak of God’s created man. Even so, His power was restricted; and therefore, there is the need for resurrection.

2. In resurrection God obtains the representative man.

We now will see what resurrection is. Resurrection means that God has obtained the representative man: “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Heb.1.5). According to Acts 13.33-34, this same word is quoted within the context of speaking about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The meaning of resurrection is that Jesus the typical man is henceforth no longer subject to any limitation. He is to live forever. His resurrection transcends all natural restrictions. According to 1 Peter 1.3, we are born again “unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” While the Lord was on earth He had the possibility of death. After His resurrection, however, death is destroyed by Him. He now lives forever. Henceforth, the power of death as well as the possibility of death are both totally demolished.

Hallelujah! For four thousand years God had worked on man. But then, He finally got the man He longed for. God said to the Lord Jesus, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (see Heb. 1.1-5, Acts 13.33-34, Ps. 2.7). God declared this at the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. When the Lord was born in Bethlehem, God had not said this. It was only when He was raised from among the dead that God joyfully declared, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Hence, we see that at the Lord’s resurrection God finally possesses the Man of His heart.

3. Resurrection eliminated the restriction of time and space.

What is resurrection? Resurrection is the breaking through by a person of all restrictions, even breaking through the strongest restriction which is death. In resurrection Jesus breaks through all barriers. The New Testament mentions the dead being raised a number of times-such as in the instance of the only son of the woman in Nain (Luke 7.11-15); the little daughter of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue (Matt. 9.18-25, cf. Mark 5.22ff.), and Lazarus (John 11). Yet even in the case of Lazarus, it is only resuscitation or the returning of the soul. He was still bound with graveclothes that needed to be loosened before he could walk. And Lazarus, like the others, eventually had to die. Only the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is of a kind that is not bound by death. He is risen and dies no more. In the record of the whole Bible, only the Lord is resurrected.

When brother T. Austin-Sparks of England spoke of the Lord’s resurrection, he once said this: that with respect to the resurrected Lord, there is neither come nor go; for no one sees from where He comes nor knows to where He goes; He merely appears and disappears at various times; and hence, He does not come, He appears; He does not go, He disappears. The problem lies not in His coming and going, but rather depends instead on our seeing or not seeing Him. In the record of John 20 we are told that at the early morn of His resurrection the Lord Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “Touch me not” (vv.16-17). This is because He is now different from the past. When He told Thomas to touch His side this became for him a matter of faith. Jesus wanted Thomas to touch Him with faith. Touching the resurrected Lord by faith makes Him touchable. As regards the risen Lord, apart from revelation there is no question of coming or going. The greatest restrictions of man are those of time and space. Yet neither of these can limit the Lord. Resurrection has transcended all restrictions. Hallelujah, today our Lord Jesus is absolutely unlimited. If we live in the Holy Spirit, we can touch the Lord. The Lord is in our midst. All obstructions have been eliminated.

It was after Lazarus had breathed his last breath that the Lord Jesus began His travel back into Judea from the other side of the river Jordan. When He finally arrived at the home of Lazarus, Martha said to Him, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” The Lord answered, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Her response was, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” The Lord Jesus immediately replied, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live ... Believest thou this?” (John 11.1-26) What the Lord meant here is: “
I
am the last day! If you believe, you shall see resurrection now. Where I am, time does not exist, neither is there the last day.” Concerning resurrection, there is not the factor of time. Outside of resurrection, time
is
a big problem. But with resurrection, time is no longer an issue because it is not circumscribed by time.

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