Fellowship February 10th, 2013

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

02/10/2013

BELIEVER 6: Continuing in the way that the New Man comes into existence (From the One New Man by Witness Lee).

“The second way that the new man comes into existence is also in 1 Corinthians 12:13. After being baptized into one Body, we were all given to drink one Spirit. The baptism in the Spirit was the first step for the created new man to come into existence. Now our drinking of the one Spirit is the second step. The baptism in the Holy Spirit has already been accomplished. The verb in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is in the past tense—“were all baptized.” The baptism of the whole Body of Christ in the Holy Spirit is something which is already accomplished and still exists. This baptism was accomplished on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius upon the Body of Christ. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is ours because we are members of this baptized Body. Many times when I speak, I get excited in the Lord because I am in the baptism in the Holy Spirit. We are enjoying the baptism in the Spirit and we are in the Spirit, but to drink of the Spirit is another matter. We all were baptized in one Spirit, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Baptism is to put us into the water; then after being baptized, we have to get the water into us continuously all the time.

The Chinese who lived around Nanking and Shanghai along the Yangtze River had a slogan. They said that in the evening they had the practice of getting themselves enveloped in water. This meant that they took a bath and became immersed in water. Then in the morning their skin needed to envelop the water. This meant that they needed to drink much tea to get filled with water inwardly. In order to be healthy, in the evening the water should envelop the skin, and in the morning the skin should envelop the water. They said that if you would do this every day, you would be a most healthy person. To be baptized is to have the water enveloping us. To drink is for us to envelop the water. This means we have the water without and within. For the created one new man to come into existence there is the need of these two steps—to become enveloped in water and to envelop the water. If a person were to stay in a bathtub full of water for thirty days and never drink any water, he would be in serious trouble. This shows how much we need to drink. Medical doctors will tell you that it is healthy to drink much water every day.

To be baptized in the Spirit is to get into the Spirit and be lost in Him; to drink the Spirit is to take the Spirit in and have our being saturated with Him. By these two procedures we are mingled with the Spirit. To be baptized in the Spirit is the initiation of the mingling and is once for all. To drink the Spirit is the continuation and accomplishment of the mingling and is perpetual, forever. We should drink of the Spirit daily and even hourly.”

BELIEVER 3: why did you share this with us BELIEVER 6?

BELIEVER 6: because to be able to continue forward in the search for the One New Man, one needs to learn to drink from the Spirit of God.  And a goal of this is the more close to God.  For the glory to Him, we understand little by little, that the way to try to be the New Man, brother Witness Lee gives us the steps, orientates us, inspires us, and for me this is a permanent blessing to be able to have this kind of teaching.  Amen.

BELIEVER 3: who has the burden to continue? If no one does I will.

BELIEVER 4: well, I would have to say that I have something better than a burden.  I appreciate this understanding, as BELIEVER 6 was talking about being baptized.  And for English speaking people I enjoy the understanding of this twofoldness about being baptized “into” or actually drinking and having it being inside of us or us being inside of it, in terms of the water in us or us in the water.  But I would maybe draw our attention to something very beautiful in the book of Acts chapter 22:16.

“¹⁶ And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”

And what it basically says is this as far as being baptized, and it also deals with calling upon the name of the Lord.  And the point is this; having gotten into the Greek a little bit, just for fun, the greek has two different verbs in here, the “baptize” and “Calling” upon His name, “calling” and “baptize.”  So, with both of these verbs with English speaking people who have the tendency of thinking about this actively or passively.

BELIEVER 3: this applies to those who are Spanish speaking to. 

BELIEVER 4: you know the beautiful thing that I am about ready to say about these two verbs? 

BELIEVER 2: Yes

BELIEVER 4: I say this, BELIEVER 3, you know how you say, “I am going to plea the blood first.”  You know how you say that?  Because here we are, we have the Spirit, each one of us do, and at the same time as we attempt to communicate this reality in the English language which is very limited.  So I appreciate brother Lee’s English commentary about being baptized into the water or drinking the water and having this co-mingling. 

However, if we were able to communicate this verb “baptized” in the middle voice, which is what it is, it wouldn’t have been just to be baptized into water or the water into us, which is close, and then using the verb co-mingle which is close. But in one sense it doesn’t convey the real reality. 

It is close and I say this in the light of not putting anybody down or anything, but I say that if we are going to translate this understanding of baptism this way into the English language, we are going to fall short of the real reality of it. 

I will give an example of this.  In the English bible in certain translations it says this, in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, and 18 in particular, it talks about how we, and first it says in verse 17 that “the Spirit of the Lord is within us.”  And then “we with unveiled face,” we end up “beholding” and that is what it says in English with the active and passive voice.  It says, “beholding as in a glass” like when we look at ourselves in a mirror; we actively look at ourselves in a mirror and then passively we would end up seeing the reflection of us actively looking in the mirror, presenting ourselves in the mirror.  This is the best that English can do; give us a word picture of what this middle voice means.  It is close but it failed.

Here’s a more thorough explanation: we were listening to this portion on Witness Lee’s “The One New Man,” and the subject of baptism came up.  What I related to was in Acts 22:16, where it talks about being baptized and it talks about calling upon the name of the Lord, which are both in the middle voice.  This is a mine field here, because if we privately interpret this actively and passively, we have a combination of both active and passive, like being in the water and the water being in us; actively we go into the water and passively we take the water into us.  That is still a combination of the active and passive, we can call it “co-mingle” or what you will, it still falls short of what the baptism is, which is in the middle voice. 

BELIEVER 3: The active and passive voice is what is activating the fellowship, in what we are living in translating everything into two languages as we speak.  On the one side we have English and on the other side we have Spanish.  So, we need to understand that to live in the middle voice, we need to rest in Him, including in the translation.  Because in the moment that we try to order that which the Lord needs to manage, on the one of the brothers, we lose a large part of what is happening.  So we need to understand that the only one who has this consciousness is the Spirit, so we need to allow the Spirit to operate. So, how we are interacting in the fellowship right now, I know that BELIEVER 4 wants to put things in the on the table in a way that it is being recorded, he wants to be very clear in the way that he is presenting the things.  But we need to understand that the only one that can handle this is the Spirit.  If we don’t allow the Spirit in each one of us, it is impossible to have harmony in this language that the Lord is creating.  Because here we are not talking about the translation between two languages, we are talking about how all of us at the gathering are moving in the middle voice.  So, this means that we are a body.  And that the Lord needs to order the different forms of voices (verbs) that we are talking in so that we can all continue in one rhythm and understanding, so when someone feels to continue, the others need to go into a passive voice (receiving), so that there will just be one speaking, one voice.  We all need to here just One voice, no matter what language is being spoken. So this puts us in a place of needing to be open to be able to hear the One voice that is in the middle of the two languages.  It is the same that each one of us has two languages.  We have one that comes completely from our reason, from our evaluation, and experiences.  And we have another language that comes from the deepest part of our being, that is coming out as a river so that all would be invigorated.  So let us allow the Spirit carry us along in this river of the water of Life, which is in the fellowship.  Because I personally have never seen what the Lord is doing with us.  We are not speaking like there is just a speaker and a translator, the Lord is interacting between us.  So this is a dynamic that only the Lord can manage.  So if we are sensitive, we are going to see the beauty of what the Lord is doing.  And we are going to see that in the middle of us all, with the different forms that we all come from, in age or growth, there is still only One voice speaking. So this is glorious and none was thought about what is happening.  We are seeing that the Lord of Glory is flowing from the depths of our beings and flowing.  You can continue. 

BELIEVER 4: Because so much water has passed over the damn with BELIEVER 6 sharing as he has, while he was speaking, these are the two thoughts that I had, or three different aspects. One is, “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”  So I listen to BELIEVER 6 share and am hearing the words come through him and then it says, “Proceeds out of the mouth of God.”  This is also in the middle voice.  In Matthew 4:4, in that context it is also in the middle voice, and when we hear another human being sharing from his heart, like it says, “out of your belly show flow rivers of living water,” then the word that comes forth is a middle voice activity.  It is a baptizing word.  It is a flow.  The other reference is in Revelation 22 in the beginning part where it says, “and he showed me a river of the water of Life, flowing from the throne.”  Well the flowing, like the “proceeds out” is also in the middle voice.  So when we hear one another speaking and we are hearing with this overflow, there is a baptizing river, that anything that it touches lives.  This baptism, what doesn’t that mean today?  It says “out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water,” or the “rivers of the water of life proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb” but they are coming through us, and it is a middle voice, and this is a healing flow, and on “either side of the river is the tree of life…whose fruits are for the healing of the nations,” this is unbelievable!  So here is BELIEVER 6, who from his lips is sharing with us this kind of life, and it is baptizing.  It is not us being in it, or it being in us; it is better than that.  It is us entering into the flow, that is baptism.  It is not this stationary tank with a pool of water that we are baptized into and come out of.  We enter into a flow, and as we enter into a flow we have this middle voice action, so this flow is literally cleansing us, washing us, washing away everything, and washing into us.  So this is so rich and loaded.  So we go back to 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 where we have the Spirit in us, and it says that the Spirit is in us in a locative way, it is in us, because it is a person, and as it is flowing through us, “with unveiled face,” in other words with the dirt being washed away as when we enter into the water, it all washes away, and the unveiled face is there and now “we” because it is a corporate baptism, “we behold the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory.  Because of this washing of the water with the word, the Rhema.

(The explanation of a conversation between brother BELIEVER 3 and BELIEVER 5).

BELIEVER 5 asked if she could share after BELIEVER 4 finished, and BELIEVER 3 said that unless she could continue with the things that the Lord had been opening up, that it would be better to wait, because the things the Lord has opened up in the fellowship are very important, and it is good to keep going in these points until they are well understood.  So BELIEVER 5 said that she would wait.

(back to fellowship)

BELIEVER 4: Well maybe BELIEVER 5 could flow and the Lord would open something up creatively through her. 

BELIEVER 3: Well, I am going to start with this.  Praise the Father!  Praise the Son! And Praise the Spirit! For what He has given to us this night.  We are just getting started.  (BELIEVER 4: I am just turning the faucet on).  It is living in fellowship with the Father that the Spirit activates.  In other words, being one.  The Lord is starting to give so much that it is an overflow. 

BELIEVER 4: have you noticed that too!  Are we rich or what!

BELIEVER 3: in this overflowing, I feel the burden to put some points regarding what is going on her.  And in this 5-7 minutes, the Spanish speaking brothers feel the Spirit, but they don’t understand anything.  So there is a need to be in the middle voice. 

BELIEVER 4: the points that you are going to make, are you gathering twelve baskets full? 

BELIEVER 3: what has happened, if we allow  to drink of the Spirit, at the same time this drinking produces a flow of the Spirit.  Some things are too much with what the Lord is talking about. 

BELIEVER 2: like too much, like the twelve baskets full?

BELIEVER 4: I love hearing the overcomer’s thought about the overflow. 

BELIEVER 2: I was thinking about when you said that some things are too much.  I was thinking about when the Lord broke the loaves and fish for the 5,000, and they gathered the twelve baskets of leftovers, I wonder if anyone said, “Lord, you made too much.  You made too much food.”

BELIEVER 3: I feel for the sake of everyone’s understanding of what is going on in the river of life, the Zoe life, the middle voice life, I will say, in the moment you start to flow and I feel the overflow of the Lord with you BELIEVER 4, this is goes down to the depths of our being.  The Lord wants to put water in everyone, until the depths of our being.  When went through different parts of the scripture, it is like you are preparing a great meal, like the feast of the lamb; this is such a mercy to receive a foretaste of this. 

BELIEVER 4: now BELIEVER 3, do you mean a foretaste of what is coming up in the future for a carnal person, or an actual meal that we can partake of because we are not carnal.  You are familiar with the teaching of the foretaste?  You can continue.

BELIEVER 3:  I said to BELIEVER 5 and BELIEVER 2, what is on the table right now it is like taking the whole scripture, the Living Person whose name is the Word of God, and this Word of God whose name is Jesus Christ who is the Son of the Living God, who is sitting at the right hand of God, on the throne; everything comes together in Him.  But this kind of flow, when the word became flesh, I said to the brother and sister, that it was impossible to be partakers of the divine nature, like Peter said, partakers of the whole nature, but partakers.  In the old testament, this was impossible before Jesus came and went through the whole process.  (BELIEVER 4: you mean a foretaste?).  This is was it means when it says that John the Baptist was the greatest born of a woman, but who is coming is greater, and that greater means that Jesus can call us brothers.  What has been put on the table is wonderful tonight.  If we see the scripture in Acts 22, in verse 9 it says, “And they that were with me beheld indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.” And then we go through and it is a process, and all is in the middle voice, and then in verse 15, “For thou shalt be a witness for him unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name.”

And you said that this was in the middle voice.  I said to the brothers, how blessed we are that the Lord introduced us into the fellowship with Himself.  Because the word that we are moving in, which is in the middle voice, so that the Lord can be one with us, it is not just Him moving, but we are together if we just allow Him to do what He wants.  This is marvelous.  Because we see how the New Testament, the New Covenant allows anyone to be united to Him.  This is wow.  Because of how the Lord introduce Himself to us, it didn’t just happen to Paul, but it is still active and passive until now, but we are in the middle voice if we just allow the Lord to work.  The Body of Christ lacks this kind of understanding, and we do too if we don’t allow Him to do what He wants.  It works in the measure that we open to Him to work together with Him.  But we cannot go even one step more than Him.

BELIEVER 2: yes, that is still two different people relating to one another outwardly.  To go one step ahead of the Lord or be behind Him is like saying the Lord is one person, and we are another, so there is not this experience of “he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.”  I know that is what a lot of us live in.  If we are behind Him or ahead of Him, we don’t realize that we are one with Him.  This so relates to what I have been reading from the Song of Solomon by a sister named K. Koshatka.

“The first words in the second verse of the book exhort us to “LET HIM”. We have been singing.  We have been working. Now it is time to stop, be quiet and LET HIM LIVE! Let Him be the Life of His resurrected Body. Let Him be the Source of the Church. We may think it is easy to simply “Let Him”, but oftentimes we are so busy trying to be righteous and holy apart from Christ that it is hard to stop and allow Christ to live.

Specifically she is to let him kiss her with the kisses of his mouth. Here again we find that in the realm of “in the Son” all is of Life. A song replaces mere words, and kisses replace commands.  We expect disappointment and servants quarters once we confess our utter wretchedness. But instead of curses we get kisses, for now Christ becomes our everything. The prodigal son experienced the same phenomenon. Many will hold onto any shred of dignity or righteousness they can find in themselves, fearing failure and rejection from the Lord. But God waits for us to let go of our own righteousness, virtues, and all that is US, so that He can reveal Christ as our everything. Here again we find the enormous blessedness of the Cross of our own crucifixion (Gal.  6:14).

As He sings His view to her, she begins opening to the true and eternal relationship she has in the Risen Son. Now when He speaks it is no longer the commands of a distant Lord, but the “LET HIM” of the Risen Son who wants to breathe Life into His own body. She can “let Him” now because she has embraced her crucifixion in Him (Romans 6:8). She is no longer looking to herself for the resources necessary to survive. She will now “let Him” be her Life. His words are no longer heard as commands she must obey in her own strength, but the very release of His Life into her.

He will be the fulfillment in her of every word He speaks. These kisses flow down from Christ the Head into those who have taken their place as His Body. A king has his commands, but a head communicates to its own body through oneness of life, and not the commands of law. Therefore His words are like kisses filled with His Spirit that quickens us to do His will. When He asks her to love her enemies, He not only shares the command but imparts into her His very nature that willfulfill that action. Because of oneness His commands are now kisses. As her ears are being opened to hear His Song, she is able to “let Him kiss me” with the Spirit of His words rather than hearing everything He says as a burdensome command.”

This is related to all that we have been sharing.  It is just a different aspect to even view the Lord, that if we are still relating to Him as a separate person, then His commandments are too much for us.  They are burdensome, they wear us out, and we get discouraged and burnt out.  But like this is saying, if the Lord can take us through this experience of the cross and we become one with Him, that type of relating to Him in that way is done away with.  And this is how John could say, “His commandments are not burdensome.”  Because I have read that so many times and said to myself, “what did John know that I didn’t know.

BELIEVER 4:  If I could interject right here.  You know in John 13, when He says, “and a new commandment I give unto you…” Remember that?  That Commandment is in the middle voice.  This is not something to do.  This is the abiding.  Like He said, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done unto you.”  So we see in the context of John 15, the commands happen after you are abiding, after you are baptized, after you are in the flow.  Then you end up loving as you have been loved, like “love one another as I have love you,” “I am giving you a commandment, but it is a commandment based upon being loved first.” 

BELIEVER 3: Thank you Lord.  I told you BELIEVER 2 this for a long time.

BELIEVER 4: Yes, so we could talk about some kind of order that is carried out in an active or passive type way, but that is not the point.  We need to have a revelation of the oneness, the oneness, the kiss, where all of the sudden our eyes are opened, and we are one with Him, we are not separate from Him, we are absolutely one with the flow going on.  Praise the Lord.  This is not a taste, this is being consumed.

BELIEVER 5: “Being One with the Triune God in the Move of the Great Wheel of His Economy”

“The Lord wants to recover the earth and establish His kingdom on earth, but in order to do this, He needs us to be one with Him.  We need to be one with the Lord in the desire of His heart and in the carrying out of  His purpose on the earth.”

BELIEVER 3: a question BELIEVER 5, how are we one with Him?  In a passive, active, or a middle voice?

BELIEVER 5: I believe in a middle voice.

“We need to be one with the Triune God in the move of the great wheel of His economy for His will to be done on earth.  The many believers as the members of Christ are the spokes of the hub spreading to rim, to the Body of Christ.  The move of God’s economy has never stopped and today this great wheel has reached us.  We need to be one with the Lord to pray for the move of the great wheel of the divine economy.”

BELIEVER 3: can you give me a practical application of this.  Something that you have lived that shows this, or some way that the Lord is flowing through us.

BELIEVER 5: No, and you are just going to receive what I am giving in the Spirit, you may not ask for an explanation right now.

“Pray to labor with the Lord

Pray to pave the way for Him;

Pray to move Him and be moved

From the center to the rim”

“The wheels’ having the same appearance indicates that the move of the Lord has the same likeness and appearance in every church.  The high and awesome rims of the wheels being full of eyes indicates that if we are one with the Lord in His move, we will have His insight and revelation; the more we participate in the Lord’s move, the more we will be enlightened and the more we will be able to see.  The wheels follow the living creatures, the creatures follow the Spirit, but the Spirit is in the wheels, indicating that the move of the Lord in our move is in the principle of incarnation.”

Lord Jesus help us to move in the wheels of Your Spirit, and not think and do what You want for us.  Give us the necessary wisdom to be able to continue forward.  Thank You for Your body, thank You because you continue to build Yourself into each one of us, and You are more real in each one of us, help us not to question or reason with You.  Help us to continue in the mystery of following You.  Thank You for this new day.  Thank you because You are going to work today.  And you allowed some brothers to give fresh food in the Spirit.  Thank You for everything you’ve done in this day and early morning, that everything be for Your glory.

BELIEVER 1: the anointing that you received from Christ lives in you.  When will the Lord’s people who know the scriptures so well in the letter, when will they come to realize and recognize if they have been truly crucified with Christ, that they have died in His death and been raised together with Him, and have received the Spirit, and have light in their indwelling.  The anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and you don’t need that anyone teach you, but the anointing teaches you concerning all things.  When will believers, Christians, come to realize?  Why do Christians that have the knowledge of the scriptures run here and there to seek advice from others on matters that vitally affect their own spiritual knowledge?  I don’t mean that it is wrong to get counsel.  Neither is it wrong to know what the other children of God experience, or feel about matters, but if we are going to build our position on their conclusions, we are in great danger.  The final authority in all matters is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the anointing.  We may get help from one another, but I do hope that you don’t build your position on what I say know, just because I say it.  Don’t do that.  I don’t want you neither do I ask you to do that.  What I say is listen, and go to your final authority who is in you, if you are a child of God.  And ask Him to collaborate the truth.  That is your birth right as a child of God.  Amen. 

So like it says here, people after they receive the Lord, they have to seek what the Lord wants them to know in their experiences, and allow Him to be the authority in their lives.  Because if not, if you get help from one another, it may not be bad, if the experience of another person helps you, but it is not like what the Lord wants you to do first.  You need to allow His life to guide you even though you may not see very clearly the path, He is the one, because you were born anew in Him, you can know what His light is and what it isn’t.  So, we should not allow ourselves to be fed up with knowledge but to allow the Spirit to work.

BELIEVER 4: so BELIEVER 1, you did say, “those who receive Him.”  And that receiving is in the middle voice, that is the essence.  It is not an active thing, like one person give someone something else, but they actually are one with what they are receiving.  It is not like someone just gave someone something, and then they don’t have it anymore.  But it is more like when a person gives themselves, what you are receiving is their self also.  Again, it is not to be privately interpreted, but it is like, well I got or received something, but now, what do I do?  I think brother Lee talks about in “The Stream” magazine that the receiving from is actually like “receiving from with.”

This is so key because in our western mind, in America, north or south, our language since human beings have departed so far from the Spirit, and we have become so carnal, so we don’t have a way to speak in the middle voice anymore.  We have a fallen language. Even modern day Greek doesn’t have the middle voice, they only have active and passive.  So I say this regarding receiving, that it is not just something active or passive, it is a receiving Someone. 

So we have the one Word amongst all of us and we have communion of the one Word that is multiplied.

BELIEVER 2: I am going to go to.  Before I go do you all have anything VITAL, that my life depends upon to share? 

BELIEVER 4:I will share something with you along a vital line.  Because we are one in that embrace then there is a rest because there is nothing left to do, we have finally being one.  Then we as the bride of Christ, all of us, we rest in Christ, we are one with Christ, we are consumed in Christ.  Hallelujah.