We read Genesis 2:8-9.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.
And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Psalm 36:9.
For with Thee is the fountain of life:
In Thy light shall we see light.
The Gospel according to John, chapter 1, verse 4.
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
John 17:3.
And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.
Now, brothers and sisters, I believe that we all know that we are living in the time of the recovery work of God. As a matter of fact, God has been doing that recovery work even at the beginning of human history. But we know that we are coming very close to the end of the work of God’s recovery. Therefore, we are living in a very critical time.
It is a time in which we need to know what it is that God is recovering, that we may cooperate with God and may not be out of God’s will.
Now, we all know that among the apostles, John is a special vessel of God in this work of recovery. We know that when he was called, he was mending the nets. And we know that mending the nets is a recovery work.
Figuratively speaking, we know that the apostle Peter, when he was called, was casting the nets. That is to say, the ministry of Peter was to preach the gospel and to bring in people for the kingdom of God, just like a fisherman casting out the net to gather the fish.
Then we know the ministry of the apostle Paul. When he was called, he was a tentmaker. That means that he is the one used by God to take the materials already prepared and make them into a tabernacle, the house of God.
But as time goes on, the net needs mending and the house needs repair. That is the work of the apostle John.
You have a very real sense, brothers and sisters, that we are living in that time when the nets have many holes. You find that many people who are caught in the net escape, and they are not built into the house of God.
Just to use one example: the gospel of Jesus Christ—and I am referring to the true gospel, the gospel that we preach and hear—is mainly the Gospel according to Luke. It is the gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins. Now, thank God for that.
But unfortunately, we find that today we do not preach the whole gospel. The gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins is part of the gospel, but there are other aspects of the gospel that need to be preached. For instance, the Gospel according to Matthew is the gospel of the kingdom.
Because that aspect of the gospel has not been preached, you find that in the church today we have so many babes in Christ. They do not grow as they should, and they are not being built up together in God’s house.
They do not know what discipline is. They do not know what obedience is. They do not know the lordship of Christ or the headship of Christ. They are saved, thank God for that; but because they do not know the kingdom and do not know the King, they are not built in the house of God.
As we look into God’s house, the church today, I think it is very evident to us that there is no wall. As in the old days, the walls of Jerusalem were all broken down and the gates were burned. This means that there was no separation, and the enemy could come in at any time.
That showed the ruinous condition of Jerusalem, of the people of God in the old days. Today we find the same thing. There is no separation between the church and the world. There is no wall and not even gates; the enemy can come in as he wishes.
Not only is there no wall and no gates, but we find that even the very foundation has been shaken. The church is supposed to be the base and pillar of truth, but we find that the truth of God is being contested, challenged, and disbelieved. The very foundation of the house has been shaken.
God’s people are scattered, living stones scattered around. We need a major restoration—not just a minor work of repairs, but a major work of renovation and restoration.
That is the reason why we feel that in our days the ministry of the apostle John is so relevant to us. We need to know more of the ministry that God has given to the apostle John.
Now, what is the ministry of John? What is the ministry of recovery in essence? What is it essentially? I believe that the ministry of John is a ministry of life.
Take a quick look at all the writings of the apostle John. The Gospel according to John, no doubt, is the gospel of life. It tells us what life is—or, more accurately, Who is life—where we can find it, and how we can receive it.
The epistles of John tell us the very nature, character, and qualities of that life. How do we recognize life when it is there? Life is almost like electricity. How do you recognize it? How do you touch it? How do you know there is life, or that it is not life? The first epistle of John tells us how to recognize that life by its quality.
Then, of course, the book of Revelation is the triumph of life. Life overcomes death. So the ministry of John really is a ministry of life.
Now, brothers and sisters, when we talk about this matter of recovery, we need to remember that we are talking about life, not anything else.
It is true that, as we look back into church history, whenever there is a move of the Spirit of God upon His church, it seems that there is a recovery of truth. For instance, during the Reformation, we find the recovery of the truth of justification by faith.
But, dear brothers and sisters, actually it is not just the truth, doctrine, or teaching of justification by faith that is recovered. If only the teaching is recovered, and there is nothing more than a teaching or a cold truth, we know that it is not recovery. Nothing is recovered.
The reason why the truth of justification by faith was renewed and recovered at the time of the Reformation was because there was life there. Martin Luther, the chief instrument of the Reformation, experienced justification by faith in Christ.
Because he experienced it in Christ, it was not merely a cold truth. It was a living Person who became his justification. That is the reason there was power there.
It is not a form, a method, or a technique that is recovered.
For instance, consider the Baptists, or even before them, the Anabaptists in church history. They believed that they needed to be baptized by immersion. In those days babies were baptized, and not only that, but through baptism they were received into the kingdom of God. It was baptismal regeneration: because you were baptized, therefore you were regenerated and belonged to the kingdom of God.
Then people rose up and said, “No, that is not the Scripture. The Scripture says that we need to believe, and by believing, we are baptized.” They were called by others Anabaptists, or later in history, Baptists.
Many Anabaptists were persecuted because they believed in baptism by immersion. Many were drowned. Their persecutors would say, “All right, you want to be baptized? We will get you baptized.” They would tie a stone to their neck and drown them. Many were martyred in that way.
Were they willing to be martyred merely for the truth or teaching of baptism? I do not think so. Brothers and sisters, I wonder how many people would be willing to be drowned because of that.
It was because behind the truth they met the Lord in baptism. It is life. Because there was life there, they despised death.
So, brothers and sisters, in every recovery work of God throughout church history, you find that it is not just a truth recovered, not just a way recovered, and not just some hidden form recovered. Thank God for these things; they need to be recovered. But behind all these things is the recovery of life.
You can prove it very easily. Why? Because you find that in certain groups the truth is there and the form is there, but because life is not there, we do not see the testimony of Jesus Christ.
The Lutherans still believe in Luther’s recovery of justification by faith. But unfortunately today, many Lutherans may acknowledge this as a creed, yet in their life they do not know what justification by faith is.
The same is true with Baptists. They may be baptized, but even among Baptists today there are many so-called liberal Baptists who do not even believe that the Bible is the Word of God. That is not recovery.
So we know that recovery is the recovery of life. Brothers and sisters, today we emphasize many things, but unfortunately we neglect life.
If life is missing, if we do not put our whole emphasis on life, no matter what we do and no matter what we believe—even though these things may be accurate—there is no recovery work of God. This is true individually, and this is true corporately.
Now, what is recovery? Recovery is more than merely recovering what has been lost.
We often think recovery is to recover what was lost, just as the woman lost a silver piece and had to find it, or a shepherd lost a sheep and had to go out and find the lost sheep.
But, strictly speaking, recovery is more than recovering what was lost. Recovery is to recover what God originally designed.
After God created man, man was made whole and perfect, but he needed to be perfected. In other words, even before man sinned, there was something God had foreordained for man that man had never received.
That is why recovery is not just to recover what was lost. We know how man sinned and lost almost all. But merely recovering all that he lost is not recovery. Recovery is to recover all that was lost and more—to bring man back to God’s original design. That is recovery.
Recovery always goes back to the very beginning. Now, brothers and sisters, we are coming to the end. As we come to the end, I feel it is more and more important for us to go back to the beginning, because the end is to meet the beginning.
When we read the book of Revelation, we find that it tells us about the end. When you come to Revelation 21 and 22, what do you find? You find the holy city, the New Jerusalem.
As you look at that city, one thing impresses you most: in the midst of the city there is the throne of God and of the Lamb, and out of that throne comes a river of living water.
This river, as it were, goes around the whole city. It is marvelous. Why? Because you find that in that picture it is a huge city, yet a huge city has only one street.
You have twelve gates, three on each side, and only one street. How are you going to make that one street cover the twelve gates? Yet the river covers the whole city.
It says that in the midst of the street, and of the river, on this side and on that side, there is the tree of life. In other words, the tree of life is everywhere throughout the whole city. One river, one street, and one tree of life cover the whole city. It is just life—life more abundant.
That is what God is after. He is after a city full of His life.
If this is the end at which God is aiming, then we know this is the beginning. So let us go back to Genesis, to the beginning.
You find that God took the red earth and formed the form of a man. He breathed the breath of life into that man, and the Bible says that man became a living soul.
In other words, this lump of clay was fashioned into the form of a man, but it was dead. Then the breath of life entered into that form, and that man stood up and became a living soul. He became a living person; he had life in him.
But this life was soul life. It animated him, made him active, and enabled him to function as a person. But it was the life of the soul.
That was not the end of creation. So far as the work of creation that God did with man at that time was concerned, it was complete. But there was a further work that needed to be done, and that further work could not be done by God alone. He required man’s cooperation.
It is a strange thing, a mystery, why God should decide to do that. But man was created as a masterpiece of God, and God had a tremendous thought concerning man.
Man was to rule and reign for God. He was made in the image of God and was given dominion over God’s created things. Man was created with the thought of being a helpmeet, a counterpart, of God’s beloved Son.
Man had to be a counterpart, to be like His Son, in order to be His helpmeet—to help His Son.
Yet with this marvelous creation, this marvelous body, and this marvelous soul life that enables man to think, work, rule, express himself, and make decisions, brothers and sisters, it was not good enough to fulfill God’s purpose for man.
Therefore, God put man in the garden of Eden, the garden of pleasure. God made all the trees grow with fruit for the body of man. But in the midst of the garden was the tree of life.
Now, brothers and sisters, had God not given life to man already? God breathed the breath of life into man, and man became a living soul. Yes, he had life, but the life he had received from God was created life—a life created by God, enabling him to live and function as a man.
But man did not have the divine life: the life of God, the uncreated life of God, the glorious life, the eternal life, life of the first quality, the unending life. He did not have that.
The tree of life signifies God’s divine life. In a sense, God put His own life into a tree. Why? Because it made that life obtainable. When you eat the fruit, you receive the life of that tree.
Even though in the garden of Eden man rejected the tree and did not eat the fruit of the tree of life, God gave man another opportunity. At Golgotha, on that tree, the cross, Christ was crucified. Life again was made available to man.
The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. Brothers and sisters, if you put anything in the midst of anywhere, you cannot help but notice it. It attracts your attention.
God purposely put the tree of life in the midst of the garden to attract man’s attention. It was as if God said, “I put My life in this tree, in the midst of the garden, to attract you. But I will not force you.”
“This is something in which you have to cooperate with Me. You have to take it willingly. If you take it willingly, by your own volition, then it is yours. Then My purpose in creating you will be fulfilled, and that is the only way for it to be fulfilled.”
With soul life, without the divine life of God, brothers and sisters, we are not only not the counterpart of Christ, but we cannot be His helpmeet. Only with the divine life in us do we become His counterpart and are able to be His helpmeet.
But God put another tree by the side of the tree of life: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I believe God put that other tree there with purpose.
God wanted man to make a choice and exercise his free will. God respects the man whom He created. So He put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil by the side of the tree of life.
In other words, He was trying to show us what is real life and what is false life. You can make a choice.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I do not believe, was a bad tree. I do not believe God would plant a bad tree in the garden of Eden. It would be like a dead fly in the ointment. God would never do that.
I believe the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was much better than all the rest of the trees except the tree of life. The trees were good; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was better; and the tree of life was best.
What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It is knowledge. Who does not want knowledge? Why do you go to school if you do not want knowledge?
Of all the knowledge in this world, what knowledge is higher than knowing good and evil? That is reasoning, rational power, the ability to discern good and bad, good and evil, right and wrong.
That is the highest knowledge in the world: rational knowledge, philosophy, ethics. There is nothing higher than that.
But that kind of knowledge, available to man without the divine life of God, brings in death.
By eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man wanted to develop his soul life to the highest degree. He did not want God to be his guide; he wanted to be his own god. He thought that he did not need God because he knew himself.
Man declared independence from the life of God. He thought his own life could be developed to the highest degree, and that would be enough for him.
But, brothers and sisters, is that true? The knowledge of good and evil does not bring life; it brings death. The good you know, you do not do. The evil you know, you do. It condemns you.
Not only that, but knowledge separated from the divine life of God, no matter how high that knowledge is, is darkness itself.
You remember Ephesians 4:17-18:
Walking in the vanity of their mind,
being darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God.
When knowledge is separated from the life of God, it is vanity, it is darkness, and it results in death.
Now, brothers and sisters, do not say that our forefathers Adam and Eve chose the wrong tree and blame them for that. As a matter of fact, look at human history. Look at yourself. We are going the same way.
How often we live by the knowledge of good and evil. How often our life is governed by that principle. Our question always is, “Is it good, or is it bad?” If it is good, go ahead. If it is bad, try to avoid it. But the problem is, you cannot avoid it.
Not only is this the principle by which the people of this world live; unfortunately, many Christians are governed by the same principle—the knowledge of good and evil.
Not only individually, but even in the church, you find that God’s people are not governed by the principle of life but by the principle of good and evil. People say, “What is wrong with that?”
Because there is nothing wrong with it, they think they can do it. But is it life?
In the church, do we see life? Do we find life? Are we living life? It is not a matter of whether you are right or wrong. Everything may be right. Everything may be good. But is it life?
Brothers and sisters, we need to know life. Thank God, we have divine life. Where is life? Who is the source of life?
The psalmist said, “With Thee is the fountain of life: in Thy light shall we see light.” In other words, God is the source of life. God is life.
His life is eternal life—eternal not merely in the sense of never ending, but eternal in the sense of life of the highest quality: incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, eternal, glorious.
God is life. You cannot have life aside from God.
But, brothers and sisters, thank God: the life that man once rejected in the garden of Eden, God, in the fullness of time, brought again into this world. That is the incarnation of our Lord Jesus.
The Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth. Brothers and sisters, two thousand years ago, the life of God came upon this earth.
When you talk about life, you say, “God is the source of life, but how do you get it? He is in heaven.” But thank God, just as in the garden of Eden God planted a tree of life there to make it available to man, so two thousand years ago God sent His beloved Son into this world.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Our Lord Jesus is different from all the rest of the world. We who are born of the flesh are flesh. We have life, but all we have is soul life. Unfortunately, that soul life has fallen, so all we have is fallen life.
But our Lord Jesus was born of a virgin. In other words, He did not inherit the Adamic life. He did have a human soul life, but without sin, uncontaminated.
Furthermore, the divine life was in Him. You remember John 5:26:
For as the Father hath life in Himself,
even so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself.
Our Lord Jesus has life in Him—not merely the soul life that makes Him a living person, a living being. Even as a living being, He was different from us, because in His human life there was no sin and no contamination of sin.
But more than that, there was divine life in Him. God gave the Son life in Himself that He might give it to man.
Wherever you find life in the man called Jesus, you find life overcoming death. The whole Gospel of John tells us that, when our Lord Jesus was on earth, for the first time in human history there was a man who was alive in the midst of death.
The whole world was under the rule of death, because Satan, the enemy, had the power of death and used that power to rule over mankind. Everywhere you find death. No matter where you turn—to religion, to the highest morality, to the purest religion—you find death there.
Consider Nicodemus, a man of men. He was the teacher of Israel: old, educated, religious, pious, learned, moral. He came to the Lord Jesus at night with humility, saying, “You are a teacher from above. I am a teacher, the highest teacher on earth, but You are the Teacher from above. You have something to teach me that I may be able to enter the kingdom of God.”
The Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Not merely enter it; he cannot even see it. You have no life there. It is death.
Nicodemus was the flower and fruit of Judaism, but the Lord Jesus said, in effect, “You are far away from the kingdom of God. You are in another realm. You are in the realm of death. What you need is life—His life.”
You cannot find life in this world.
In John 4, you find the Samaritan woman. She was thirsty—not only physically, but inwardly. Because of her thirst, she tried to find satisfaction in the world, in the pleasures of the world, in the sensual world. But she could not find it. It was not there.
Life is not in the world. No matter how much of the world you get, it cannot satisfy you. She had five husbands and was living with a sixth man, and she was still thirsty. Nothing in the world can satisfy you because it is death.
The Lord Jesus said, “I will give you living water. It will spring up within you as a fountain, and you will never thirst again.” In other words, life is found only in Christ. You cannot find life anywhere else.
Life is not something other than Christ. What is eternal life? To know Thee, the only true God, and to know the One whom Thou hast sent—this is eternal life.
Eternal life is true knowledge, not false knowledge. It is knowing God; it is knowing Christ. This knowing is not mental knowledge. It is knowing by heart—knowing Him, not merely knowing about Him.
It is believing Him, receiving Him, experiencing Him, and having Him in you. When you believe and receive Him in you, then you are satisfied. Your eyes are opened, and you are raised from the dead.
That is why, wherever our Lord Jesus went, He touched death and brought in life. That is the Gospel according to John.
Dear brothers and sisters, thank God, we have believed in Him. When we believe in Him, we have eternal life. But do not think of eternal life as something outside of Christ.
In other words, you do not come to the Lord Jesus, confess your sins, say you believe in Him, and then receive a package called eternal life, as though it were an insurance policy to be used after you die to bring you into heaven. God never does a thing like that.
Eternal life is knowing God and knowing Christ. It is Him. He is eternal life. That is why in Colossians we find that Christ is our life.
Brothers and sisters, when you believe in the Lord Jesus, you do not merely receive something; you receive Someone. Someone comes into you to be your life. You have the divine life in you, and all the possibilities are there.
Now you are able to be the counterpart of Christ. You are able to be like Him. You are able to be His helpmeet, to help Him accomplish God’s purpose.
Think of it: He condescends Himself to ask for your help—not for your natural help, as Eve was given to Adam, but to help Him accomplish God’s purpose.
Brothers and sisters, thank God: when you believe in the Lord Jesus, you have received Someone. That is the treasure.
Do you know that? Do you recognize that life in you? Or do you live by that life?
Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, we who believe in the Lord Jesus know we have eternal life, but somehow we do not recognize that life. Because we do not recognize it, we do not know how to use it. We do not live by it.
We do not even know whether we are living by it or not living by it. We do not even know that. What a tragedy.
Dear brothers and sisters, we need to know life. We need to recognize it. How? That is the purpose of the first epistle of John.
The first epistle of John tells us that we who believe in the Son of God may know that we have eternal life. That is the purpose of that letter: to tell us that we who believe in the Son of God do have eternal life.
How do you know? By the very character, nature, and qualities of that life.
First John can be roughly divided into three parts, apart from the introduction and conclusion. First John 1:5 through 2:28 tells us that God is light.
First John 2:29 through 4:6 tells us that God is righteous.
First John 4:7 through 5:12 tells us that God is love.
What is life? How do you know that there is life, or that there is not? Number one: if there is life, there must be light there.
God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.
The first thing you experience when you experience life is light. Light shines upon you; it exposes your darkness. It reveals what you really are. It tells you what is really wrong with you. It convicts you.
It brings you down to dust. It kills you. It slays you. But at the same time, it heals you and completes you. That is light.
Brothers and sisters, if we walk in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, cleanses us from all our sins.
This is written to believers. Even though we may apply it to unbelievers, actually it is written for believers.
If we walk in the light, brothers and sisters, the life of Christ in us continuously emits light within us. We do not need to be guided by outward rules and regulations. We do not need people to tell us what to do and what not to do.
If you walk before God, the divine life within you will continuously emit light to guide your every step. It is the light of life, not outside light or outward knowledge. The life in you emits light.
When life comes upon you, what happens? You see what is wrong with you.
A Christian who never realizes what is wrong with him is in darkness. Do not think that because you feel all right, you are all right. You may feel that you are quite good. I am afraid that when you feel that you are right, you are not right. You are in darkness.
If you continuously walk in the light, brothers and sisters, the light will shine upon you daily. It will reveal something in your life that is not of God and is not of life.
It may be right in human eyes. It may be right in your eyes. It may be something you did yesterday. But today the light grows a little brighter and begins to show you, “No, it is not life; it is death.”
You need to humble yourself before the Lord, ask for His forgiveness, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all your sins. Brothers and sisters, this is the way we grow spiritually.
There never comes a day when you think that you have arrived, when there is nothing you need to confess, nothing for which you need to ask forgiveness, and when you no longer need the blood of the Lord Jesus.
If you walk in the light, the light of life, in the presence of God, continuously you can see your corruption. Your beauty turns into corruption. What you boast of becomes something for which you have to repent in dust and ashes.
Light exposes. It kills you, but it heals you. It saves you. Your fellowship with God remains uninterrupted.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how can we have so-called spiritual pride? It is impossible if you walk in the light. You will be in dust and ashes all your life.
You will see the preciousness of the blood of our Lord Jesus. You need it. Brothers and sisters, that is the way you grow.
In the beginning, you are babes in Christ. Then you begin to grow into young men and young women. Then you begin to grow into fathers in the church.
How do you grow from babyhood to fatherhood? It is by walking in the light as He is in the light. Then we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, cleanses us from all our sins.
The Holy Spirit in you is the anointing. He will teach you in all things, that you may walk in the light of life. So you know life by light. When there is no light, something is wrong with your life.
This is not only true individually; it is true corporately. Why? Because the church is a lampstand, and a lampstand is to uphold light. That is the only reason for the existence of the lampstand.
We know the light is Christ—His life.
Whether we are shining as the church in Philadelphia, or whether our light has dimmed to the point of smoking as in Laodicea, is a matter of life.
When you enter into a company of God’s people and do not find light there, I do not mean merely that you read the Bible and find light there. I mean that when you get into a company of God’s people, the light does not shine upon your life, show you where you are corrupted, and humble you before the Lord.
If that does not happen, something is wrong with the company. The first indication of life is light.
As light comes in, it naturally leads to the second quality: righteousness. You see, God is righteous. God is a righteous God.
Oftentimes we misunderstand this. When we believe in the Lord Jesus and receive His mercy and grace, it overwhelms us. We think of God only as merciful and gracious, slow to anger, ready to forgive and to forget. Thank God, He is such a loving Father.
But we forget that our God is a righteous God.
If we practice righteousness, then we are His sons and daughters. If we do not practice righteousness, then we are not.
By practice, I mean that you do it constantly, persistently, and continuously. We who believe in the Lord Jesus, God expects us to be righteous.
Unfortunately, this is something that God’s people neglect. Because we are recipients of God’s mercy and grace, we think that it is all mercy and grace.
Before we believed in the Lord Jesus, we had no righteousness of our own. Our righteousness was all as filthy rags. It could not cover our nakedness. That is true.
Christ is our righteousness. He is the best robe with which we are clothed. It is only in Him that we are acceptable before God. In Him we stand before God. That is true.
But, brothers and sisters, after we have received the divine life in us, one quality of the divine life is righteousness. He wants us to be right.
Formerly, we did not know what was right or wrong. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil may show us something of right and wrong, but its right and wrong is not the standard of right and wrong.
Our sense of right and wrong is influenced by our upbringing, education, circumstances, and all these influences. It is not up to standard. The real standard is God Himself.
When we truly believe in the Lord Jesus and have His life in us, we find that there is a standard there: the standard of what is right.
Not only is the standard there, but the power is there. Formerly, we did not have the power. But now we have the power, because the life of Christ in us is the power to do what is right in the eyes of God.
In other words, to do God’s will is right. To do God’s will.
We need to be righteous. In Revelation 19, you find that the wife of the Lamb has made herself ready, and she was given fine linen, bright and pure, which is the righteousnesses of the saints.
That is the wedding garment. The Holy Spirit is weaving, in each of our lives, that wedding garment—patiently, stitch by stitch. Sometimes it is a little painful when the needle goes through, but He is trying to weave and stitch into us that wedding garment.
What is the wedding garment? The righteousnesses of the saints.
It is not only Christ as our righteousness, but Christ, the life of Christ in us, so working in us that we do the same as He does. That is the righteousness of the saints.
Unfortunately, we find that God’s people today do not have a sense of righteousness.
In the second part of 1 John, he mentions especially the heart. He says, “If our heart condemn us not, then have we boldness toward God.” The heart there actually is the conscience.
To a Christian, our conscience is very, very important. Our conscience has been cleansed; therefore, it is sensitive to God, sensitive to His will, and sensitive to what is right in the eyes of God.
Brothers and sisters, if a Christian neglects his conscience, it is like a ship with a hole: it leaks and will sink.
How many Christians today keep a pure conscience before God? Paul said, “I serve God with a conscience void of offense.” I am before you and before God with a clear conscience. That is the way I serve God.
Dear brothers and sisters, do we serve God with a clear conscience? Our conscience, our heart, does not condemn us because it has been cleansed continuously, like the blood of the Lamb. We always do the right thing—the will of God.
The Spirit of God within us is the Spirit of truth. He will lead us into all truth. Be righteous before God. Let us live with a pure conscience and serve God with that conscience.
When you begin to see that life has righteousness, it naturally leads to the third point: God is love.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be righteous to ourselves, but we need to love one another. Oftentimes, we are very righteous with other people, but very lenient with ourselves.
If we really know life, that life will tell us that we have to be very strict with ourselves, but that we need to love our brothers and sisters. Love covers a multitude of sins.
God is love. The life in us is love. If you really touch life, you love God, and you love the one begotten of God.
If you do not love the one begotten of God whom you can see, how can you love God whom you do not see?
Brothers and sisters, love is important. We need to learn to love the Lord with all our heart. That is what the life within us demands of us.
When we do not love God as we should, that life cries out and says, “Love.”
When we do not love our brothers and sisters, that life within us is not happy. When we deny ourselves and do something for our brothers and sisters, the life within us is happy.
The Lord Jesus said, “As I have loved you, love ye one another.”
John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. First John 3:16 tells us that we ought to love our brothers and give our life for our brothers.
Dear brothers and sisters, when you touch love, you touch life. When there is no love, there is no life.
When you come to a company of God’s people and do not see righteousness there, life is in question. That was the situation in the church at Corinth. There was no righteousness there. The sense of righteousness was gone. They endorsed sin.
When you come to a company of God’s people, you may find much knowledge and many arguments, but no love. You know something is wrong. You do not touch life; you touch death.
So, dear brothers and sisters, how do we know life? We know life by its qualities: light, righteousness, and love.
Finally, the book of Revelation is the triumph of life, the glory of life.
Brothers and sisters, the world is in a constant, continuous, unceasing battle of life against death.
When God created man, God offered man His life. But death reigned instead of life, and that reign continued from Adam until the coming of Christ.
Christ is the only One who brings life into this world. Not only does He bring life into the world, but that life overcomes death.
How the enemy tried every means, through every instrument—sometimes through His enemies, sometimes through His family, sometimes through those closest to Him—to turn Him away from life and make Him live by the human life.
But we find that even when His human life was pressed, He refused to live by that life. He denied His own life to obey the life of God in Him. There was no place in Him for the enemy.
Read the Gospel according to John and the other Gospels, and you find how life triumphs over death. Death confronted Him at every corner, and He defeated it.
The greatest battle of life against death was when He entered into death, robbed death of its power, and came out in resurrection.
Brothers and sisters, I feel that when Christ was on earth, the glory of life and the triumph of life were demonstrated in Him. That should have been enough for Him.
But He entered into death, robbed death of its power, and came out of it for us—not for Himself, but for you and me—that we too may overcome death in our daily life.
Brothers and sisters, how do we overcome death in our daily life? If we do not have His life in us, we will be swallowed up by death.
But with His life in us, the principle is the same: we have to go into death, swallow it up, and come out in resurrection.
That is why we have to take the death of Christ upon us, bearing in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in us and in other people.
In other words, brothers and sisters, we must declare: we are dead to sin, we are dead to the world, we are dead to ourselves, and we are dead to Satan. It is only by entering into death that we swallow up death, and life springs up in victory. That is the way to overcome.
If you are afraid to go into death, then you will never experience that victory, the glory of life.
The book of Revelation tells us that this is not only true today in us. Who are the overcomers, the man-child? They are those who overcome death.
How do they overcome? They are raptured without going through death. How does it come about? Because of the blood of the Lamb, because of the word of their testimony, and because they loved not their life, that is, their soul life, even unto death.
They are willing to deliver their soul life to the cross of the Lord. Therefore, the glory of life is manifested.
Brothers and sisters, this is true not only with us individually and together, but in the book of Revelation you find a battle of life against death.
Famines, wars, pestilences, and disasters of all kinds are all death. They are the emblems of death. But the Lord said, “This is birth pangs.” It is birth. It will bring forth life.
Out of all that the enemy is trying to do upon this earth, God overrules it and uses it to bring in life—life abundant.
Until finally, even death itself is defeated. In the New Jerusalem there is no more death. Death is defeated.
Not only is there no more death within us; there is no more death around us. Even our environment is life. Within us is life; without us is life. It is life, life, life.
Brothers and sisters, this is the will of God. That is why we need to know divine life.
In our days, brothers and sisters, focus on life. Shall we pray?
Dear heavenly Father, we worship Thee because Thou hast sent Thy beloved Son into this world to give us life, and life more abundantly.
We do praise and thank Thee that the life we have received is that divine life, that eternal life, that glorious life.
Lord, show us how to live by that life. Enable us to know that life through the light, the righteousness, and the love.
May we experience Thy life more and more until one day death is completely destroyed and life shall reign forever and ever.
O Lord, we pray that Thou wilt turn our attention to life: to seek after eternal life, to hold fast eternal life, and to follow Thee.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.