Many thanks for your good letter dated May 18, where I see that everything is going well for you. Thanks be to God who always gives us victory by our Lord Jesus Christ; He is a light sent to the world. It is for judgment He came to the world, and this is the judgment, that light has come into the world. In other words, to go from light to light is to go from judgment to judgment. And since judgment is the death of Christ, the result is that the life of Christ is manifested in our mortal flesh. Said another way: The second Adam became a life-giving spirit. God’s will is our sanctification. We must submit ourselves totally and completely to His will—hour by hour, day by day. To my astonishment, I have met quite a few Christians who just shake their heads when they hear about putting God’s will into practice in spirit and in truth. It is only when we begin to do God’s will that we come to know the doctrine which is of God. There are many winds of doctrine these days, but there is only one doctrine that leads to godliness. This doctrine cannot be separated from life. No wonder most people know nothing of God, because no one can come to the Father except through the Son. But to come to the Father (perfection) through the Son (the way—the Mediator) is to go on the way of obedience without trying to negotiate or spare ourselves.

Every person can walk unhindered on this way. The more we progress, the more we partake of the fellowship of His sufferings. The greater the judgment, the more meekness, because we are walking in the presence of the Lord—and that causes a person to become meek. There was not a single man in all of Israel who was as meek as Moses, but neither was there anyone who walked so closely to God, face-to-face, as Moses did. Let your meekness be known to all men: the Lord is at hand. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matt. 5:5. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We can understand from this that meekness is great, but it is even greater to be poor in spirit. The meek are close to the kingdom of heaven, but the poor in spirit dwell there. However, while we are on our sojourn here on earth, away from the Lord, our meekness should testify to the fact that, in spite of everything, the Lord is close at hand. This is how we are outwardly, but inwardly we are poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is within us. In other words, each of us has an outward and an inward being, and both of them are under the jurisdiction of our enlightened understanding. The outward should be meek, and the inward should be poor. Some might say that the outward is the same as the inward. Yes, this is the case for us. However, not so for the people we are together with and who we are to lead by our meekness; they experience that the Lord is at hand. People cannot see a poor spirit, but they can see a meek person. Meekness corresponds most closely to the cleansing of the water, and poorness in spirit corresponds to the cleansing of the blood.

“And our bodies washed with pure water” (the forgiveness of sins)—just as pure as Christ in His earthly body. However, now we have access through the veil, which is His flesh. Now the body is being broken, and the blood comes forth. Once all the blood has been poured out, then death is complete. The blood is the soul, and He poured out His soul unto death. Here the first Adam entered into death, because the first Adam became a living soul. Now this soul has been poured out—hallelujah! As long as the blood of Christ continues to cleanse us (and it will do so as long as we are present in this body), we still haven’t poured out our entire soul unto death. No one can be greater than their Master. The Spirit of the Father gave Christ power to pour out His soul. Christ took this Spirit within Himself, and now it is called the Spirit of Christ, which quickens us just as it first quickened Christ.

God imparted all of His wisdom in the preparation and the work He accomplished in Christ. This is why Christ is called “the wisdom of God.” This wisdom dwells bodily in Christ, since the complete work took place in His body. In this way, God’s wisdom has been conveyed to mankind through the body of Christ, and Christ’s work in us is that we partake of His wisdom. Wisdom is the end product of judgment and suffering; as such it contains within itself the ability to be patient, forbearing, longsuffering, meek, etc. It is a life that is impregnable for Satan and the world.

Wisdom is my greatest delight. It is more precious to me than choice gold, because it makes me unassailable. It gives me the ability to resolve difficulties. It gives me courage and security, victory, and all that is praiseworthy. The fear of God is to hold fast to the Lord; it is the greatest of all things here on earth. Wisdom is what a person has learned through their communion with the Lord. Wisdom is the fruit of godly fear. The wise man Solomon fell, but had he been God-fearing, he would never have fallen. This is why we can say that there is nothing greater than the fear of God, because there is a preserving power in it that never fails. But if godly fear gives birth to wisdom, then we must say that wisdom is the product of the fear of God; so it is difficult to separate these two things. Therefore, it is best to be God-fearing and let wisdom and godly fear develop hand in hand, the one giving birth to the other so that everything can be in harmony.

We had a meeting in Betel on Sunday. Recently Ellefsen has made great progress in the Spirit. God’s power comes upon him mightily, and he is increasing in spiritual light day by day. A physically weak woman who is living on welfare, and for whom things have been heavy for many years—in spite of supposedly being a Christian—is now rejoicing because she has received the baptism of the Spirit. Yesterday she wept aloud for a long time; she wept in the Spirit. Another woman who in her heart had fallen away from God, because she had opened herself to a spirit of vanity, came forward at a recent meeting and asked us to pray with her so that she could be restored. She said she felt God was so far away and asked what the reason for that might be. I then explained to her that little by little she had given in to her worldly tendencies and that, as a result, another spirit had gradually found its way into her heart and caused God to be far away from her. She acknowledged that this was the case.

It’s really getting quite late now. Greet everyone at home.

Greet the brothers and sisters, and the very best to you personally.

Your brother,