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Scripture Reading: 14-15, Rom. 8:23; 2 Cor. 1:21; 1 John 1:20-27; 5:6; John 14:16-20; Phil. 1:19b-21a; Rom. 6:5; Col. 2:12; Eph. 3:16-19; 4:3-6; Rom. 6:19b, 22b; 15:16b; 1 Thes. 5:23; 2 Pet. 1:4b; Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2a; 6:4; Hosea 14:8
In the previous chapter we saw that the threefold seed issues in the Spirit. This Spirit is the life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is the compound Spirit, and the compound Spirit is the all-inclusive Spirit because He has been compounded with the elements of divinity, humanity, Christ’s death with its effectiveness, and Christ’s resurrection with its effectiveness. The Bible tells us that, after passing through incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, Christ became a life-giving Spirit. His becoming a life-giving Spirit is the consummation of all the processes He passed through.
At least four thousand years after He created man, the complete God entered into a “tunnel,” a process. This “tunnel,” this process, was quite long and had at least four sections. The first section of the “tunnel” was incarnation. Incarnation, as Isaiah shows us in chapter 53, included His human living and lasted thirty-three and a half years in addition to the nine months that He was in the womb. The second section was His all-inclusive death, which, strictly speaking, lasted only six hours, from nine o’clock in the morning until three o’clock in the afternoon. However, the preparation for His death lasted at least one week. Before His crucifixion He went to Jerusalem voluntarily. According to the types and prophecies in the Old Testament, He had to be cut off on the day of the passover (Exo. 12:3-6) and in that particular year (Dan. 9:25-26). Otherwise, the type concerning the passover and Daniel’s prophecy concerning the seventy weeks (vv. 24-27) could not have been properly fulfilled. He knew the year, He knew the month, and He knew the day. Thus, He went to Jerusalem according to the foreordained date. He entered into Jerusalem and stayed there for one week, including the day of His death (John 12:1 see footnote 1 in Mark 12:37, Recovery Version). Therefore, it took Him at least one week to pass through His death. In those six days prior to His death, He was dying there; He was being slaughtered. To kill Him was not a simple matter. Before being arrested, He was tested by several groups of people, including the chief priests, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Herodians, the scribes, and the elders.
The third section of the “tunnel,” or process, was His resurrection. In His resurrection He entered into another realm — the divine, spiritual, and heavenly realm. Before His resurrection He was in our realm, and before His incarnation He was in the eternal realm with the Father. Now He is in the fourth section — ascension.
In the first section of His process He was the complete God becoming a perfect man in humanity with blood and flesh. Then, after thirty-three and a half years He became a life-giving Spirit. This brought Him into another realm. His incarnation brought Him out of the heavenly, eternal realm into the world in which we are. He stayed here for thirty-three and a half years. Then, through the processes of death and resurrection He was brought into another realm. Now, in this other realm He is in resurrection and in ascension. His resurrection always goes along with His ascension. Today He is there in ascension busily doing many things.
He has become the life-giving Spirit, and this Spirit has been compounded with divinity, humanity, His all-inclusive death with its effectiveness, and His powerful resurrection with its effectiveness. These are the elements with which the life-giving Spirit has been compounded. Now He has become a compound Spirit. This compound Spirit is the all-inclusive Spirit. If we want God, we must come to Him. Outside of Him there is no God. If we want to see a genuine, true, real, and perfect man, we must come to Him. Jesus is this man, and today Jesus is in the Spirit. If we want to enjoy, experience, and partake of His death with its effectiveness, we must come to this Spirit. The element of His death is in the Spirit. If we want to experience His resurrection with its power, we also must come to this Spirit. Today this Spirit is the reality of the divine person, the Triune God. This Spirit is also the reality of the unique and perfect man. In this Spirit we also have the reality of the death of Christ and the reality of the resurrection of Christ.
I feel very sorry that many dear ones who have been in the Lord’s recovery for years have never delved into these deeper truths. This is why their Christian life is unstable, weak, and fluctuating. I am thankful to the Lord that He has kept me for more than sixty-six years through these deeper truths. Every step of our human education, from kindergarten through the four years of college, causes us to undergo certain changes in our behavior, our speaking, and our attitude. In order to serve the Lord properly, we need a certain amount of human education, and we also need to be filled, saturated, and infused with the adequate spiritual education that will cause us to know the Bible not in the black and white letters but in its spiritual, heavenly, and divine significances. We all need to spend some time to obtain the heavenly, divine, and spiritual education. I particularly encourage you young ones to study these truths; this will help you to grow. When I was young and I obtained a weighty spiritual book, I did not let the sun go down before I endeavored to study that book, even to some extent not caring for my eating or sleeping. The reason that I have lived such a long and healthy life is my studying of the truths of the Bible. Studying has been my “hobby.” Regardless of how many things came to offend me, I found that the best way to put the offending things aside is to study the divine truths in the holy Word.
In this chapter we will consider another ten items of the all-inclusive Spirit as the aggregate of the all-embracing blessing of the full gospel of God in Christ, for the divine dispensing according to the divine economy.
The all-inclusive Spirit is the firstfruits of our enjoyment of God as our inheritance, dispensing His riches into us until the redemption (the glorification) of our body, that is, our divine sonship of glory. Romans 8:23 tells us that the Spirit today is the firstfruits. The firstfruits of the Spirit are simply the Spirit Himself as the firstfruits of the coming harvest of what God is to us. The Spirit, the compound Spirit who is the consummation of the Triune God, has been given to us as the firstfruits. These firstfruits are the firstfruits of God as our inheritance. God has given Himself to us as our inheritance. Acts 26:18 says strongly that we, the saved ones, are being sanctified unto an inheritance (see footnote 6, Recovery Version), and that inheritance is God Himself (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14). On this earth we might have an inheritance of houses, stocks, and shares in large corporations. But we need to realize that whatever we have will eventually become nothing, for when death comes, everything will be taken from us. Therefore, this kind of earthly inheritance is vanity of vanities (Eccl. 12:8). However, Christ as the threefold seed in humanity issues in the Spirit, and this Spirit is the firstfruits of the divine inheritance. In other words, the Spirit as the firstfruits is the first item of God as our inheritance. This Spirit as the firstfruits is no doubt for our enjoyment. Thus, He is the firstfruits of our enjoyment of God as our inheritance. As such, He dispenses the riches of God, who is our inheritance, into us for the redemption of our body. The redemption of our body in the future will be an issue of this dispensing.
Today we are enjoying the dispensing of the riches of the divine inheritance, which is God Himself, and this dispensing issues in the glorification of our body. That glorification will not be merely a sudden thing that will take place when the Lord Jesus comes again; it will be the issue of our enjoyment today. Our enjoyment is unto, for, and in view of that glorification. Verses such as Ephesians 1:13-14 and Ephesians 4:30 say that the Spirit seals us unto the redemption of our body. Therefore, the future redemption of our body will be an issue of our enjoyment of God, which is always accompanied by His dispensing His element into our being. This changes us and transforms us in view of the upcoming redemption and glorification of our body.
The all-inclusive Spirit, as the Spirit of our sonship, leads us, the sons of God, by the Father’s life and nature dispensed into our being in our daily life, that we may be the sons of God in practicality (Rom. 8:14-15). Romans 8:14 says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” As sons of God, we should live, walk, and have our being according to the leading of the Spirit. However, if we were to go to a movie, we might not have the confidence that we were practicing the practical sonship. I was deeply impressed when I read the story of a prominent American preacher. He moved into a new house and invited his father to see the house and all its furnishings. His father looked at the rooms and the furnishings and said, “Son, everything is very nice, but there is a big lack: there is no sign or indication that you are a son of God.” Matters such as the way we comb our hair, the way we dress, and the way we decorate our homes are signs indicating whether or not we are practical sons of God. We are not speaking of sonship in doctrine but of sonship in practicality. The reality of our sonship in practicality is manifested in our living — in the way that we conduct ourselves, in the way that we dress, and in the places that we go. All these are signs of the practicality of our sonship.
The all-inclusive Spirit is the compound Spirit, compounded with both the divine nature and the human nature of Christ and with both Christ’s death and resurrection, to be the anointing ointment, anointing us with all His compounding elements, that we may abide in the Lord to receive His dispensing for our knowledge of the truth of the Divine Trinity in God’s economy (2 Cor. 1:21; 1 John 2:20-27). An ointment is different from oil. Pure oil is of one element, but ointment, like paint, consists not of one element but of a base plus a few additional elements. These elements are compounded together to become an ointment as a kind of paint. The all-inclusive Spirit is the compound Spirit as an anointing ointment, anointing us with all His compounded elements.
The Spirit’s anointing us with all His compounded elements is typified in the Old Testament. Exodus 30 tells us that after Moses made the compound ointment (vv. 23-25), God told him to anoint the tabernacle, all its utensils, the altar, and the priests (vv. 26-30). Everything that was related to God’s service and worship had to be anointed by this ointment. This indicates that everything concerning us that is related to God’s worship and service needs to be anointed by the compound Spirit.
First John 2 is a chapter on the anointing Spirit (vv. 20-27). The compound Spirit anoints us with all His compounded elements that we may abide in the Lord (v. 27). The Bible tells us to abide in the Lord (John 15:4), but many Christians do not seek to know the way to do so. Nearly fifty years ago I desired to know how to abide in Christ. One day I found the book Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray. In this book Murray says that to abide in Christ we need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. However, my experience was that I had consecrated myself to the Lord many times, but I still did not know how to abide. Surely that was not the way. After many years of reading 1 John 2, I found out that the way to abide in the Lord is to be anointed. The anointing is the way. As long as you are anointed with this anointing compound ointment, you are abiding in the Lord. First John 2 tells us to abide in the Lord according to the anointing (v. 27). The anointing is actually the Lord Himself moving. He anoints us that we may abide in Him to receive His dispensing for our knowledge of the truth of the Divine Trinity in God’s economy. First John 2 teaches us the truth of the Divine Trinity in God’s economy. Eventually, that truth is the teaching of the anointing. When we have the anointing of the compound Spirit, we have the Son, and when we have the Son, we have the Father. Thus, in the anointing we have all three — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is the Divine Trinity in God’s economy.
The Spirit is the reality of God, of Christ, and of the divine life, imparting the element of God, Christ, and the divine life into us as the life supply for our divine and spiritual support (5:6; John 14:16-20; Phil. 1:19b). According to 1 John 5:6, the Spirit is the reality. The reality mentioned in this verse must be the reality of the Triune God, Christ, and the divine life. This reality supplies us divinely and spiritually, causing us to have the divine and spiritual support. As mentioned in Philippians 1:19, this supply and support eventually become the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. John 14:16-20 speaks of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — telling us that the Father is embodied in the Son and the Son is realized as the Spirit. Thus, the Spirit is the realization of the Son, and the Son is the embodiment of the Father. When we have the realization, we have the embodiment, and we also have the Triune God. This becomes the bountiful supply that supports us in our spiritual life.
The all-inclusive Spirit is also the reality of Christ’s resurrection with His death, dispensing Christ’s death with its effectiveness and Christ’s resurrection with its power into our being so that we may be identified with Christ and experience His death and resurrection (Rom. 6:5; Col. 2:12). Just as we cannot separate Christ’s ascension from His resurrection, we cannot separate Christ’s resurrection from His death. If we have Christ’s resurrection, we will surely enjoy His death. However, we do not experience Christ’s resurrection first; rather, we experience His death first.
In the same year that I was saved, I began to read books by Brother Watchman Nee. In those books he taught mainly that we need to realize and reckon that our old man has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6). I began to consider how I could be crucified with Christ. Christ was crucified two thousand years earlier on Mount Calvary outside Jerusalem. With respect to time, He was crucified two thousand years earlier, and with regard to space, He was quite far from where I lived. He was He, and I was I. How could I have been crucified with Him?
A. B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, published a number of books and wrote quite a few excellent hymns on the experience of Christ’s death and resurrection (see Hymns, #481, 482, 484, and 692). One of his hymns (#692) says, “There’s a little word that the Lord has giv’n / For our help in the hour of need: / Let us reckon ourselves to be dead to sin, / To be dead and dead indeed.” The chorus goes on to say, “Let us reckon, reckon, reckon, / Let us reckon, rather than feel; / Let us be true to the reck’ning, / And He will make it real.” I tried to “reckon, reckon, reckon” and found out that this surely does not work. When I reckoned myself dead, I became more living. Brother Nee spoke of reckoning in his earlier ministry. For example, the messages given by Brother Nee that were published as The Normal Christian Life were given before 1938. Later, he began to see the Body of Christ, and his ministry became more mature. He then said that the real experience of Christ’s death is in the Spirit, as covered in Romans 8. He said that Romans 6 could be experienced only in Romans 8. Romans 6 contains the doctrine, the fact, of our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection, but the experience of this fact is in Romans 8 by the Spirit. If we live, walk, and do everything according to the Spirit, we will have the experience of Christ’s death and of His resurrection. It is in this way that we are identified with Christ and experience His death and resurrection.
The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, supplying us with His bountiful supply that we may magnify Christ by living Him (Phil. 1:19b-21a). Quite early in my Christian life I was told that I should live out Christ and magnify Christ. However, I did not have the way to do this. Philippians 1:20 speaks of magnifying Christ, and verse 21 mentions the matter of living Christ, but I did not see that the way to live and magnify Christ is found in verse 19. This verse speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It does not mention the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Jehovah but the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Surely this is the processed Spirit, the compounded and consummated Spirit. The Spirit of God has become the Spirit of Jesus Christ because God the Spirit has been processed and has been consummated. With this Spirit there is a bountiful supply, and the bountiful supply of this Spirit is the way for us to magnify Christ by living Him. The Spirit’s supplying is undoubtedly a dispensing. The bountiful supply is dispensed into us, and then we magnify Christ by living Him.
The life-giving Spirit, the compound Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit, is the indwelling Spirit, strengthening us (through the divine dispensing) into our inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts, that we may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God, which is the church (Eph. 3:16-19). In Ephesians 3:16 Paul prayed that God would strengthen us through His Spirit into our inner man. To live in the outer man does not require us to do anything. Every morning when we rise up, we are in the outer man. If we are not watchful, we will be in the outer man the whole day. We talk in the outer man, we laugh in the outer man, we express our attitude in the outer man — we do everything in the outer man. We are just an outer man. But we should live in the inner man. However, this can take place only by our entering into our inner man. According to Ephesians 3:16, the way to enter into the inner man is by the strengthening of the Spirit. The Spirit strengthens us into the inner man.
When we have morning watch and experience a morning revival, we are in the inner man. Before that time we might have wanted to argue with someone in the outer man, but after ten minutes we were in the inner man by being strengthened through the Spirit. However, ten minutes later, we might be back in the outer man. At that point we need to pray. This is why the Bible tells us to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17). Only prayer and calling on the name of the Lord can strengthen us into the inner man and keep us in the inner man. This kind of strengthening is also a dispensing. It dispenses the divine element into our being and strengthens us into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts. Christ is in our spirit, but He needs to spread from our spirit into our hearts to make His home there that we may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are, that is, the dimensions of Christ. We need to know this unlimited Christ that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God. The fullness here simply means the manifestation, the expression, of God, which is the church. The church is the expression of God. When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be able to know His dimensions. Then we will be filled unto all the fullness of God. This is altogether by the inner dispensing of the Spirit. First, the Spirit strengthens us into the inner man; then the Spirit strengthens us so that Christ may make His home in our being, making us the expression of God, that God may be fully expressed.
The Spirit is the oneness of the Body of Christ, being the essence of the Body, which is constituted with Christ as the element, out from the origin of God the Father, to consummate the mingling of the Triune God with the Body of Christ through the divine dispensing (Eph. 4:3-6). Christ is the element of the Body, and the Spirit is the essence. This element is out from the origin of God the Father. Thus, with the Body of Christ, the Father is the origin, the Son is the element, and the Spirit is the essence. This is the Triune God — the origin, the element, and the essence. These three are blended and mingled with the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ, the church, is four-in-one: the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the Body. Ephesians 4:4-6 speaks of one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God the Father. In the Body the Spirit is the essence. The essence needs the element, which is the Lord Christ. The element must have an origin, a source, which is the Father. The Father is the source, the origin. Out of the Father there is the element, and within the element there is the essence. God is the origin, the Son is the element, the Spirit is the essence, and the Body is the very constitution. These are four-in-one. However, only the first three are worthy of our worship; the fourth, the Body, should not be deified as an object of worship.
The Spirit as the oneness of the Body of Christ is the essence of the Body to consummate the mingling of the Triune God with the Body of Christ through the divine dispensing. Today something is going on to mingle the Father as the origin, the Son as the element, and the Spirit as the essence with the Body. This mingling is continuing today and will be consummated. The Spirit is the essence of the Body to consummate this mingling.
The Spirit is the consummation of the processed God, sanctifying us with the divine and holy nature of God that we may be separated and made holy unto God (Rom. 6:19b, 22b; 15:16b; 1 Thes. 5:23; 2 Pet. 1:4b). The Spirit today is a consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God. This Spirit is sanctifying us with the divine and holy nature of God. This sanctifying is surely a dispensing of the divine and holy nature of God into our being that we may be separated and made holy unto God. The nature of God is the very element with the essence of God’s holiness. With this essence we can be and will be sanctified unto God.
The all-inclusive Spirit is the regenerating Spirit, renewing us with the newness of Christ’s resurrection life and with the freshness of the ever-existing God as the green fir tree (Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2a; 6:4; Hosea 14:8). Regeneration is a renewing. The regenerating Spirit renews us with the newness of Christ’s resurrection life and with the freshness of the ever-existing God as the green fir tree. Hosea 14:8 tells us that God is like a fir tree, which is green the year round. This greenness is a kind of freshness. We need the newness of Christ’s resurrection life, and we need the freshness of what God is. The regenerating Spirit renews us with these two things. This renewing is also a dispensing. Without the dispensing of the newness of Christ and of the freshness of God, we could never be renewed. To be renewed we need some element, and that element is the newness of Christ and the freshness of God.
By all the foregoing items we can see that whatever this life-giving, compounded, all-inclusive Spirit does is a dispensing. Primarily, He dispenses Christ as God’s embodiment with all His experiences of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. The Spirit dispenses this triune processed God into our being so that He may be everything to us. This is the aggregate of the all-embracing blessing of the full gospel of God.
