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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:2b; Judg. 3:10a; Psa. 51:11; Isa. 63:10-11; Luke 1:15, 31-35; Matt. 1:18, 20; John 7:39; Rom. 8:2, 9; Acts 16:7b; Phil. 1:19b; 2 Cor. 3:17b, 18b; Exo. 30:23-30; 1 John 2:20, 27
In this chapter we want to see the compounding of the Spirit. I hope that this truth can be transfused into our being. The Christian life is altogether a matter of the Spirit. “No Spirit, no Christian life.” John 4:24 says that God is Spirit. If we do not know the Spirit, we are through with God. As long as we are through with God, we are through with the Christian life. The revelation of the Spirit in the Bible is crucial. My burden is not to teach theology or biblical doctrines but to minister the healthy teaching concerning the real Christian life. The real Christian life is altogether a matter of the Spirit.
In the first half of the twentieth century, there were two prominent and strong inner-life teachers. They were Jessie Penn-Lewis and T. Austin-Sparks. I would say that they are the ones who came at the end of the inner-life movement.
The inner-life movement began with Madame Guyon, Father Fenelon, and others in the seventeenth century. They are known as mystics, and their teaching, as mysticism. Madame Guyon and Father Fenelon never left the Catholic Church, but they were very strong in the inner life. With them, however, the inner life was too mysterious and became a difficult thing for people to enter into and apprehend.
In the eighteenth century, William Law, a British scholar, improved the writings of the mystics, and this became a help to others. Later, Andrew Murray, a Dutch Reformed minister in South Africa, improved William Law’s writing further. Andrew Murray was a speaker in the Keswick convention. His writings are very spiritual. His longest book is his exposition of the book of Hebrews entitled The Holiest of All. His masterpiece is a book entitled The Spirit of Christ.
After Andrew Murray, Jessie Penn-Lewis was raised up. She received help from Andrew Murray and became very prevailing. She stressed the subjective death of Christ. Her message was not on the objective cross but on the subjective cross. Some portions concerning the cross in Brother Watchman Nee’s book The Spiritual Man mostly were translated from Mrs. Penn-Lewis’s writings. Mrs. Penn-Lewis was also very strong in teaching concerning spiritual warfare. This teaching is in a book entitled War on the Saints. The section in The Spiritual Man concerning spiritual warfare is fully a translation from this book. Thus, Mrs. Penn-Lewis was very famous in two things: in the subjective death of Christ and in the spiritual warfare.
Following her, one of her co-workers by the name of T. Austin-Sparks was raised up by the Lord. He became prevailing in the teaching of the principles and life of Christ’s resurrection. Thus, Sister Penn-Lewis, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, emphasized the death of Christ, and Brother T. Austin-Sparks, in the second quarter of this century, emphasized the resurrection of Christ. Both of them were strongly against Pentecostalism. If you read Brother Nee’s The Spiritual Man carefully, you can realize that the writer of the section on spiritual warfare was a strong opposer of Pentecostalism. Mrs. Penn-Lewis considered Pentecostalism altogether as a demonic work. Brother Austin-Sparks was also absolutely against Pentecostalism.
They were both against Pentecostalism, but they also were very strong in the Spirit. Brother T. Austin-Sparks would not recognize any meeting as a church meeting unless that meeting was initiated by long prayer for the leading of the Spirit. He told me that every local church should be established by the leading of the Spirit through much prayer.
Because the Spirit is abstract and mysterious, many disregard and neglect the truth concerning the Spirit and the experience of the Spirit. The Southern Baptist denomination, the biggest and most fundamental denomination in the United States, discourages their preachers from speaking concerning the Spirit. They stress the Word, not the Spirit.
By this we can see that the bona fide, fundamental, real seekers of Christ all have problems related to the Spirit. The divisive factor among the fundamental, spiritual, and seeking Christians is not related mainly to doctrines. The divisive factor is nearly altogether due to the apprehension, comprehension, and realization of the Spirit.
There are different concepts concerning the Spirit because the Spirit is so mysterious and deep. God is a mystery, God’s mystery is Christ (Col. 2:2), and Christ’s mystery is the church (Eph. 3:4). The Spirit is also a great mystery. If this message concerning the compound Spirit could be understood, comprehended, and apprehended by us, the problems concerning the Spirit would spontaneously be solved. In order to receive the fellowship in this chapter properly, we not only need to exercise our spirit but also need to exercise our sober mind.
The first title of the Spirit in the Old Testament is the Spirit of God. This title is in Genesis 1:2. Genesis 1:1 says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then verse 2 says that the Spirit of God brooded over the death waters.
The second divine title of the Spirit in the Old Testament is the Spirit of Jehovah (Judg. 3:10a). In Genesis 1 we have the title God, but in Genesis 2 we have another title, Jehovah, because in this chapter God begins to have contact with the man created by Him. Therefore, Jehovah is a title used for God’s contact with man. It denotes God’s relationship with man. Whenever God came to contact people in the Old Testament, He was the Spirit of Jehovah.
Psalm 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10-11 refer to the Spirit of holiness, but this is not a divine title of the Spirit. The King James Version translates the Spirit of holiness into “the Holy Spirit.” This, however, is a wrong translation. Thy Holy Spirit in Psalm 51:11 should be “Your Spirit of holiness” according to the Hebrew, and his Holy Spirit in Isaiah 63:10-11 should be “His Spirit of holiness.” The Spirit of holiness in Psalm 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10-11 is a description, not a title. It does not denote the third person of the Trinity. The Spirit of holiness refers to the nature and the essence of God. Andrew Murray points this out strongly. The Spirit of holiness is a description of what God is.
The title the Holy Spirit is not used in the Old Testament. It is used particularly at the time when the New Testament economy started — first at the coming of John the Baptist and then at the coming of the Lord Jesus. These two comings actually were one initiation of the New Testament economy. The New Testament economy was initiated by the conception of John the Baptist and the conception of the Lord Jesus. With these two conceptions the Bible starts to use a new divine title, that is, the Holy Spirit.
Actually, according to the Greek, the title the Holy Spirit can be translated literally as “the Spirit the Holy.” The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, is the Spirit the Holy. The Holy refers to the separated One, the sanctified One. In the New Testament economy everything must be separated unto God, sanctified unto God, made holy to God. The Spirit of God now is the Spirit the Holy, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit concerns the initiation of God’s New Testament economy related to the conceptions of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus (Luke 1:15, 31-35; Matt. 1:18, 20). When the New Testament age began, the Bible uses a particular name to denote the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the Spirit the Holy, the Holy Spirit.
John 7:39 reveals that the Spirit was not yet before Christ’s resurrection. The King James Version in John 7:39 says that the Spirit was not yet “given.” The word given is in italics, meaning that it is not there in the original Greek text. The original Greek says, “The Spirit was not yet.” The Spirit of God was there from the beginning (Gen. 1:1-2), but at the time the Lord Jesus spoke in John 7, the Spirit as the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19), was not yet, because the Lord had not yet been glorified.
According to John 7:39, the Spirit was not yet, “because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” This indicates that the glorification of Jesus has everything to do with the Spirit’s existence. According to Luke 24:26, Jesus was glorified when He was resurrected. Christ’s resurrection, which was His glorification, was like the blooming of a flower. When a flower blooms, that is its resurrection and also its glorification. Christ’s resurrection was Christ’s “blooming,” and that blooming was His glorification.
John 7:39 indicates clearly that before Christ’s resurrection the Spirit was not yet. The Spirit of God was there, the Spirit of Jehovah was there, and even the Holy Spirit was there. From the conceptions of John the Baptist and Christ, the term the Holy Spirit began to be used. But when Christ came out to minister, the Bible tells us that before His resurrection, His glorification, “the Spirit was not yet.”
The Spirit is the main subject in John 14—16. The Lord said that He would ask the Father to send the disciples another Comforter, who is the Spirit of reality (14:16-17; 15:26; 16:13). The Lord’s speaking in John 14—16 was in the evening that He was arrested. The next day He was crucified, and after three days He was resurrected. In resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In the evening of the day of His resurrection, He came back to the disciples, breathed into them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). At that time “the Spirit” as the Spirit of reality began to exist. This is clearly recorded in the New Testament, but in Christianity no one has paid attention to this except Andrew Murray.
Andrew Murray, in the fifth chapter of his book entitled The Spirit of Christ, speaks of the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the incarnated, crucified, and glorified Christ. In eternity past Christ was God; He was divine; He was altogether not human. The human element was not in Him in eternity past. He had only one unique element, that is, His divinity. But when He became incarnated, He picked up the flesh, that is, humanity. In His incarnation He became a God-man. This means that He became One with two natures — the divine nature and the human nature. As God, He has divinity; as man, He has humanity. After His incarnation He is a person with two elements: the divine element, God, and the human element, man. Thus, He is the God-man with two natures, divine and human. He possesses both divinity and humanity.
While He was living on the earth, He was called Jesus. Before His resurrection He was divine, but His humanity was not divine and spiritual. Jesus’ body of flesh before His resurrection was not glorious, divine, spiritual, attractive, marvelous, splendorous, majestic, or excellent. Rather, according to Isaiah 53, Jesus was a person who was very lowly, with no attractiveness, no beauty, no comeliness (vv. 2-3; 52:14). But within His earthen vessel, within His humanity, there was God, who is divine. His divinity was concealed in His humanity. His divine being was altogether contained in the earthen vessel of His humanity. Thus, His human part, in the thirty-three and a half years of His human living, was not divine, was not glorious.
In His human living He lived in Nazareth in a carpenter’s home for thirty years, and He ministered for three and a half years. He was a man who was altogether not glorious and even very lowly. Therefore, He was looked down upon and despised by many people. Some who despised Him said, “Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3). He was not a glorious, divine carpenter. If He were, He would have become a great attraction. All the Jews would have streamed to Him in Nazareth. But when He came out, He had no outward beauty or comeliness for people to pay attention to Him.
His human shell concealed His divinity. This shell was altogether not handsome, beautiful, or comely. This means that He was a person with two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. The divine nature was glorious. Once, on a high mountain, He was transfigured for a short time (Matt. 17:1-2). Besides that short time, His divinity was concealed within His humanity for thirty-three and a half years. But on the mount of His transfiguration, the inner glory within Him swallowed up His outer humanity. Then He became glorious. That was a prefigure of His resurrection.
He was in a glorious divine nature and in a very low human nature for thirty-three and a half years. Then He died, and His death broke His human shell and released the inner, glorious, divine life (John 12:24). After three days He entered into resurrection. When He became incarnated, He put on humanity. Then when He was resurrected, He brought His humanity into divinity.
Andrew Murray says that when Christ was resurrected, He sanctified His flesh. This means that He made His humanity divine. He uplifted the human nature. Christ in His incarnation brought God into humanity, and in His resurrection He brought humanity into divinity. Andrew Murray uses the word interwoven to describe this. By becoming incarnated and by being resurrected, Christ did an interweaving work. He interwove divinity into humanity and humanity into divinity. This is similar to the interweaving of two types of materials. Silk may be interwoven with cotton to produce a textile. We cannot say that this textile is only silk or only cotton. It is an interweaving of silk and cotton. In like manner, Christ is the interweaving of God and man. He was only God before His incarnation. But after His incarnation and through His resurrection, He became a God-man. God is now in humanity, and man is now in divinity. This is a kind of interweaving. Divinity was interwoven into humanity, and humanity was interwoven into divinity. Thus, divinity and humanity have become an interwoven cloth. Hallelujah, today we are wearing this cloth!
In reference to the resurrection of Christ, 1 Corinthians 15:45b says that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. This Spirit is the very essence, the very element, and the very reality of the resurrected Christ. The resurrected Christ today is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). This is why we say that Christ is the pneumatic Christ. The pneumatic Christ is Christ as the pneuma, and the pneuma is the Spirit.
We have to realize that before Christ’s resurrection there were the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Jehovah in the Old Testament and then the Holy Spirit in the Gospels. But after His resurrection Acts 16:7b speaks of the Spirit of Jesus, and Romans 8:9 speaks of the Spirit of Christ. Then Philippians 1:19 speaks of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is “the Spirit” mentioned in John 7:39, the Spirit of the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), the Spirit of Christ (v. 9), the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7b), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19b), the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17b), and the Lord Spirit (v. 18b) are new terms for the Spirit in the New Testament. The Lord Spirit is a compound title like the Father God and the Lord Christ. The Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God. He is the consummated Triune God.
The Triune God was processed to become the all-inclusive Spirit. The first step of the Triune God’s process was incarnation. The second step was human living, and the third step was His death. The fourth step was His resurrection. After going through such a “tunnel” of His process, He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). The life-giving Spirit is the processed and consummated Triune God. This Spirit, the processed and consummated Spirit, is the consummation of the Triune God, who is both God and man, having both the divine nature and the human nature. Within Him there is the element of divinity. Within Him there is also the element of the sanctified and uplifted humanity.
The Spirit, after Christ’s resurrection, is a compound Spirit, typified by the compound anointing ointment. Exodus 30:23-25 says, “You also take the finest spices: of flowing myrrh five hundred shekels, and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, two hundred fifty shekels, and of fragrant calamus two hundred fifty shekels, and of cassia five hundred shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. And you shall make it a holy anointing oil, a fragrant ointment compounded according to the work of a compounder; it shall be a holy anointing oil.” The compound anointing ointment in these verses is a unique type of the all-inclusive Spirit.
The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, is full of types. The burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering are types (Lev. 1—7). The tabernacle is also a great type (Exo. 25:8-9; 40:1-2). In Exodus 30 there is also the wonderful, mysterious type of the compound ointment. We need to be impressed with the significance of this type.
The one hin of olive oil is the base of the compound ointment, and this oil is compounded with four spices — myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. These five elements compounded together become an ointment. An ointment may be compared to paint. Paint is not merely oil, but it is oil compounded with other elements. The ointment in Exodus 30 is a compound of five elements. God told Moses to compound these five elements together to make an “ointment compound.”
Before God’s incarnation there was only the divine element in the Spirit. But through His incarnation, human living, and death, this One became a life-giving Spirit in resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45b). His divinity, humanity, human living, all-inclusive death, and wonderful resurrection are compounded in the Spirit. When I was a young Christian among the Brethren, I heard them say that the compound ointment is a type of the Spirit, but they did not get into the details. It was not until 1954 that I received the light concerning the all-inclusive Spirit as signified by the compound ointment. I received much help from Andrew Murray’s book The Spirit of Christ. Since 1954 the Lord has gradually shown us more and more concerning the details of the compound ointment.
The one hin of olive oil is a type of the unique God. Thus, the compound Spirit is compounded with the divinity of God, typified by the one hin of olive oil. This is the base. Furthermore, the four spices are all of the plant life. In the Bible plants signify humanity. Also, the number four signifies the creatures. In the ointment we have the one God with His creature, man. Thus, the compound Spirit is compounded with the humanity of Christ, typified by the four kinds of spices.
The Spirit is also compounded with Christ’s death, typified by myrrh; with the fragrance and effectiveness of Christ’s death, typified by cinnamon; with the resurrection of Christ, typified by calamus; and with the fragrance and power (especially in the sense of resisting and repelling) of Christ’s resurrection, typified by cassia.
The all-inclusive Spirit has also been compounded in the Triune God, typified by the three units of five hundred shekels, with the second one being split. The second unit of five hundred shekels being split typifies Christ as the second of the Divine Trinity, who was split, crucified, on the cross. The unique Triune God, signified by the one hin of olive oil and the three units of five hundred shekels, has been compounded together with the created man signified by the four spices of the plant life.
The number five, with the five elements and the three units of five hundred shekels, signifies that the compound Spirit enables us to bear the responsibility of the divine things. The Ten Commandments are divided into two sets of five commandments on two tablets. The ten virgins in Matthew 25 are divided into five wise ones and five foolish ones. These sets of five indicate responsibility.
We human beings must bear responsibility every day. To do our duties, to work, and to walk we need ten fingers and ten toes. We walk by our ten toes, and we work by our ten fingers. Our ten toes and ten fingers are divided into fives. Our hand has one thumb with four fingers. The one thumb may be compared to the one hin of olive oil, and the four fingers may be compared to the four spices of the compound ointment. When God, pictured by our thumb, is added to us human beings, pictured by our four fingers, we are able to bear responsibility. With only four fingers and no thumb, we cannot pick up things to bear responsibility. In like manner, without God, man cannot do anything. Man needs God added to his being, just as the four fingers need the thumb added to them so that the hand can bear responsibility. The compound Spirit is the One who bears all the responsibility of the divine things.
The compound ointment in Exodus 30 was used to anoint the tabernacle, all the utensils of the tabernacle, and the serving priests to make all these things holy, separated, sanctified, unto God for God’s divine purpose (vv. 26-30). This indicates that everything related to the divine field must be anointed by the compound Spirit. The compound Spirit typified by the compound ointment is for the anointing of the things related to the worship and service of God and His serving ones (1 John 2:20, 27). When we are under the anointing of the Spirit, we can fulfill our duty to bear responsibility for the Lord’s interest.
When we were saved, that was the beginning of our experience of the anointing by the compound Spirit. First, the Spirit came to inspire us to repent. He separated us from the common people so that we would come to Jesus. We were attracted by Jesus, we called on His name, and we believed into Him to be regenerated by the Spirit. After regeneration, we pass through the steps of sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and eventually glorification. All these are steps of the anointing.
First John 2:20 and 27 say that we have received the anointing of the Lord. Now we have to abide in the Lord according to this anointing. We have to walk, act, work, and have our being according to this anointing. This anointing is the working and the moving of the Spirit. Thus, Romans 8:4 says that we should walk according to the spirit. Then in Galatians 5 we are told to live and walk by the Spirit (vv. 16, 25). If we do not know this Spirit, how can we live the Christian life? It would be impossible.
Now we all have to ask where this compound Spirit is today. The New Testament reveals clearly and emphasizes very strongly that such a consummated Spirit is right in our spirit. Romans 8:16 says that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. Second Timothy 4:22 reveals that the Lord as the Spirit is with our spirit. If we are going to live the Christian life, we must return to our spirit and remain there.
In our Christian life we do not need to wait to hear a voice from the heavens. The experience of the compound Spirit is mysterious yet very normal. He is within us, but often we have no feeling that He is within us. However, whether we sense Him or not, He is in our spirit. Thus, we have to stay, to remain, in our spirit. Then we will walk, act, work, and speak according to the spirit. The spirit referred to in Romans 8 is actually a mingled spirit, the compound Spirit mingled with our human spirit.
It is by this compound Spirit that the death of Christ is applied to us. It is also by this Spirit that the resurrection of Christ is applied to us. The more we walk, live, move, act, and speak according to the spirit, the more we are in the Christian life. Some may say that Christ is life, but they cannot tell others how Christ can be life to them. The messages in this series on the Christian life show us how Christ as life can be applied to us.
All of us need to be clear about the significance of the compound ointment as a type of the compound Spirit. In order to have a clear revelation of the Spirit, we must be clear about this type. This is similar to our vision of the human government on earth. In order to see the situation of human government on earth from the divine viewpoint, we must be clear about the significance of the great human image in Daniel 2. If we do not understand the significances of that human image, we cannot understand human government in the biblical sense. In Exodus 30 there is a type of the compound Spirit. This is a particular, unique type. This type is beyond our human thought and realization, yet it must be interpreted.
As children of God, we are obliged to understand the type of the compound ointment. We must understand this type in order to understand the Spirit, just as we must understand that great human image in Daniel 2 in order to understand the prophecy concerning the political government on this earth in God’s economy. The significance of the type of the compound ointment in Exodus 30 is greater than the creation of the universe. This type shows us that eventually our Triune God, after passing through all the processes, has become this ointment. Our processed and consummated Triune God is this ointment.
Day after day and moment after moment this ointment is working, moving, acting, and speaking within us. This moving of the ointment, this anointing, teaches us concerning all things. The anointing is the working, moving, acting, and speaking of the ointment, and the ointment is the consummation of our Triune God. We can see now that this type of the compound ointment in Exodus 30 is marvelous.
What is the Christian life? The Christian life is the acting, moving, working, and speaking of the consummated God who is typified by the compound ointment. In this life both God and man are applied to us. We are a poor man, a low man, but we have an uplifted man, a man of the divine standard, in this anointing. In this anointing we also have Christ’s death and His death’s effectiveness, which is so sweet. We have been forgiven, justified, and reconciled to God through His death so that we could be regenerated to be sons of God. How sweet is the effectiveness of His death as typified by the cinnamon!
Then in this anointing we have Christ’s resurrection applied to us. Christ’s resurrection is so powerful, especially in the sense of resisting and repelling the enemy and all the negative things. This is typified by cassia, which was used in ancient times to repel insects and snakes. Christ’s resurrection resists all the opposition and attacks from the enemy, and it repels all the evil “insects” and “snakes.” Christ’s resurrection is repelling all the demons, evil spirits, and especially their leading one, the snake, the old serpent, the devil.
The Christian life is not the living out of our natural human virtues. These good things, along with the evil things, belong to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only the Christian life that is revealed in the Scriptures as the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit belongs to the tree of life. I hope that the fellowship in this message will give us a clear picture of the Christian life.
