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We have covered the Spirit’s work on John the Baptist, on the saints in the transitional period, and in Christ. Next we shall consider the work of the Spirit to convict the world. Then we shall go on to the many aspects of the Spirit’s work in the believers.
John 16:8-11 reveals that the Spirit works to convict the world, mankind, concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment: “Having come, He will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” The Spirit always convicts the world concerning the three matters of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Sin entered through Adam (Rom. 5:12), righteousness is the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), and judgment is for Satan, who is the author and source of sin (John 8:44). We were born of sin in Adam. The only way to be freed from sin is to believe in Christ, the Son of God. If we believe in Him, He will be righteousness to us, and we shall be justified in Him (Rom. 3:24; 4:25). If we do not repent of the sin in Adam and believe in Christ the Son of God, we shall remain in sin and share the judgment of Satan for eternity (Matt. 25:41).
In John 16:8-11 the convicting work of the Spirit is related to three persons: Adam, Christ, and Satan. We all became fallen in Adam, but we may believe in Christ and be justified. Because Christ was accepted by God in His death, God raised Him up from among the dead, and now He becomes righteousness to all who believe in Him. Satan, the source of death, has been judged and destroyed through Christ’s death (Heb. 2:14). The three main items in these three verses are related to these three persons: sin is related to Adam, righteousness is related to Christ, and judgment is related to Satan. We were born of Adam, but we have believed in Christ and have received Him as our righteousness. However, all those who do not believe in Christ will suffer the judgment of Satan. Because they remain followers of Satan, they will have the same destiny as Satan.
When the Spirit comes, He convicts unbelievers, fallen sinners, of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Sinners, who are born in Adam, must believe in the resurrected Christ so that they may have Him as their righteousness. If they do not believe, they will be judged by God as Satan is. When the gospel is preached in a proper way, those who hear should have the desire not to remain in Adam but to be transferred into Christ. These people will then be regenerated and saved. To them the convicting Spirit will become the regenerating Spirit (John 3:6), the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), and the Spirit of reality, dwelling within them (John 14:17).
The Spirit came to us to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. We repented, believed in the Lord Jesus, and escaped the judgment that is upon Satan. We have been transferred out of Adam and into Christ. We have also become children of God and members of Christ. Now we can be filled and saturated with the Triune God, who is dispensing Himself into us and mingling Himself with us.
Let us now begin to consider the work of the Spirit in the believers for the divine dispensing. Although the Spirit works on the believers as well as in them, the main part of His work is in the believers, and only a small part is on them. Just as the Holy Spirit worked mainly in Christ and not on Him, so the Spirit works mainly in the believers and not on them. This work of the Spirit in the believers is for the divine dispensing.
In Luke 15:8-9 the Spirit is likened to a woman finding a lost coin by lighting a lamp, sweeping the house, and seeking the coin carefully. This signifies that the Spirit enlightens sinners within their hearts by God’s word of light to seek them that they may repent unto God.
First Peter 1:2 indicates that the Spirit sanctifies, separates, repentant sinners unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, that is, unto the believing in the redemption of Christ that they may become the Lord’s. While the Spirit enlightens sinners, to seek them for God, He is sanctifying, separating, them unto the Lord.
Followingly, the Spirit works in the believers by regenerating them (John 3:5-6). Regeneration is God’s dispensing of Himself in His life and nature into our being. Therefore, regeneration is the reality of the divine dispensing.
Even our natural, human birth involved a human dispensing. God created Adam, one person. Through generation, Adam’s life has been dispensed into billions of descendants. Generation, therefore, is a matter of dispensing. The entire human race is under such a human dispensing. The principle is the same with regeneration. Just as human generation is a matter of human dispensing, so divine regeneration is a matter of divine dispensing. We were generated in humanity, but God wants to regenerate us in divinity. This regeneration in divinity is a dispensing of divinity into humanity, a dispensing that makes humanity divine.
Regeneration is a matter of God’s dispensing of Himself into our being as our life and nature. As believers, regenerated ones, our nature and life are God Himself, not God in Himself but God in His dispensing. This view of regeneration as the reality of the divine dispensing should encourage us to live and walk in such a way that we remain under God’s dispensing.
In John 3:5 and 6 the Lord Jesus speaks of the Spirit’s work in regenerating the believers: “Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The Spirit in verse 6 is the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, and the spirit is the human spirit, the regenerated spirit of man. To be regenerated, to be born anew (vv. 3, 7), is to be born of the Spirit in our spirit. The divine Spirit regenerates the human spirit with the divine life. Regeneration takes place in our spirit, which was made by God for this very purpose. Regeneration is a birth of the Spirit, God’s Spirit, that brings forth spirit, our regenerated spirit. Therefore, regeneration takes place in the human spirit by the Holy Spirit of God with God’s uncreated, eternal life. Once our spirit has been born of the Spirit of God with the life of God, it has the Spirit with the divine life in it and mingled with it. Our spirit becomes thereby a mingled spirit — the regenerated human spirit mingled with the divine Spirit. In this mingled spirit we are “one spirit” with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17).
We may talk about regeneration without realizing that in regeneration we have been given the divine life. The main work the Spirit does in regeneration is to impart the divine life, the eternal, uncreated life of God, into us. This means that the Spirit gives life to the believers.
Although Christ is life, it is difficult for Christ to give you life. It is the Spirit who gives life. Christ is life, but it is the Spirit who gives us Christ as life. Apart from the Spirit Christ may be life, but Christ as life cannot be given to us. By being the Spirit Christ is imparted into us as life. Today, after being processed, Christ is the life-giving Spirit. Now in our spirit we may enjoy this wonderful Spirit as the Spirit who gives us the divine life. Second Corinthians 3:6c and John 6:63 both reveal that the Spirit gives us life. Second Corinthians 3:6c says, “The Spirit gives life.” The Spirit, who is the ultimate expression of the processed Triune God becoming a life-giving Spirit, imparts the divine life, even God Himself into the believers. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus Himself declares, “It is the Spirit who gives life.” After resurrection and through resurrection the Lord Jesus, who had become flesh (John 1:14), became the Spirit who gives life, as is clearly mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:45. It is as the life-giving Spirit that He can be the life and life supply to us. When we receive Him as the crucified and resurrected Savior, the Spirit who gives life comes into us to impart eternal life to us.
As believers we are persons with the divine life in us. We have received another life — eternal life — in addition to our human life. Now we need to learn to live not by the human life but by the divine life in the human life. This is not to live an exchanged life, the divine life exchanged for the human life; it is to live a mingled life, the divine life mingled with the human life. Now that we have two lives, we should not live in our human life apart from the divine life. On the contrary, we should live by the divine life in the human life. The giving of this divine life is a work done by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit also works to save us by renewing us (Titus 3:5). In ourselves we are the old creation. As the old creation, we are old not only in appearance but also in nature. We are intrinsically old. We are old in every way, old both inwardly and outwardly. Because we are the old creation, we need not only regeneration but also the renewing of the Spirit that follows regeneration. After we have been regenerated, we need to be renewed little by little. Daily we should cooperate with the renewing work of the Spirit so that the process of His renewing within us may be speeded up.
Titus 3:5 says, “According to His mercy, He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Here we see that God’s salvation is through a certain action: the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. In Greek the word for regeneration in verse 5 is different from that for born again (1 Pet. 1:23). The only place this word is used is in Matthew 19:28 for the restoration of the millennium. Here it refers to a change from one state of things to another. To be born again is the beginning of this change. The washing of regeneration begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation to make us a new man. It is a kind of reconditioning, remaking, remodeling, with life. Baptism (Rom. 6:3-5), the putting off of the old man, the putting on of the new man (Eph. 4:22, 24; Col. 3:9-11), and transformation by the renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23) are all related to this wonderful process. The washing of regeneration purges away all the things of the old nature of our old man, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit imparts something new — the divine essence of the new man — into our being. In this is a passage from the old state we were in into a wholly new one, from the old creation into the status of a new creation. Hence, both the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit are a continual working in us throughout our whole life until the completion of the new creation.
The Holy Spirit is the divine Person, washing and renewing us in the divine element to make us a new creation with the divine nature to be heirs of God in His eternal life, inheriting all the riches of the Triune God. The Spirit began to renew us from our regeneration and is renewing us continuously every day and all day to make us a new creation with the divine life.
As the Holy Spirit saves us by renewing us, He frees us by His law of life from the law of sin and death. In Romans 8:2 Paul says, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and of death.” In this verse “law” does not denote a commandment but a principle that operates automatically and spontaneously. A law is a natural regulation, a constant and unchanging rule. Every kind of life has such a law. The law of a certain life is the innate ability of that life. This ability is inborn, spontaneous, automatic, constant, and instant. Therefore, as long as a particular life exists and is free, it can naturally develop its characteristics and manifest its abilities. It does not require human teaching or urging; rather, it develops very naturally without the least effort. Such natural characteristics and innate capabilities in a life constitute the law of that life.
The life of God is the highest life, the life that surpasses every other kind of life. Thus, the characteristics and capabilities of the divine life are most high and surpassing. Because these highest and surpassing characteristics and capabilities constitute the law of the life of God, this law naturally is the most high and surpassing. Through regeneration we have received the life of God, the divine, eternal, uncreated life. Since by regeneration we have received the life of God, we have naturally received from the life of God the most high and surpassing law of this life.
In Romans 8:2 Paul speaks not merely of the law of life but of the law of the Spirit of life. The law of the Spirit of life is nothing less than the processed Triune God becoming the life-giving Spirit to dwell within us. This means that the processed Triune God is Himself the law of the Spirit of life. Just as sin is actually a person — Satan — so this law is also a person — the Triune God. Today our God is not only the mighty One, the Redeemer, and the Savior. He is even more than just our life and life supply — He is a law working within us. After being processed, the Triune God has been dispensed into us to become a law in us. Now He is not only something organic but also something automatic. Whatever this processed and indwelling Triune God does in us, with us, and on us is a function of the law. Our God is not merely an objective worker, working by activities outside of us and beyond us. Our God has become a subjective law, working all the time within us not by activities but by law. It is a wonderful fact that the highest law, the Triune God as the law of life, has been installed into us and now works within us not by activity but by law. He is a law operating within us, working not merely as the mighty God but as a law that operates automatically.
The two laws in Romans 8:2 are actually two persons. The law of sin and death is Satan, and the law of the Spirit of life is the Triune God. In order for Satan and the Triune God to become, respectively, the negative and positive laws operating in us, it was necessary for both persons to enter our being. If Satan had not come into man, he could not be the law of sin and death within man. In the same principle, if the Triune God had remained outside of us, He could not be to us the law of the Spirit of life. Because the Triune God has been processed and dispensed into us and now dwells in us, He has become to us the law of the Spirit of life. This law, which is the automatic and spontaneous divine power, is in our spirit. Therefore, this law, having the divine Spirit and eternal life as its elements, is powerful and dynamic.
The Spirit works in us to free us by His law of life from the law of sin and death. Apart from the working of the Spirit, the law of life is of no avail. This law is actualized in the Spirit. This means that the Spirit is the reality and practicality of the law of life, which now operates in us automatically.
Because the highest law, the law of the divine life, is operating within us, there is no need for us to strive to overcome the law of sin and death. Instead of striving, we should simply allow the law of the Spirit of life to work within us. But although this law works in us automatically, it still needs our cooperation through our faith and obedience. For such a cooperation we need to pray without ceasing to keep ourselves in the divine fellowship. If we do not cooperate, the freeing Spirit, who is the law working within us, will be frustrated. But if we cooperate, the Spirit will operate by His law of life to free us from the law of sin and death.
Furthermore, as the Spirit works in this way, the Triune God is dispensed into our entire tripartite being, into our spirit, soul, and body. Through the working of the Spirit by His law of life the riches of the divine life are being dispensed into us. While the Spirit is saving and renewing us, He is dispensing the divine life into us. While He is freeing us, He is dispensing the elements of God’s life and nature into our being. Eventually, this dispensing will become our spiritual constitution. We shall be constituted of the divine elements through the dispensing work of the Holy Spirit.
The dispensing Spirit gives life even to our mortal bodies. Romans 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” This verse reveals that as the life-giving Spirit dwells in us, that is, makes His home in us, He will impart the divine life not only into our spirits and souls but even into our mortal bodies. Through the indwelling Spirit our bodies are enlivened by the divine life.
According to Romans 8:11, it is possible for divine, eternal life to be given to our mortal bodies. In this verse Paul says that if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in us, He who raised Christ Jesus from among the dead will give life to our mortal bodies, and this will take place through the indwelling Spirit. When we put together verses 10, 6, and 11, we see that not only is our spirit life, and our mind life, if it is set on the spirit, but life may also be given to our mortal bodies through the Spirit.
The Bible reveals that, as human beings, we are tripartite. This means that we have a spirit, a soul, and a body. In Romans 8 we see that first our spirit becomes life through regeneration. Then if we are faithful to set our mind on our spirit, our mind will also become life. This will prepare the way for the Spirit to give life to our mortal bodies. As a result, our bodies will receive the divine life.
Romans 8:11 speaks of our “mortal bodies.” The word “mortal” indicates that our bodies are subject to death. However, if we contact the Lord when we are physically weak or sick, the Spirit will dispense the divine life into our weak and sick bodies. In this way our bodies are strengthened and healed. This is not the healing by an outward miracle; on the contrary, this is the healing by the inward dispensing of life. This kind of healing does not take place suddenly. On the contrary, healing through the divine dispensing takes time. Gradually, through the Spirit’s giving life to our mortal bodies, we are healed, perhaps without being aware of it. Therefore, the believers may be healthy and strong through the gradual and continual dispensing of the divine life by working the Spirit into their whole being, even into their mortal bodies.
