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We have seen that the church is a mystery hidden in God’s eternal economy. We have also seen that the church as the mystery of Christ has been revealed in two steps: first by Christ and then by the Holy Spirit. In the first step, Christ revealed the church outwardly to His apostles. He showed them the universal and local aspects of the church but not the mysterious aspect. This aspect was not revealed until, after His resurrection, Christ had become the life-giving Spirit and had breathed Himself into His disciples and, on the day of Pentecost, had poured out the consummated Spirit upon them. After all this had taken place, the believers, especially the apostles, were equipped and qualified to realize something deeper and more profound concerning the church. They could see something not just outwardly but inwardly, not something that could simply be realized in the mind and in the heart but something that needed to be understood by the human spirit. Paul in particular received in his spirit the revelation of the church as the mystery of Christ. In his spirit he received the completed revelation concerning Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ. Therefore, in his Epistles Paul unveils these two mysteries.
The revelation of the church as the mystery of Christ is received not in our mind or in our heart but in our spirit, in the regenerated human spirit indwelt by the Spirit of reality. Because Paul was enlightened in his regenerated spirit, he entered into the vision of the church as the mystery of Christ and spoke concerning this vision in his Epistles, telling us of this mystery.
Having considered the church as the hidden mystery in God’s eternal economy and having seen that the church, the mystery of Christ, has been revealed first by Christ in the Gospels and then by the Holy Spirit in the Epistles, we shall begin in this message to consider the formation of the church. First, we shall see the formation of the church in a general way, and then we shall cover the details.
We need to realize that none of us is qualified to form the church. Only the Lord Jesus is qualified for this. In Matthew 16:18 He says, “I will build My church.” He is the unique one who is qualified to form the church.
In order for Christ to form the church it was necessary for Him to pass through death and enter into resurrection. In resurrection He was transfigured from the flesh to the Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us that in His resurrection and through His resurrection Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
On the day of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples in a wonderful way. “When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, Peace be to you” (John 20:19). The disciples were “startled and became frightened and thought they beheld a spirit” (Luke 24:37), that is a phantom, a ghost, a specter. The Lord said to them, “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you behold Me having” (Luke 24:39). The Lord had a physical body that could be seen and touched. After showing the disciples “both His hands and His side” (John 20:20), the Lord “breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). This is the Spirit expected in John 7:39 and promised in 16:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:7-8, 13. Hence, the Lord’s breathing of the Holy Spirit into the disciples was the fulfillment of His promise of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter. Here the Spirit as the breath was breathed as life into the disciples for their life. By breathing the Spirit into the disciples, the Lord imparted Himself as life and everything into them.
The Lord Jesus came to His disciples on the day of His resurrection as the pneumatic Christ. The Greek word for “Spirit” in John 20:22 is pneuma, a word that also means breath or air. In John 1 Christ is the Lamb, but in John 20, after His death and in His resurrection, He is the pneumatic Christ. To say that Christ is the pneumatic Christ means that He is full of the divine breath. Whereas in John 1 Christ came as the Lamb, in John 20 He came as the pneuma. The fact that He breathed into the disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit indicates that He had come to them as the breath, the pneuma. The Lord became the pneumatic Christ through resurrection, and today, in resurrection, He still comes to us as the Spirit, the pneuma.
After the Lord Jesus came in John 20:19, there is no word or hint in John’s record indicating that the Lord left the disciples. The reason for this is that He stayed with them, although they were not conscious of His presence. Instead of leaving them, He disappeared, becoming invisible. But to the surprise of the disciples, at various times and in different places He would appear, manifesting Himself to them. Acts 1:3 tells us that to the apostles “He presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs, through a period of forty days, appearing to them.” His appearing does not mean that He ever left them; it simply means that He made His presence visible to them.
After appearing to His disciples for a period of forty days, the Lord Jesus ascended to the heavens. Ten days later, on the day of Pentecost, He, having again received the consummated Spirit, poured out this Spirit upon all His disciples.
At this point we need to consider the difference between the essential Spirit and the economical Spirit. The essential Spirit is for the believers’ spiritual life, living, existence, and being, and the economical Spirit is for God’s economy, work, and move. On the day of His resurrection the Lord Jesus breathed the Spirit into the disciples essentially as life for their spiritual existence. Then fifty days later, on the day of Pentecost, Christ, in His ascension, poured out the consummated Spirit upon His disciples economically as power for their work.
In the Lord’s resurrection, the Spirit of resurrection life is likened to breath, breathed into the disciples for their spiritual being and living essentially. In the Lord’s ascension, the Spirit of ascension power, poured out upon the disciples, is symbolized by wind for the disciples’ ministry and move economically (Acts 2:2). The essential Spirit of resurrection life is for the believers to live Christ; the economical Spirit of ascension power is for them to carry out His commission.
We need to see clearly the difference between the breathing in John 20 and the blowing in Acts 2. The breathing in John 20 is for the imparting of the life-giving Spirit into the believers essentially for their spiritual being and for their spiritual living. But the blowing in Acts 2 is for the pouring out of the economical Spirit of power upon the believers, who have already received the essential Spirit into them. The pouring out of the Spirit of power is not for the believers’ spiritual being or living; rather, the outpouring of the Spirit of power is for the believers’ ministry and move. Therefore, the essential aspect of the Spirit is for living, and the economical aspect is for ministry.
The Lord Jesus Himself is the pattern for the believers’ receiving the Spirit both essentially and economically. First, the Spirit came as the divine essence for the conceiving and birth of the Lord Jesus (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20). This was the coming of the Spirit essentially for Christ’s existence and being as the God-man.
The Holy Spirit also came to Jesus Christ as the divine power for the anointing of Christ (Matt. 3:16). This was economical and was for Christ’s ministry and work, whereas the coming of the Spirit as the divine essence was essential and was for the Lord’s being and living. When He came forth at the age of thirty to minister and work for God, He needed the Spirit as His power economically, even though He had already been born of the Spirit and had the Spirit within Him.
The believers also received the Spirit both essentially and economically. On the day of the Lord’s resurrection, the essential Spirit for the disciples’ spiritual existence and being was breathed into them. This is proved strongly by the record of Acts 1. According to this record, even before the day of Pentecost, Peter was changed. In the four Gospels Peter often behaved in a foolish, nonsensical manner. But in chapter one of Acts Peter is a very different person, able rightly to expound the Psalms.
Another indication that the disciples had received the Spirit essentially before the day of Pentecost was the fact, also recorded in Acts 1, that they were able to pray in one accord for ten days. Before the Lord’s crucifixion, the disciples were striving with one another. But in Acts 1 there is praying instead of striving. What made it possible to pray in one accord for ten days? This was made possible by the indwelling Spirit.
Although the disciples had received the Spirit essentially and had this Spirit within them, they still needed the economical Spirit to descend upon them. Concerning this, the Lord Jesus said to them, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Then ten days after His ascension, the Lord Jesus poured out Himself as the consummated Spirit upon His disciples.
Now we can see that the church was formed by two steps. The first step was the Lord’s breathing the Spirit into the believers for their spiritual existence and being. The second step was the Lord’s pouring out Himself as the consummated Spirit upon the believers, baptizing them into one Body. By these two steps the believers were filled inwardly with the Spirit and were clothed outwardly with the Spirit. Inwardly they had the Spirit of essence, the essential Spirit, and outwardly they had the Spirit of economy, the economical Spirit. As a result, they were altogether wrapped up with the Spirit, and by being wrapped up with the Spirit they were formed into the Body of Christ. This was the formation of the church.
On the day of Pentecost Christ baptized the Jewish believers in the economical Spirit. Not too long afterward, in the house of Cornelius He baptized the Gentile believers in the economical Spirit. On the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, the economical Spirit descended upon the Jewish believers, and in the house of Cornelius in Caesarea, the same economical Spirit descended upon the Gentile believers. By these two instances of the believers being baptized in the economical Spirit, Christ, as the Head in the heavens, baptized His entire Body — both the Jewish side and the Gentile side — in one Spirit into one Body, as fully revealed in 1 Corinthians 12:13. Therefore, the church was formed through Christ’s baptizing all the believers, both Jews and Gentiles, in one Spirit into one Body.
Through the once-for-all baptism in the all-inclusive Spirit, the church, in the eyes of God, was once for all, universally formed to be the fullness of Christ for His universal expression. It is after this universal formation of the Body of Christ that, through the centuries, all God’s chosen people were, are, and will be brought into not only the reality but also the practicality of the Body of Christ until the completion is reached.
The formation of the church took place in two steps at two different times: on the day of Pentecost and when Peter was in the house of Cornelius (Acts 2:1; 10:24). What happened on the day of Pentecost with the Jewish believers and in the house of Cornelius with the Gentile believers was for the formation of the church, the Body of Christ.
The church has been formed directly by Christ the Head (Matt. 16:18). Ephesians 1:22 and 23 tell us that God gave Christ to be Head over all things to the church, which is His Body. The important phrase “to the church” implies that whatever Christ the Head has attained and obtained is transmitted to the church. This transmission from the Head is the source of the Body.
The formation of the church by Christ the Head took place through the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2:17-18, 33). The outpouring of the Spirit differs from the breathing of the Spirit into the disciples out of the mouth of Christ at His resurrection. The pouring out of God’s Spirit was from the heavens at Christ’s ascension. The former is the essential aspect of the Spirit breathed into the disciples as life for their living; the latter is the economical aspect of the Spirit poured upon them as power for their work. The same Spirit is both within them essentially and upon them economically.
The pouring out of the Spirit at Christ’s ascension was the descension of the resurrected and ascended Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit to carry out His heavenly ministry on earth to build up the church as His Body for God’s New Testament economy.
In Acts 2:33 Peter, speaking of the Lord Jesus, says, “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He poured out this which you both see and hear.” This was not the promise given by the Holy Spirit but the promise given by the Father in Joel 2:29, quoted by Peter in Acts 2:17, and referred to by the Lord in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4, concerning the Holy Spirit. The exalted Christ’s receiving of the promise of the Holy Spirit is actually the receiving of the Holy Spirit Himself. Christ was conceived of the Spirit essentially for His being in humanity (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20) and was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry among men (Luke 4:18). After His resurrection and ascension, He still needed to receive the Spirit economically again that He might pour Himself out upon His Body to carry out on earth His heavenly ministry for the accomplishment of God’s New Testament economy.
The outpouring of the Spirit is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. To the Holy Spirit it is an outpouring, but to Christ the Head it is a baptism.
The Lord Jesus referred to the baptism in the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5. “John indeed baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This has been accomplished in two sections involving the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. Therefore, in 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks.” Since the Spirit is the sphere and element of our spiritual baptism and in the Spirit we were all baptized into one organic entity, the Body of Christ, so we should all, regardless of our races, nationalities, and social ranks, be this one Body. It is in the one Spirit that we were all baptized into the one living Body to express Christ.
First, the outpouring of the Spirit was on the one hundred twenty believers (Acts 1:15; 2:1-4). On the day of Pentecost the Jewish believers, the first part of the Body, were baptized.
After the Jewish believers had been baptized in the Holy Spirit for the formation of the church, the Gentile believers were baptized in the Spirit in the same way (Acts 10:24, 44-47a). The Holy Spirit fell upon those who heard the word in the house of Cornelius outwardly and economically. In the case of the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit’s entering into the believers essentially for life and falling upon them economically for power took place simultaneously when they believed in the Lord. However, only His falling upon them economically is noted in Acts 10:46, because it was outward and could be realized by others by their speaking in tongues and praising God, whereas His entering into them took place silently and invisibly. They received both aspects of the Holy Spirit directly from Christ the Head of the Body, without any mediatorial channel, before they were baptized in water by other members of the Body of Christ. This indicates emphatically that the Head of the Body baptized the Gentile believers into His Body directly. The Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius received the Holy Spirit economically, as the early apostles and the Jewish believers did on the day of Pentecost, directly from the ascended Head.
Peter’s word in Acts 11 proves that what happened in the house of Cornelius was the second step in Christ’s baptizing His Body in the Holy Spirit once for all. Peter said, “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as also on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John indeed baptized in water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit” (vv. 15-16). Therefore, the record in Acts strongly indicates that only two cases — that of the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost and that of the Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius — are considered the baptism in the Holy Spirit. In these two instances the Head Himself did something directly on His Body for the formation of the church. By these two steps the Head of the Body baptized all His believers once for all, both Jewish and Gentile, into His one Body. Hence, the baptism in the Spirit is an accomplished fact carried out by Christ in His ascension both on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius for the formation of the universal church, His Body.
