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Scripture Reading: John 7:39; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Exo. 30:23-25; Rom. 8:2, 9-11; Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6
I. Not one of today’s theologies, including the Nicene Creed, stresses adequately the following five critical points concerning the Spirit of God in the move of God’s eternal economy:
А. The Spirit who gives life was not yet before the glorification (resurrection) of Christ — John 7:39.
B. The last Adam (Christ in the flesh) became a life-giving Spirit (fulfilling v. 39) — 1 Cor. 15:45b. Hence, 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that “the Lord is the Spirit,” and the following verse uses the Lord Spirit as a compound divine title.
C. The compound Spirit typified by the anointing ointment (a compound of one hin of olive oil with four kinds of spices and their effectiveness) in Exodus 30:23-25.
D. The Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Himself, and the indwelling Spirit in Romans 8:2, 9-11, all referring to the compound Spirit who gives life.
E. The seven Spirits (the sevenfold intensified Spirit, cf. the sevenfold sunlight — Isa. 30:26) of God — Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6.
II. The Catholic Church, the Protestant denominations, the Brethren assemblies, the Pentecostal churches, and all the free groups are held back by their imperfect and unscriptural theology from the central revelation of God and come short of the completion of God’s eternal economy because of their missing, negligence of, and opposition to the above five critical points concerning the Spirit of God.
III. God must have a people who are the God-men to be His overcomers for Him to accomplish His eternal economy concerning the church issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating the New Jerusalem.
Prayer: Lord, we worship You for this gathering. We praise You. Only You can arrange such a gathering. Lord, for this gathering we need You in a sevenfold intensified way. Lord, come in and open Yourself to us, and may we also open ourselves to You. We ask that there will be a transaction, a traffic, between You and us. Lord, deliver us from the oldness. Deliver us from the old knowledge and from traditional things, things that we have been keeping for years. Lord, forgive us and cleanse us and cover us with Your prevailing blood against the enemy in every way. Releasing Your word is a battle, so, Lord, we hide ourselves in You. We hide ourselves under the blood of the Lamb. Lord, strengthen us and pour out Yourself upon us in a sevenfold intensified way. Lord, touch us and speak to us, making us one spirit with You. Thank You. Amen.
The title of this chapter is “To Know This Age.” Here we are using the word age to refer not to the age of the world in a general way but to the age of today’s Christianity in a particular way, especially in relation to the revelation of the Scriptures, the divine truths, and the genuine and proper theology.
The first matter covered in the Scriptures is God Himself. The revelation concerning God involves God’s person, and God’s person is very mysterious. He is one yet three; hence, He is triune. The different understandings of the Divine Trinity have been a major factor, a hidden element, of all the problems in today’s Christianity. Christianity has been divided by the different concepts of the Divine Trinity.
Understanding the second (Christ) and the third (the Spirit) of the Divine Trinity has been most bothersome and troublesome. Who is Christ? In answer to this question, most Christians would say that Christ is the Son of God. However, many believers do not realize that Christ is not merely the only begotten Son of God (John 3:16) but also the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:18; Heb. 1:6; Rev. 1:5). How could the only begotten Son become the firstborn Son? As the only begotten Son, He must be the only Son and cannot be the first, and as the firstborn Son, He is the first Son and thus cannot be the only Son. How should we explain this?
Theologians claim that the persons of the Trinity should not be confused. Nevertheless, we need to ask certain questions. Is Christ only the Son and not also the Spirit? Is the Spirit only the Spirit? Is the Spirit not also related to Christ and involved with the Son? Another question concerns the seven Spirits (v. 4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6). According to Revelation 5:6, the seven Spirits are the seven eyes of the Lamb. Are the seven Spirits and the Lamb one person or two persons? Surely They are two, yet the seven Spirits are the seven eyes of the Lamb. Are They one or two? If we say that the Lamb and the seven Spirits as the seven eyes of the Lamb are one, others, insisting that the Spirit is the Spirit and the Son is the Son, will accuse us of confusing the persons of the Divine Trinity. But in Revelation 5:6 the third of the Divine Trinity is the eyes of the second. How, then, can the Spirit be separate from the Son? Are your eyes separate from you yourself? While your eyes are looking at someone, you are looking at that person. No one would say, “Only my eyes are looking at you; I myself am not looking at you.” Your eyes are you. For your eyes to look at something means that you yourself are looking. These are brief illustrations of the shortages of the theology in today’s Christianity.
Because the matters of the Son and the Spirit in the Divine Trinity are very difficult and complicated, we have been compelled to give Christ a particular title — the all-inclusive Christ. Christ is all-inclusive because He is everything. He is God, He is the Father (Isa. 9:6), He is the Son, and He is the Spirit. According to the revelation in the New Testament, the Father is embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9), and the Son is realized by the Spirit (John 14:17, 20). Thus, the Son is the embodiment of the Father, and the Spirit is the realization of the Son. This surely is a divine and heavenly language.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Since the Word was God, what need was there for Him to be with God? No one can explain this adequately, for we do not have the language to express this kind of “culture.”
The Spirit who gives life was not yet before the glorification (resurrection) of Christ (7:39b). John 7:37-39 says, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” The historical background of the Lord’s word was related to the Feast of Tabernacles, the last and greatest of the Jewish annual feasts. The Feast of Tabernacles was a very pleasant feast. It was held at the time when the children of Israel came together to enjoy what they had harvested. They were happy together for a period of seven days. The last day was the great day of the feast. On that day, to the surprise of those attending the feast, the Lord Jesus stood up and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” This word is rich in meaning, for it indicates that those who were keeping the Feast of Tabernacles were still thirsty, having nothing to quench their thirst.
Both in the past and in the present, many great men, after becoming successful in their career or enterprise or after becoming renowned, felt that their life was still a vanity. Like King Solomon they could say, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity...I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and indeed, all is vanity and a chasing after wind” (Eccl. 1:2, 14). To have such a feeling is to be thirsty and unsatisfied. Realizing that the people had not been satisfied and their thirst had not been quenched, the Lord Jesus stood up and cried out on the great day of the feast, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” What a great word this is! Only the Lord Jesus is qualified to speak such a word. Only He, a man a little over thirty years of age, could say, “He who believes into Me...out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”
In 7:39 the apostle John, the writer of the Gospel of John, gave the explanation, saying, “This He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive.” Here John speaks not of the Spirit of God or of the Spirit of Jehovah or of the Holy Spirit but simply of the Spirit, telling us that “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” His word indicates an expectation — the expectation that, although the Spirit was “not yet,” the time was coming when the Spirit would be there. This time was the time of Jesus’ glorification, that is, the time of Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:26). The Lord Jesus was the very God full of glory. However, He became flesh, and His divine glory was concealed within the shell of His flesh, the shell of His humanity. When He died, this shell was broken, and when He resurrected, the glory concealed within Him was released. From this we see that His resurrection was His glorification. Therefore, the expectation in John 7:39 was that when the Lord Jesus was glorified through resurrection, the Spirit who was “not yet” would become the Spirit who now is.
The second critical point concerning the Spirit of God not adequately stressed in today’s theologies is that, as revealed in 1 Corinthians 15:45b, in resurrection the last Adam (Christ in the flesh) became a life-giving Spirit (fulfilling John 7:39). Hence, 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that “the Lord is the Spirit,” and the following verse uses the Lord Spirit as a compound divine title. The word in 1 Corinthians 15:45b about the last Adam becoming a life-giving Spirit is a strong fulfillment of the prophecy in John 7:39 concerning the Spirit being not yet, because Christ was not yet glorified, resurrected. In resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit.
Many pastors, missionaries, theologians, and professors oppose us for teaching that, according to 1 Corinthians 15:45, Christ as the last Adam in the flesh became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. Even two co-workers have opposed us in this matter. One of these co-workers, who eventually became an opponent, said that he did not believe that Christ the Son could become the life-giving Spirit. On one occasion this person told me that he believed that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were three Gods. When I heard him say this, I told him that he was teaching the heresy of tritheism. I went on to point out that the Bible tells us that God is uniquely one. The other co-worker was troubled by three hymns I had written on Christ as the Spirit (Hymns, #493, 539, and 745). He admitted that the Bible does say that Christ became the life-giving Spirit, but then he warned me that if we preach this, Christianity will reject us. I said, “Brother, I came to this country with the burden to preach and teach this. Since you agree that it is according to the Bible to say that Christ became the life-giving Spirit, please give me the liberty to teach this truth.”
The New Testament speaks of Christ’s two becomings. John 1:14 says that, as the Word, God became flesh, and 1 Corinthians 15:45 says that Christ, as the last Adam in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit. We should believe and teach both that God became the flesh and that the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit.
Third, not one of today’s theologies stresses adequately the critical point concerning the compound Spirit typified by the anointing ointment (a compound of one hin of olive oil with four kinds of spices and their effectiveness) in Exodus 30:23-25. The life-giving Spirit is not simple but is a Spirit who has been compounded. The last Adam was a man, and the life-giving Spirit is divine. Thus, this Spirit must be a Spirit with two natures — the human nature and the divine nature. These two natures have not only been mingled but have been compounded, as indicated by the type in Exodus 30:23-25, which records God’s instructions for forming the anointing ointment.
This ointment was not a single element but a compound. A single element cannot be an ointment. The anointing ointment in Exodus 30 was a compound of one main item — a hin of olive oil — compounded with four kinds of spices: myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. In typology, oil signifies the Spirit of God. Flowing myrrh signifies Christ’s death, and cinnamon signifies the sweetness and effectiveness of His death. Calamus, a reed that grows in a marsh or muddy place, shooting upward toward the sky, signifies resurrection. Cassia signifies the repelling power and effectiveness of Christ’s resurrection. Cassia is a kind of bark that was used as a repellent to repel snakes and insects. Thus, cassia signifies the power, especially the repelling power, of Christ’s resurrection. His resurrection has the power to repel Satan, the serpent. These four spices were compounded with the one hin of olive oil to become one ointment of five elements.
With this compound ointment we have the number one (one hin of olive oil) signifying the one God and the number four (four spices) signifying man as God’s creature. We also have the number three, seen in the fact that the quantity of the spices involved three units, each of five hundred shekels: myrrh — five hundred shekels; cinnamon — two hundred fifty shekels; calamus — two hundred fifty shekels; and cassia — five hundred shekels. Hence, the amount of the spices consisted of three units of five hundred shekels, or five hundred shekels times three. The number three signifies the Triune God. Here we should note the second unit of five hundred shekels was split into two parts (typifying Christ, the middle of the Divine Trinity, who was wounded on the cross), each of two hundred fifty shekels. In the Bible two is the number of testimony. Furthermore, with this compound ointment we have the number five, formed by adding the one hin of olive oil and the four spices. The number five is seen also in the five hundred shekels. In the Bible five signifies responsibility. For example, the Ten Commandments were written on two tablets, with five commandments on each tablet. In Matthew 25 the ten virgins are divided into two groups consisting of the five wise ones and the five foolish ones. From all the foregoing we see that the numbers one, two, three, four, and five are all used in the type of the compound ointment in Exodus 30.
This Old Testament type, which actually was a kind of prophecy, must have a New Testament fulfillment. The type of the anointing ointment was completely fulfilled in the life-giving Spirit, which was produced in Christ’s resurrection. The life-giving Spirit, who the last Adam became, contains Christ’s divinity, His humanity, the sweetness and effectiveness of His death, and the power and effectiveness of His resurrection. The life-giving Spirit is therefore the compound Spirit typified by the anointing ointment in the Old Testament.
Christ is Christ, and He is also the Spirit, for He has been pneumatized and has become the pneumatic Christ. Concerning the pneumatic Christ, we need to see that the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Himself, and the indwelling Spirit in Romans 8:2, 9-11 all refer to the compound Spirit who gives life. In verse 2 we have the Spirit of life, and in verses 9 to 11, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Himself, and the indwelling Spirit. Are these five or are They one? The life-giving Spirit is called the Spirit of life, the Spirit of life is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is just Christ Himself. Furthermore, this Spirit who is of life, of God, of Christ, and Christ Himself dwells in us as the indwelling Spirit to dispense life to us all the time. This is the pneumatic Christ.
Second Corinthians 3:17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit,” and verse 18 says that we are transformed “from the Lord Spirit.” Like the title Father God, the title Lord Spirit is a compound divine title. He is the Lord, and He is also the Spirit. Today our Christ is the pneumatic Christ, the pneumatized Christ, the Christ who is both the Lord and the Spirit.
With the Spirit Himself there was no humanity. Likewise, the Spirit did not include the elements of the death of Christ, the effectiveness of the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the power of the resurrection of Christ. However, the element of Christ’s humanity and the elements of His death, the effectiveness of His death, His resurrection, and the power of His resurrection have all been added to and compounded with the Spirit of God to produce the compound Spirit. Today the pneumatic Christ is such a consummated life-giving Spirit.
The fifth critical point that today’s theologies do not stress adequately concerning the Spirit of God in the move of God’s eternal economy is the seven Spirits (the sevenfold intensified Spirit, cf. the sevenfold sunlight — Isa. 30:26) of God (Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6).
As the last Adam in the flesh, Christ could be our Redeemer, but He could not enter into us to impart Himself to us as life. But after He became the Spirit, He was able to enter into us as the Spirit of life to save us organically, carrying out His organic salvation within us as the Spirit who gives life. In particular, He is the life-giving Spirit to produce the church. However, not long after the church was produced, it became degraded. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, speaks of the degradation of the church. Because of this degradation, the life-giving Spirit, who is both Christ and the Spirit, became intensified sevenfold.
Isaiah 30:26, a prophecy related to the millennium, says, “The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, / And the light of the sun will be sevenfold.” Whereas in Isaiah we have the sevenfold sunlight, in Revelation we have the sevenfold Spirit. For producing the church the life-giving Spirit is sufficiently strong, but under the degradation of the church this strong Spirit has been intensified sevenfold. Thus, Christ has become not only the life-giving Spirit but also the sevenfold intensified Spirit. The seven Spirits being the seven eyes of the Lamb (Rev. 5:6) indicates that the seven Spirits and Christ are one person.
The Catholic Church, the Protestant denominations, the Brethren assemblies, the Pentecostal churches, and all the free groups are held back by their imperfect and unscriptural theology from the central revelation of God and come short of the completion of God’s eternal economy because of their missing, negligence of, and opposition to the above five critical points concerning the Spirit of God.
We all need to have a clear view of the central revelation of God. The central revelation of God is God becoming flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming intensified sevenfold to build up the church to issue in the Body of Christ and to consummate the New Jerusalem. We need to see that the Triune God became flesh, that the flesh became the life-giving Spirit, and that the life-giving Spirit became the sevenfold intensified Spirit. This Spirit is to build up the church, which becomes the Body of Christ consummating the New Jerusalem as the final goal of God’s economy. This central revelation has been altogether neglected in today’s theologies. The Catholic Church, the Protestant denominations, the Brethren assemblies, the Pentecostal churches, and all the free groups come short of the completion of God’s eternal economy because of their missing, negligence of, and opposition to the five critical points concerning the Spirit of God that we have covered in this chapter. The Lord’s recovery today is just the recovery of these critical points concerning the Spirit of God in the move of God’s eternal economy.
I am quite concerned for all the co-workers and elders. It may be that a good number of them do not have a complete understanding of what the Lord’s recovery is. If we are asked to explain what the recovery is today, we should be able to answer in one simple sentence: The Lord’s recovery is God becoming the flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit to build up the church that becomes the Body of Christ and that consummates the New Jerusalem. Regarding the Lord’s present recovery, I hope that none of you would be held back by your old theology or by your old understanding of the recovery.
God must have a people who are the God-men to be His overcomers for Him to accomplish His eternal economy concerning the church issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating the New Jerusalem.
