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Scripture Reading: Gal. 6:18; 2 Tim. 4:22; Eph. 3:16-17a; 2 Tim. 1:7; Rom. 8:4, 13; Gal. 5:16, 24; 3:2, 5a, 14; Phil. 1:19; Rev. 22:17; 21:6
In the last chapter we saw that the Spirit is the all-inclusive, compound, processed, life-giving, sevenfold intensified Spirit. Some teach that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is only a power, a means, or an instrument for God to do something. This is far away from the revelation of the New Testament. This all-inclusive Spirit is the compound of all that the Father is and has and all that the Father can do, is doing, and will do, plus the Son in His person and with His work, His accomplishments, His attainments, His obtainments, and all the processes He has gone through. The Spirit is a compound of all the divine things. It is much, much more than a power, a means, or an instrument. This all-inclusive compound Spirit is the blessing of the New Testament, and this is the blessing of the gospel, which God promised to Abraham (Gal. 3:14). God promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his one seed (Gen. 22:18). That one seed of Abraham is Christ (Gal. 3:16), the Son of God, and the blessing promised to Abraham is this all-inclusive compound Spirit.
The physical aspect of the blessing that God promised to Abraham was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 26:3-4), which is a type of the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 1:12). Since Christ is eventually realized as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17), the blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds with the blessing of the promised land. Actually, the Spirit as the realization of Christ in our experience is the good land as the source of God’s bountiful supply for us to enjoy. The blessing of the gospel, the blessing of the New Testament, which God promised to Abraham, is this compound Spirit, the totality of God the Father, of God the Son, together with the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. We all have received this blessing, and this all-inclusive blessing is in us, in our spirit (Rom. 8:16; 2 Tim. 4:22). God’s economy is His plan to dispense Himself as the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, with all His attributes and virtues — into our spirit. When we open up ourselves to this total and aggregate Spirit, we enjoy the all-inclusive blessing of the New Testament.
To turn an electric fan manually, to “teach” it to move, is similar to the ethical teachings of husbands loving their wives, children honoring their parents, wives submitting themselves to their husbands, loving our neighbors, and being humble. All the fan needs to do is to “enjoy” the electricity, and it will spontaneously turn. In the same way, what we need to do is to enjoy the all-inclusive Spirit as the “divine electricity.” When we enjoy the bountiful supply of the all-inclusive Spirit, this supply strengthens, enables, and sustains us to live Christ. As we enjoy this Spirit, we spontaneously have the living needed in all our ethical relationships. Christ becomes our life within and our living without. This is not religion but God’s marvelous, eternal economy.
The all-inclusive, compound, processed, sevenfold intensified, life-giving Spirit dwells in our spirit, so now we have a strong spirit, a spirit of power (2 Tim. 1:7). Because the all-inclusive Spirit is in our spirit, our spirit is a strong spirit. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit,” and Galatians 6:18 says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.” The Lord is with our spirit, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit. What can be greater than the Lord and the grace of the Lord? Both the Lord and His grace are in our spirit, not in our mind.
Some Bible teachers maintain that the soul and the spirit are synonymous. The biblical teaching is that man is of three parts — spirit and soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23). But some teachers say that man is only of two parts — soul and body. In 1954 a certain missionary came to Hong Kong to attend a conference at which I was sharing. He told me that he appreciated the conference, but one thing he could not agree with was that man has three parts. He believed that man’s spirit and man’s soul refer to the same thing. When I referred him to the clear word in 1 Thessalonians 5:23—“spirit and soul and body,” he had no argument, but he still continued to believe that the spirit is the same as the soul. If you have a strong mind full of doctrines and do not enjoy the Lord in your spirit, you will end up in division. You will debate and even fight over the doctrines that you have instead of keeping Paul’s charge to keep the oneness of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3), who is in our spirit (Rom. 8:16).
You cannot enjoy the Lord by merely thinking about the Lord. A feast may be set in front of you on a table, but you may come just to exercise your mind to learn about all the different dishes. After two hours of investigation, you remain hungry. If you keep investigating and do not eat, you will die in front of a rich feast. Many Christians “die” in front of the Bible. The Bible is not for your mind alone. The Bible is food for your spirit. Jesus is not merely for us to study or to investigate but for us to eat, to enjoy (John 6:57). None of us understands the food that we eat in a thorough and absolute way. Although we may not understand what is in a banana, we can enjoy bananas every morning. The breakfast that you eat in the morning energizes you during the day. You may have forgotten what you ate in the morning, but you are still enjoying its benefits. The Lord is not for us to study according to the letter. The Lord is for us to enjoy.
The Son came with the Father by the Spirit as the very embodiment of the Triune God. He passed through incarnation, lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, and went to the cross to clear up all the negative things in the universe and to release the divine life as the flowing water so that we may drink of Him. Then He resurrected, and in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Now the life-giving Spirit has come as the Son with the Father. The Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — is realized as the all-inclusive Spirit, so this all-inclusive Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God with all His attributes, all His virtues, and all the processes He has gone through. This Spirit is the totality, the aggregate, the very consummation, of the Triune God with all His accomplishments to be our portion for us to enjoy.
This Spirit is in our spirit full of grace, so the Lord and His grace are in our spirit. Day by day we have to turn to our spirit. Do not turn to your mind, and do not exercise your mind apart from your spirit. The old serpent, Satan, the devil, came to Eve with a question — “Did God really say...?” (Gen. 3:1). Such a question surely stirred up Eve’s mind. The serpent comes to us in the form of a question mark. The devil, Satan, would always come to stir up our mind, but we have to turn to our spirit all the time. The Lord is not in our mind, but He is in our spirit. This is why we have to call upon Him all day long.
We need to be those calling, “O Lord Jesus!” Jesus is His name, but the Spirit is His person. When I call “Lord Jesus,” the Spirit comes. If your wife bothers you, religion would teach you to be patient. But to keep this religious teaching does not work. What does work is to call upon the name of the Lord — “O Lord Jesus!” When a husband’s wife bothers him, he should not try to be patient. She may never stop bothering him until he loses his temper. The only way to overcome is to call, “O Lord Jesus.” To call upon the name of the Lord is to forget about the ethical teachings, to forget about our mind, emotion, and will, and to turn to the spirit. Whenever you say, “O Lord Jesus,” you touch the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). When you touch the Spirit, you touch the all-inclusive Spirit, you touch the rich grace, and you enjoy the Lord. This is what it means to open up yourself directly to the Lord with an unveiled face. As you behold and reflect Him, you will be transformed metabolically to become more and more like Him in His glorious image.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:4 that we need to walk according to the spirit. Do not walk according to your mind, your emotion, or your will. Simply walk according to the spirit because the Lord and His grace are in your spirit. If you call upon Him and open up yourself to Him to enjoy His riches and to walk according to the spirit, the Lord will gain more ground within you. Then He will make your inner man with all your inward parts His home. He will make His home in your heart to occupy your entire being (Eph. 3:16-17a) and thus become your full enjoyment. In yourself you cannot overcome your lust, your sins. When the indwelling Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit who is Christ Himself, occupies you and makes His home in your heart, filling you with Himself, you will crucify your flesh (Gal. 5:24) and put to death the practices of your lustful body (Rom. 8:13). By yourself you do not have the energy or the ability to deal with your flesh. But when Christ occupies you, making His home in your whole being, filling you up with Himself, you will be filled with energy and strength to crucify your lustful body, the flesh, to put your body to death, in order to overcome all kinds of lustful things and sins. Actually, this is not you but Christ who lives in you.
As you are living Christ, the all-inclusive Spirit who indwells your spirit will dispense life into you all the time. When the switch to an electric fan is turned on, the electricity is being dispensed into the fan. As long as the fan turns and moves, the electricity is being dispensed into it. God’s economy is His plan to dispense Himself into our being. He desires to do this every day and every minute. When we live Christ by walking according to the indwelling all-inclusive Spirit, this Spirit gives life to our being, dispensing the Triune God as the all-inclusive life supply into us for us to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This enjoyment is our drinking of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). While the electricity is being dispensed into the electric fan and while the fan is moving and turning, the fan is “drinking” of the electricity. As the fan “drinks” and “enjoys” the electricity, it spontaneously turns. As we enjoy the “divine electricity” of the Spirit, we spontaneously walk according to the spirit. This is not religion but God’s economy — the enjoyment of the Triune God embodied in the all-inclusive Spirit. This is absolutely different from today’s religious system centered on ethical teachings.
The living Triune God, passing through all the processes, has become compounded into one all-inclusive Spirit. He is not only all-inclusive, compounded, and processed, but He is also intensified sevenfold. In the four Gospels the Son with the Father by the Spirit is revealed. In the twenty-two books from Acts through Jude we see the Spirit as the Son with the Father — the all-inclusive, compound, processed, life-giving Spirit. In the final book of the Bible, Revelation, the all-inclusive Spirit is intensified sevenfold.
Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who is thirsty come; let him who wills take the water of life freely.” The water of life is the sevenfold intensified, all-inclusive, compound, processed, life-giving Spirit. Revelation 21:6 indicates that our Triune God will give us to drink of the spring of the water of life for eternity. The Spirit is the water of life, and the spring of the water of life is the Son. The Son with the Father by the Spirit is the spring. The Father is the fountain of life (Psa. 36:9). Therefore, the Father is the fountain, the Son is the spring, and the Spirit is the river of water of life. When you drink of the water, you also drink of the spring and of the fountain. Do not forget that the Spirit is sent as the Son with the Father, so the water of life flows as the spring with the fountain. When the water comes, the spring and the fountain both come. This is the Triune God for our enjoyment. Praise the Lord for the water of life (the Spirit) as the spring (the Son) with the fountain (the Father).
When we drink the water of life as the spring with the fountain, we are enjoying the Triune God. The fountain, the spring, and the water of life are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Triune God consummated in the all-inclusive Spirit is flowing within us as the spring with the fountain. We are drinking the water of life. The Triune God, with the Father as the source of life, the Son as the supply and the course of life, and the Spirit as the flow of life, is our life and our enjoyment. He is the substance of our service, our worship, our preaching of the gospel, our family life, our marriage life, our daily life, and our church life. The Christian life and the church life are a life of drinking of the fountain, the spring, and the water of life — the wonderful, all-inclusive, and glorious Triune God.
