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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 3:3, 6, 8, 17-18
Thus far, we have seen that there are four lines in both 1 and 2 Corinthians. The four lines in 1 Corinthians are the lines of Christ, the spirit, the church, and the gifts. In 2 Corinthians the gifts are replaced by the ministry which is produced through sufferings. The lines of Christ, the spirit, and the church in 2 Corinthians are spoken of in a very deep and subjective way.
We want to continue our fellowship on the line of the spirit in 2 Corinthians, the line of the divine Spirit with the human spirit. We have pointed out that there are nine aspects of the wonderful, all-inclusive, divine Spirit in 2 Corinthians. He is the anointing Spirit, the sealing Spirit, the pledging Spirit, the writing Spirit, the life-giving Spirit, the ministering Spirit, the liberating Spirit, the transforming Spirit, and the transmitting Spirit. In chapter 13 we see the communion, the fellowship, the transmitting, of the Holy Spirit. That is the conclusion of 2 Corinthians. In chapters 1 and 3 are the remaining eight aspects of the Spirit. In chapter 1 we see the anointing, sealing, and pledging aspects of the Spirit. In chapter 3 there are another five aspects: the writing, life-giving, Christ-ministering, liberating, and transforming aspects. No doubt, the apostle Paul wrote 2 Corinthians with the thought of these eight aspects of the deeper work of the all-inclusive Spirit. This is why they are placed at the first part of this book.
The first of these eight aspects is the anointing (1:21), and the last is the transforming (3:18). We have seen that God anoints us, paints us, with the compound Spirit, a compound of all the ingredients and elements of Christ’s person and work. This ointment is the best heavenly paint, full of the riches of the Godhead and full of the riches of the person, work, and attainments of Christ. The more we are anointed, painted, with the compound Spirit, the more the elements of Christ’s person and work are dispensed into our being. These elements are the Triune God in His divinity, Christ’s humanity, His wonderful death with its effectiveness, and His resurrection with its power. All of these elements are included in this heavenly paint, the compound Spirit. This painting, this anointing, brings all these elements into our being.
Eventually, the transforming Spirit transforms us into His image. This is God’s goal, His intention. God anoints us, paints us, with Himself for the purpose of transforming us to make us the real sons of our Father with the image of the Father. The divine painting, the anointing, is for the transforming. The anointing brings in all the elements, and the transforming makes us exactly the same as the Son of God in life and nature, transforming us into His image from glory to glory even as from the Lord Spirit. The ointment, the compound Spirit, is the Lord Spirit. By Him and from Him we are being transformed into His image.
The Triune God with His divinity mingled with humanity and including His wonderful death and resurrection is today the compound ointment to anoint us with all that He is and all that He has done so that we might be transformed into His image, and this transformation is from the Lord Spirit. We are being anointed, and eventually we will be transformed. I hope that the churches will pay more attention to this matter of anointing for transformation.
The more doctrinal teaching we receive, the more knowledge and concepts we gain; but the anointing brings in the substantial, real elements of Christ into our being. If I paint you with paint, you may not understand it, but you still are painted. Teaching brings in vain knowledge, but the anointing brings in the real substance.
We may be taught much about the death of Christ, but what we need is the substance and reality of the death of Christ itself. His death is in the all-inclusive, compound Spirit. When I was young, I was taught about the death of Christ in Romans 6 and that we had to reckon ourselves as being dead (v. 11). But this is just the teaching of the death of Christ, not the reality. The reality of the death of Christ is in the Spirit, spoken of in Romans 8.
When we call on the name of the Lord, we receive the riches of the all-inclusive Spirit (10:12). When we are about to lose our temper, we can call on the Lord’s name, and the killing power of Christ’s death is there to kill our temper. But the more that we try to reckon ourselves dead, the more we will be defeated, because this reckoning is the exercise of the mind. When we forget about the exercise of the mind and exercise our spirit by calling on the name of the Lord, we touch the compound Spirit. In this compound Spirit, there is the divine germicide to kill all the negative things in our being. The germ killing, the killing death of Christ, is not in the teaching but in the compound Spirit. The Christian life is not a matter of knowing doctrines but a matter of being anointed by the compound Spirit.
In between the anointing and the transforming, there are another six aspects of the Spirit: the sealing, the pledging, the writing, the life-giving, the Christ-ministering, and the liberating. The anointing becomes the sealing within us (2 Cor. 1:22), giving us the mark and the impression of the image of God to show that we belong to God.
The seal of the Spirit, which is constituted with the elements brought in by the anointing, becomes the pledge, the guarantee, the down payment, the foretaste, of the Spirit (v. 22). This means that we have the Spirit for our taste, our enjoyment. The Christian life is not a matter of meditating in the mind but a matter of tasting the Lord in the spirit (Psa. 34:8; 1 Pet. 2:3). We can taste the heavenly things and the things of the age to come (Heb. 6:4-5) by the transmitting Spirit. He also transmits the things in eternity and in the New Jerusalem to us because He is the eternal Spirit (9:14).
He transmits all the heavenly things and elements of Christ into us not for our mental knowledge but for us to taste, to enjoy. We need to be those who are continually tasting the heavenly, spiritual, eternal things by the compound Spirit. Everything in the New Jerusalem is included in the compound Spirit, who has been given to us as a foretaste, a sample, of the full taste of the Spirit in the ages to come. The quantity of the Spirit we have in this age might be smaller, but the quality and the taste are the same. We have to learn how to taste the Lord by continually calling upon His name.
We can never be humble by being taught to be humble. Actually, the more we are taught to be humble, the prouder we will become. If we are taught to love others, eventually we will not love anyone. The real love and the real essence of love are in the compound Spirit. God is love (1 John 4:8), and He is the compound Spirit today. The more we touch the compound Spirit, the more the essence of love will get into us. There is no need for us to learn to love others. When we are infused with the essence of love in the compound Spirit, we will spontaneously love others.
Love is the essence of the divine life. A carnation flower does not bloom by being taught, but by its growth out of its life essence. The more the flower grows, the more it expresses its life essence. Likewise, the more we grow in the divine life, the more we express the essence of the divine life. We cannot be holy, spiritual, and heavenly by being taught. Eventually, we will become worldly. The heavenly essence is not in any teaching but in the compound Spirit.
In 2 Corinthians 1:21 the apostle Paul said that God is the One who “firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us.” We need to consider why the apostle Paul said this. When he wrote 2 Corinthians, the Corinthian believers were doubting his apostolic authority. Some even claimed that he was an insincere, fickle person, a man of yes and no. This is why he told them that the Christ he preached to them was always yes (vv. 19-20). Then he told the Corinthians that he was a real priest in the priesthood who had been anointed by God. In ancient times no one could assume the position and function of a priest unless he had been anointed. Paul said that he was anointed and attached to the Head of the priesthood, Christ, the anointed One.
After the compounding of the ointment in Exodus 30, God told Moses to anoint all the parts of the tabernacle and Aaron and his sons (vv. 26-30). Aaron became the anointed one, and all his sons were attached to him. Then all his sons were anointed. The apostle Paul used this background to indicate to the Corinthians that today Christ is our real Aaron. He is the High Priest, and we are His sons. God has attached us to Him, and God has anointed us. We are assuming the position and function of priests because we have been attached to Christ, the anointed One.
God has anointed and appointed Christ to be the Head of the priesthood, and we all have been attached to Him. Thus, we are the sons of the real Aaron today. We have become the priests of the divine priesthood because we have been attached to the Head Priest, and we have been anointed by God. Paul’s proof of his apostleship was the anointing. He was attached to Christ, the anointed One, and he was anointed by God. When the priests were anointed, they were consecrated and commissioned.
This ointment became Paul’s seal, sealing him to assume his priestly position. The Spirit sealed him with everything of Christ’s person, work, and attainments. These elements of Christ upon him were his seal to prove that he was anointed by God to serve Him as a priest. Furthermore, this anointing and sealing became a foretaste to Paul. No matter what the Corinthians thought of Paul, he testified that he was enjoying the Spirit as a foretaste. The anointing and the sealing brought him the divine element for him to enjoy.
I want to say again that what we need today is not doctrinal teaching but the heavenly anointing with the heavenly ointment. We are consecrated, commissioned, ordained, and inaugurated into our priesthood by being anointed. The anointing is the painting of all that Christ is, all that He has done, and all that He has attained into our being. We have been firmly attached to God’s anointed One, and we have been anointed. This anointing is the sealing, and this seal becomes the foretaste, the pledge, for our enjoyment.
Paul went on to tell the Corinthians that they were the letters of Christ who had been inscribed by the apostles with the Spirit of the living God as the divine, heavenly ink (2 Cor. 3:3). The Spirit is neither the writer nor the pen but the writing ink to write Christ into our being. The more we are written on with the Spirit, the more of the heavenly ink we have. This writing is like the anointing, the painting. The Spirit as the ink brings the heavenly element into us to make this element one with us.
Paul was anointed, so he was an apostle; the Corinthians had been inscribed with the Spirit, so they were the letters. Without being anointed, he could not have been an apostle. Without being inscribed with the Spirit as the ink, they could not have been letters. To anoint is with ointment; to write is with ink. Actually, the ointment is the ink. The ingredients and the elements within the ink are the same as those within the ointment.
Writing brings ink to the paper; it does not correct the paper. The Spirit is the ink, and the content of the ink is Christ with His person, work, and attainments. This heavenly ink is a compound of all the elements of Christ. The more we are inscribed with this ink, the more we have the elements of Christ dispensed into us. Then we become a letter of Christ with Christ as our content.
The more I write on a piece of paper, the more the essence of ink saturates the paper. The Spirit as the compound ink adds the substance of Christ into us and saturates us with the essence of Christ. Then we have the substance of Christ to really express Christ. There may not be much of Christ in our mind, emotion, and will. But when we are written on with the Spirit again and again, the essence of Christ is dispensed into us. Then our mind, emotion, and will express Christ because Christ has been inscribed into these parts of our soul. The essence and elements of Christ are added into us by the writing of the heavenly ink, the compound Spirit.
Next Paul spoke of the life-giving Spirit (v. 6). The Spirit does not give knowledge but life. While we are being written on with the heavenly ink, the compound Spirit, this Spirit imparts life to us. The more ink we get, the more life we get, and the more the essence of Christ is added to us. Then we have the real growth in life. The more we are written on with the heavenly compound Spirit, the more we receive the essence of the life of Christ. This life is real, living, strengthening, energizing, satisfying, and fruit-bearing. The writing Spirit is the life-giving Spirit. He writes on us by imparting life into us.
This Spirit is also the ministering Spirit (v. 8). He ministers Christ into us. Then He ministers Christ to others through us.
This ministering Spirit is the liberating Spirit (v. 17), who breaks all the bonds, takes away the veils, and releases us. The essence of Christ must be dispensed into us to liberate us.
Eventually, this all-inclusive Spirit is the transforming Spirit (v. 18). He transforms us, not by correcting or adjusting us but by putting more and more of the life essence of Christ into us. We have the life power of Christ to shape us with His life essence so that we can be shaped into His life form. As an illustration, the life power of the peach life shapes the peach with its life essence to produce the form of a peach. We are being transformed and conformed into Christ’s glorious image from glory to glory by the Lord Spirit.
I want to emphasize the fact that we are being transformed. We are as mirrors beholding and reflecting the Lord to be transformed into His image from glory to glory. When a carnation comes into full blossom, that is its glory. One day we will come into full blossom, and that will be the glorification and manifestation of the sons of God. That will be a glorious liberty, the liberty of glory. The entire creation is groaning and waiting for that liberty (Rom. 8:19-22). That freedom of the manifestation and glorification of the sons of God will be the consummation of our transformation.
Praise the Lord that we are now in the process of being transformed. We should not try to outwardly adjust or improve ourselves. Instead, we need to be anointed and sealed with the Spirit. We need to enjoy the Spirit as the foretaste. We need to be inscribed with the Spirit and enjoy His life-giving power. Finally, we need to experience the ministry of the Spirit and enjoy Him as the liberating and transforming One. The more we read the Word prayerfully and call upon the name of the Lord, the more we will enjoy the compound Spirit so that we can be transformed and conformed to the Lord’s glorious image.
