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The Spirit is the transfiguration of Christ. In resurrection Christ was transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit. Hence, the Spirit is Christ in another form. We can use the example of raw rice being boiled and becoming cooked rice. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three persons, and although the three are distinct, They are not separate but are one intrinsically. This mysterious God is described in a hymn: “In person three, in substance all are one” (Hymns, #608). Christ is God, and Christ is the Spirit. God is embodied in Christ, and Christ was transfigured in order to enter into us as the Spirit. We should be clear that the Spirit is the transfiguration of Christ.
In John 14:16-17 the Lord Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you.” The Lord Jesus was with the disciples as their Comforter, but He asked the Father to give them another Comforter, the Spirit of reality, who would be with them forever. We know the Spirit because He abides with us and is in us. The Spirit operates in us, moves in us, guides us, and shines in us. He often goes against our feelings to correct us so that we would not do what others do and so that we would live an extraordinary life. We are not corrected by outward regulation but by the moving and operating of the living Spirit within us. Hence, we can know the Spirit. Such knowledge is not objective but subjective and spiritual.
Verse 18 says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” In this verse the Lord changed the pronoun from He in verse 17 to I, showing that the preceding He, the Spirit, is the succeeding I, Christ. Thus, the coming of the Spirit is the coming of Christ, and the Spirit being with the disciples is Christ not leaving them as orphans. The I is the He, and the He is the I. Verse 19 says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” Here the Lord seemed to be saying that He would be killed and buried, but the disciples would still be able to see Him. This means that the Lord would resurrect and become the life-giving Spirit in order to live in the disciples; hence, He would live, and His disciples would also live. This fulfilled the word that He would be with His disciples. The Spirit who is in us to be with us is the Lord Jesus living in us. Verse 20 says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” This means that as the Spirit, the Lord would have an intimate union with His disciples. They would be in Him, and He would be in them. When the Lord passed through death and resurrection, He changed His form. In resurrection Christ was transfigured from the flesh into the life-giving Spirit in order to enter into us as another Comforter and be with us so that we may live because of Him. The Spirit who entered into us is the Lord Jesus Christ who walked and lived among the disciples.
When I read the Gospels after my salvation, I envied Peter, James, and John because they were always with the Lord. I thought it would be a blessing to have lived with the Lord Jesus. Is it better to have the Lord’s presence as Peter, James, and John did, or is it better to have His presence as we do today? If we could ask Peter, he might say that the Lord’s presence after Pentecost was better than His presence when He walked on earth. We do not have the Lord’s outward, visible presence, but we have His inward, invisible presence. Such a presence is more real, more intimate, and more wonderful than His outward presence. We have the Christ who was transfigured into the life-giving Spirit abiding in us.
John 20:19-22 says, “When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and while 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. And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced at seeing the Lord. Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be to you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you. And when He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Lord showed the disciples His hands and His side to prove that He had resurrected with a body. Then the Lord told the disciples that just as the Father had sent Him, that is, lived in Him to perfect Him, so also He was sending the disciples; that is, He was entering into the disciples to perfect them. After the Lord was transfigured into the Spirit, He entered into the disciples and was joined to the disciples. As a result, the sins they forgave, He forgave, and the sins they retained, He retained (v. 23). The Bible does not mention where the Lord went, because He was received into them as the Spirit. They received the resurrected Christ, because He had been transfigured to be the Spirit.
When we touch the Spirit, we touch Christ; when we contact the Spirit, we contact Christ. The Spirit is the reality of Christ. Christ is joy, peace, comfort, rest, life, and light, and the reality of joy, peace, comfort, rest, life, and light is the Spirit. The Spirit is the reality of all that Christ is; hence, the Spirit is the Spirit of reality. We can enjoy all that Christ is in a real way only by touching the Spirit.
John 16:13-15 says, “When He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality; for He will not speak from Himself, but what He hears He will speak; and He will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify Me, for He will receive of Mine and will declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He receives of Mine and will declare it to you.” The Bible reveals at least two hundred items of the riches of Christ, but if these riches were not in the Spirit, they would be merely empty doctrines. We must touch the Spirit in order to enjoy Christ, because all of Christ is in the Spirit. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ (Col. 2:9). All that the Father has is the Son’s, and all that the Son has is received by the Spirit. Now the Spirit declares and reveals these riches to us by guiding us into all of Christ’s reality. Therefore, the Spirit is the reality of Christ. We can touch the reality of all that Christ is only through the Spirit. Without the Spirit we have no way to touch the reality of Christ.
Since the Spirit is the transfiguration of Christ and the reality of Christ, the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Romans 8:9 says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” In this verse the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are used interchangeably, indicating that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of God who dwells in us is the Spirit of Christ, the transfiguration of Christ. When we have the Spirit of Christ, we have Christ, because the Spirit is Christ.
Second Corinthians 3:17-18 says, “The Lord is the Spirit...But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Verse 17 says that the Lord is the Spirit, meaning that the Lord and the Spirit are one; thus, the Spirit is also called the Lord Spirit. The Lord Spirit transforms the believers into the same image as the Lord.
John 7:38-39 says, “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.” The Spirit who is within the believers is not only the reality of Christ. The Spirit is also living water for the believers to drink in order to quench their thirst. First Corinthians 12:13 says that we were all given to drink one Spirit. We can drink the Spirit. According to verse 4 of chapter 10, in the wilderness the Israelites drank the same spiritual drink, which is the Spirit.
The Spirit within us is living water and also the anointing ointment (1 John 2:27). On the one hand, the Spirit quenches our thirst because He is living water, and on the other hand, He soothes and refreshes us because He is the anointing.
