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Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2a; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Phil. 1:19b; John 7:38-39; Rev. 22:17; John 14:17; 1 John 5:6b; John 6:63; Eph. 6:17-18a; Acts 2:18, 33; Luke 24:49; 2 Kings 2:12b-15; Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6
I. Being the consummation of the processed Triune God.
II. Being the compound Spirit as the anointing ointment (Exo. 30:23-25), comprising:
А. The element of Christ’s divinity.
B. The element of Christ’s humanity.
C. The element of Christ’s death.
D. The element of the effectiveness of Christ’s death.
E. The element of Christ’s resurrection.
F. The element of the power of Christ’s resurrection.
III. Being the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of life — 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2a.
IV. Being the Lord Spirit — 2 Cor. 3:17-18.
V. Being the Spirit of Jesus Christ — Phil. 1:19b:
А. The Spirit of God who passed through human living, death, and resurrection with Jesus Christ.
B. As the pneumatic Christ Himself.
C. With the bountiful supply of the experience of human living, death, and resurrection in His flesh.
VI. Being the Spirit — John 7:38-39; Rev. 22:17:
А. As the aggregate of the processed Triune God.
B. With the totality of the regenerated and transformed tripartite men to become a couple in eternity.
VII. Being the reality of God, the reality of Christ, and the reality of resurrection — John 14:17; 1 John 5:6b:
А. As the substance of God’s new creation.
B. Being ever new and never becoming old.
VIII. The life-giving Spirit, through the prayers and petitions of the believers, mingling with the Lord’s words to make them spirit and life, that is, the Spirit who gives life — John 6:63; Eph. 6:17-18a.
IX. This Spirit being also the Spirit poured upon the believers, as a mantle clothing them, to be the Spirit of power to them for accomplishing God’s work — Acts 2:18, 33; Luke 24:49; 2 Kings 2:12b-15.
X. Becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit — Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6:
А. As the One who strengthens the believers in the degradation of the church.
B. That the believers may become the overcomers in the degradation of the church.
Prayer: Lord, we worship You for gathering us once again that we may be assembled together in You. We worship You for being the speaking God. You have not ceased speaking and You have been speaking until today. In Your recovery You have already spoken for seventy-four years. We deeply feel that You will continue to speak. Here we are truly under Your gracious visitation. We are thirsty for You; we love You; we seek You; we also pursue You. Within us we definitely have a thirst, which You alone can satisfy. Not only so, Lord, we want to see the mystery in the depth of Your Word. Your Word is both simple and profound. It is so simple that even a little child can understand it. It is so profound that without Your revelation, no one can comprehend it. Hence, Lord, we ask You to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, a spirit that can comprehend and penetrate, a spirit that can see and obtain. Lord, may You uphold us. We want not only to be those who pursue You but also to be the God-men whom You desire. We thank You that in our midst You have opened to us the vision of the high peak so that our hearts aspire and pursue, desiring to see what it is to be a God-man and to know how to be a God-man. Lord, this is really a great mystery, a mystery of mysteries. We thank You that in Your Word is the light and the revelation of the depth. Lord, we ask You to have mercy on us all again. Open up and speak to us clearly the secret of Your mystery from the depth of Your Word. Lord, cleanse us. Cleanse our whole being so that we can be clean inside and out. Both our speaking and our listening here need Your precious blood. Lord, our lips, our ears, the eyes of our heart, and our spirit within all need the cleansing of Your precious blood. Amen.
I have sought much before the Lord for this conference. In the past year, after the Lord released the high peak of the vision, everyone has read those messages and has seen the content of this vision. According to the news I received, the response of the local churches throughout the world is unanimous. Hence, the burden within me has become heavier. After the release of the high peak of this vision, all the saints have responded favorably in the spirit and are desirous to enter into this practice. They ask, “How can we become a God-man?” Many people not only do not know how to become a God-man; they even do not know how God became a man. We all know that our Savior’s incarnation was God’s becoming a man. This is common to us. However, since this word is from the Bible, its intrinsic significance is profound. Those who study science realize that the crucial points in science are exceedingly mysterious and profound. But those who do not know science do not realize its profoundness. The more one knows a matter, the more he realizes the mystery it contains. In the same way, every point in the Bible is mysterious, and the particular details in each point are inexhaustible. Hence, I have within me the leading from the Lord that after completing the life-study of the entire Bible this year, we still need a crystallization-study.
The subject of this conference is “The Issue of the Union of the Consummated Spirit of the Triune God and the Regenerated Spirit of the Believers.” Simply speaking, this refers to the issue produced from the fact of the union of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man. The Spirit of God is a mystery; the spirit of man also is a mystery. Hence, the issue produced from the union of these two is the mystery of mysteries. This time we are here to see these three mysteries. Apparently, we understand all these terms; however, intrinsically we may not know them. In the six chapters of this book, although we cannot exhaust these few mysteries, we still hope to lay a foundation and open a door so that we will be able to see and gain something in a far-reaching and deep way.
In this series of messages my central burden can be expressed in a sentence, that is, “The life-giving Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God comes to regenerate, sanctify, renew, and transform the believers, to conform them to the image of the Son of God, and eventually to glorify them with the eternal glory of God that the Son of God may be the Firstborn among His many brothers, the many sons of God; thus, they become the many God-men to constitute the Body of Christ and consummately be enlarged and built up as the New Jerusalem.”
First, we need to see the Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God. This Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God. This term consummation implies a process. If there is no process, there will not be a consummation. Since there is a consummation, there must be a process. Some have said, “God is eternally perfect. He does not need to pass through any process.” This saying is very shallow. The Bible shows that the first process God went through was His incarnation to be a man. He is the eternal God, yet He passed through a process to become flesh to be a man. Then this great God in human flesh lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. His incarnation was a process; His human living also was a process. Eventually, His dying on the cross was another process. Then His entering into resurrection was yet another process. After that, His ascension was another process. He has passed through at least the five processes of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. Having passed through these five processes, He is now different; He has had a consummation.
Here we must see that the consummation of the Triune God is a Spirit. This Spirit is the Spirit of God revealed in the Bible; He is also the Holy Spirit commonly spoken of among Christians. However, the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit are not simple in the revelation of the Bible. In this chapter we will see that this Spirit has at least eighteen statuses. The Bible opens by saying, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Our God began in this way. After passing through the sixty-six books, at the end of Revelation the Bible speaks of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. Hence, the sixty-six books of the Bible show us that this self-existing and ever-existing God, after passing through various processes, obtains a consummation. This consummation is the Spirit.
Originally, God was simply God, but after passing through the processes, God has been consummated to become a God-man. He no longer possesses only divinity without any other elements. This consummated God-man possesses not only divinity but also humanity. Moreover, He possesses the elements of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. In resurrection this consummated God-man was consummated to become the life-giving Spirit. Hence, the life-giving Spirit has become the aggregate of the processed Triune God with the elements of the man whom He became and the experiences of human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
This Spirit as the aggregate of God is joined to the regenerated spirit of the believers (that is, the spirit of the believers as the totality of the Body of Christ) to be one Body, first as the Body of Christ and ultimately consummating in the New Jerusalem. The aggregate of this God and the totality of the believers become a couple in eternity to be God’s increase and expression for eternity.
The coming New Jerusalem is a constitution of the processed Triune God and the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified believers. Its expression, for the most part, is the wall of the New Jerusalem, built with jasper (Rev. 21:18-19a). In the book of Revelation jasper signifies the appearance of God (4:3). Hence, the jasper wall signifies the corporate expression of God, which is produced by the transforming work of the Spirit, who is joined to the believers as the totality of the Body of Christ. Thus, this great entity as the increase and corporate expression of God in eternity is the all-inclusive Spirit as the aggregate of the Triune God and the totality of the believers.
The consummated Spirit of the Triune God is the compound Spirit as the anointing ointment (Exo. 30:23-25). The Spirit’s being a compound indicates that His elements are not just one but many. The compound Spirit is an ointment, not just oil. If He were just oil, He would not require compounding. However, the Spirit as an ointment requires many elements to be mingled together to become a compound ointment, which includes the elements of the divinity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the death of Christ, the effectiveness of the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the power of the resurrection of Christ. These six elements have been mingled together to become an ointment. Hence, the Bible says that this consummated Spirit is an ointment (1 John 2:20, 27). The processed Triune God became the anointing ointment.
This compound Spirit is the life-giving Spirit, who is also the Spirit of life (1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2a). The matter of giving life is not simple. God Himself is life, but it is not simple for Him to give His life to people. How can He as God give His life to us? As the God of holiness, He is holy, but we human beings are common. He is righteous, but we are unrighteous. He is bright, but we are dark. How can this God, who is holy, righteous, and bright, give His life to us, the human beings, who are not holy, not righteous, and not bright? This was not possible until He passed through the processes of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection and became a life-giving Spirit. It was at that time that He was able to give His life to us who are common and sinful. This is because He passed through the death of the cross and resurrection to redeem us who are sinful and not proper. His redemptive death not only delivers us from sin, but it also includes many other elements that release us from the troublesome situations related to sin, thus making it possible for Him to give His life to us who are redeemed.
The consummated Spirit of the Triune God is also the Lord Spirit. God is God, and He is also the Lord. God is God, and He is also the Spirit. Eventually, He became the Lord Spirit. This is what 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 tells us. If He were not the Lord, He could not have become the Spirit. For the Lord to become the Spirit, He had to be the Lord. He is the Lord Spirit, and this Lord Spirit is for our transformation (v. 18). We are being transformed every day from one degree of glory to another degree of glory, until we are transformed into the image of the firstborn Son of God. This transformation is carried out by the Spirit who is both the Lord and the Spirit.
This compound life-giving Spirit is also the Spirit of Jesus Christ. First, He is the Spirit of God, who went through human living, death, and resurrection with Jesus Christ. Then He is also the pneumatic Christ Himself, who has the bountiful supply of the experience of human living, death, and resurrection in His flesh. Philippians 1:19 says clearly that the Spirit of Jesus Christ has the bountiful supply. Such a Spirit has the bountiful supply and even is the bountiful supply. However, in what aspects is He the bountiful supply? He is the bountiful supply in the aspects of His incarnation, His human living, His death, and His resurrection. In these aspects there is the bountiful supply in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
The consummated Spirit of the Triune God is “the Spirit” (John 7:38-39; Rev. 22:17). The Bible progresses through thirty-nine books from Genesis to Malachi, and then from Malachi through the four Gospels — altogether forty-three books. Suddenly, in the Gospel of John, in 7:39, we are told, “The Spirit was not yet.” Why at that time was the Spirit not yet? Very few in Christianity would study this. However, the Bible says that the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus Christ had not yet been glorified. This tells us that when Jesus Christ was glorified, the Spirit was there. When was Jesus Christ glorified? Jesus Christ was glorified when He was resurrected (Luke 24:26). His resurrection was His glorification. At that time the Spirit was there.
First Corinthians 15 is a chapter that speaks specifically concerning resurrection. In verse 45 it says that in the resurrection of Christ the last Adam, who is Christ in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit (v. 45b). That is to become the Spirit. The Spirit is the aggregate of the processed Triune God. The Spirit is not only the consummation of the processed Triune God but also the aggregate of the processed Triune God. The consummation refers to the completion of the processes that the Triune God went through; the aggregate refers to the sum total of the three of the Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Now He is the Father and also the Son and also the Spirit (Matt. 28:19). The sum total of the three as an aggregate is the Spirit.
This Spirit is the reality of God because He is God. He is the reality of Christ because He is Christ. He is also the reality of resurrection (John 14:17; 1 John 5:6b).
After I had been working with Brother Nee for nearly twenty years, one day he said to me, “The Holy Spirit is the reality of resurrection.” At that time I did not understand how the Holy Spirit could be the reality of resurrection. Gradually, I began to understand. If there were no God, no Christ, and no Spirit, there would be no resurrection. It is not that there was resurrection only after the Lord Jesus had resurrected. In John 11:25 the Lord told Martha, “I am the resurrection.” At that time Martha was arguing about the matter of time. She said to the Lord, “Lord, my brother has died and has been buried four days. He must be stinking by now. If You had come four days earlier, he would not have died.” The Lord said to her, “Martha, I am the resurrection. There is no earlier or later with Me. If I am not here, there is nothing. If I am here, I am the resurrection.” However, who is this One who said to Martha, “I am the resurrection”? He is God, and God is the Spirit. This Jesus is the embodiment of God, and God is the Spirit. So, in the universe the Holy Spirit, the consummated Spirit, the life-giving Spirit, is the reality of resurrection. God is resurrection; Christ is resurrection. Hence, wherever God is and wherever Christ is, there is resurrection. Eventually, the consummated Spirit is resurrection. When we live in the Spirit, we live in resurrection.
This resurrection is the substance of God’s new creation. In the old creation there is nothing of resurrection because there is no God in the old creation. However, the new creation is just God Himself. The Spirit is the substance of God’s new creation. You and I were originally in the old creation, but now we are in the new creation. In the old creation we do not have the element of God. What we have is neither resurrection nor God. However, in the new creation what we have is entirely resurrection, entirely God. Hence the substance of the new creation is the Spirit. This Spirit is forever new and never becomes old.
The life-giving Spirit, through the prayers and petitions of the believers, mingles with the Lord’s words to make them spirit and life, that is, the Spirit who gives life. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Ephesians 6:17 says, “...which Spirit is the word of God.” Although it is not easy to understand these words, in our experience we can comprehend them. In John 6:63 we cannot figure out how the words spoken to us by the Lord are spirit and are life. But we can find out in Ephesians 6. When we receive the word of God through prayer and petition, the word becomes the Spirit and life. If we want to enjoy the Spirit and life in the word, we must do so through prayer and petition (v. 18). Using today’s word, this means that we need to pray-read. It is not enough to merely read. Those who have experience can testify that in reading the Bible, we need to repeat our reading a few more times. When we are reading, we must turn it into prayer. For example, we may read John 3:16, which says, “For God so loved the world.” If we merely read these words, we will have only the word and not the Spirit. But if we read these words in a spirit of prayer, saying, “Oh, God loves the world. God loves the world. Praise the Lord, this is too good. God loves the world,” this word becomes the Spirit. We will be enlightened and will pray with weeping, “Oh, God loves me. Lord, thank You that You love me.” In this way the word becomes spirit and life. It is through prayer that the word can become spirit and life.
Many times when we pray-read the word of the Bible in this way, it causes us to be inspired and weep. Not only the word of the Bible but even the hymns affect us in this way. A few days ago I sang Hymns, #1. I love that hymn very much. The first stanza says, “Glory be to God the Father, / And to Christ the Son, / Glory to the Holy Spirit — / Ever One.” Stanza 2 says, “As we view the vast creation, / Planned with wondrous skill, / So our hearts would move to worship, / And be still.” When I came to this stanza, my tears came down. Then stanza 3 says, “But, our God, how great Thy yearning / To have sons who love.” By reading this I knew that what God wants is not even the beautiful creation; He yearns to have many sons. Regardless of whether it is the word of the Bible or the hymns, if we read with a spirit of prayer, often we will be moved and will shed tears. This experience shows that the life-giving Spirit, through the prayers and petitions of the believers, mingles with the Lord’s words to make them spirit and life, that is, the Spirit who gives life.
This Spirit is also the poured-out Spirit (Acts 2:18, 33; Luke 24:49). He is water that we can drink and that can also be poured out. This Spirit was poured upon the believers to be the mantle Spirit clothing them, like the mantle of Elijah clothing Elisha to become his power (2 Kings 2:12b-15). This mantle Spirit is the Spirit of power for the believers to accomplish God’s work.
Finally, this Spirit becomes the sevenfold intensified Spirit. Revelation speaks of the seven Spirits (1:4; 4:5; 5:6). This is the sevenfold intensified Spirit as the One who strengthens the believers in the degradation of the church. The degradation of the church is so deep that without the seven Spirits there is no way to overcome it. In these last days the seven Spirits enable the believers to become overcomers in the midst of the degraded situation of the church. Today, in order to be the overcomers in the midst of the degradation of the church, we must have the sevenfold intensified Spirit.
In conclusion, we see that the Holy Spirit has eighteen statuses for God to become man and to make man God that God and man may be joined and mingled as one. These eighteen statuses are (1) God, (2) the Triune God, (3) the Holy Spirit, (4) becoming man, (5) passing through human living, (6) passing through death, (7) resurrecting from death, (8) ascending to the height of the heavens, (9) becoming the life-giving Spirit — the Spirit of life, (10) becoming the compound Spirit as the anointing ointment, (11) becoming the consummation of the Triune God, (12) becoming the Lord Spirit, (13) becoming the Spirit, (14) becoming the Spirit of Jesus Christ, (15) becoming the Spirit of reality, (16) as the Spirit in the word of God, (17) as the outpoured Spirit — the mantle Spirit — the Spirit of power, (18) becoming the seven Spirits.
I hope that you will study this chapter thoroughly and also will do your best to prophesy in the meetings. Especially the co-workers and elders have to take the lead in this matter. You have to become newer. If you stand up to speak, you will become new. If you do not speak, you will become old. If one speaks every day, he will become new. If one closes up and does not speak, he will become old. Not to speak for the Lord is to be old; to speak for the Lord is to be new.
