Search
John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” Here the word spirit is mentioned twice: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” In chapter 6, verse 63 says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” This verse also mentions the word spirit two times. Here we see the principle that the Spirit gives life and that the words that the Lord speaks are spirit.
John 14:17-20 says, “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. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Here it says that the Spirit will be with us. The world cannot receive or know this Spirit, but we the believers know Him, because He abides with us and shall be in us.
In verse 18 the Lord told the disciples that He would not leave them as orphans and that although He would leave, He would come back again. He also said that when He came back to them in that day, He would live, and they also would live. Then they would know that the Lord is in the Father, and they are in the Lord, and the Lord is also in them. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are able to have these three ins. First John 4:13 says, “In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. When God gives us the Holy Spirit, there are two issues: one is that we abide in Him, and the other is that He abides in us.
John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Here spirit is also mentioned twice: first, in the phrase that which is born of the Spirit, and second, in the expression is spirit. That which is born of a certain thing is that certain thing. Thus, that which is born of the Spirit is definitely spirit. We can also say that spirit can come only from the Spirit. God’s salvation altogether depends on its spiritual reality; without spiritual reality, there would be no salvation of God. This is the same with our faith. Without the spiritual reality of faith, our faith would not exist.
The Bible says that God is Spirit and that God became flesh. This indicates that God, who is Spirit, became flesh. The Lord Jesus is the God who is Spirit become flesh. We all know that the Holy Spirit is God Himself.
The innermost part of our being is our spirit. Our spirit, as the center of our entire being, is our reality. When we were saved, everything regarding salvation happened in our spirit. After we have been saved, our progress in life before the Lord is also a matter in the spirit. Thus, the progress of a Christian is the growth of a Christian in the spirit. Christian living, work, and even prayer all depend on the spirit.
In short, God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the center of man, the reality of salvation, spiritual living, spiritual work, and even prayer are all in the spiritual realm. Only when we touch the spirit can we touch God, Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the genuineness of man, the center of man, the salvation of God, and Christian progress. Hence, Christian living and function must be in the spirit in order to have reality. Without the spirit all things are empty and are nothing but knowledge and doctrines.
Every matter or thing has its origin, nature, and expression. The spirit also has its origin, nature, and expression. First, the origin of the spirit is God. We know that gold often comes from the refined ore of a gold mine. Some of the ore contains the nature of gold, and through the refining process, gold is produced. Thus, the origin of gold is the gold mine. In the same way, because God is Spirit, the origin of the spirit is God Himself.
For example, if someone asks what a table is, we can say that the essence of a table is wood. If someone asks what man is, we can say that the essence of man is flesh and blood. If someone asks what a book is, we can say that the essence of a book is paper. Wood is the essence of a table, flesh and blood are the essence of man, and paper is the essence of a book. Every item has its essence, and its essence is based upon its origin. God is the origin, in God is an essence, and this essence is Spirit. This is what the Bible reveals to us.
The Bible also says that God is love and light. God’s being love denotes God’s nature, and God’s being light refers to His expression. However, these are not something of God’s essence. For instance, if a lamp is not connected to the electricity, it will not shine. The shining of a lamp is the expression of electricity, but it is not the essence of electricity. We have never seen electricity, but we have seen the expression of the electricity—the shining of a lamp. The expression of electricity, however, is not the essence of electricity. Let us use another example. The heat that comes from an electric heater is the expression of the electricity but not the essence of the electricity. There is a distinction between the essence and the expression of a certain object.
It is difficult to explain the essence of the Spirit because no one has ever seen the Spirit. On the one hand, some Christians know the Spirit, but on the other hand, no Christian can see the essence of the Spirit, the Spirit Himself. Although we cannot see the Spirit, the Spirit manifests Himself in many ways. We can experience the presence of the Spirit, see the manifestation and power of the Spirit, and touch and contact the Spirit in the saints. According to the revelation of the Bible, God is Spirit; the essence, the substance, of God is Spirit. When we say that God is with us, we mean that the Spirit is with us. God’s being in us is the Spirit’s being in us. When we fellowship with God, we are fellowshipping with the Spirit; when we touch God, we are touching the Spirit because God is Spirit. If we have the Spirit, we have God; if we lose the Spirit, we lose God. There is no God outside of the Spirit.
The Bible also reveals that it pleases God to mingle Himself with man. This is God’s purpose in creating man. Genesis says that God created man in His image and according to His likeness (1:26) because the purpose of God’s creation of man is that man would be a vessel to contain Him. For example, a Coca-Cola bottle is made to contain Coca-Cola. The appearance of a bottle indicates its purpose. The reason God created man exactly the same as He is, is so that He may put Himself into man. However, the process through which God puts Himself into man is not that simple, because God is too mysterious. God as Spirit cannot put Himself into man unless man has a spirit. Thus, the Bible says that when God created man, He not only created man in His image, but He also created a spirit in man (Gen. 2:7; Zech. 12:1). How wonderful this is! God Himself is the uncreated, eternal Spirit, and in order for this uncreated, eternal Spirit to come into man, God created a spirit for man.
Hence, the man whom God created has three parts. The first part, the outermost part, is the body, which is visible, tangible, and physical. The second part is the soul, which is psychological, mental, and metaphysical. It can be divided into the mind, the emotion, and the will. The feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight are all in the sphere of the soul. The third part, the innermost part of a person, is the spirit that God created for man. According to the revelation of the Scriptures, the conscience is a part of our human spirit.
All the peoples of the world, whether civilized or barbarian, have the inclination and thought to worship God. While a person is in high school, owing to his youth, he may be very proud of himself and may never confess that there is God. After he goes to college, he may have an even higher opinion of himself, thinking that scholarship and knowledge are God. When he starts working, he may become more conceited, considering capability and reputation to be everything and absolutely neglecting God. However, when he has achieved success and acquired fame, there will be a change in his inner being. He will begin to feel that knowledge, capability, and reputation cannot satisfy him. There will also be a sense of emptiness within him that will become increasingly intense.
At this time he may try to probe deeply into human life and to study human philosophy and religious ideology. Gradually, the inclination to worship God in his inmost being will become more pronounced. Some may worship a piece of stone, some may worship a piece of wood, and some may even worship a piece of paper. It seems that everything can be worshipped. Do not think that only uneducated people worship these things. In actuality, knowledgeable and highly educated people also do the same thing. Those who are thoughtful, knowledgeable, successful, and famous have an even greater need to worship God because although they have already reached the peak of their human life, they are still empty. The human spirit cannot be satisfied with knowledge, money, success, or reputation. Our body needs food and drink, our soul needs entertainment and enjoyment, and our spirit needs satisfaction. The human spirit needs nothing other than God Himself. God alone can be the unique satisfaction for the human spirit because it was created for the purpose of containing God.
The human spirit is the center of man, the genuineness of man, and the origin of all good in man. Man’s heart of filial piety, sympathy, and compassion, man’s conscience, and man’s human virtues all come out of the spirit of man. The more a person cultivates and nurtures his spirit, the better and more virtuous he will be. If a person takes care only of his physical and psychological needs but overlooks his spiritual need, even though he may be a capable and knowledgeable person, he will most likely be a person who is short in morality. The spirit of man was created by God, who is the Father of lights, from whom are all good things (James 1:17). If a person gives his spirit its proper place in him, then he will be a person of supreme morality and will have the possibility to be a man above all men.
Man has a spirit, which was created for God. God desires to put Himself into man, but sadly, man fell. Consequently, he does not know God and God’s desire. Furthermore, he does not know that man was created for the purpose of receiving, containing, and mingling with God. So for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose, God decided to become flesh. This is the reason the Lord Jesus became a man. What is incarnation? John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (v. 1). The Word’s becoming flesh (v. 14) is God’s becoming flesh. The Lord Jesus is God who became flesh—God who is Spirit became flesh. The Spirit is like electricity—unsubstantial, intangible, and abstract. Without electric lamps or electric fans we would not be able to see electricity. When we see an electric lamp shining, we can say that we see the electricity in the shining. We can also say that the shining of the electric lamp is the “incarnation” of the electricity. Through the shining of the lamp, the electricity becomes something visible.
Who is Christ? Christ is God becoming flesh. No one has ever seen God, but God became flesh—Christ. Christ is God becoming flesh, the embodiment of God. When He was among the disciples, outwardly He was almost the same as them, but inwardly there was a big difference. The difference was that the Spirit of God was in Him (cf. Luke 1:35; Matt. 12:28). The very Spirit of God was in Christ. Because God is Spirit, when God became flesh, it was the Spirit who became flesh. Hence, Christ is the Spirit who became flesh.
How can the Spirit who was in Christ enter into man? When Christ was on the earth, Peter, James, and John were always with Him, but He could not enter into them. Although they had seen His glory, tasted His love, and listened to His prayers and teaching, He could not enter into them. Thus, the Lord Jesus had to pass through death. Through death the Lord came out of the constraint of His flesh and became the life-giving Spirit. Today Christ is the Spirit who is omnipresent. In every place, when He touches man, His Spirit touches and enlivens the human spirit. His touching man is His Spirit contacting the human spirit. Just like a radio receives the electric waves from the radio station, we all have the experience of contacting the Lord’s Spirit with our human spirit.
No one can experience this for us. One day in the deepest part of our being—deeper than our mind, emotion, and will—something happened that made us feel unpeaceful and caused us to desire to kneel down to pray and confess, “O Lord, I am a sinner. I have offended my parents because I said something that I should not have said, and I have offended my colleague because I took something that I should not have taken. O Lord, I have sinned.” At that time our tears came down, and we felt that our conscience within us was accusing us and forcing us to confess our sins and ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. This is the experience of the pneumatic Christ entering into us, touching our spirit, and having such an effect on us. This effect was not something of our mind, emotion, or will but of the faith in our spirit. From that time on, this faith has become a genuine and living faith.
Therefore, we can see that spiritual reality is the God who is Spirit contacting our created spirit. The uncreated Spirit contacts the created spirit, and the two spirits fellowship with one another. This is spiritual reality.
