Search
John 16:13 says, “When He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.” This verse does not speak merely of understanding the truth but of being guided by the Spirit of reality into all the reality.
God has a purpose in this universe, and this purpose is to mingle Himself with man to the extent that man would be exactly the same as He. God is Spirit—His essence, nature, and being are Spirit. Thus, for Him to mingle with man, man must have a spirit that is identical to and compatible with the essence of God. Only in this way can God’s Spirit be mingled with the human spirit, interact with the human spirit, and be joined with the human spirit as one spirit. For God to enter into man, mingle with man, and make man exactly the same as He is, He first had to become flesh. The Lord Jesus’ becoming flesh was His coming by the Spirit into man (cf. Matt. 1:20). Becoming flesh was the first step that the Lord Jesus had to take.
After becoming flesh, the further steps that the incarnated Lord Jesus took were to die, resurrect, and ascend to the heavens. The Lord’s death dealt with all the problems in the universe between God and man. Man’s sin, the world, Satan, the flesh, man’s corruption, and man’s opposition toward God have all been dealt with and terminated by the death of the Lord Jesus. This is the significance of His death. The significance of His resurrection is that it enables man to receive everything of God; that is, it brings man into all the riches of God. On the negative side, death solves all the problems between God and man, and on the positive side, resurrection brings man into the riches of God.
In addition to dying and resurrecting, the Lord Jesus also ascended to the heavens. He entered into and attained to the heavenly nature and the heavenly blessings. When He ascended, this God who is Spirit was no longer merely God or merely Spirit, because by that time He had already passed through incarnation, death, and resurrection. Before incarnation our God was in the heavens. At that time He was purely God, purely Spirit, and there was nothing other than the element of God and Spirit in Him and on Him. He was God, and He was Spirit. This was His situation before His incarnation.
One day God came down from the heavens and entered into man to become flesh. God’s becoming flesh was God’s putting on of man—His putting on of the element and nature of man. However, God did not stop there. He not only became flesh but also passed through death and resurrection. When He became flesh, the element of humanity was added into Him; when He passed through death, the element and power of death was added into Him; when He passed through resurrection, the element of resurrection was added into Him; and when He ascended to the heavens, the element of ascension was added into Him. Thus, today God is not the same as He was before incarnation. He is not merely God or merely Spirit. Now He has more elements—the elements of incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension are all in Him.
After becoming flesh, dying, resurrecting, and ascending, God descended on the day of Pentecost. The One who descended was the Holy Spirit; however, the Holy Spirit who descended was not the God before incarnation but the God who possessed additional elements to those He originally possessed. When He descended on the day of Pentecost, He had already passed through incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. When He descended, He was surely God, but in addition to possessing the element of God, He also possessed the element of man because He had become flesh. Moreover, He not only possessed the element of man as a result of becoming flesh, He also had the elements of death, resurrection, and ascension within Him as a result of dying, resurrecting, and ascending. Hence, the Holy Spirit who descended from heaven on the day of Pentecost was very rich. Within Him there was God, man, death, resurrection, and ascension. We can also say that this Spirit possessed the death of the cross, the life of resurrection, and the riches of ascension.
The Christ, who died, resurrected, and ascended, descended as the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and all that God is and has, as well as all that He had done, had passed through, had accomplished, and had attained to were in Him. God Himself and the humanity that God had put on were in Him. The death of the cross and its effectiveness were in Him. The power of resurrection and its effectiveness were in Him. The ascension of Christ with its reality, content, and authority were also all in Him. God and all that He has passed through were in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and continue to be in Him today.
After we are saved, the Holy Spirit lives within us, but very few of us realize how rich this Holy Spirit who dwells in us is. Not only is God in the Holy Spirit, but the humanity of the God who was incarnated is also in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the death of the cross, resurrection, ascension, and the riches and authority of the heavens are in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when the Holy Spirit comes into us, He comes into us with all His riches.
God is the Spirit, and the Spirit is God Himself, but when God became flesh, He passed through man and put on humanity. From that day on, God had no way to put off His humanity. Hymns, #132 says that today in heaven God still has humanity. Today our Savior God still has humanity in heaven (Acts 7:56). How do we know this? We know this because He passed through humanity and put on humanity, and after His death and resurrection He entered into ascension with this humanity (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 2:32-33).
Today the Holy Spirit has the element of God, the element of man, the element of death, the element of resurrection, the element of ascension, and the element of the riches of the heavens in Him. This is the Holy Spirit who is in us. Although we are so small and He is so great and so rich, the Holy Spirit is within us.
Before God entered into us, He passed through incarnation in Bethlehem and crucifixion on Golgotha. He also passed through burial in the tomb, resurrection, and even ascension, in which He received all the authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). After passing through all these processes, God as the Spirit descended and entered into us. The riches of all that God is and has done are in this Spirit.
It may be the case that we are often touched by the Lord’s great love that was manifested in His redemption. We may vividly and genuinely see the Lord’s death and His great love. Thus, when we think of Him, we may often be touched to the point of shedding tears. However, when we come to preach the gospel, we may not know how to present to people this love of the Lord Jesus that He displayed on the cross and in His precious, cleansing blood. Today, however, we have found the secret. We have seen that the Holy Spirit is able to show man the precious blood of the cross just like a scene on a television screen is shown and that in doing so the Holy Spirit is not constrained by time or space. The great love displayed on the cross and the precious, redeeming blood are in the Holy Spirit. If we know the mystery that everything is in the Spirit, we will realize that all the questions that we do not know how to answer can be answered by the Holy Spirit.
For example, when we preach the gospel to people, we may tell them that Jesus died for them on the cross and shed His precious blood for them. However, if they ask, “Where is the cross? Where is this precious blood?” we are not able to show them these things. Although we are not able to show them, as we are speaking to them, the Holy Spirit creates an image in their spirit, showing them the scene of the Lord on the cross so that they not only hear the truth of the gospel but also see a spiritual vision of what they are hearing. This spiritual vision is spiritual reality. The cross, resurrection, ascension, and all that God is and has done are in the Holy Spirit. All spiritual reality is in the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit brings God Himself, incarnation, redemption, the shedding of blood, the substitutionary death, resurrection, ascension, glory, authority, and the throne to man. After passing through all these processes, God became the Spirit of reality. All spiritual reality is in the Holy Spirit. In ourselves our ability to experience spiritual reality is limited by time and space, but time and space do not exist in the Holy Spirit, and He has brought all these realities directly into us. In the past all these realities were not available to us. But today the shedding of the precious blood, resurrection, ascension, and all these realities are in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit has brought all these realities into us.
In John 14 the Lord said that when He went away, He would send the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do when He comes? When He comes, the Holy Spirit guides us into all the reality. When we tell people that there is God, they may ask, “Where is God?” To man, God is not real. But we have to remember that in the Holy Spirit God is real. When a person touches the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit brings him into the reality where he is able to touch God. When we tell people that Jesus was crucified, this is merely a doctrine to them. To them the cross is not real. But in the Holy Spirit the cross becomes real, and in the Holy Spirit man can touch and experience the cross. In the same principle, when we tell the children of God that they are of Christ and that they have been resurrected with Christ, this may be vague to them. When they touch the Holy Spirit, however, this spiritual reality will be in them, and resurrection will become real to them.
All spiritual reality is in the Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of reality. In the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of reality, God is real. In addition, incarnation, the cross, resurrection, ascension, the throne, authority, blessing, and the glory in the heavens are all real. If all these things were not in the Holy Spirit, there would be no spiritual reality. This is why many unbelievers ask: “Is there God in this universe?” “Is there the cross?” “Is there resurrection?” “Is there ascension?” Although there is truly a spiritual reality of all these matters, for finite man all these matters are too far away. To those who believe in God, however, these things are very close, even intimately close, because all these things are in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is in those who believe. Whenever we touch the Holy Spirit, all these matters become real to us, because all these matters are real in the Holy Spirit. Whenever we touch the Holy Spirit, we touch death, resurrection, ascension, and the throne. To those who have never touched the Holy Spirit, all these things seem not to exist.
The reality of everything that we believe is in the Holy Spirit. What we believe does not come to us through teaching, rebuking, exhortation, copying, or imitation. Any living that is the result of imitation is not a genuine Christian living. The genuine Christian living does not come from imitation or teaching but from the Spirit. In the past there was a brother from Germany named George Müller. This brother knew how to come near to God and receive the leading of the Spirit in his spirit. He was one who had many experiences of faith. As a result, many Christians from the past imitated him, and even today many continue to do so. However, none of those who have tried merely to imitate him have learned to do so successfully, because spirituality does not come from learning or imitation. Spiritual reality depends on the human spirit touching the Spirit of God. Because spiritual reality is in the Holy Spirit, in order for a person to have it, his human spirit has to touch the Holy Spirit.
Teachings in themselves do not have reality. Thus, being a Christian does not depend on teachings. Spiritual reality depends on the Holy Spirit, and today this exceedingly rich Spirit is dwelling in our spirit. As long as we turn to our spirit, we will touch the Spirit who is God Himself and who contains all spiritual riches and reality. If we learn to reject our emotion, desires, inclinations, views, thoughts, and opinions, putting them in a secondary position, and learn to turn to our spirit, we will touch the Spirit, and we will touch God. Eventually, this Spirit will be to us the reality of whatever we need. When we need shining, we will receive shining; when we need guidance, we will receive guidance; and when we need resurrection power, we will receive resurrection power. The Spirit today is all-sufficient and surpassingly rich. Everything of God, including all that He has accomplished, passed through, and attained, is now in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit has already entered into our spirit.
The secret to having a normal Christian living is to deny our mind, our emotion, and our will, putting everything we have in second place, and to turn to our spirit, the deepest part of our being. Our inmost part is our spirit, and the One who dwells in our spirit is the Holy Spirit. All spiritual riches and reality are in the Holy Spirit. Thus, genuine Christian living is not a matter of how much teaching we have heard or understood or of how much resolution and determination we have; genuine Christian living is a matter of living in our spirit. There is only one basic lesson to learn for our Christian living—to turn to our spirit. As long as we turn to our spirit, our mind, emotion, and will spontaneously are put in second place, and our spirit will have the first place. Then we will be able to contact and touch the Spirit of God in our spirit so that we may touch the reality of the Holy Spirit. All the spiritual reality that we need can be received by us in this Spirit because all spiritual reality is in the Holy Spirit.
