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Scripture Reading: John 1:1, 14; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 11:24; Gal. 2:20; Matt. 16:24
In His economy God has two creations, the old creation and the new creation. Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis are a record of the old creation. According to the New Testament, God’s intention in the old creation was to obtain the new creation. There is a great difference between these two creations. The old creation came out of the creating hand of God, but the new creation has God’s essence and element within it. God did not get into the old creation with His nature, element, and essence; rather, Satan, God’s enemy, worked himself into that creation through man’s fall. That creation became his expression. God, however, wants an expression through His new creation.
God’s intention was to gain the new creation for His expression, but to gain this was not easy. God finished the further creation and restoration of the old creation in six days, but to make the new creation from the old creation is much more difficult. In order to complete the work of the new creation, God had to act in His Divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In eternity past there was a conference, a council, among the three of the Godhead (Gen. 1:26; Acts 2:23). In that conference it was decided that the Son, the second of the Godhead, should be the centrality and universality of the new creation. In order to accomplish this, the Triune God had to pass through a unique process. The first step of this process was the Son as the embodiment of the Divine Trinity becoming a man through incarnation. Through this step divinity got into humanity. In eternity past the Triune God was merely in divinity, but through incarnation He branched out from His divinity and with His divinity into humanity. He became a particular man with both the divine nature and the human nature. The descendants of Adam had only the human nature, and God in eternity had only the divine nature. God was in His divinity, and we, the descendants of Adam, were in our humanity. God was in His territory of divinity, and we were in our territory of humanity. Before Christ’s incarnation these two territories had nothing to do with one another. But approximately two thousand years ago, four thousand years after His creation of man, God branched out from and with His divinity into humanity.
After branching Himself into humanity through incarnation, God did many things, but His main achievement was the cross. Through the cross of Christ the old creation was terminated. The old creation terminated by the cross of Christ included sin, Satan, the world, the old man, “I,” the self, the flesh, and the natural life. This termination was achieved by the death of Christ.
The wonderful Triune God took two steps in order to reach us. First, the Triune God became a man (John 1:1, 14), a God-man, the complete God and the perfect man. Second, as the God-man, He mainly achieved one thing—the cross. The achievement of the cross issued in a transformation—the God-man becoming the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Through the steps of incarnation and the cross, the Triune God became the God-man and the life-giving Spirit.
John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit.” The word Spirit in this verse refers to the essence of God, not His person. The essence of a stand made of wood is wood. Likewise, the essence of God is Spirit. The life-giving Spirit includes the essence of God mentioned in John 4, but He also contains much more. The Bible reveals not only that God is Spirit but also that the Spirit, the third of the Godhead, is a person. In John 4:24 the Spirit is the essence, but in the divine title—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—the Spirit is the person (Matt. 28:19).
In the Divine Trinity, the Spirit is the outflow and the completion of the Triune God. There are not three Gods but one God. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Spirit as the third of the Godhead is the totality of the Godhead. When you have the Spirit, you also have the Son and the Father. When you approach God, you first contact the Spirit; then you have the Son and the Father.
In John 14 the term another Comforter (v. 16) is used. This another Comforter is the reality of the Triune God, the Spirit of reality. Second Corinthians 3:17 also says that the Lord is the Spirit, and in verse 18 the compound title Lord Spirit is used. First Corinthians 15:45 says that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit came into existence through Christ as the God-man passing through the cross and entering into resurrection.
Today we are blessed because we are in the age of the God-man, the cross, and the life-giving Spirit. Between the God-man and the life-giving Spirit is the cross, the greatest matter in the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose. Christ is the God-man and the life-giving Spirit. He is the centrality and universality of God’s economy, and the cross is the centrality and universality of the way to accomplish God’s economy.
The words centrality and universality were first used by T. Austin-Sparks. He used these two terms in reference to the cross of Christ but not to Christ Himself. We received much help from Brother Austin-Sparks concerning the cross of Christ being the centrality and universality of the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose. Christ is the person of the divine economy, and the cross is the way to carry out God’s economy. Thus, the cross is the greatest work achieved by Christ. Today we have Christ as the God-man and the life-giving Spirit, and we also have the cross.
God’s intention in His economy is to make the new creation from His old creation. The way He does this is to work Himself into a part of the old creation. The part of the old creation into which God works Himself is His chosen people. Not everyone born into Adam was chosen. We were chosen (Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:1-2) out of millions of human beings to become His new creation. Through Christ’s resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit, we, the chosen ones of God, were germinated to be the new creation (v. 3). The life-giving Spirit in the resurrection of Christ was the germination of the new creation achieved by the resurrection of Christ. By working Himself as a new element into us, He made us His new creation. Second Corinthians 5:17, the first mention of the new creation, says, “So then if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.”
In order to work Himself into His creation, God had to go through a process. Before His incarnation God was merely the Triune God in His divinity. After going through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). The life-giving Spirit has humanity as well as divinity. He also has the element of human living within Him. All the elements of God’s process have been compounded into the life-giving Spirit. This compound Spirit is typified by the compound ointment in Exodus 30:23-25. In Exodus 30 the anointing oil was a compound of five elements: myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, cassia, and olive oil. These five elements denote the divinity, humanity, death, and resurrection of Christ. The hin of olive oil signifies the unique God as the base of the compound Spirit. The four spices signify the humanity of Christ. Myrrh typifies the precious death of Christ. Cinnamon typifies the sweetness and effectiveness of Christ’s death. Calamus signifies the precious resurrection of Christ, and cassia signifies the power of Christ’s resurrection (For further reading, see Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 157—166.) These four spices were added into the olive oil, signifying that the elements of Christ’s humanity, death, and resurrection were added into the Spirit of God. Eventually, Christ as the last Adam, the God-man, became the life-giving Spirit with all the elements of His divinity and humanity. This Spirit is the consummation of the processed Triune God. Thus, when we say the life-giving Spirit, we must remember all the elements that have been compounded into this Spirit—His divinity, humanity, human living, death, and resurrection. The life-giving Spirit is such an all-inclusive person as the totality of the processed Triune God.
Christ as the God-man, the achievement of His cross, and Christ as the life-giving Spirit are three bequests in the New Testament. These have been bequeathed by Him to us through His death and resurrection. Today Christ in resurrection is these three items. We were chosen by God in eternity, and we were called by God in time. Now through His choosing and calling, we have become believers and members of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, who was processed through incarnation, death, and resurrection. In Him we have divinity, the proper humanity, the cross accomplished by His all-inclusive death, and resurrection. He is the life-giving Spirit and we are His members. His divinity, humanity, all-inclusive death, and the riches of resurrection are all with us. These riches are the totality of what He is as the life-giving Spirit.
We have been joined to Christ (1 Cor. 6:17). Our need is to enjoy what He is as the consummated Spirit, the consummation of the Triune God. The way for us to enjoy Him is to bear the cross. In my youth as a devoted Christian, I spoke a lot about bearing the cross, but like most Christians, my understanding concerning bearing the cross was mainly that of suffering. We need to see the real significance of the cross. The cross is the centrality and universality of Christ’s redemptive work. Christ in His redemptive work first brought us all with Him to the cross to terminate us. He terminated us with the whole old creation for the purpose of germinating us with Himself as the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. His death was for His resurrection. Christ’s death was not the goal. It was the means to reach the goal of resurrection. His death was the termination of the old creation for the germination of the new creation in resurrection.
He is the life-giving Spirit within us in resurrection making us the new creation. The turning point of His making the old creation into the new creation is the cross. If we are going to live a life in the new creation, we must bear the cross. In other words, we must be under the termination of the cross all day long. The termination of the cross is a lifelong matter. Our crucifixion with Christ was accomplished once and for all at the cross, but the experience of His cross is lifelong. When we experience the cross terminating us in a daily way, we are eventually led to live not an exchanged life but a grafted life.
The life that we live together with Christ is a grafted life (Rom. 11:24; 6:5). We are joined with Christ and live together with Christ. When we live by Christ, Christ’s element is added into us. This element is the life-giving Spirit. We live a life that is actually Christ living through us. God has no intention of asking us to do anything for Him. We have been terminated. In the past our teaching concerning the cross stopped with termination. For this reason our teaching was incomplete. Termination is not the end. Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). In Galatians Paul says that he lived a life not by himself alone but by Christ as his partner. Paul lived a life by Christ who was with him. Christ was living in him and through him. The turning point in Paul’s experience was the cross of Christ.
Sixty years ago I read some books concerning the cross. I was helped to know that I had died, that I was finished, and that I should not do anything. As a result of this understanding, I determined not to do anything. Eventually, I realized that my understanding concerning the cross was wrong. To say that I have been crucified with Christ is certainly right, but I also must live. I still live and do things, but I no longer do them by myself; I do them with Christ who lives within me. In this way I live a grafted life.
In our experience the turning point in living a life with Christ is the cross. Without the cross we live, but not Christ. With the cross we still live, but we no longer live by ourselves; Christ now lives with us. When I prepare to speak a message, I check with myself as to whether I am going to speak by myself or with Christ. I realize that if I do not go through the cross, whatever I speak has nothing to do with Christ. We must always realize that we have been crucified and that we should no longer live by ourselves but by Christ who lives within us. Death terminates the old creation; resurrection germinates the new creation. The cross is the turning point. When we reckon ourselves as being on the cross, we are terminated. We die in the old creation, and we now live in the new creation. In resurrection we no longer live alone. We now live in the new creation with Christ living with us. We and Christ live together a grafted life.
The cross of Christ was the goal of Christ’s incarnation. His manger pointed to His cross. He was born to be crucified, but when we were reborn, we were already crucified (Gal. 2:20a). His story is one of going to the cross to be crucified, and our story is one of being crucified already. Now we live a crucified life (2 Cor. 4:10-12). This crucified life is the application of Christ’s crucifixion, issuing in the manifestation of His resurrection life.
The cross of Christ is not the goal but the means to reach the goal. The goal is to bring forth the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. So where the cross is, the resurrection follows, and in the resurrection is the life-giving Spirit. This is the way for us to experience and participate in the life-giving Spirit. The way is to take the cross, and the issue is the life-giving Spirit in resurrection.
Our spiritual experience is a cycle of the cross and the Spirit. If we do not experience death, we do not experience the Spirit. But the more we experience death, the more Spirit we enjoy. Then the more Spirit we enjoy, the more death we experience.
