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Scripture Reading: John 1:14; Heb. 2:14a; John 1:29; 1 Cor. 15:3b; Heb. 2:14b; John 3:14; 12:31-33; Gal. 6:14; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20a; 5:24; John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3; John 1:12; Rom. 12:5; Exo. 30:25; Rom. 8:2a; 2 Cor. 3:6b; Gen. 2:7; Prov. 20:27; John 3:6b; 2 Tim. 4:22; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Cor. 6:17; 4, Rom. 8:6
In this chapter we will cover two main points: the Triune God being processed to be the life-giving Spirit, and the tripartite man being created with a spirit to be the receiver and container of the divine life. Hence, the subject of this chapter is the two spirits, the divine Spirit and the human spirit. The first Spirit is God Himself processed to be the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit is the consummated Triune God. The Triune God became the Spirit in order to give life to the tripartite man. This is one side. The other side is that man has been created with a spirit as the receiver and container of the divine life. On God’s side there is the life-giving Spirit, and on man’s side there is the human spirit. In order to have the proper experience of life, we must know these two spirits.
The process of the Triune God is clearly revealed in the New Testament, but this matter has been missed by most Christians. Although such words as process and Trinity cannot be found in the Bible, the facts that these words describe are definitely revealed in the Bible. Theophilus of Antioch (A.D. 115-188), one of the early church fathers, was the first to use the word Trinity in his writings. The word triune also began to be used at about the same time. Thus, both Trinity and triune were brought into Christian theology.
The revelation of the Triune God can be found throughout the New Testament. In Matthew 28:19 the Lord Jesus charged the disciples to baptize the nations “into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In this verse name is singular in number, yet the one name refers to three persons. This shows that there is one name for the Divine Trinity (see footnotes 5 and 6 on Matthew 28:19 in the Recovery Version). The word person is often used to describe the three of the Divine Trinity, yet we must be careful in using such a term. Speaking of the term person, Griffith Thomas, one of the founders of Dallas Theological Seminary and a highly respected student of the Bible, said in his book The Principles of Theology, “Like all human language, it is liable to be accused of inadequacy and even positive error. It certainly must not be pressed too far, or it will lead to Tritheism...While we are compelled to use terms like ‘substance’ and ‘Person,’ we are not to think of them as identical with what we understand as human substance and personality” (p. 31).
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not three separate persons or three Gods; they are one God, one reality, one person. Hence, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are denoted by one name. The name denotes the person, and the person is the reality of the name. The name of the Divine Trinity is the sum total of the Divine Being, equivalent to His person. God is triune; that is, He is three-one. In some theological writings the preposition in is added between three and one to make three-in-one. However, it is more accurate to say that God is three-one. Being three-one, He is one God, with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as His reality, His person. Thus, the name of the Triune God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Father, Son, and Spirit are not three different names; they are the unique name of the Divine Trinity. Such a name is a compound title. Many of the divine titles in the Bible, such as God the Father, the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18), are compound titles. The compound name in Matthew 28:19 is composed of three parts—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Triune God took several crucial steps in being processed to be the life-giving Spirit. First, He was incarnated. As God, He entered into the womb of a human virgin and stayed within that womb for nine months. In this way He took on humanity as His shelter, His dwelling place. His incarnation surely was a process. Second, He lived and walked on the earth, passing through the long “tunnel” of human living for thirty-three and a half years. This also was a process. Third, He entered into death and passed through death, which included the grave and Hades. Fourth, after three days, He walked out of death and Hades and entered into resurrection. His death and resurrection also were a process. After His death and in resurrection, He came to visit His disciples (John 20:19; Luke 24:36). His disciples thought that they were seeing a spirit (v. 37), and they could not understand how He could come into the room without the doors being opened. Three days earlier, the Lord Jesus had taken bread with them in His body of flesh (22:19), but when He came into the room that night, He came in His resurrected body. The Lord Jesus told them to look at His hands and feet and to handle Him, saying, “A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you behold Me having” (24:39). How could these things be? In responding to such questions, it is wise to say that we do not know the answer.
After the Lord’s resurrection He stayed with the disciples for forty days (Acts 1:3), during which time He made His presence both visible and invisible to them. Then He led them to Jerusalem and ascended to the third heaven from the Mount of Olives (vv. 12, 9). Through His ascension the Lord Jesus completed His process. His ascension was the final step in the consummating of the Triune God. All three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—were fully consummated in the Lord’s ascension.
The word consummation indicates that a work or a process has been completed, or finished. This may be illustrated by the cooking of food. Before the process of cooking begins, all the groceries are raw. After cooking for two hours, the groceries are consummated into a feast. Before His incarnation God was “raw,” having the divine nature but not the human nature. Through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, God was processed and consummated. Now, He is no longer the “raw” God; He is the consummated and completed Triune God with divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death, the powerful resurrection, and the transcendent ascension. All these are elements, or ingredients, in the processed and consummated Triune God.
The Triune God was incarnated to partake of humanity (John 1:14; Heb. 2:14a). After being incarnated, God was different from what He was before His incarnation. Before being incarnated, He was merely God, but after being incarnated, He was God within a human shell. The babe who was laid in a manger at the inn in Bethlehem (Luke 2:7) was the mighty God (Isa. 9:6). Many of the Jews at that time, like many Jewish scholars today, could not believe that the little babe in the manger was Jehovah God. Yet we believe that He was the very God. After His birth He lived on the earth for a number of years. One day He told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified (Matt. 16:21). Do not think that He was simply arrested by the soldiers and the deputies of the chief priests and Pharisees. Actually, He delivered Himself to them (John 10:15, 18; 18:3-8). When they came to arrest Him, the Lord asked the soldiers to tell Him whom they were seeking. They told Him that they were seeking Jesus the Nazarene. When the Lord replied by saying, “I am,” the meaning of the name Jehovah (Exo. 3:14-15), they fell backward to the ground (John 18:6). It was impossible for them to arrest Jehovah. The Lord Jesus delivered Himself to them in order that He could be processed through death and resurrection.
The Lord Jesus was crucified in order to accomplish the all-inclusive death for redemption (1:29; 1 Cor. 15:3b; Heb. 2:14b; John 3:14; 12:31-33; Gal. 6:14; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20a; 5:24; John 12:24). The Lord Jesus died an all-inclusive death, and His death dealt with six main negative items: sin (including sins—1:29; 1 Cor. 15:3b), Satan (Heb. 2:14b; John 3:14), the world (12:31-33; Gal. 6:14), the old man (Rom. 6:6), the flesh (Gal. 5:24), and the “I” (2:20a), which includes our natural life. In addition, the Lord’s all-inclusive death accomplished one positive thing: it released the divine life from within His humanity (John 12:24). Thus, the Lord’s death was at least sevenfold in its accomplishments. The Lord Jesus’ all-inclusive death became a strong factor in His consummated triune being. Through such a death, He obtained an eternal redemption for His redeemed people (Heb. 9:12).
After He passed through death, the Triune God entered into resurrection. In resurrection He brought humanity into divinity, making the believers of Christ sons of God and members of Christ (1 Pet. 1:3; John 1:12; Rom. 12:5). To bring humanity into divinity is to bring man into God. The incarnation of the Triune God brought God into man, and His resurrection brought man into God. Through this kind of traffic a wonderful mingling takes place. Now, in His resurrection, God is mingled with man and man is mingled with God. Thus, man and God, God and man, are one. How wonderful this is! In this mingling, God made the believers of Christ sons of God. These sons of God are human and divine. God can say to His believers, “I am divine and human,” and His believers can reply, “Praise You, Lord. You are divine and human, and we are human and divine.” This was accomplished through His resurrection.
Whenever we live in resurrection, we bring humanity into divinity. This means that when we live in resurrection, we bring ourselves into God, and when we do not live in resurrection, we are outside of God. Thus, resurrection is still going on today. Romans 6:4-5 says that we were buried through baptism into death and were raised to walk in newness of life (v. 4), which is the likeness of Christ’s resurrection (v. 5). As we are living in resurrection, we are one with God and are being brought into God.
Through the steps of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Triune God has been consummated to be the compound, all-inclusive, indwelling Spirit (Exo. 30:25). This Spirit is the processed and consummated Triune God. In Exodus 30 an ointment was prepared, and this ointment was called a compound ointment because it was made from oil compounded with four different spices (vv. 22-25). This compound ointment is a type of the compound Spirit, who is the Triune God compounded with humanity, the all-inclusive death of Christ, the all-powerful resurrection of Christ, and the transcending ascension of Christ. This compound Spirit is the consummated Triune God.
As such a compound Spirit, He is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2a). The ingredients of creation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension have been compounded together in this one Spirit. Now, this Spirit is the Spirit of life, waiting to be received and contained by the tripartite man.
The Spirit of life imparts the divine life to the believers of Christ (2 Cor. 3:6b). We receive the Spirit of life by exercising our human spirit. When we exercise our spirit, immediately the compound Spirit, who is the Spirit of life and the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), enters into our spirit, imparting the divine life into us.
The Triune God as the life-giving Spirit desires to give life to man, but if man did not have a spirit to receive and contain Him, the Triune God would be unable to give life to man. Rain may fall on a stone for many hours, but the stone will be unable to receive the water, because it does not have a proper receiver to receive the water. However, if rain falls on a sponge, after a short time the water will soak and saturate the sponge, because the sponge has a proper receiver for the water. Eventually, the sponge will be mingled with the water. This illustrates how man with his spirit is a receiver and a container for the divine life.
Life is the mingling of God as the Spirit with man in his spirit. However, many people confuse life with virtues such as humility, meekness, or gentleness. Many of the students of Confucius are very humble and meek, but their humility and meekness are a matter of outward character. Life is God processed to be a life-giving Spirit to be received by the tripartite man, who was created with a spirit as the receiver and container of the Spirit, who is the Spirit of life.
Life is God as the Spirit mingling Himself with us in our spirit. In actual fact, we have such a mingling, but in our daily life we may not experience this mingling in a practical way. We may live in a way that annuls the mingling. When we sense that the mingling has ceased, we must confess to the Lord and receive the cleansing of the blood. Then the anointing will return, and the mingling will continue. This is life. Life is the very Triune God, in whom we believe, whom we serve, whom we worship, and whom we exalt, processed to be a life-giving Spirit to be received by us, the tripartite men, who have been created with a spirit to be the receiver and container of the divine Spirit as our life. This life does not know what it is to be humble or proud, good or evil. Life does have a number of attributes, and humility is one of these attributes; however, the humility of life is not something of human conduct. When we ask, “What should I do?” we are not in life. Life is as spontaneous as breathing. If we are in life, without any intention we will simply live out the attributes of life.
The tripartite man was created with a spirit to be the receiver and container of the divine life (Gen. 2:7; Prov. 20:27). Genesis 2:7 says that when God created man, He breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life. This breath of life became man’s spirit. In Proverbs 20:27 the word for spirit is the Hebrew word neshamah, the same word used in Genesis 2:7 for breath. The breath of life mentioned in Genesis 2:7 is the very spirit of man. Proverbs 20:27 says that the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord. When we exercised our spirit to believe in the Lord, the compound Spirit immediately entered into us. After receiving Him, we contain Him as the Spirit of life.
When I first began to travel in the United States in 1963, I spoke on the human spirit wherever I went. Many people told me that they had never heard of such a thing before. The verses I would give them to substantiate my speaking were John 4:24, John 3:6, and Romans 8:16. In each of these verses the two spirits—the divine Spirit and the human spirit—are mentioned. As I read these verses to them, many people were enlightened. In those days I was perhaps the only person in the United States who was speaking about the human spirit. Today, however, many people have picked up the truth of the human spirit and are speaking about it.
Our human spirit is like our stomach. Our physical stomach is a receiver and container for our daily food. Every day we receive food through our mouth. Our mouth is the opening for our stomach, and our stomach is the container for the food that we take in. While the stomach contains the food, it also digests and assimilates it. Eventually, whatever the stomach assimilates is distributed to the cells. Our spirit is our spiritual stomach. Every day we must eat spiritually. The Lord Jesus said that He was eatable (John 6:35, 51, 57) and that we need to come to Him and drink (7:37). By eating and drinking, we receive the Triune God as our spiritual food.
The spirit of man was created to receive the Spirit of life for regeneration (3:6b). When we first receive the compound Spirit, who is the consummated Triune God, He regenerates us.
From the time of our regeneration, we contain the Lord Spirit as life (2 Tim. 4:22; 2 Cor. 3:18). We contain the Spirit of life; thus, we can gain life continually.
The human spirit and the consummated divine Spirit become one spirit. This one spirit is the mingled spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).
The believers should learn to set their mind on the mingled spirit in order to have life (Rom. 8:6). We should not set our mind on our emotion, our will, or even our own thinking. We must set our mind on our mingled spirit. Within our spirit is the compound Spirit. Therefore, to set our mind on our spirit is to set our mind on the divine Spirit. When we set our mind on the mingled spirit, we receive life.
The believers should walk according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4). We should walk, do things, and have our being according to the mingled spirit. As a result, we will have life, enjoy life, express life, and minister life all day long. This is the way for us as believers to enjoy and experience life.
