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In this lesson we will continue to speak concerning the Spirit’s work in us.
Acts 9:31 says, “The church throughout the whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it was multiplied.” This indicates that the church was suffering affliction through the persecutions, in which she feared the Lord and enjoyed the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s work in comforting us is a matter of the divine dispensing. When we live in the fellowship of the Triune God, He dispenses Himself into us that we may be comforted and encouraged by the Spirit.
Romans 14:17 says, “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” First Thessalonians 1:6 also tells us that the believers “received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit.” These two verses show that the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of joy. Our inward, genuine love comes from the indwelling Spirit. The overcoming life that we live in the church today is the kingdom life, which is constituted of the joy of the Holy Spirit with righteousness and peace. If we are righteous and right toward others and toward God, we will have a peaceful relationship with others and with God. Thus, we will have joy in the Holy Spirit, proving that we are living in the reality of God’s kingdom and are under God’s rule and thereby have the practical church life. In Matthew 5, 6, and 7, in the decree of the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens and the portrayal of the nature of the people of the kingdom of the heavens (5:1-12), the Lord Jesus concluded with this word: “Rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in the heavens.” This tells us that joy is an evidence of our living in the reality of the kingdom.
We need to rejoice, but it does not mean that we wait for some pleasant things to happen for us to rejoice. The indwelling Lord is the cause of our rejoicing, and the Holy Spirit who moves within us is the motivation of our constant rejoicing. If we live in the fellowship of the Triune God and experience and enjoy the Spirit, we will have the joy that is brought to us by the Spirit.
Romans 15:13 says, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit not only brings us joy but also empowers us that we may abound in hope. Our hope is to be brought into the glory of God, His expression. This will be fully fulfilled in the coming millennial kingdom, where Christ will be manifested as our glory. If we experience and enjoy the Holy Spirit in His power, we will be in the hope in the coming glory.
Romans 15:30 speaks of the love of the Spirit; Colossians 1:4 refers to the love which the saints in Colossae had unto all the saints, and verse 8 tells us that their love to all the saints was the love in the Spirit. These verses show that because of the indwelling Spirit, we have love toward all the saints in Christ, and that the Spirit is the source, the element, and the sphere of such love. As we live by the Spirit, He gives us a love for all the different members of the Lord’s Body so that we can love the brothers in the Lord from all cultures, races, and countries. This is not possible by our natural love.
Romans 5:5 says, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” The love of God is God Himself (1 John 4:8, 16). God has poured out this love in our hearts with the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, as the motivating power within us, that we may more than conquer in all our tribulations. Therefore, when we endure any kind of tribulation, we are not put to shame.
From the day we first called on the Lord Jesus, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This means that the Spirit confirms and assures us with the love of God. The indwelling Spirit assures us that God loves us. Although we may be afflicted, we cannot deny the presence of God’s love within us. Christ died for ungodly sinners such as we and shed His blood on the cross to redeem us and reconcile us to God. What love is this! Whenever we are in the fellowship of the Triune God, by participating in and enjoying the Spirit, we can realize afresh that God loves us and that His love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Second Corinthians 4:13 says, “And having the same spirit of faith according to that which is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, therefore we also speak.” The same spirit refers to the same spirit as set forth in the quotation in this verse from Psalm 116:10. We must exercise such a spirit to believe and to speak, like the psalmist, the things we have experienced of the Lord, especially His death and resurrection. Faith is in our spirit, which is mingled with the Holy Spirit, not in our mind. Doubts are in our mind. Here spirit indicates that it is by the mingled spirit that the apostles lived a crucified life in resurrection for the carrying out of their ministry.
If we would have the boldness to speak concerning Christ and of our experience of Christ in His death and resurrection, we need the spirit of faith. This spirit is the mingling of the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. As long as we have this mingled spirit, we will have faith and the boldness to speak to others about our experience of Christ. Whenever we are in our spirit, practicing to be one spirit with Him, we will have the spirit of faith, for the indwelling Spirit will be mingled with our spirit in our faith.
The indwelling Spirit is the means for God the Father to strengthen us into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts. In Ephesians 3:16-17 Paul prayed that the Father would “grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” This shows that it is through the Spirit that the Father strengthens us. When the Father works in us, He works through the Spirit, and the Spirit’s working in us is the Father’s working, for the Spirit comes from and with the Father (John 15:26) and He is the consummation of the Divine Trinity (2 Cor. 13:14). By the Spirit the Father is continually strengthening us into the inner man.
The inner man is our regenerated spirit, which has God’s life as its life. It is our spirit regenerated by the Spirit of God (John 3:6), indwelt by the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:11, 16), and mingled with the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 6:17). In order to experience Christ unto all the fullness of God, we need to be strengthened by God the Father into our inner man through the Holy Spirit. In this way, Christ will be able to make His home in our hearts, control our entire inward being, and supply and strengthen every inward part with Himself. This is the supreme result of our allowing the Spirit to work in us and for us as we experience and enjoy the Spirit in the fellowship of the Triune God.
The Spirit in us is for us to live and walk by Him. Galatians 5:16 says, “Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.” According to the context of chapter five, the Spirit here must be the Holy Spirit, who dwells in and mingles with our regenerated spirit. To walk by the Spirit is to have our walk regulated by the Holy Spirit from within our spirit. This is in contrast to having our walk regulated by the law in the realm of the flesh. The flesh is the uttermost expression of the fallen tripartite man (Gen. 6:3), and the Spirit is the ultimate realization of the processed Triune God (John 7:39). Because of Christ’s redemption and the Spirit’s work of regeneration, we who have received God’s dispensing can walk by the Spirit, by the processed Triune God, instead of by the flesh, by our fallen being. In Greek, the word walk in this verse means to tread all around, to walk at large; hence, to deport oneself, move, and act in ordinary daily life, implying a common, habitual daily walk. In this verse Paul charged us to have our daily life by the Spirit that we may by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.
In verse 25 of Galatians 5 Paul went on to say, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” To live by the Spirit is to have our life dependent on and regulated by the Spirit, not by the law. This equals the walk by the Spirit in verse 16. The Greek word for live in this verse implies both to have life and to live. Hence, Paul’s concept here is that, since we have life and live by the Spirit, our walk should also be by the Spirit. Literally, walk in this verse is “walk according to rules.” The Greek word means to observe the elements, to walk according to the elements, e.g., to walk in line, to march in military rank, to keep in step; and, derivatively, to walk in an orderly, regulated manner.
In Galatians 5:16 and 25 Paul used two different Greek words for walk. Both kinds of walk are by the Spirit and are regulated by the Spirit. However, the former refers to a general, daily walk; the latter, to a walk that takes God’s unique goal as the direction and purpose of life, and a walk that follows the Spirit as the elementary rule, the basic principle. Every believer should have these two kinds of walk by the Spirit. In the first kind of walk by the Spirit, we live, have our being, and walk about by the Spirit. This walk is a support to the second walk, a walk with a direction toward a goal. For the first kind of walk, the Spirit is our essence; for the second kind, the Spirit is our way. The Spirit Himself is the way, the rule, the line, leading to God’s goal. If we live in the fellowship of the Triune God and take the Spirit as our essence and our way, we will surely reach the goal.
As the Spirit works in us, He fights for us against the flesh. Galatians 5:17 says, “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these oppose each other.” This verse indicates that there is a war between the flesh and the Spirit, that the flesh and the Spirit oppose each other. The flesh lusts against the Spirit for its own desire, and the Spirit fights against the flesh for God’s purpose. If we are in ourselves, we will not be able to defeat the flesh; rather, we will be taken captive by the flesh (Rom. 7:23). Therefore, we need to be in the fellowship of the Triune God to experience and enjoy the Spirit. Then He will fight for us against the flesh that we may be delivered from the works of the flesh and live and walk by the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 shows us that the Spirit works in the believers to bear the fruit of life in many aspects in their life: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.” What the flesh does is works without life (v. 19); what the Spirit brings forth is fruit full of life. The fruit of the Spirit, as different expressions of the Spirit who is life within us, is listed here with only nine items as illustrations. It has more expressions, such as lowliness (Eph. 4:2; Phil. 2:3), compassion (Phil. 2:1), godliness (2 Pet. 1:6), righteousness (Rom. 14:17; Eph. 5:9), holiness (Eph. 1:4; Col. 1:22), purity (Matt. 5:8), and other virtues. These are also the fruit brought forth by the Spirit in many aspects in our life.
As the flesh is the expression of the old Adam, so the Spirit is the realization of Christ. Christ is actually lived out as the Spirit. The items of the fruit of the Spirit listed here are the very characteristics of Christ. We need to differentiate between our natural virtues and the fruit of the Spirit. The natural virtues do not have anything of the Spirit, whereas the fruit of the Spirit is full of the substance and element of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the result of the believers’ walking by the Spirit. We need simply to live by the Spirit and walk by the Spirit, and then the fruit of the Spirit will be brought forth automatically.
The Spirit within us longs to envy for God against worldliness. James 4:4-5 says, “Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever determines to be a friend of the world is constituted an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain: ‘The Spirit, whom He has caused to dwell in us, longs to envy’?” Here James used marriage to illustrate our relationship with God. The Bible indicates in many places that God and Christ are our Husband (Isa. 54:5; 2 Cor. 11:2). We should be chaste and love Him alone with our entire being (Mark 12:30). If our heart is divided by loving the world, we become adulteresses.
When God acquired us to be His spouse, He put His Spirit into us to make us one with Him (16-17, 1 Cor. 6:19) that He may occupy our entire being (cf. Eph. 3:17) for God, causing us to be wholly for our Husband. God is a jealous God (Exo. 20:5), and His Spirit is jealous over us with the jealousy of God (2 Cor. 11:2), longing, jealously desiring, that we will not be His lover and make friends with His enemy at the same time. For this reason, the Spirit works within us to separate us from everything other than God and to keep us for God Himself only. The Spirit works in this way also to dispense into us the Triune God as the unique element that we may be sanctified and transformed.
Through His divine dispensing, the Spirit in us comforts and encourages us in our suffering of afflictions. He also gives us joy. The overcoming life that we live in the church today is the kingdom life, which is constituted of the joy of the Holy Spirit with righteousness and peace. If we are righteous and right toward others and toward God, we will have a peaceful relationship with others and with God. Thus, we will have joy in the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the Spirit empowers us that we may abound in hope and be brought into the glory of God. He also gives us love that we can love all the saints in Christ. He also pours out God’s love in our hearts so that we are confirmed and assured concerning God’s love. He also mingles with our spirit in our faith, issuing in the spirit of faith. In this spirit we have the boldness to speak concerning Christ and our experience of Christ in His death and resurrection. He is the means for God the Father to strengthen us into our inner man. Thus, Christ makes His home in our hearts to control our entire inward being and supply and strengthen every inward part with Himself. The Spirit is also for us to live and walk by Him. By Him we have not only a general, daily walk, but also a walk that takes God’s unique goal as the direction and purpose of life. For the first kind of walk, the Spirit is our essence; for the second kind, the Spirit is our way. If we take the Spirit as our essence and our way, we will surely reach God’s goal. The Spirit also fights for us against the flesh that we may be delivered from the works of the flesh and live and walk by the Spirit. He also bears the fruit of life in many aspects in our life, such as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, and goodness. This is the result of our living and walking by the Spirit. He also longs within us to envy for God against worldliness that He may separate us from everything other than God and keep us for Himself only.
