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In this lesson we will continue to see the different aspects of the Spirit’s work within us.
The Spirit is the sword for us to fight against our spiritual enemies, the power of darkness, and the evil things. In Ephesians 6:10-20, concerning the warfare that deals with the spiritual enemies by putting on the whole armor of God, Paul said that we need to receive “the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God” (v. 17). Among the six items of God’s armor, only the sword is for attacking the enemy. Here it shows us that the sword, the Spirit, and the word are one. The word is the Bible. But if this word is only printed letters, it is neither the Spirit nor the sword. When the constant word in the Bible becomes the instant word, this word is the Spirit, who is the sword for slaying the enemy. If we would enjoy the Spirit as the sword for fighting against the enemy, we must come to the word of the Bible, receiving the word of God by means of all prayer. By praying and taking the word of God in this way, we enjoy the Spirit as the sword for fighting to slay all the things that resist us.
The Spirit who is within us and who is working for us should not be grieved by us. Ephesians 4:30 says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” To grieve the Holy Spirit is to displease Him. Once He comes into us, the Holy Spirit abides in us forever (John 14:16-17), and He will never leave us. Therefore, He is grieved when we do not walk according to Him (Rom. 8:4), that is, when we do not take Christ as reality nor have Christ as grace in the details of our daily walk. Sometimes when we feel unhappy, that feeling of unhappiness is actually the feeling of the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, when He feels happy within us, we are happy also. If we take Christ as reality and have Christ as grace, we will make the Holy Spirit happy, and He will give us joy. Therefore, we should take care of the Holy Spirit in us and not cause Him to be grieved.
The Spirit in us should not be quenched by us. First Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” The Spirit causes our spirit to be burning (Rom. 12:11) and our gifts to be flaming (2 Tim. 1:6). Hence, we should not quench Him. The Christian life is a life inspired and stirred up by the Spirit. Throughout the day we should have the Spirit inspiring us, stirring us, and moving and acting within us. Thus, instead of quenching the Spirit, we need to fan the Spirit in us into flame that He may burn in us.
The Spirit within us who gives grace to us should not be insulted by us. Hebrews 10:29 warns the Hebrew believers not to insult the Spirit of grace. Under the new covenant, through the redeeming blood of Christ, the Hebrew believers had become partakers of the Holy Spirit (6:4), the Spirit of grace. If they had returned to Judaism to offer sacrifices for their sins, they would have been contradicting the work of the Spirit of grace; that is, they would have been sinning willfully to insult the Spirit of grace, who dwelled in them and worked in them. This is a very serious matter. In the church life we should not contradict the work of the Spirit of grace and fall to the extent of insulting the Holy Spirit, thereby suffering serious loss.
Instead of grieving, quenching, or insulting the Spirit, we should experience and enjoy Him positively as the consummation of the Triune God. Then, through the work of the indwelling Spirit, we will feel happy, released, and glorious.
Jude 20 says, “But you, beloved, building up yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit is the means for us to pray, and to pray is to have fellowship with the Triune God. By prayer we are preserved in our fellowship with the Triune God. The Spirit is the element and sphere of our prayer. When we pray by this element and in this sphere, we experience and enjoy the Spirit in the fellowship of the Triune God.
According to this verse, if we would build up ourselves upon our most holy faith, we need to pray in the Holy Spirit. On the foundation of this holy faith, and in the sphere of it, by praying in the Holy Spirit, we build up ourselves. The truth of the faith in our apprehension and the Holy Spirit enjoyed through our prayer are necessary for our building up. We should keep ourselves in the love of God by building up ourselves upon our most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit; thus, we await and look for the mercy of our Lord that we may not only enjoy eternal life in this age but also inherit it for eternity (v. 21; Matt. 19:29).
Romans 8:26a says, “In like manner the Spirit also joins in to help us in our weakness.” In particular, weakness here is our weakness in prayer. Prayer exposes our weakness. It is not easy for us to pray. We may have the energy to do many other things, but we may not have the energy needed to pray. Even if we have the desire to pray, we may not have the energy, strength, and ability to carry out our desire. This indicates that we are weak in God’s interests and in the divine things. Therefore, the indwelling Spirit works in us to help us in our weakness.
In this verse, the phrase “in like manner” includes matters covered in foregoing verses such as awaiting, eagerness, groaning, endurance, and hope. While we are groaning, the Holy Spirit also is groaning. While we are expecting, He is expecting. While we are hoping and enduring, He is hoping and enduring. Whatever we are, He is also the same. In like manner the Spirit joins in to help us. What a comfort this is! If we are weak, He apparently is weak also, although actually He is not. He sympathizes with our weakness. He appears to be weak for the sake of our weakness in order to participate in it. He participates in our weakness in order to help us and to join in our manner.
Romans 8:26b says, “We do not know for what we should pray as is fitting, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” When we are weak, unable to pray, the Spirit comes in to strengthen us. Then we are able to pray. However, although we may be burdened to pray, we may not know what to say and can only groan. This is the groaning of the Spirit within us. The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings in our manner. This groaning apparently is our groaning, but in our groaning is the groaning of the Spirit. He is in us, and He groans in the same manner as our groaning. He groans together with us. When we have a real burden to pray, yet we do not know how to utter it, then spontaneously we may groan. This is the best prayer within which the Spirit intercedes for us by groaning together with us.
This kind of unutterable prayer is primarily for the growth in life. Concerning our material needs and business affairs we are clear and have the utterance to pray about them. But concerning the matter of our growth in life we are lacking in both understanding and utterance. We do not know the kind of prayer God desires, and we are not clear how to pray, according to the burden we feel, for our being conformed to the image of God’s Son; hence, we groan. In our groaning, the Spirit groans also, interceding for us. His interceding is mainly that we may experience the transformation in life for growth into the maturity of sonship that we may be fully conformed to the image of God’s Son.
As the Spirit works in us by helping us in our weakness and by interceding for us with groanings, He infuses His according-to-God mind into us in our prayer. Romans 8:27 says, “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to God.” God’s desire is that we may be conformed to the image of His Son and be brought into His glory. As we do not know how to pray concerning the growth in life, we groan in ourselves, eagerly expecting the divine sonship. Then the Spirit not only groans with us in our prayer, interceding for us, but also mingles with us by infusing His according-to-God mind into us in our prayer.
In 2 Timothy 1:14 Paul charged Timothy, saying, “Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” According to the preceding verse, verse 13, the deposit here must refer to the deposit of healthy words, including the riches of life in His word, which the Lord has stored in us. From the time we were saved, we have received many things from God as a deposit, like a deposit in a bank. Within us, and especially within our spirit, we have a divine deposit from the Lord. God’s life, God’s Spirit, and all the precious truths we have seen in the Lord’s recovery have been deposited into our being. How can we guard this deposit? We can guard this deposit only through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. If we act, behave, and have our life in the Spirit, all that has been deposited into us will be guarded. But if we neglect the Spirit and walk in the flesh and according to our mind, there will not be any guarding of the good things that have been deposited into our being. For this reason, we need to exercise our spirit and be preserved in fellowship with the Triune God; then we shall have a care for all the things that have been deposited into our being.
Galatians 6:8 says, “He who sows unto his own flesh will reap corruption of the flesh, but he who sows unto the Spirit will of the Spirit reap eternal life.” To sow unto the flesh is to sow for one’s own flesh, with the desire and purpose of the flesh in view, to fulfill what the flesh covets. To sow unto the Spirit is to sow for the Spirit, with the desire and aim of the Spirit in view, to accomplish what the Spirit desires. To sow for the fulfilling of the purpose of the flesh issues in corruption; to sow for the accomplishing of the aim of the Spirit issues in life, even eternal life. Corruption is of the flesh, indicating that the flesh is corrupted; eternal life is of the Spirit and is the Spirit Himself. Sowing includes the totality of our Christian life. Everything we do is a sowing, either unto our own flesh or unto the Spirit, and our sowing issues in a reaping either of corruption out of the flesh, or of eternal life out of the Spirit.
This verse shows us clearly that the flesh is in contrast to the Spirit, and corruption is in contrast to eternal life. As far as we are concerned, there are only two kinds of sowing and two kinds of reaping. Sowing unto the flesh will always produce a harvest of corruption, whereas sowing unto the Spirit will always produce a harvest of eternal life. This word strongly implies that we need to make a decision with respect to our aim, our goal. To sow unto the flesh is to have the flesh as the goal, but to sow unto the Spirit is to have the Spirit as our goal. Thus, the Spirit should be not only our life and walk but also the goal of our living. Whatever we do, we do with a view toward this goal. We need to take the Spirit as our unique and eternal goal and keep ourselves continually in the fellowship of the Triune God that we may sow unto the Spirit and of the Spirit reap eternal life.
The Spirit works in us to confess to us that Christ came in the flesh. First John 4:2 says, “In this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” This shows us that the discernment of spirits is based upon whether or not a spirit confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. The spirit of any genuine prophet motivated by the Holy Spirit of truth will confess the divine conception of Jesus and affirm that He was born as the Son of God. Christ is God incarnate to become a man through divine conception. His conception is divine because it was carried out by the Holy Spirit. However, this conception took place in the womb of a virgin. Therefore, He, the very God, became a man in the flesh. Because He was conceived of the Spirit to be born in the flesh, the Spirit would never deny that He has come in the flesh through divine conception.
When we are kept in the divine fellowship of the Triune God, the Spirit will show us, will confess to us, that the Lord Jesus who came in the flesh is still a man after His death and resurrection (Luke 24:39; Acts 7:56). Therefore, in the divine fellowship we may continually enjoy Him as God and as a man, especially as the One who, in His humanity, can sympathize with our weaknesses and problems. In our fellowship with the Divine Trinity, the Third, the Spirit, confesses, testifies, that the Second, who is the Lord Jesus, is still a man. The Spirit’s confessing to us of the humanity of the Lord Jesus is truly a comfort.
On the one hand, the Spirit confesses Christ’s humanity, that He has come in the flesh; on the other hand, the Spirit confesses Christ’s divinity, that He is the Son of God. First John 5:6 says, “This is He who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ; not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood; and the Spirit is He who testifies, because the Spirit is the reality.” According to the context of this verse, Jesus, the man of Nazareth, was attested to be the Son of God by the water He went through in His baptism (Matt. 3:16-17; John 1:31), by the blood He shed on the cross (John 19:31-35; Matt. 27:50-54), and also by the Spirit He gave not by measure (John 1:32-34; 3:34). By these three God has testified that Jesus is His Son given to us, that in Him we may receive His eternal life by believing into His name (John 3:16, 36; 20:31). The water of baptism terminates people of the old creation by burying them; the blood shed on the cross redeems those whom God has chosen from among the old creation; and the Spirit, who is the truth, the reality in life (Rom. 8:2), germinates those whom God has redeemed out of the old creation by regenerating them with the divine life. By the three steps of termination, redemption, and germination, Jesus Christ has not only been testified of as the Son of God but has also entered into our spirit. Now the Spirit is working in us to preserve us in the fellowship of the Triune God that we may enjoy the humanity of the Lord Jesus and also His divinity.
The Spirit is the sword for us to fight against our spiritual enemies, the power of darkness, and the evil things. When the constant word in the Bible becomes the instant word, this word is the Spirit, who is the sword. When we receive the word of God by means of all prayer, we enjoy the Spirit as the sword for slaying all the things that resist us. We should take care of the Holy Spirit in us and not grieve Him. We should not quench the Spirit; instead, we need to fan the Spirit in us that He may burn in us. Furthermore, we should not insult the Spirit nor contradict the work of the Spirit of grace. We should take the Spirit as the means for us to pray that we may be preserved to experience and enjoy Him in our fellowship with the Triune God. The Spirit also helps us in our weakness in prayer and intercedes for us with groanings. Although we have the desire to pray, we may not have the energy needed to pray. Therefore, He works in us to help us in our weakness. Furthermore, although we may be burdened to pray, we may not know what to say and can only groan. The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings in our manner. He also mingles with us by infusing His according-to-God mind into us in our prayer. The Spirit is also the means for us to guard the good deposit that we may be able to guard the healthy words and the riches of life in the word, which the Lord has deposited in us. In our living we should sow to accomplish what the Spirit desires and not sow to fulfill what the flesh covets, that we may have a reaping of eternal life of the Spirit. The Spirit works in us, on the one hand, to confess to us the humanity of Christ, to confess that He came in the flesh, and on the other hand, to confess the divinity of Christ, testifying together with the water and the blood that Christ is the Son of God.
