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In this lesson we will continue to see the Spirit’s work in us.
Galatians 5:5 says, “We by the Spirit out of faith eagerly await the hope of righteousness.” By the Spirit here is in contrast to by the flesh (3:3), and out of faith is in contrast to out of the works of law (3:2). Our hope of righteousness is Christ Himself (1 Cor. 1:30). It is not out of the works of law in the flesh but out of faith in the Spirit. We do not have our own merit before God. Our only merit is Christ. It is by the Spirit and by faith that we await Christ as the hope of righteousness. Now in the divine fellowship, through the Spirit and by faith we have Christ as the righteousness that we live out daily.
Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” This is the witnessing of the Spirit when we cry “Abba, Father” (v. 15). Such a witnessing testifies to us and assures us that we are the children of God, who possess His life; it also limits us and restricts us to a living and walk that are according to this life, in keeping with our being children of God. Moreover, it is not only that the Spirit witnesses and our spirit witnesses also; rather, it is that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit. This indicates that our spirit must take the initiative to witness first; then the Spirit will witness with our spirit. This also reveals that the Spirit of God today, the all-inclusive Spirit of the Triune God, dwells in our regenerated human spirit and works in our spirit. These two spirits are one; they live together, work together, and exist together as one mingled spirit. Hence, the indwelling Spirit’s witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God is a matter of the divine fellowship. When we enjoy the supply of the Spirit in the fellowship of the Triune God, we have the sweet and intimate inward sense that we are God’s children.
The Spirit not only witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God but also cries with our spirit, “Abba, Father!” Galatians 4:6 says, “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!” God gave His Spirit to us when we were regenerated to become sons of God. Romans 8:15 says that we “have received a spirit of sonship in which we cry, Abba, Father!” The spirit of sonship here denotes our regenerated human spirit mingled with the Spirit of the Son of God. Sonship in this spirit includes the life, the position, the living, the enjoyment, the birthright, the inheritance, and the manifestation of a son. Such a Spirit with the all-inclusive sonship, which is also the Spirit of God’s Son, is now in our spirit and cries with our spirit, “Abba, Father!”
Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 are parallel verses. The former says that we who have received a spirit of sonship cry in this spirit, “Abba, Father!” whereas the latter says that the Spirit of God’s Son is crying in our hearts, “Abba, Father!” This indicates that our regenerated spirit and the Spirit of God are mingled as one, and that our spirit is in our heart. When we cry, “Abba, Father!” He cries with us in our crying. Such a crying expresses our strong affection to the Father; it also implies an intimate relationship in life between us and God our Father. When we are in the fellowship of the Triune God, the Spirit brings us into the enjoyment and experience of such sweetness and intimacy.
As the Spirit works in us, He bears witness in our conscience. In Romans 9:1 Paul said, “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit.” Here it says that our conscience bears witness with us in the Holy Spirit, whereas Romans 8:16 says that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit. This proves that our conscience is in our human spirit. The Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God is indwelling our spirit and is mingled with our spirit, and our conscience is a part of our human spirit. Hence, the spirit is mingled with our conscience. When we live in the fellowship of the Triune God and speak, walk, and behave by the Spirit, the Spirit bears witness with us in our conscience.
Second Corinthians 1:21 says, “The One who firmly attaches us with you unto Christ and has anointed us is God.” This shows us that God establishes the apostles with the believers in Christ. This means that God firmly attaches the apostles together with the believers unto Christ, the anointed One, through the anointing Spirit, that the apostles and the believers may also be anointed with Christ by God.
Two verses in 1 John refer to the work of the Spirit in anointing the believers. First John 2:20 says, “You have an anointing from the Holy One.” The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit, who is the processed Triune God. According to the type in Exodus 30:23-25, the compound Spirit includes the processed Triune God and all that He does and is, having the elements of the divine nature, human nature, incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
First John 2:27 says, “The anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you; but as His anointing teaches you concerning all things….” The teaching by the anointing is not objective; rather, it is very subjective. It is not an outward teaching by words but an inward teaching through our inner spiritual consciousness. This teaching by anointing adds the divine elements of the Divine Trinity, which are the elements of the anointing compound Spirit, into our inner being to be our elements. This kind of anointing is going on in us all the time. It is like the repeated painting of some article: The paint not only indicates the color, but also by coat upon coat being added, the elements of the paint are added to the thing painted. It is in this way that the Triune God is transfused, infused, and added into all the inward parts of our being that our inner man may grow in the divine life with the divine elements.
After 2 Corinthians 1:21 says that God has anointed us, verse 22 goes on to say that God has sealed us. The anointing in verse 21 is the sealing in verse 22. Since God has anointed us with Christ, He has also sealed us in Him. As we are under the anointing, the anointing becomes a sealing to us. The sealing causes us to become different from others and bear God’s image. First, God through the anointing adds the essence of Himself into us. Then this anointing seals us with the essence of God and causes us to bear the image of God.
Ephesians 1:13 says that we “were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise.” Ephesians 4:30 says that in the Holy Spirit we were “sealed unto the day of redemption.” To be sealed with the Holy Spirit is to be marked with the Holy Spirit as a living seal. We have been designated as God’s inheritance. At the time we were saved, God put His Holy Spirit into us as a seal to mark us out, indicating that we belong to God. The Holy Spirit, who is God Himself entering into us, causes us to bear God’s image, signified by the seal, thus making us like God.
From the time we were saved, the Holy Spirit as the seal within us began to seal us continually with the element of God that we may be transformed in our disposition until we are fully redeemed in our body. “Unto the redemption of the acquired possession” (1:14) gives the purpose of the sealing of the Holy Spirit. The seal of the Holy Spirit is living, and it works within us to permeate and transform us with the divine element until we are mature in God’s life and eventually fully redeemed, even in our body.
God not only has anointed us, sealed us, with the Spirit, but also has given the Spirit as the pledge in us (2 Cor. 1:22). The seal is a mark that we are God’s inheritance, God’s possession, and that we belong to God. The pledge is a guarantee that God is our inheritance or heritage belonging to us. The Spirit within us is the pledge, the earnest, of God being our portion in Christ.
Ephesians 1:14 says that the Spirit is “the pledge of our inheritance.” The Greek word for pledge also means foretaste, guarantee. God gives His Holy Spirit to us not only as a guarantee of our inheritance, securing our heritage, but also as a foretaste of what we will inherit of God, affording us a taste beforehand of the full inheritance. In ancient times the Greek word for pledge was used in the purchasing of land. The seller gave the purchaser some soil as a sample from the land. Hence, a pledge, according to ancient Greek usage, is also a sample. The Holy Spirit is the sample of what we will inherit of God in full. The Holy Spirit today is a guarantee, a foretaste, and a sample of our divine inheritance, until our body is transfigured in glory, at which time we will inherit God and enjoy Him in full.
Second Corinthians 5:5 says, “He who has wrought us for this very thing is God, who has given to us the Spirit as a pledge.” The Greek word for wrought also means fashioned, shaped, prepared, made fit. God has wrought us, fashioned us, shaped us, prepared us, made us fit, for the very purpose that our mortal body might be swallowed up by His resurrection life. Thus our entire being will be saturated with Christ. God has given us the Spirit as the pledge, the earnest, the foretaste, the guarantee, of this wonderful and marvelous part of His complete salvation, which He has given to us in Christ.
God’s attaching us to Christ issues in three things: an anointing that imparts God’s element into us, a sealing that forms the divine element into an impression to express God’s image, and a pledging as a foretaste that gives us a sample and guarantee of the full taste of God. These three matters—anointing, sealing, and pledging—are actually one. They are one thing with three aspects and are related to the work of the Spirit within us. The more we enjoy the divine fellowship through the Spirit, the more opportunity the Spirit has to dispense Himself into us by anointing us, sealing us, and pledging in us. Therefore, in our fellowship with the Triune God, we experience the Spirit’s anointing, sealing, and pledging.
The indwelling Spirit is the firstfruits (foretaste) of our divine inheritance, which is the Triune God Himself. Romans 8:23 says, “We ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit.…” The firstfruits of the Spirit are simply the Spirit Himself as the firstfruits. The Triune God is our enjoyment; He is everything to us. There will be a harvest of this blessing at the redemption of our body; that will be our full enjoyment of God. Today the Spirit is the firstfruits of the coming harvest, the foretaste of our full enjoyment of God.
Therefore, the firstfruits refer to a foretaste that is a guarantee that we shall experience the full taste. What we have enjoyed and are still enjoying of God is just a foretaste. The full taste is coming. The Triune God Himself is the full taste, and He has given us His Spirit as the firstfruits of all the riches of God’s being to be our foretaste. Today we only need to live in the fellowship of the Triune God to enjoy the Spirit as the firstfruits. This enjoyment is the guarantee that at the Lord’s coming back we will enter into the full enjoyment of God.
The Spirit is also the access for us to draw near to the Triune God. Ephesians 2:18 says, “Through Him [Christ] we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.” Here the trinity of the Godhead is implied. Through God the Son, who is the Accomplisher, the means, and in God the Spirit, who is the Executor, the application, we have access unto God the Father, who is the Originator, the source of our enjoyment. First, the Father came to us in the Son, and then the Son came into us as the Spirit. Now through the Son we have access in the Spirit unto the Father to draw near to Him and enjoy Him.
According to the context of this verse, through the redemption of Christ all the Jewish and the Gentile believers, who were once at enmity, have access to the Father in one Spirit. First, both the Jewish and the Gentile believers were reconciled in one Body to God (v. 16). That was a positional matter. Then they both have access in one Spirit unto the Father. This is experiential. To be reconciled to God is to be saved; to have access unto the Father is to enjoy God, who, as the source of life, regenerated us to be His sons. The Father came to us through the Son in the Spirit, and now the Spirit brings us back to the Father through the Son. Through this wonderful two-way traffic we enjoy the dispensing of the Triune God.
The Spirit in us is the means for us to take Christ as our righteousness. Through the Spirit and by faith we have Christ as the righteousness that we live out. The Spirit also witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. He assures us that we have God’s life and restricts us to walk according to this life, in keeping with our being children of God. The Spirit also cries with our spirit, “Abba, Father!” When we cry, “Abba, Father!” He cries with us in our crying, expressing the strong affection we have toward the Father and leading us into the intimate enjoyment of the Father. The Spirit also bears witness in our conscience, testifying that our speaking and walk in Christ are true. The Spirit also anoints us, continually adding the divine elements of the Divine Trinity, which are the elements of the compound Spirit, into us. He also seals us that we may bear God’s image to be God’s designated inheritance, and transforms us with the divine elements until we are fully redeemed in our body. He is also pledging in us, guaranteeing that God is our inheritance belonging to us, and affording us a taste beforehand of this inheritance that we may have a sample of what we will inherit of God in full. The Spirit is also the firstfruits of our divine inheritance as the foretaste of our full enjoyment of God and the guarantee that at the Lord’s coming back we will enter into the full enjoyment of God. The Spirit is the access for us to draw near to the Triune God. Through the redemption of Christ and in one Spirit we have access to the Father to draw near to Him and enjoy Him.
