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Scripture Reading: 4, Rom. 8:16; Gen. 1:2, 26; 2:7; Zech. 12:1; John 3:6; 4:24; 1 Cor. 6:17; Rev. 22:17
Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” Although the language in this verse is simple, it is one of the greatest verses in the entire Bible and contains three important matters. First, this verse mentions the Spirit. It is significant that Romans 8:16 does not use the term the Spirit of God, as in Genesis 1:2, or the Holy Spirit, as in Matthew 1:18. Second, Romans 8:16 mentions our spirit. The Spirit and our spirit may not be commonly used terms among Christians today, but in Romans 8 Paul uses these terms to express a special point concerning our spiritual experiences. The third wonderful matter in Romans 8:16 is the children of God. The Spirit, our spirit, and the children of God are three great things.
We may feel that it is extraordinary and prestigious to be a child of the president of the United States of America, but we need to realize that it is much greater to be a child of God. There is a witness, a testimony between the Spirit and our spirit that we, children of Adam and fallen sinners, are now children of God. This testimony involves a divine birth. We are children of God not by adoption but by birth. Becoming a child of God through the divine birth is not merely a doctrine but a fact. We were originally born of Adam, but as believers, we also have been born of God and have thus become children of God. This is confirmed, witnessed to, by the Spirit with our spirit.
Becoming a child of God is not something we accomplish by accepting certain doctrines with our mind. The witnessing of the Spirit that we are children of God is not with our mind but with our spirit. Two years after I was saved, I read Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. In this book the Christian pilgrim must have a certificate to enter into the Celestial City. As soon as I read this book, I began to wonder whether I had received such a certificate and even began to doubt whether I was truly saved. Although my mind was darkened and did not understand properly at that time, something deep inside me confirmed that I was a child of God. That was the witnessing of the Spirit with my spirit.
The Spirit witnesses with our spirit not that we are spiritually powerful or gifted but that we are children of God. Not every believer is a spiritual giant or a great apostle, but we are all children of God. Being a child of God is a matter not of power, gifts, or impact but of the divine life. When we were born of God, we received the divine life. Those who are born of human parents surely possess the human life. Every living thing possesses the life of that which has begotten it. Because we are born of God, we possess the divine life and are children of God.
From my youth I have studied the Bible and have read many spiritual books about the Bible. Most of the books I read in my youth said that the focus of the Bible is Christ. However, after reading the Bible for many years, I began to realize that to say Christ is the center of the divine revelation is doctrinally correct, but it is not experientially adequate. If we care for the practical experience of God in Christ through the Spirit, we will find that the focus of the Bible is that the Triune God, according to His eternal purpose, is dispensing Himself into us to form a bride. Experientially speaking, this is the central thought of the Bible.
In order for God to dispense Himself into us, He first needed to create the universe with man as the center. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In God’s work of creation the Spirit of God played the greatest role (v. 2). The Spirit of God took action to create everything. Man was the last item in God’s creation, and God created man in a very special way. First, God created man in His own image (v. 26). In order to create man, God took Himself as the model, the mold, the pattern. The word image in verse 26 reveals that God’s intention in creating man was that man would become God’s expression. Everything God did in His work of creation was for the purpose of having man as His expression.
Genesis 2 reveals another spiritual aspect of man’s creation. Verse 7 says, “Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The Bible reveals that the breath of life God breathed into man became man’s spirit (cf. Prov. 20:27; 1 Thes. 5:23). Thus, man was created in the image of God and with a spirit. Man’s spirit came directly from God’s breathing. Our body is made of dust and is not close to God, but our spirit comes from the breath of God and is very close to God. When God breathed the breath of life into man, this breath from God became man’s spirit. Therefore, the human spirit is a special matter and a most wonderful thing.
Zechariah 12:1 says, “Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him.” This verse reveals that the heavens are for the earth and that the earth is for man. Man is the center of the universe, and within man there is a human spirit. Thus, the human spirit is the focus of the entire universe. All human beings know that they have a physical body and a soul. Regrettably, however, very few know that they have a spirit. Even many Christians have not seen that they have a spirit. Without the human spirit, man and the universe have no center and become empty and meaningless. The focus of the entire universe is the human spirit.
God’s intention is to make man His expression. The only way for man to express God is for God to come into man. Thus, God coming into man is the focal point in the Bible. God coming into us is not a doctrinal matter or a theological thought but something very experiential. In order to come into us, God must be Spirit, and we must have a spirit. God as the Spirit can come into our spirit. Several verses in the New Testament tell us about these two spirits. John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” This verse indicates that that which is born of the Spirit of God is the human spirit. John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” To worship God, who is Spirit, we must worship in our spirit. Romans 8:16 also mentions the two spirits.
First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” We and the Lord are made one spirit. In order for this to occur, the Lord must be the Spirit, and we must have a human spirit. Our human spirit is made one with the Lord as the Spirit, and the two spirits become one spirit. It is meaningful that 1 Corinthians 6:17 does not say that we become one but that we become one spirit. A group of people can say that they are one, but they cannot say that they are one man. We need to realize that our spirit now is one spirit with the Lord as the Spirit.
God, who is Spirit, is also triune—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19). These divine titles are very meaningful. A father is a source. To be a father, one must produce a child, thus becoming a source. A son is the second generation, which is the continuation and expression of the first generation. We can often guess who the father of a young man is by observing the similarities between them. The Father is the source, the Son is the expression of the Father, and the Spirit is the application (2 Cor. 13:14). In order for the Son to come into us with the Father, He must be the Spirit. Thus, the application of God to our being is the Spirit. When the Spirit comes into us, the Son and the Father come also. The Spirit being the application of the Triune God is difficult to explain, but like our physical food, it is not necessary to fully explain it in order to enjoy it.
God is Spirit, and the application of the Triune God is the Spirit. Furthermore, after Christ, the Son, accomplished redemption on the cross, in resurrection He became the Spirit so that He could be applied to our being (1 Cor. 15:45b). Therefore, in our experience God is altogether the Spirit, and the Spirit is the totality of the Triune God.
The title the Spirit of God denotes that the Spirit and God are distinct and that the Spirit belongs to God. However, the title the Spirit indicates that the God whom we believers are experiencing and enjoying is the Spirit. As the Spirit, the entire Triune God is able to enter into our spirit for our enjoyment. By such a wonderful process, the Spirit has become one with our spirit. Furthermore, the Spirit always witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, born of God to possess the divine life. By our first birth we are born of Adam and are fallen, sinful, and under God’s condemnation. But in regeneration we are born of God to possess the divine life, and the Spirit comes into our spirit, making us one spirit with Him. We have thus become another kind of people—children of God with the divine life and with a mingled spirit.
The divine life and the mingled spirit produce a bride, the church. Genesis 1:1-2 mentions God creating the heavens and the earth and the Spirit of God brooding upon the surface of the waters. Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come!” At the beginning of the Bible it was the Spirit of God brooding, but at the end of the Bible it is the Spirit and the bride as one. Between these two ends of the Bible, Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit.” This witnessing is the process that we are in today, which will bring us to the goal in Revelation 22:17. Thus, experientially speaking, the Spirit with our spirit is the focal point of the Bible.
Once we see that the Spirit with our spirit is the focal point of the Bible, we must begin to participate in it and practice it. God as the Spirit has come into our spirit and is one spirit with our regenerated spirit. The Spirit is constantly witnessing with our spirit that we are born of God, possessing God’s divine life, in order that we would live this life by the two spirits. Therefore, Romans 8:4 says that we need to walk according to the spirit. We need to have a daily walk and living that is always according to the mingled spirit.
We often do not walk according to the mingled spirit because of our nature, culture, ethics, religion, and habit. We were each born with a particular nature. Then we were raised according to a culture. Moreover, we have all been influenced by ethical thought and by religion. Eventually, we also become habitual. We live by nature, culture, ethics, religion, and habit. Actually, this is the best kind of human living apart from the mingled spirit. The worst kind of living is to commit gross sins. By the Lord’s mercy and through His redemption, we are through with such sins. However, we may be ethical, moral, proper, righteous, just, and good yet not live and walk according to the mingled spirit.
God does not want us to live in sin, nor does He want us to be ethical, moral, proper, righteous, just, and good persons. Instead, God wants us to be persons who live according to the mingled spirit at every time and in every place. Whether we are at home, work, or school, with our spouse, children, schoolmates, colleagues, neighbors, or relatives, God wants us to have a daily living according to the mingled spirit twenty-four hours a day. We should not care for whether we are right or wrong, just or unjust; instead, we should care only for whether we are continually living according to the mingled spirit. We need to pay our full attention to this one thing. This is sufficient.
Within our being, the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, born of God to possess His life. Now God wants us to live a life and have a daily walk that are absolutely according to the mingled spirit. Whatever we say and do should be according to the mingled spirit. The issue of such a living will be the proper church life, and this church life will produce the bride. Eventually, the Triune God as the Spirit will marry the tripartite man as His bride, and these two will become one (Rev. 22:17). According to the principle in the Bible, the wife comes out of the husband (Gen. 2:22; John 19:34; Eph. 5:25-27), and the husband and the wife become one entity (Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:31). The church as the wife of God comes out of God and returns to God to become one with God for eternity.
