Scripture Reading: Gal. 3:5, 8-9, 14; Eph. 1:13; Acts 2:33, 39; John 7:39; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17; Phil. 1:19
In chapter three there is a strong contrast between faith and law. Law was the basis for the relationship between man and God in the Old Testament, whereas faith is the principle by which people contact God in the New Testament. The Old Testament was a dispensation of law, whereas the New Testament is a dispensation of faith. As the basis for the relationship between man and God, the law requires that man use his own effort to fulfill the law’s requirements in order to please God. The law is not related to God intrinsically. Rather, it stands apart from God and places demands upon man that must be fulfilled if man is to please God. According to the principle of faith, man is not required to strive in his flesh to please God. Instead, man is to hear how God desires to be everything to him. God has planned to bless us. For our sake, He became incarnated, lived on earth, and died to accomplish redemption. He has been resurrected from among the dead and has become the life-giving Spirit. Now He is calling people to receive Him. He is eagerly expecting to come into people and to be their life and their everything so that they may be one with Him. This is the hearing of faith.
In this hearing of faith, we hear all the well-speaking of God, all His blessing. Faith involves the hearing concerning all the good things of God toward us. Through this hearing an appreciation for the Lord Jesus is awakened within us. Out of our appreciation for the Lord, we spontaneously call on His name. In this way we receive Him, accept Him, and join ourselves to Him. Then we go on to partake of Him and enjoy Him. All this is related to faith. Law requires man to work, but faith receives all that God is, all that God has planned and purposed, all that God has accomplished, all that God has obtained and attained, and all that God intends to impart into us. With law, there are demands. But with faith there are no demands; there is only the receiving of the processed Triune God. By receiving the Triune God, we also receive redemption, salvation, forgiveness, eternal life, and all the heavenly, divine, and spiritual things. What a contrast between law and faith! Surely it is foolish to turn from faith and go back to the law.
We have pointed out that Galatians 3 is a very difficult chapter, one of the most difficult chapters in the New Testament. In this chapter Paul seems to go from one subject to another. Many read this chapter without having any idea what Paul is talking about. It seems that the points covered are not related to one another. The way to understand this chapter is not to go verse by verse. Rather, it is to concentrate on the main points. In this chapter Paul covers at least twelve major subjects: Christ crucified; Christ and the Spirit; the hearing of faith versus works of law; the Spirit as the blessing of the gospel; the Spirit versus the flesh; the gospel preached to Abraham; the promise versus the law; faith replacing law; the seed of Abraham and the sons of Abraham; baptized into Christ; putting on Christ; and all one in Christ. These are the crucial points in this chapter. If we spend time to consider them and to dwell on them in prayer, we shall be greatly helped in understanding this chapter.
Having covered the subjects of Christ crucified, Christ and the Spirit, and the hearing of faith versus works of law, we come in this message to the Spirit as the blessing of the gospel. During the years I have been a Christian, I have heard that many things are the blessing of the gospel: salvation, redemption, forgiveness, eternal life. In Christianity people are often told that being able to go to heaven and to live in a mansion is a great blessing related to the gospel. Have you ever heard that the blessing of the gospel is the Spirit?
In the Bible, where words are always used economically, the Spirit has a particular meaning, somewhat different from the Holy Spirit. In Galatians Paul speaks not of the Holy Spirit, but of the Spirit. The total blessing of the gospel is not salvation, redemption, forgiveness, life, or going to heaven — it is the Spirit. The Spirit denotes the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — who has been processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Only after He had entered into resurrection did the Lord Jesus command His disciples to baptize people into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The reason for this is that prior to the resurrection of Christ, the Triune God had not been fully processed. In the words of John 7:39, the Spirit was “not yet,” even though the Holy Spirit was already in existence, as indicated by the record of Matthew 1 and Luke 1. The New Testament tells us clearly that the Holy Spirit was involved in the conception of the Lord Jesus in the womb of the virgin Mary. But the Spirit as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit was “not yet” until the resurrection of Christ. John 7:39 tells us that the Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified. The Lord was glorified in His resurrection (Luke 24:26). Therefore, after His glorification by resurrection, the Spirit was in existence.
From the Gospels we proceed to the Acts and to the Epistles. Paul’s ministry was a completing ministry. In Colossians 1:25 he says that he became a minister according to the stewardship of God to complete the word of God. Hence, the completion of God’s word is found neither in the Gospels, nor in the Acts, but in the Epistles of Paul. In particular, the divine revelation is completed in four books: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. In Paul’s Epistles the Spirit is revealed in a full way. We do not have such a revelation of the Spirit in the Gospels or in the Acts. The Spirit as revealed in Paul’s writings is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit processed to become the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. This Spirit enters into the believers to be their life and everything to them. Such a Spirit is the total blessing of the gospel. As the blessing of the gospel, the Spirit includes forgiveness, redemption, salvation, reconciliation, justification, eternal life, the divine nature, the uplifted and resurrected human nature, and the very Triune God Himself.
Galatians 3:13 and 14 say, “Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse on our behalf; because it is written, Cursed is every one hanging on a tree, in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Because it combines the promise of the Spirit with the blessing of Abraham, verse 14 is extremely important. The blessing of Abraham is the blessing promised by God to Abraham (Gen. 12:3) for all the nations of the earth. This promise was fulfilled, and this blessing has come to the nations in Christ through His redemption by the cross. The context of verse 14 indicates that the Spirit is the blessing which God promised to Abraham for all the nations and which has been received by the believers through faith in Christ. The Spirit is the compound Spirit and actually is God Himself processed in His Trinity through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension, for us to receive as our life and our everything. This is the focus of the gospel of God.
The physical aspect of the blessing God promised to Abraham was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 26:3-4), which was a type of the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 1:12). Since Christ is eventually realized as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17), the blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds to the blessing of the promised land. Actually, the Spirit as the realization of Christ in our experience is the good land as the source of God’s bountiful supply for us to enjoy.
If we read the book of Genesis, we shall see that the focal point of God’s promise to Abraham was that Abraham’s seed would inherit the land. According to Galatians 3, Christ is this seed, the unique seed. Furthermore, as we have often pointed out, the good land is a full type of the all-inclusive Christ. On the one hand, the seed is Christ; on the other hand, the land is a type of Christ. The blessing of Abraham is altogether related to Christ. Christ is the focus of the promised blessing.
However, verse 14 does not say that in receiving the blessing of Abraham we receive Christ. Instead, this verse tells us that we receive the Spirit. Surely this indicates that the Spirit here is the blessing of Abraham.
What kind of Spirit could be the blessing God promised to Abraham? What Spirit would be the all-inclusive blessing, which is Christ as the seed and as the land? It must be the Spirit, the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45 says that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, and 2 Corinthians 3:17 declares that now the Lord is the Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 3:17 the King James Version says “that Spirit.” This rendering is not accurate, for the Greek word uses the definite article. Hence, the proper rendering is “the Spirit,” referring to the Spirit who was “not yet” until Christ had been glorified.
At the time of the Lord’s incarnation, the Holy Spirit began to have the element of humanity as well as divinity. From that time, the Holy Spirit was compounded with the Lord’s human living, crucifixion, and resurrection and became the Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit compounded with divinity, humanity, and the Lord’s human living, death, and resurrection. All that God has purposed and planned and all that He has accomplished through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection is included in the Spirit. Hence, the Spirit is all-inclusive, the Triune God processed to be everything to us. This Spirit is the blessing of the gospel.
We have received this Spirit by faith. When we began to appreciate the Lord Jesus and believe in Him, we received the Spirit. In this receiving of the Spirit, the manifestation of gifts or the speaking in tongues had no place, for we received the Spirit by the hearing of faith.
Let me tell you something of my own history. I was born into organized Christianity. After I was saved, I came to love the Bible. During my years with the Brethren, I acquired a considerable amount of Bible knowledge. Eventually, I met Brother Nee, one who knew both the inner life and the church. He helped me to experience the inner life and also the church life. Then in 1936, along with others, I began to pursue the so-called Pentecostal experiences, in particular, the experience of speaking in tongues. For a period of time, I was bold and strong in this matter. However, I came to realize that nothing can compare with the experience of the inner life in the church, and I gave up my involvement with the Pentecostal things. I spontaneously dropped those things in favor of enjoying the inner life in the church life. We did not receive any benefit from the Pentecostal things. On the contrary, those things only caused problems.
In 1943 the church in my home town, Chefoo, was carried away from the proper inner life to the excesses of the Pentecostal things. I was ill at the time, and the leading ones did not know how to handle the situation. We realized that this problem was related to the power of darkness and that the only way to deal with it was to pray. A while later, a sister in the church died of tuberculosis. Immediately, a sister who took the lead among those who spoke in tongues prophesied that the deceased sister would be raised from the dead at noon the following day. This particular sister went on to tell the husband of the sister who had died that there was no need for him to make funeral arrangements since his wife would be raised from the dead. The next day hundreds of people gathered together, waiting for this miracle to take place. They waited until twelve noon, but nothing happened. Finally, about three o’clock in the afternoon, one of the elders told the people that they should pay no further attention to the nonsensical prophecy which had been given. He further advised the husband of the deceased sister to make the necessary arrangements for the funeral. The crowd was dispersed, and everyone went home, disappointed and dejected. This one incident caused the church to come back to the proper experience of the inner life, and to turn away from the Pentecostal things.
As the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, the processed Triune God inspires His servants to preach the good word of the gospel. As people listen to this well-speaking, spontaneously an appreciation for the Lord Jesus is stirred up within them. They also appreciate Christ’s redemption, eternal life, and the precious forgiveness of sins. Out of their appreciation they call on the Lord and thereby receive the Spirit as the full blessing of the gospel of God. The experience and the expression may differ, but we all are the same in having received the Spirit. No matter how we were brought to the Lord, we all have received the Spirit as the blessing of the gospel through the hearing faith.
In God’s New Testament economy, the principle of the hearing of faith replaces the law. By faith we are brought into an organic union with the Triune God. If we had not been frustrated by religion with its teachings, this organic union would have been fully developed by now. Today in His recovery the Lord is developing this organic union, and He will cause it to be developed to the uttermost. The more this union is developed, the more we enjoy the total blessing of the gospel.
The Spirit we have received as the blessing of the gospel is the all-inclusive, compound Spirit typified by the compound ointment in Exodus 30:23-25. The compounding of the spices with the olive oil to produce the ointment typifies the compounding of Christ’s humanity, death, and resurrection with the Spirit of God to produce the all-inclusive Spirit. This Spirit is the bountiful supply to the believers in God’s New Testament economy (Gal. 3:5; Phil. 1:19). By faith we have received this Spirit as the blessing of the gospel promised to Abraham by God. As the processed Triune God, the Spirit is the full realization of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land. This is the Spirit as the total blessing of the gospel.
