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Scripture Reading: John 16:12-15; 20:22; Acts 1:5, 8; 2:1-4, 17-18; 4:8, 31; 9:17; 13:9, 52; 6:3, 5a; Acts 7:55; 11:24; 8:29, 39; 16:6-7; Rom. 8:2, 9-11; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Phil. 1:19-21a; Phil. 3:7-10
In the foregoing message we pointed out that in the book of Acts we have both the essential Spirit and the economical Spirit. In chapter eight of Acts we have both the Spirit and the Spirit of the Lord. Acts 8:29 says, “And the Spirit said to Philip, Approach and join this chariot.” Here the Spirit for our spiritual existence and the Spirit for God’s economy is simply called the Spirit.
Acts 8:39 goes on to say, “And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.” The expression “the Spirit of the Lord” indicates that the Spirit is the Lord. Just as the expression “the love of God” means that love is God, and “the life of God” that life is God, so here “the Spirit of the Lord” means that the Spirit is the Lord. Therefore, in Acts we see that the Spirit in two aspects, the essential aspect and the economical aspect, is actually the Lord Himself.
Acts 16:6-7 say, “And they passed through the country of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come down to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” The interchangeable use of the Spirit of Jesus with the Holy Spirit in the preceding verse reveals that the Spirit of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a general title of the Spirit of God in the New Testament. The Spirit of Jesus is a particular expression concerning the Spirit of God. This expression refers to the Spirit of the incarnated Savior who, as Jesus in His humanity, passed through human living and death on the cross. This indicates that in the Spirit of Jesus there is not only the divine element of God, but also the human element of Jesus, and the element of His human living and His suffering of death as well.
In the book of Acts we see that after His resurrection and ascension Christ became the Spirit, the life-giving Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 15:45 Paul says, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” Adam became a living soul through creation with a soulish body. Christ became a life-giving Spirit through resurrection with a spiritual body. Adam as a living soul is natural; Christ as a life-giving Spirit is resurrected. First, in incarnation, Christ became flesh for redemption (John 1:14, 29). Then in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit for imparting life (John 10:10). As the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, He is ready to be received by those who believe in Him. When we believe in Him, He enters our spirit, and we are joined to Him as the life-giving Spirit. Hence, we become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17).
Although 1 Corinthians 15:45 says that Christ, the last Adam, in resurrection became a life-giving Spirit, some regard this as heresy. If you were to tell them that Christ is the Spirit today, they would say, “This teaching is against the doctrine of the Trinity and is heretical. To say that Christ is the Spirit is to confuse the three Persons of the Trinity.” We, however, do not follow the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, we follow the Word of God. God’s Word says clearly that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul says, “And the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” On the one hand, Paul says that the Lord is the Spirit; on the other hand, he speaks of the Spirit of the Lord. According to the context, the Lord in 2 Corinthians 3:17 refers to Christ the Lord (2 Cor. 2:12, 14-15, 17; 3:3-4, 14, 16; 4:5). This, then, is a strong word in the Bible telling us that Christ is the Spirit.
The expression “the Spirit of the Lord” is used both in 2 Corinthians 3:17 and in Acts 8:39. According to the entire context of the book of Acts, the Spirit of the Lord refers to Jesus Christ. The same is true in 2 Corinthians 3:17, where the Spirit of the Lord refers to the Lord as the Spirit. Therefore, in the same verse Paul says that the Lord is the Spirit.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul goes on to say, “And we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” The Lord Spirit may be considered a compound title like the Father God and the Lord Christ. The expression “the Lord Spirit” again proves that the Lord Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Lord Christ. Because the Lord is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Lord, He is called the Lord Spirit. This is the pneumatic Christ.
In the Gospel of Mark we see Jesus, and in the book of Acts we have the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of Jesus. Then in 1 Corinthians 15:45 Paul speaks of Christ as the life-giving Spirit. To be sure, the last Adam is Jesus, the very Jesus presented in the Gospel of Mark. Paul says that this last Adam has become a life-giving Spirit. He became the life-giving Spirit through the process of death and resurrection.
We may say that the Spirit of Jesus is the transfiguration of Jesus. The Lord Jesus was the seed that passed through the process of death and resurrection. In resurrection He, the last Adam, “blossomed” and became the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, we may say that the life- giving Spirit is the blossoming of the Lord as the seed that passed through death and resurrection. Let us use a carnation seed as an illustration. Both the seed and the blossom are a carnation. The difference is that the seed is the carnation in seed form, whereas the blossom is the carnation in blossom form. In a similar way, we may say that the seed in Mark is Jesus, and the “blossom” in Acts is the Spirit of Jesus.
Today do we participate in the Lord as the seed or the blossom? The correct answer to this question is that we experience Him as both the seed and the blossom. We enjoy Him as the seed who has become the blossom in resurrection.
In Romans 8:2 Paul speaks of the Spirit of life, and in Romans 8:9, of the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is related to the Lord’s death and resurrection. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the One who passed through death and entered into resurrection. Now that we have this Spirit in us, we have not only Christ, but Christ in His death and resurrection.
The Lord’s death was an all-inclusive termination, and His resurrection was an all-inclusive germination. In His death we were terminated, and in His resurrection we were germinated. Praise the Lord that we have the all-inclusive Christ with the all-inclusive termination and germination! The Spirit of Christ, therefore, is the totality, the aggregate, of the all-inclusive Christ with His all-inclusive death and resurrection. Because we have this Spirit as the blossom of Christ, we have the all-inclusive Christ and His all-inclusive termination and germination. As those who have been terminated and germinated, we are now in this wonderful Spirit.
Because we have received the wonderful Spirit of Christ, we should praise Him and not merely pray. Let us praise Him because we already have the Spirit. If we only pray but do not praise, in our experience we may be like the disciples in the Gospel of Mark. In a sense, James and John prayed when they asked the Lord that He would grant them to sit at His right and left in His kingdom. We today are not in Mark 10 nor even in Mark 16 — we are in Romans 8. Since we are in Romans 8, we should not tell the Lord in prayer how miserable we are or how pitiful our condition is. Instead of asking the Lord to help us with our problems, we should praise Him that we are in the all-inclusive Spirit. In this Spirit we have life, strength, power, ability, might, and authority.
In Philippians 1:19 Paul says, “For I know that for me this shall turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” As in Romans 8, the Spirit here is the aggregate Spirit. Thus Paul is saying that his situation will turn out to salvation through the bountiful supply of the aggregate Spirit.
There is no indication in the book of Philippians that Paul prayed in the way of telling the Lord how weak he was and that he needed the Lord to strengthen him. There is no indication that Paul prayed, “Lord, You know that I am in prison for Your sake. I have been faithful to You, Lord, but I’m weak, and I need You to strengthen me. Have mercy on me so that I can bear this imprisonment.” Paul did not pray this way in the book of Philippians, nor did he pray like this when he and Silas were in prison in Acts 16. According to the record in chapter 16 of Acts, Paul and Silas sang praises to the Lord.
Too many Christians pray in a pitiful way. Too few Christians are joyful, praising Christians. We need to be Christians who are joyful, praising, and full of rejoicing. Even while in prison, Paul could speak about rejoicing in the Lord (Phil. 3:1). Paul knew that through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ his imprisonment would become a salvation to him so that he might magnify Christ and live Him (Phil. 1:20-21).
In Philippians 3:7-10 Paul says, “But what things were gains to me, these I have counted loss on account of Christ. But surely I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them to be refuse that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God based on faith, to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Here we see that Paul counted all things to be loss on account of Christ. These things certainly include the ten items we have mentioned in previous messages: culture, religion, ethics, morality, philosophy, improvement of character, and the effort to be spiritual, scriptural, holy, and victorious. Paul counted all such things loss for the sake of the aggregate Spirit so that he might be found in Christ, not in anything else.
Paul also aspired to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and to be conformed to His death. Once again we have Christ with His death and resurrection.
In Philippians we see that Paul was the continuation of the Lord Jesus. Just as the Lord lived a life fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy, so Paul lived a life according to and for the New Testament economy of God.
In the New Testament the twenty-two books from Acts to Jude reveal the all-inclusive pneumatic Christ. We have seen that we need to praise the Lord that we have received this pneumatic Christ, that we have received Him as the life-giving Spirit. However, some may say, “Do you really mean that all we should do is praise the Lord? Isn’t there something else we should do?” To ask such a question is to give ground for the “weeds” of the ten items that are replacements for Christ to grow in us. The more we question what we should do, the more these weeds will be sown into us.
Just as the seeds of certain kinds of weeds are carried by the air, so the seeds of devilish weeds are carried by the blowing of the satanic air. Someone may say, “I agree that we should praise the Lord that He is the all-inclusive Spirit in us. Yet I still believe that we need to do something.” This kind of speaking shows the influence of the blowing of the satanic wind. As long as we think that we in ourselves must do something, we shall experience failure, and we shall be distracted from what we have heard in these messages.
Let us forget our own efforts to do something and praise the Lord that we have received the aggregate Spirit. Praise Him that we have received His breathing of the essential Spirit and His baptizing with the economical Spirit. Now we are in the all-inclusive Spirit as the ultimate consummation of the Triune God.
