Scripture Reading: Phil. 2:13, 16a; John 1:1-2, 14; 6:63; Heb. 1:1-2; 2 Tim. 3:15; Acts 6:7; 12:24; 19:20
The Bible reveals God’s doings, His deeds and activities. First, according to His plan, He created the universe and all things in it. God’s deeds also include incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, descending as the Spirit, and, in the future, Christ’s second coming, the kingdom, and the new heaven and the new earth with the New Jerusalem. God is by no means inactive. On the contrary, He has accomplished a great many things. If it were not for God’s activity in creation, the universe would not have come into existence. The universe came out of God’s activity.
Incarnation is an even more impressive matter than creation. Through incarnation God became a man. As a man, Christ accomplished the work of redemption, dying on the cross for our sins. In His resurrection He brought His humanity into God. How marvelous!
Christians often say that the Son of God was incarnated. This, of course, is true. However, John 1:14 does not say that the Son of God became flesh; it says, “The Word became flesh.” John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This Word, according to verse 14, became flesh. This indicates that God Himself became a man. First, the Word became a man. Then in resurrection Christ, the last Adam in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit. In John 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:45 we have two important uses of the word became: the Word became flesh, and the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. First, Christ became a man in order to accomplish redemption. For this, He died on the cross and was buried. Then in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit. Our God today is the life-giving Spirit.
God has passed through a marvelous process. He became a man by being born of a virgin in a manger. For this reason, Isaiah 9:6 declares that unto us a child is born and that this child is called the mighty God. That child born of a virgin was the mighty God. This means that the mighty God actually became a child. Do you realize that one day our God became a child? The unique God, the only God in the universe, became a child! We may even speak of this child as the God-child. Of course, this term is not found in the Bible. However, the fact of God becoming a child is clearly revealed in Scripture. To speak of the God-child is not heresy; it is a divine fact. We are considering two crucial times the word became is used. The first is that the Word became flesh, God became a child born in a manger.
As we have indicated, the second crucial time the word became is used is in 1 Corinthians 15:45, where we are told that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. Who was this last Adam? No doubt the last Adam was the man Christ Jesus, God incarnate. Through resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit.
As Christians we all must recognize that the Word, which was God, became flesh. The very God actually became a child. We also must recognize that Christ, after His crucifixion and in resurrection, became a life-giving Spirit. Some Christians, however, oppose this teaching and say that it is heretical. They ask how Christ, the second of the Trinity, could be the Spirit, who is the third of the Trinity. But according to 1 Corinthians 15:45, Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. Is not the life-giving Spirit here the Holy Spirit? To deny this is to hold the heretical view that there are two life-giving Spirits.
We must turn away from traditional theology and come back to the pure Word of God. According to the Bible, the Triune God has been processed to become the life-giving Spirit. Based upon the revelation in the Word, we may say that today our God is the processed God. He is no longer unprocessed, or “raw.” To say that God has been processed means that He became a child born of a virgin and that, as a man, He was crucified, buried, visited Hades, and entered into resurrection. This certainly was a process. Therefore, we may speak of our God as the processed God.
From the time of His birth through His resurrection, Christ was being processed. The entire span of His human life, from incarnation through resurrection, was a period of process. Now, having entered into the state of resurrection, He has become the life-giving Spirit.
Because Christ is the life-giving Spirit, it is easy for us to breathe Him in. According to Romans 10, God is not far from us. On the contrary, He is very near, even in our mouth. All we need to do is breathe Him into us. This surely is good news, glad tidings.
The gospel is that the unique God, the Creator, one day became a man and passed through a process in order to become the life-giving Spirit for us to breathe in. The letter kills, but this Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6).
Our God has done everything necessary to become the life-giving Spirit. Now we not only have God and the Savior — we also have the life-giving Spirit. The Jews do not know that God has become a man named Jesus Christ. Instead, they know God as the Creator and fail to recognize Him as the One who has been incarnated to be the Savior. Even many Christians today only know God and Christ in an objective way. They do not realize that, as the very God Himself, Christ today is the life-giving Spirit. We cannot separate God, Christ, and the Spirit. These three are one. We may enjoy the three-one God as the Spirit because He has come into our spirit and has made us one spirit with Him. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” How wonderful!
The consummation of God’s deeds, of all He has done, is the life-giving Spirit. First, God created all things. Second, through incarnation He became a man. Third, through death and resurrection He was processed to become the life-giving Spirit. Now God is not only the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Savior. Ultimately and consummately, He is the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit is an all-inclusive drink for us to enjoy. Praise the Lord for the revelation in the Word that the very One who is our God, Creator, Savior, Redeemer, Lord, and Master is also the life-giving Spirit dwelling in our spirit!
In addition to the doings of God, the Bible reveals God’s speaking. God is a speaking God. Hebrews 1:1 and 2 say, “In many portions and in many ways, God, having spoken of old to the fathers in the prophets, has at the last of these days spoken to us in the Son.” As a result of God’s doings, we have the life-giving Spirit, and as a result of God’s speaking, we have the Word. Furthermore, the Word is the word of life.
We may use electricity as an illustration of the Spirit and the Word. With the application of electricity, there is often the need for an antenna and a ground wire. By means of an antenna and a ground wire electricity may be applied in different ways and the electricity will flow. The Spirit may be compared to the antenna, and the Word, to the ground wire. Many Christians today concentrate on the Word as the ground wire, but they neglect the Spirit as the antenna. Many, especially those in the seminaries and Bible colleges, study the Bible, but neglect the Spirit, the antenna. At the other extreme are the Pentecostalists who emphasize the Spirit, the antenna, but do not adequately care for the Bible, the ground wire. We in the Lord’s recovery should be balanced and have both the antenna and the ground wire, both the Spirit and the Word. If we are balanced concerning the Spirit and the Word, we shall experience the transmission, the flowing, of the divine electricity.
As the heavenly electricity, God has been installed in us for our enjoyment. However, in order to enjoy Him, we need the Spirit and the Word. Praise Him that in our hands we have the Word and that in our spirit we have the life-giving Spirit! The Spirit and the Word are two great gifts.
It is important for us to realize that the Word is the embodiment of the living God. Furthermore, the Word is spirit and life. The Lord Jesus said, “The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). We should never separate God, the Spirit, and the Word. These three are one. God is the Word, and the Word is the Spirit.
If God were not the Word, He would remain a great mystery as far as we are concerned. For example, if a person does not speak out what is in him, he will be mysterious. But if he speaks, he will make himself known, and what is in him will be revealed. By His speaking, God has revealed Himself. Because God is a speaking God, He is transparent. The more a person speaks, the more transparent he becomes.
We praise the Lord that through His doings He has become the Spirit and that through His speaking He has become the Word. Day by day we need to come to the Word with an open, exercised spirit. Then we shall not only receive light from the Word; we shall enter into a realm, a sphere, of light. Whenever we come to the Bible with a pure heart and a right spirit, we enter into a sphere of light. Then instead of simply receiving enlightenment, we shall be in a realm of light. Simply to see light from the Word is not adequate. We need to be in the sphere of light.
When we contact the Word in a proper way by reading and praying, we experience the current of the divine electricity. This is God operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). If we do not experience God operating in us when we spend time in the Word, we must be wrong in some way. Probably something is defective in our experience of the antenna, the Spirit, leaving us with only the Word as the ground wire. But if we have both the Spirit and the Word, we shall experience an inward divine activity. Something in us will move, and we shall be strengthened, comforted, nourished, supplied, and refreshed. This is God operating in us.
As a result of God’s operating in us, we spontaneously have a life in which the word of life is held forth to others. To hold forth the word of life is to present it to others, to offer it to them, to apply it to them. If God operates in us and we are filled with the Word, then wherever we are and whatever we say or do, we shall be an expression of the living God. This is to hold forth the word of life. This is also to live Christ.
I believe that most of us have experienced that when we are right in our spirit and pure in our heart, and then come to the Word with our whole being open to the Lord, we have the sense that we enter into a sphere of light. Then as we pray-read a portion of the Word, we sense that something inwardly is moving, operating in us to comfort, strengthen, satisfy, and refresh us. Sometimes we may want to shout for joy. At other times we may sing and praise the Lord. Those around us may be surprised at the change which takes place in us as a result of contacting the Word in this way.
We need to have this kind of contact with the Lord day after day, hour after hour, and even moment by moment. For this reason, it is helpful to carry a pocket version of the New Testament in order to take advantage of opportunities to pray-read the Word during the day. The more we pray-read with a right spirit and a pure heart, the more we shall enjoy the heavenly electricity and experience the living God operating in us. Then if we are sorrowful, He will comfort us; if we are dry, He will water us; if we are hungry, He will satisfy us; and if we are disappointed, He will encourage us. Spontaneously, what we say and do will be a holding forth, a presenting, of the word of life. This means that in our daily living there will be a divine expression. This is to live Christ that He might be magnified in us. Truly this is the proper Christian life.
The Christian life is intimately related to the life-giving Spirit and the word of life. As the consummation of His process, God is now the life-giving Spirit. Furthermore, in His speaking He is the Word. He has given us the Spirit and the Word as two wonderful gifts. Now we have both the antenna and the ground wire, both the Spirit and the Word, for us to contact and enjoy the heavenly electricity. The enjoyment of the divine electricity is very different from traditional Christianity and theology. It is to contact God subjectively as the One who dwells in us as the life-giving Spirit through the Word. The more we experience the word of life as the embodiment of the living God, the more God will become our enjoyment. Then we shall hold forth the word of life. This is to live Christ that He may be magnified in us.
