As the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of life, the Spirit indwells us to dispense the divine life into our spirit, soul (signified by the mind), and body (Rom. 8:2, 6, 9-11). The same wonderful Spirit is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of life. Such a Spirit indwells us; He is the indwelling Spirit. By the Spirit's indwelling, the divine life is dispensed into our three parts: first, it is dispensed into our spirit; then, it spreads into our soul; and finally, it reaches our body. The Spirit's indwelling is not passive; rather, it is very active, but still it is quite slow and very loving. Every day we must realize that we have an Indweller within us. He is not like a roommate, dwelling with us outwardly. Whatever we do, He indwells us. Even during our sleep, He indwells us quietly, slowly, and lovingly.
As the Comforter, the Spirit convicts us, the sinners, concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, that we may repent and believe in the Son, and He regenerates us by imparting Christ as the divine life into our being that we may become the children of God (John 16:7b-11; 3:5-6; 1:12-13). The Comforter's convicting leads us to repent and believe. Then through repenting and believing we are regenerated. Conviction leads to regeneration. Regeneration cannot take place without conviction. Thus, in our preaching of the gospel, we must help people to have this conviction.
John 16:8 says, "And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment." This verse implies three persons who are involved with us. Sin refers to Adam, righteousness refers to Christ, and judgment refers to the devil, Satan. We were born in Adam; hence, we are sinful. However, there is a way for us to get out of that position. By believing into Christ, we have Christ as our righteousness; sin is gone and righteousness is here. If we do not believe, however, we will participate in the punishment, the judgment, that is assigned to Satan. A sinner should be convicted in this way. Then he will repent and believe, and the Spirit will immediately come to regenerate him.
The Spirit regenerates us by imparting Christ as the divine life into our being that we may become the children of God. The Triune God not only comes into us to bring Himself to us but also to regenerate us that we may be born of God to be His children. Not only is the Triune God within us as the blessing, but we are now the children of such a One. This is a further blessing to us.