Who was this One who got into them? The almighty Creator, the Triune God Himself. The Son of God was not separated from the Father. Where the Son was, the Father was also. The same is true of the Spirit: where the Spirit was, the Son was also. Thus, the One who entered into the disciples was the very Triune God. He was not merely the Creator described in Genesis 1. By now He had gone through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
How qualified and equipped He was to enter into man! He had accomplished redemption. He had destroyed death. He had defeated the Devil. He had released His life. He had become the available, life-giving breath, pneuma, Spirit. Satan might say, “God, You cannot enter into these sinful human beings,” but God would reply, “Yes, they were sinful, but I have redeemed them. My blood was shed for them. Let them be! You have been defeated. You have no ground to speak against them. The full liberty is Mine to enter into them!”
This One is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the indwelling Christ. This realization goes far deeper than what is commonly understood of Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. Many Christians have only an objective, superficial belief that we were fallen sinners; that God the Father loved the world and sent His Son to be our Savior and Redeemer; that He came as the Lamb of God and died on the cross for our sins; that He was buried; that after three days He was resurrected; that He ascended to heaven and is now seated on the throne; that He sent down the Holy Spirit as His instrument to inspire sinners to repent and believe in Him; that this Holy Spirit as the Representative of the Christ in heaven indwells those who thus believe; that when we have problems we pray to the Father about them; that our Mediator is there on the throne praying for us, taking care of our case and seeing that our prayers are answered.
To think in this way is not wrong, but it is superficial. It also borders on believing that there are three Gods. In the Vatican there is a floor-to-ceiling painting depicting an old father with a long white beard, a young son standing nearby, and a dove hovering overhead. Such is their concept of the Trinity! Alongside is another painting, with an extra person added. Besides the father, the son, and the dove, there is a young woman, supposedly the son’s mother, the mother of God! This is their God! How repulsive! It shows an ignorance of God’s economy to dispense Himself into His redeemed people by being triune.
Christ is a mystery. While He is abiding in you, He is still seated on the throne. When He comes to you, He comes with both the Father and the Spirit. When one comes, all three come. This is what triune means. We cannot explain the Godhead. But then, there are things about electricity that we cannot understand either; nonetheless, when we turn on the current, we can utilize its power. The Triune God cannot be fully understood. He is called Wonderful (Isa. 9:6) for this very reason. He is a totality of wonder, a mystery impossible to comprehend. This is true more than ever, now that He has gone through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. There is divinity in Him. There is humanity in Him. There is human life in Him. Who can understand such a One? This is the very One who is within us to be our contents. Some may say that our teaching is heretical, but it is altogether according to the divine revelation in the Bible.
What is the issue of God’s entering into us? It is the Body of Christ. This is also mysterious. To have the church as the Body of Christ, as Ephesians 1 tells us, involves Christ’s resurrection, His ascension, and His headship. It was the divine power which raised Christ from the dead, uplifted Him to the heavens, and made Him Head over all things to the church. The Body of Christ is produced by His ascension and headship.
If the church were simply an assembly of Christ’s believers, there would probably be no need for so many factors to be involved. But for the church to be the Body of Christ is not a simple matter. Even for us to have a physical body is not simple. Yes, we can have false teeth and artificial limbs, but to organically produce a member of the body is another matter. Perhaps a transplant is the best modern medicine can do.
Who can make us dead human beings part of Christ’s living Body? The crucified, resurrected, ascended Christ can! We are not like false teeth; we are organically part of the Body. The Creator could create us as human beings, but without passing through a process even He could not make us organically part of the Body of Christ. He first had to be incarnated, crucified, and resurrected in order to be qualified to make us the living members of His Body. Creative power was not adequate. It took Jesus Christ—the incarnated, crucified, resurrected One, the One who has been made Head over all—to accomplish this. Because He is now within us, we have become organically members of His Body.
We are also members one of another. The arm and the shoulder, as joint members, are related organically to each other. The building up of the Body is the growing together of the members. The hand is built with the arm and the arm with the shoulder. The relationship is not mechanical like a robot. We do not function in the church like robots, regulated and controlled by the elders. Do we function in the meetings because we are told to by the elders? Do we come to the Saturday morning service because they have told us we should? We are not parts of a mechanical being but living members of an organism! This living organism is being produced, not by a creative act, but by the qualified Christ. Whatever He has gone through, whatever He has obtained and attained, whatever He has entered into, is all for the producing of His Body. Ephesians 1:19-23 makes this clear.
In Ephesians 3 the church is called the mystery of Christ (v. 4). Christ is the mystery of God; similarly, the church, this organic entity, is the mystery of Christ. It was purposed, planned, and designed in eternity.
In Ephesians 4:4-6 it is clear that the Body is wrapped up with the Triune God. “One Body and one Spirit, as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, Who is over all and through all and in all.” There is one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father. All three of the Godhead are blended with the Body. Just as we cannot separate the three of the Godhead, neither can we separate the church as the Body from the three. They are blended together.
Some object to our saying that we are mingled with God. In the preface to Darby’s New Translation, Darby comments on the difficulty of using a large or small s for the word spirit when it is not clear whether the Holy Spirit or our spirit is meant. Three times in this one paragraph Darby uses the word blended. He says that the way spirit is used indicates our state. That is, God as the Spirit is blended with our spirit; this is the state we are in.
Hallelujah that the divine Spirit, having passed through so many processes, has become one spirit with us! Christians like to hear about miracles. Surely this is the top miracle: that God has gone through so much and has accomplished so much that He is fully equipped to be blended with us! What a state we are in! We are the living members of the organic Body of Christ.