As part of His work in the old dispensation, God promised Abraham that through his seed, Christ, the blessing of the gospel would come to all the families of the earth. Galatians 3:8 says, “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham: In you all the nations shall be blessed.” In Galatians 3:14 Paul goes on to say, “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.” Then in verse 16 Paul continues, “To Abraham were the promises spoken and to his seed. He does not say, And to the seeds, as concerning many, but as concerning one, And to your seed, who is Christ.” Because verse 14 combines the promise of the Spirit with the blessing of Abraham, this verse 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 promise 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 God promised to Abraham for all the nations and which has been received by the believers through faith in Christ. This Spirit is the compound Spirit and is actually God Himself processed in His trinity through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension, for us to receive as our life and our everything.
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). Because 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. What kind of Spirit could be the blessing God promised to Abraham? What Spirit could be the all-inclusive blessing, which is Christ as the land? It must be the Spirit, the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
Paul’s word concerning the Spirit should remind us of John 7:39: “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Spirit in Galatians 3:14 and John 7:39 is the ultimate expression of the Triune God. The Spirit denotes the processed God. The Father is the source. The Son of God as the course was incarnated, lived on earth, was crucified, and was resurrected. Incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection are all aspects of a process. In resurrection, Christ, the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit. No doubt, the life-giving Spirit is the very Holy Spirit who gives life. This Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed God. As the good land is an all-inclusive type of Christ, and as Christ who is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9) has become the Spirit, so the Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit as the processed God, is eventually the good land to us, the New Testament believers, as the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him.
In Galatians 3:14, the blessing of the promise is the Spirit, and in Galatians 3:16 the promises were made to Abraham’s seed, which is Christ. On the one hand, the Spirit is the all-inclusive Christ. On the other hand, the Spirit, as the blessing of the promise, was given to Christ as the seed. When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we received Him as the seed, as life. This seed is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, the reality of the good land. The Christ whom we received as the seed is the Spirit typified by the good land. Christ came into us as the seed, but as we live by Him He becomes the land (the all-inclusive Spirit) which is our portion. This is the fulfillment of God’s word in promising Abraham that through his seed the blessing of the gospel would come to all the families of the earth.
Second Peter 2:6 says, “Having reduced to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He condemned them to ruin, having set an example to those who intend to live an ungodly life.” In the old dispensation, God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah to ruin by fire. This He did as an example to those who would live an ungodly life. To live an ungodly life is to live in the flesh in the lusts of men, not in the will of God (1 Pet. 4:2); it is to work out the desire of the nations (1 Pet. 4:3) and to live in a vain, ungodly manner of life (1 Pet. 1:18). People who live such an ungodly life should be warned by this example.
Home | First | Prev | Next