It is in resurrection that Christ is the life-giving Spirit. John 20:22 indicates this. According to this verse, on the day of His resurrection, the resurrected Christ breathed on the disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” By breathing the Spirit into the disciples, the Lord imparted Himself as life and everything to them essentially.
In the Gospel of John we see that the Lord is the Word, the eternal God, who has passed through a long process to become the Spirit, the pneuma, the breath, that He might come into the believers. For the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose He took two steps. First, He took the step of incarnation to become a man in the flesh (John 1:14), to be the Lamb of God to accomplish redemption for man (John 1:29), to declare God to man (John 1:18), and to manifest the Father to His believers (John 14:9-11). Second, He took the step of death and resurrection to be transfigured into the Spirit so that He may impart Himself into His believers as their life and their everything to produce the church for the expression of the Triune God. Therefore, through His incarnation He, the eternal Word, became flesh to accomplish redemption, and in resurrection He became the Spirit to be our life and everything for the producing of the church.
We need to be impressed with the fact that as the eternal Word Christ took the two steps of incarnation and resurrection. The first step was for redemption, and the second step was for life-imparting. After becoming flesh to be the Lamb of God to shed His blood for our redemption, He became in resurrection the life-giving Spirit for the purpose of imparting Himself into us as life. Not many Christians have seen this clearly. Most believers realize only that Christ took the step of incarnation for the accomplishment of redemption. They do not see that in resurrection He, the last Adam in the flesh, became the life-giving Spirit in order to come into us to be our life. But the Gospel of John reveals both steps. In John 1 the eternal Word became flesh to be the Lamb of God. In John 20 this wonderful One took the step of resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, on the day of His resurrection He came to the disciples and breathed Himself into them as the Spirit.
As the last Adam in the flesh, Christ, through the process of death and resurrection, became the life-giving Spirit. It is as the Spirit that He was breathed into the disciples. It is as the Spirit that He is received into His believers and flows out of them as rivers of living water (John 7:38-39). It is as the Spirit that He enters into us as the Comforter and abides in us (John 14:16-17). It is as the Spirit that He lives in the disciples and they live by Him and with Him (John 14:19). It is as the Spirit that He abides in the disciples and they abide in Him (John 14:20; 15:4-5). It is as the Spirit that He comes with the Father to the one who loves Him and makes an abode with him (John 14:23). It is as the Spirit that He makes all that He is and has to be fully realized by the disciples (John 16:13-16). Through resurrection and in resurrection Christ is now such a wonderful life-giving Spirit. This is the fulfillment of His promise in John 14:16-20.
In resurrection Christ is the Spirit—the Lord Spirit. Second Corinthians 3:17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” The Spirit in this verse is the Spirit mentioned in verse 6, where we are told that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Now the Lord is the Spirit who gives life. According to Darby’s New Translation, verses 7 through 16 of 2 Corinthians 3 are in parentheses, showing that verse 17 is the continuation of verse 6. As we have pointed out, verse 17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” The Spirit mentioned here is the very Spirit who gives life spoken of in verse 6. Therefore, this verse clearly says that Christ the Lord is the Spirit. In resurrection the Lord is the Spirit.
Some claim that the Lord in 2 Corinthians 3:17 is not the Lord Jesus Christ but merely the Lord God. However, in the book of 2 Corinthians the title “the Lord” is always attached to the Lord Jesus (1:2, 14; 4:5; 13:14), and God is called “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3; 11:31). According to the context of this section, which starts at 2:12, the Lord here must refer to Christ the Lord (2:12, 14, 15, 17; 3:3, 4, 14, 16). Therefore, the Lord in 3:17, as in 3:16 and 18, undoubtedly refers to the Lord Jesus, not to God the Father. Second Corinthians 3:17 is, then, a strong word in the Bible telling us emphatically that Christ the Lord is the Spirit.
Second Corinthians 3:18 refers to Christ as “the Lord Spirit.” The Lord Spirit may be considered a compound title like the Father God and the Lord Christ. This expression again strongly proves and confirms that the Lord Christ is the Spirit and the Spirit is the Lord Christ.