It is also through the transmission of the Holy Spirit that we become the many brothers, the members of Christ as the newborn child. As we have seen, the first category of the Spirit’s work is to convict people, that is, to convince sinners to repent, believe, and be regenerated. But the work of the Spirit involves much more than this. The second category of the Spirit’s work is the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in the regenerated believers to reveal Christ, to glorify Christ, and to make Christ real in the believers (16:12-15). This is the building work of the Holy Spirit.
In John 16:13-15 the Lord says, “But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality; for He will not speak from Himself, but what He hears He will speak; and He will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify Me, for He will receive of Mine and will declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He receives of Mine and will declare it to you.” According to the context, “the reality” in John 16:13 refers to what the Father has, what the Son has, and what the Spirit receives of the Son and of the Father. What the Father has is a reality, what the Son has is a reality, and what the Spirit receives is also a reality. What the Father has becomes the Son’s, what the Son has is received by the Spirit, and what the Spirit receives is disclosed to us. The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and we, the believers, are all involved in this process.
The Father, who is the source, the origin, has many riches. All that the Father has becomes the Son’s. The Son has the unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8). Whatever the Father has is the Son’s, and what the Son has is received by the Spirit. Since what the Spirit receives is disclosed or transmitted to us, we become the destination. The Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is transfigured to be the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reaching of the Divine Trinity to us. All the riches of the Triune God reach us in the Spirit. Therefore, we are the destination of the Triune God. All that the Triune God is and has has been disclosed, conveyed, transmitted, to us. Because we are organically united to the Spirit, that is, organically united to the processed Triune God, whatever He is and has now is our portion as our inheritance.
John 16:13-15 unveils to us the transmission of the Divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—into the believers. The Father as the source, the origin, has an abundance of riches. All that the Father has becomes the Son’s. The Son not only has what the Father has; He also has all the riches in His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. All that He has is in addition to what the Father has. All these riches contained in the Son are received by the Spirit, and the Spirit discloses them to us. This disclosing is a transmission of all the riches of what the processed Triune God is and has into our being. Now whatever the processed Triune God is and has is to be our element, our essence, our being. This makes the processed Triune God the very essence of our being. Thus, we all become God-men, the many brothers of Christ.
We must apply the transmission of the Holy Spirit to our experience. Do we have all that the Father has, all that the Son has, and all that the Spirit has received? Has the Spirit disclosed all that the Father has and all that the Son has to us in our experience? Actually, we have received everything that the Triune God is and has, but we have been too veiled to see and experience what we have received. We must know this fact in the Word and know it in our experience. We should realize that all that the Father has is the Son’s, that all that the Son has was received by the Spirit, and that the Spirit discloses to us what He receives. The Spirit, the Son, and the Father are all ours to possess! Thus, the Triune God is within us for our daily and hourly enjoyment.
Christ as the firstborn Son of God and His believers as the many sons of God were born in resurrection to be a newborn child for God’s full glorification. The many brothers of Christ produced by the conviction and transmission of the Holy Spirit are for God’s full glorification (Rom. 8:30b, 17b; Heb. 2:10; 1 Thes. 2:12). In particular, the Holy Spirit’s transmission to the believers of all that the Father and the Son have is the glorifying of the Son with the Father (John 16:13-15). The work of the Spirit is not only to convict the sinners that they might believe in Christ and be transferred out of Adam into Christ; it is also to reveal Christ with the fullness of the Father to all of these transferred believers that they might be built up with all the fullness of the Godhead in order to express the Triune God and to glorify the Son with the Father.
In keeping with John 16, Romans 8 reveals that the purpose of God’s foreknowledge, predestination, and calling is to prepare and produce many brothers for His firstborn Son that they, together with God’s firstborn Son, may be the many sons of God with the divine life and nature for the expression of God (vv. 28-29). In 8:30, Paul declares, “Those whom He predestined, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Glorification is the step in God’s complete salvation in which God will completely saturate our body of sin, which is of death and is mortal (7:24; 8:11; 6:6), with the glory of His life and nature according to the principle of His regenerating our spirit through the Spirit. In this way He will transfigure our body, conforming it to the resurrected, glorious body of His Son (Phil. 3:21). This is the ultimate step in God’s complete salvation, wherein God obtains a full expression, which will ultimately be manifested in the coming age.
Corresponding to John 16 and Romans 8, Hebrews 2:10 shows that the many believers as the many brothers of Christ are for God’s full glorification: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in leading many sons into glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The many sons here are the many brothers in Romans 8:29. The last step of God’s great salvation is to bring His many sons into glory. Romans 8 tells us that God’s work of grace upon us began with His foreknowing, passed through His predestination, calling, and justification, and will end with His glorification. The glorification of the sons of God will be accomplished by the Lord’s coming back (Phil. 3:21), at which time we will be manifested with Him in glory (Col. 3:4). This is our hope (1:27). This glorification of the sons of God, as the goal of God’s salvation, will last through the millennial kingdom and will be manifested in full for eternity in the New Jerusalem—the ultimate consummation of the new man (Rev. 21:2, 5, 11, 23).