Message Six

The Constitution of the New Covenant Ministers

Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 3:12-18

1. The ministers of the new covenant are constituted by and with the Lord as the life-giving and transforming Spirit—2 Cor. 3:12-18:
   1. The new covenant ministers are persons whose hearts have turned to the Lord, whose faces are unveiled, who are enjoying the Lord as the Spirit, freeing them from the bondage of the law, and who are being transformed into the image of the Lord by beholding and reflecting Him—vv. 16-18.
   2. Through such a process of transformation they are constituted ministers of Christ by the Spirit with the elements of Christ’s person and work:
      1. What we are by nature means nothing; only what the Spirit constitutes within our being counts.
      2. We are transformed into precious stones through the heat and pressure in our environment and through the flowing and dispensing of the Spirit within us— v. 18; 4:16-18; Rom. 12:2a; 1 Cor. 3:12a.
      3. Hence, our person is constituted of and with Christ, and our ministry is to minister Christ to others, infusing them with the all-inclusive Christ as the indwelling, life-giving Spirit—2 Cor. 3:5-6.
2. In order to be constituted as the ministers of the new covenant for the building up of the Body of Christ, we need to experience all the aspects of the all-inclusive Spirit in 2 Corinthians:
   1. The anointing Spirit is the indwelling, compound Spirit moving and working within us to impart all of God’s divine ingredients and constituents into us—1:21; Phil. 1:19; Rom. 10:12-13; cf. Exo. 30:23-25:
      1. The reaching of the anointing accomplishes the central purpose of God’s salvation to anoint the compounded God into us that we may be united, mingled, and incorporated with Him—1 Cor. 15:45b; 1 John 2:20, 27.
      2. The teaching of the anointing is the inward feeling generated by the moving of the Spirit within us, enabling us to know God’s mind and to live in Him, teaching us the things concerning the Triune God and His activities—v. 27; Acts 16:6-7.
   2. The sealing Spirit forms the divine elements into an impression to express God’s image—2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13:
      1. The sealing Spirit saturates the believers continuously unto the redemption of their body—4:30.
      2. The sealing Spirit transforms the believers into a treasure to God as His inheritance—1:11.
      3. The more we are sealed, the more we bear the image of God to be constituted into the masterpiece of God—2 Cor. 3:18b; Eph. 2:10.
   3. The pledging Spirit gives us a foretaste as a sample and guarantee of the full taste of God—2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5:
      1. The Spirit’s pledging guarantees that God is our inheritance—Eph. 1:14.
      2. Christ as the pledging Spirit is in us for our taste, for our enjoyment of Him as our divine inheritance, our allotted portion, through the exercise of our spirit—Psa. 34:8; 1 Pet. 2:3; Col. 1:12.
   4. The inscribing Spirit writes Christ into us to make us the living letters of Christ—2 Cor. 3:3:
      1. Christ is being inscribed into us with the spiritual ink, the Spirit of the living God; if we are under the Spirit’s inscribing, we have the deep sensation of being living within.
      2. The Spirit is the ink, and the content of the ink is Christ with His person, work, and attainments; the compound Spirit as the compound ink adds the substance of Christ into us and saturates us with the essence of Christ.
   5. The life-giving Spirit, the vivifying Spirit, imparts the divine life into our being to make us men of life with the ministry of life—vv. 6, 17; John 7:38:
      1. When we study and read the Bible prayerfully with the exercise of our spirit, we are vivified—2 Cor. 3:6; John 6:63.
      2. To be one who can give life to others, we must abide in the divine life and walk, live, and have our being in the divine life—1 John 5:16a.
   6. The ministering Spirit imparts all that Christ is into us and makes all that Christ is and has real to us—2 Cor. 3:8; John 16:13-15:
      1. We can receive the supply of the ministering Spirit by exercising our spirit to pray and call on the Lord—Gal. 3:5a; Col. 4:2; Rom. 10:12-13.
      2. The ministering Spirit ministers Christ into us and ministers Christ to others through us—2 Cor. 3:6; cf. Phil. 1:25.
   7. The freeing Spirit frees us from the bondage of the letter of the law; the Spirit of the Lord is the Lord Himself, with whom is freedom—2 Cor. 3:17; 4:5; Gal. 2:4; 5:1:
      1. This freeing includes full satisfaction, with a rich, supporting supply and the full enjoyment of Christ— John 4:14b.
      2. This freeing includes the enjoyment of true rest, without being under the heavy burden to keep the law—Matt. 11:28-30.
   8. The transforming Spirit dispenses the divine life, nature, essence, element—even the divine being—into us so that we may be metabolically changed in our inner being— 2 Cor. 3:18:
      1. When we turn our hearts to the Lord to behold and reflect the glory of the Lord with an unveiled face, He infuses us with the elements of what He is and what He has done.
      2. Thus, we are being transformed metabolically from one degree of glory to another degree of glory to have His life shape by His life power with His life essence.
   9. The transmitting Spirit transmits all that Christ is with all the riches of God into us for our participation—13:14:
      1. God is love, and this love is being transmitted as grace into us by the Spirit, who is the Transmitter.
      2. The Spirit is the fellowship, the communication, the circulation, the transmission, of the grace of Christ with the love of the Father, transmitting the divine riches into our being for our enjoyment.