CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY OF THE GOSPEL OF GOD
in the Epistle to the Romans

Message Thirteen

The Spirit of Life
(1)

Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:2

OUTLINE

1. The Spirit of God, as the Third of the Divine Trinity, was the Spirit of God in God’s creation (Gen. 1:2), the Spirit of Jehovah in God’s contact with man (Judg. 3:10; 6:34; 11:29), and the Holy Spirit in the preparation for the incarnation of Christ as the embodiment of God (Luke 1:15, 35; Matt. 1:18).

Note: In the New Testament the Holy Spirit is the first divine title ascribed to the Spirit of God. Such a title is not used in the Old Testament. In Psalm 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10-11, Holy Spirit should be translated “Spirit of holiness.”

2. Before the resurrection of Christ, the Spirit of God had only divinity, without humanity.
3. John 7:39 says, “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”:
   1. The Lord’s word here unveils to us a very strange aspect concerning the Spirit of God; that is, before His glorification, before His resurrection (Luke 24:26), “the Spirit” was not yet, even though the Third of the Divine Trinity as the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, and the Holy Spirit was there already. This indicates that, after the Lord’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit has become “the Spirit,” who is different from what He was before the Lord’s resurrection.
   2. Through and in the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit has become “the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19b). Jesus Christ is the God-man; He is both divine and human; hence, the Spirit of Jesus Christ must possess both the element of divinity and the element of humanity. Andrew Murray saw this divine revelation. In chapter five, on the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, of his masterpiece entitled The Spirit of Christ, Andrew Murray says:
   3. “...The Son, who had from eternity been with the Father, entered upon a new stage of existence when He became flesh. When He returned to Heaven, He was still the same only-begotten Son of God, and yet not altogether the same. For He was now also, as Son of Man, the first-begotten from the dead, clothed with that glorified humanity which He had perfected and sanctified for Himself. And just so the Spirit of God as poured out at Pentecost was indeed something new....When poured out at Pentecost, He came as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the Incarnate, crucified, and exalted Christ, the bearer and communicator to us, not of the life of God as such, but of that life as it had been interwoven into human nature in the person of Christ Jesus....
   4. “This thought opens up to us further the reason why it is not the Spirit of God as such, but the Spirit of Jesus, that could be sent to dwell in us....Christ came...to bring human nature itself again into the fellowship of the Divine life, to make us partakers of the Divine nature....In His own person, having become flesh, He had to sanctify the flesh, and make it a meet and willing receptacle for the indwelling of the Spirit of God....From His nature, as it was glorified in the resurrection and ascension, His Spirit came forth as the Spirit of His human life, glorified into the union with the Divine, to make us partakers of all that He had personally wrought out and acquired, of Himself and His glorified life....And in virtue of His having perfected in Himself a new holy human nature on our behalf, He could now communicate what previously had no existence—a life at once human and Divine....
   5. “...In our place, and on our behalf, as man and the Head of man, He was admitted into the full glory of the Divine, and His human nature constituted the receptacle and the dispenser of the Divine Spirit. And the Holy Spirit could come down as the Spirit of the God-man—most really the Spirit of God, and yet as truly the spirit of man....He can now come down to witness of the perfect union of the Divine and the human, and in becoming our life, to make us partakers of it....
   6. “...The Holy Spirit descends as a Person to dwell in believers, and to make the glorified Jesus a Present Reality within them....”
   7. Now the Spirit of Jesus Christ is not only the Spirit of divinity but also the Spirit of humanity. He, as the Spirit of God, has been compounded with divinity and humanity. Hence, He is the compounded Spirit.
   8. In typology, the type of the holy anointing ointment, as unveiled in Exodus 30:23-28, confirms this divine revelation concerning the Spirit of God. That type shows us that the Spirit of God is compounded not only with the divinity of God (typified by a hin of olive oil) and the humanity of man (typified by the four kinds of spices) but also with the sweet death of Christ (typified by myrrh), the sweet effectiveness of the death of Christ (typified by cinnamon), the surpassing resurrection of Christ (typified by calamus), and the repelling power of the resurrection of Christ (typified by cassia). Such a compound was called the holy anointing ointment with which all the tabernacle and its utensils were anointed for their sanctification unto God, and such a compounded Spirit is the anointing Spirit as the sealing Spirit (2 Cor. 1:21-22), whose anointing within the believers is the reality of His indwelling within the believers (1 John 2:20, 27).

In this message we want to speak concerning the wonderful Spirit in God’s New Testament economy. According to our study of the New Testament, the most important thing is this wonderful Spirit. Nothing in the entire Bible is so important, yet this wonderful Spirit has nearly been put aside by today’s Christians.

The Spirit is first mentioned in Genesis 1:2. In God’s creation, the Spirit of God was brooding over the death waters. The more the Bible goes on, the more the Spirit is mentioned. When we come to the last section of the biblical books, the Epistles, the Spirit is mentioned frequently. Revelation is also an Epistle, which is compounded with seven single epistles (chs. 2—3). Only five books of the New Testament are not Epistles: the four Gospels and Acts. Afterward, the first Epistle is Romans and the last one is Revelation, with the epistles to the seven churches. Nearly every page of the Epistles speaks of the Spirit. In the first part of Romans 8 the Spirit is mentioned in nearly every verse.

In Genesis 1 the Spirit of God is mentioned in a very simple way. He was brooding over the death waters. The last time the Spirit is mentioned is in the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22. There the Spirit is mentioned in such a marvelous way: “The Spirit and the bride say...” (v. 17a). At the beginning of the Bible, the Spirit was with the dark, deep waters. At the end of the Bible, the Spirit is with a bride!

The Spirit is the most important matter unveiled in the Bible. The whole Bible is a revelation of God, and God is Spirit (John 4:24). Not only so, God is triune (Matt. 28:19). The Third of the Divine Trinity, the Spirit, is neither the ending nor the commencement, but the consummation. The consummation, the totality, the aggregate, of the Divine Trinity is the Spirit. God is Spirit, and the consummation, the aggregate, of the Divine Trinity is also the Spirit. Furthermore, the Triune God is embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9), and the Son becomes eventually the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Thus, God is Spirit; the consummation of the Divine Trinity is the Spirit; and the Second of the Divine Trinity, who is the embodiment of the Divine Trinity, also became a Spirit. Eventually, this Spirit becomes the sevenfold intensified Spirit (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6).

In Genesis 1, at the very beginning of the Bible, the Spirit of God was there. Later, the Spirit of Jehovah was there (Judg. 3:10). Then, the New Testament begins with the Holy Spirit for the incarnation of Christ (Matt. 1:18). Yet John 7 says that the Spirit was not yet (v. 39). The Spirit of God was there in Genesis 1. The Spirit of God as the Spirit of Jehovah was there throughout the entire Old Testament. Then the Spirit of God as the Holy Spirit was there to accomplish the wonderful incarnation through which God became man. Such an important thing transpired through the Spirit of God. Yet when we come to John 7, during the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

This short phrase—“the Spirit was not yet”—has bothered all the proper translators of the New Testament and the careful students and teachers of the theology of the Bible. Jesus as a man was born of the Spirit. He was conceived of the Spirit. But after thirty years, when Jesus was speaking in His ministry, John 7 says that the Spirit was not yet. It is difficult for people to explain this. Many have been bound, frustrated, limited, covered, and blinded by their kind of traditional, fundamental teaching. For many years we were puzzled about this matter. But we were desperate to dive into the depths of the truth in our study of the Bible. Thank God that He gave us the answer.

John 7:39 says that the Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The glorification of Jesus was the uplifting of Jesus’ humanity into divinity in His resurrection. The Spirit was not yet because Jesus’ humanity had not yet been uplifted into divinity in His resurrection. In the first part of the Bible, the Spirit of God had only divinity without humanity. But in the last part of the Bible, the Spirit is unveiled as the Spirit of life who has both divinity and humanity. Thus, to say that the Spirit was not yet means that the Spirit of both divinity and humanity was not yet. But after Christ’s resurrection, when Christ had uplifted His humanity into His divinity, the Spirit became something more. After Christ’s resurrection, the Spirit was not merely the Spirit of God possessing divinity only, but the Spirit of both God and man, possessing both divinity and humanity.

Many in traditional theology say that the Holy Spirit of God possesses only divinity. They say that the Spirit of God is not the Spirit of man. They do not see how He could possess humanity. But the Bible eventually unveils to us that the Spirit of God became the Spirit of the God-man. This God-man is Jesus. Hymns, #242 says that the Spirit of God today is the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus is a God-man. So the Spirit of Jesus is now possessing not only divinity, but both divinity and humanity. The Spirit of God today is the Spirit of the man Jesus.

Philippians 1:19 speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. What kind of Spirit has the bountiful supply? Not the Spirit of God only, but the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the God-man. Many Christians today are poor because they are short of this supply. The Bible says that the Spirit of Jesus Christ has a bountiful supply because He is the Spirit of both God and of the man Jesus. Thus, He becomes the compound Spirit. The Spirit of God is now compounded with man. At one time, He had only one element, the divine element, without the human element. But in His resurrection, Christ has uplifted His humanity into His divinity. Now the Spirit of God has become the Spirit of a God-man, possessing the divine nature and human nature. So He is no longer a simple Spirit, but a compounded Spirit, a Spirit compounded with God and with man. This is our crystallization-study of the Spirit. In the New Testament, the main title of the Spirit of God is the Spirit of life. This is referred to in Romans 8:2.