Today many Christians appreciate the Nicene Creed, put forth at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. This creed is still recited weekly on Sunday morning in many places. The Nicene Creed is fundamental and scriptural, but it is not complete. This is because it does not cover the five following major points.
The Nicene Creed does not mention John 7:39, which says that the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
After I came to the United States thirty-two years ago, I was filled with the burden to speak concerning Christ as the last Adam becoming a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In 1963 I wrote some hymns in our hymnal which declare this truth (Hymns, #493, #539, #745).
The Nicene Creed does not point out that “the Lord is the Spirit,” the transforming Spirit, as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.
Another great item missed by the Nicene Creed is the compound Spirit, compounded with Christ’s divinity and His humanity and with His sweet death, the sweet effectiveness of His death, and His all-conquering resurrection with its repelling power (Exo. 30:23-28). No one can deny that there is such a type in the book of Exodus, accompanying the type of the tabernacle, with the altar, the laver, the showbread table, the lampstand, the incense altar, and the ark. In Christianity there are interpretations of these things, but none of the writers of Christianity has ever fully touched the type of the holy anointing ointment. They have missed the truth concerning the compound Spirit.
The fifth major point missed by the Nicene Creed is the sevenfold intensified Spirit (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6).
Now we can see that in the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, the Spirit of God is unveiled in stage after stage. The first mention of the Spirit of God is in Genesis 1:2, which says that the Spirit was brooding over the dark waters. The Spirit of God is God Himself. The Lord Jesus said, “God is Spirit” (John 4:24). The Spirit is the very essence of God, the very reality of God. So when the Bible unveils the Spirit of God, that means the Bible unveils God to us.
The first stage of the revelation of the Spirit is the Spirit of God. Then the last stage is in Revelation 22:17, which speaks of “the Spirit.” In the Old Testament, there are the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Jehovah. In the New Testament, there are the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Eventually, at the end of the Bible there is only “the Spirit.” The title the Spirit is mentioned the first time in John 7:39, which says, “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified [resurrected].” But at the resurrection of Christ, the Spirit was consummated to be the life-giving Spirit. Thus, at the end of the Bible there is “the Spirit.” Concerning the Spirit of God as revealed in the holy Scripture, “the Spirit of God” is at the beginning, and “the Spirit” is at the end.
When the Bible speaks of the resurrection of Christ, it says that in resurrection this very Christ who was the last Adam, a man in the flesh, became the Spirit who gives life to us (2 Cor. 3:6b) and transforms us (vv. 17-18), the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This life-giving Spirit is the issue of a man in the flesh who was called the last Adam. The last Adam is Jesus Christ, so the life-giving Spirit is the equivalent of Christ. Christ is God’s embodiment in man (Col. 2:9), and this Christ became the life-giving Spirit. Christ is the equivalent of God plus man, and the life-giving Spirit is the equivalent of Christ. Thus, no doubt, this life-giving Spirit is a compound Spirit—a Spirit of both God and man.
The compound Spirit is compounded not only with God and man, but also with Christ’s death, the effectiveness of Christ’s death, Christ’s resurrection, and the power of Christ’s resurrection. So this compound Spirit is a compound of six elements: the divine element, the human element, the death element, the effectiveness element, the resurrection element, and the power element. Eventually, this compound Spirit becomes the sevenfold intensified Spirit.
This Spirit is the very Triune God who has been processed and consummated! He is the realization of Christ, who is God embodied in man. He is also the reality of Christ, the application of the pneumatized Christ, and the very pneumatic Christ in our experience of Christ. Thus, this life-giving Spirit, the compound Spirit, the sevenfold Spirit, is altogether the Triune God Himself in many aspects. The Bible unveils all this. The Bible unveils who God is. Our God is the Triune God becoming a man to be Christ; Christ in His resurrection became the life-giving Spirit; and the life-giving Spirit is the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God embodied in a man. Today the life-giving Spirit is everything to us.
God, man, Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the compound Spirit, and the sevenfold intensified Spirit are one thing. They are all resurrection. The reality of resurrection is the life-giving Spirit, the life-giving Spirit is the realization of Christ, and Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God in man. Today we are in resurrection. When we are in resurrection, we are in the life-giving, compound, sevenfold intensified Spirit. When we are in resurrection, we are in the pneumatic Christ, the pneumatized Christ, Christ Himself. When we are in resurrection, we are in the processed and consummated Triune God.