The redeeming Christ today is within us as the life-giving Spirit. On the cross He was the redeeming Lamb of God, and now in our spirit He is the life-giving Spirit. The Lamb is for redemption, and the Spirit is for life. Redemption was accomplished outside of us, on the cross, but life is something inside of us, in our spirit. The key point of the Christian life is that Christ is in our spirit and that this wonderful Christ is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. God, man, crucifixion, incarnation, resurrection, ascension, glory, power, life, and everything are all in Him, and He is within us.
Man is of three parts—spirit, soul, and body. Originally God created man with a body, not with the flesh, but because Satan came into man’s body, the body was ruined, corrupted, and poisoned by Satan and changed in nature to become the flesh. Similarly, within the mind is the self. The mind is the leading part of the soul and represents the soul. This is why some translators of the New Testament render the Greek word for soul as mind, as in Philippians 1:27 (KJV, NASB). When we were saved, Christ came into our spirit as our life. In our body there is Satan as sin, making it the flesh, and in our mind there is the self. However, in our spirit we have Christ as life and everything.
The first three chapters of Romans portray man as living in the flesh. Before we were saved, we were either Jews or Gentiles living all the time in the flesh to do sinful things. After someone is saved, he may not be clear in his experience that he should not try to live by himself, so chapter 7 is a record of a person living by himself, serving the law of God with the mind and the self. This is the record of a good man. Both the man living in the flesh sinfully in Romans 1—3 and the man living in the soul morally in Romans 7 are wrong. Instead, we need to live in the spirit, neither sinfully nor morally but spiritually, because Christ today is the life-giving Spirit who lives in our spirit. He as the Spirit mingles Himself with our spirit, so now these two spirits are one (1 Cor. 6:17). This is the key point of the entire Christian life.
The Spirit has a long history and includes many elements. He is the true God, the Triune God, and He is also the real man. In Him also are incarnation, human living, human suffering, crucifixion, resurrection with the resurrection power, ascension, glorification, and enthronement. All the accomplishments and attainments of the God-man are included in the Spirit. The human spirit also is not simple. Our spirit was created by God to receive God Himself. In the fall it was deadened but was still preserved by God. Now Christ has come into it to make it alive, to regenerate and uplift it. Our spirit is regenerated, uplifted, and indwelt by Christ. Thus, both the Spirit and our spirit have a long story, and now these two spirits are mingled together as one spirit. This is the wonderful spirit mentioned in the Epistles. We must learn all these matters and minister them to people in every place.
We need to walk in and according to this wonderful spirit (Rom. 8:4). When we walk according to this spirit, all things are ours. There is no need to seek after victory, because when we walk in this spirit, victory is ours. In fact, there is even no need of victory. We only need victory when we have enemies. In the spirit, however, there is no enemy. In the New Jerusalem we will have no enemies, so there will be no need of victory. Likewise, in our spirit there are no problems, so there is no need of solutions. As long as we are in this wonderful spirit, everything is all right. Moreover, the supply is here. Whatever we need is in our spirit. If we need light, here is the light. If we need comfort, joy, peace, rest, power, or patience, all these and something more are in our spirit. This is why the entire Bible eventually brings us to this point, stressing that we should walk in the spirit, live in the spirit, pray in the spirit, love our brothers in the spirit, have fellowship in the spirit, and do everything in the spirit. When we are in this spirit, everything is wonderful. All the problems are not only solved but are gone altogether.
When we live in the flesh, everything is “smoggy,” but in the spirit we are free from all smog. Our spirit is “smog free,” and there are no problems there. In our flesh there are many negative involvements. When we live in the flesh, we are involved with Satan, and Satan is related to the world. Likewise, when we live in the self, in the mind, we have more complications. We should no longer live in our self, trying to serve the law of God with the mind by ourselves. We must no longer say, “With the mind I myself serve.” Rather, we must pay our full attention to walking in the spirit, because this is where the wonderful Christ is today.
In order to walk according to the spirit, we first need to set our mind on the spirit. In other words, we need to turn our mind to the spirit. We are always used to setting our mind in the other direction, toward the flesh. When we set our mind on the flesh, we have death, but when we set our mind on the spirit, we have life and peace. Life is the strength to energize us, and peace affords us enjoyment. Whenever we turn our mind to the spirit, we are immediately strengthened and in the enjoyment of Christ. Christ is life, and He is peace. This means that when we set our mind on the spirit, we have Christ as life strengthening us, nourishing us, and being our enjoyment.
We need to see the way to put this into practice. The subtle tactic of the enemy is often to attract our mind to something outward, tempting us to set our mind on something other than the spirit. If we have a bad temper, Satan will utilize this temper, tempting us to pay attention to our temper. Then we will consider how to overcome our temper and conduct ourselves so as not to lose our temper. This means that spontaneously and automatically we are setting our mind on our temper instead of on the spirit. Thousands of items are utilized by Satan to tempt us to turn from the spirit to something else. The right and best way is to forget about all these things. We should forget about our temper and a thousand other matters, not pay any attention to them, and simply turn our mind to the spirit.
I have been a Christian for more than forty years, and for many of these years I had not yet discovered this glorious way. We need to forget about our weaknesses, shortcomings, temper, and other failures and pay attention to nothing other than the spirit. All the time we simply need to turn our mind to the spirit and set it on the spirit. If we are short of patience or humility, Satan will constantly tempt us to pay attention to these things. However, the more we set our mind on patience and humility, the more we will not have them. We need to forget about humility and patience and always consider the spirit, pay attention to the spirit, set our mind on the spirit, and turn our mind to the spirit.
To set our mind on the spirit means that we remain in the spirit. Then we will walk, move, do things, and speak things according to the spirit in which we remain. This way is very clear and simple. If we act, speak, move, work, and have our being in the spirit, remaining in the spirit, we will be transcendent. We will be in the heavens, and all the enemies will be under our feet. Then when there are no more enemies, there will be nothing further to overcome. Spontaneously we will enjoy the Lord, and we will fulfill the righteous requirements of the law. We will unconsciously and unintentionally fulfill everything that the law demands, because we will surpass the requirements of the law. We will be in the spirit, and in our spirit there will be no problems to overcome.