CHAPTER FOUR

“THE SPIRIT HIMSELF WITH OUR SPIRIT” THE KEY TO OPEN THE EIGHT SECTIONS OF THE ORGANIC SALVATION OF GOD

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OUTLINE

Note: God’s intention in His organic salvation is to join the believer’s spirit with His Spirit as one spirit-a mingled spirit-1 Cor. 6:17.

1. To open the first section of regeneration:
   1. The Spirit of reality came to convict the sinners concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment (John 16:8-11), causing them to repent of their fallen condition and enter into the death and burial of Christ (Matt. 3:2, 5-6).
   2. At this juncture the Spirit of reality germinates the repentant believers with the resurrection life of Christ to regenerate them, to beget them anew in their spirit-1 Pet. 1:3; John 3:3, 5.
   3. This is “that which is born of the Spirit [of God] is spirit [of man]”-a spirit born of the Spirit-John 3:6.
   4. Right away the Spirit of God with the spirit of the regenerated believers witnesses that they are the (spiritual) children of God-Rom. 8:16.
2. To open the second section of feeding:
   1. The Lord wants the regenerated believers as newborn babes to feed on the (spiritual) milk of the word, which word is spirit and life (John 6:63), that they may grow in His life unto their daily salvation-1 Pet. 2:2.
   2. As they grow up in the divine life, they have to feed on the solid food also, not only on the milk, by exercising their spirit to contact the Spirit of God’s word that they may receive the supply of life-Heb. 5:13-14; Matt. 4:4b.
3. To open the third section of dispositional sanctification:
   1. The regenerated and growing believers need to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:16) in their disposition with the element of the resurrection life of Christ which they received through the feeding so that their crooked, perverted, natural disposition full of peculiarities can be sanctified with the divine holy nature of God (2 Pet. 1:4) that they may be holy unto God (Eph. 1:4).
   2. This dispositional sanctification by the Holy Spirit begins from our spirit through our soul unto our body so that our entire being can be wholly sanctified-1 Thes. 5:23.
4. To open the fourth section of renewing:
   1. Going along with the dispositional sanctification, the Lord renews us by His Spirit-Titus 3:5.
   2. The renewing Spirit is mingled with our regenerated spirit as one mingled spirit to spread into our mind to renew our entire being as a member of the new man by putting off our old man, that is, by renouncing and denying our old self (Matt. 16:24), and by putting on the new man, that is, by applying what Christ has accomplished in creating the new man (Eph. 2:15), by living and magnifying Christ through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19-21)-Eph. 4:22-24.
   3. The Lord uses the environmental sufferings to consume, to kill, our outer man that our inner man may be renewed day by day-2 Cor. 4:16.
   4. Since we the believers all will be the consummating part of the New Jerusalem, we have to be renewed to be as new as the New Jerusalem-Rev. 21:2.
5. To open the fifth section of transformation:
   1. Transformation is by the renewing of our mind (Rom. 12:2b). It is not any kind of outward correction, adjustment, but an inward metabolism by the addition of the element of the divine life of Christ into our being to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ. It is then by the Lord Spirit (the pneumatic Christ) to transform us into the image of the glory of Christ-2 Cor. 3:18.
   2. We have to live and walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and walk according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4b), that the divine life of Christ may regulate us to transform us into the image of the Lord in glory.
6. To open the sixth section of building:
   1. First Corinthians 3:9 and 12 unveil to us that we are God’s building and we have to build with gold (signifying God the Father’s golden nature), silver (God the Son’s redeeming work), and precious stones (God the Spirit’s transforming work), not with wood (signifying the nature of the natural man), grass (the fallen man, the man of the flesh), and stubble (the work and living that issue from an earthen source). This indicates that the building of God in which we are participating must be by transformed items like gold, silver, and precious stones, not by our nature, our flesh, and things from the earthen source.
   2. The building of God as the building of the church, the Body of Christ, being by the transformation of the Spirit is clearly signified by the jasper wall with its foundations of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:18-20). The jasper is a transformed precious stone and the wall of the New Jerusalem looks like one big piece of jasper, indicating that while the stones were under transformation, they were also built together. Hence, both the building and transformation are by the same transforming and building Spirit.
   3. Paul’s writings unveil to us that the church, the Body of Christ, as the dwelling place of God is in our spirit indwelt by the Spirit of God-Eph. 2:22; Rom. 8:11.
   4. Christ makes (builds) His home in our hearts through the strengthening of the Spirit of God into our inner man (our regenerated spirit) where Christ is (2 Tim. 4:22), unto the fullness (expression) of God-Eph. 3:16-19.
   5. Based upon the fact that the Spirit of God dwells within the lover of Christ (John 14:17), God the Father and the Son come to the lover of Christ and make a mutual abode with him (v. 23).