The second section is from Acts through Jude. What is revealed here is the Spirit. The Son who became flesh died and resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In these twenty-two books this life-giving Spirit is as the Son with the Father. In the four Gospels the Trinity was the Son with the Father by the Spirit, but in these twenty-two books the Trinity is the Spirit as the Son with the Father. This is the consummation of the Triune God in the church as the Body of Christ, the temple of God, the kingdom of God, and the house of God, living Christ unto the fullness of God. The fullness of God means the expression of God in full. After His death and resurrection the Lord Jesus became the Spirit as the Son with the Father to be the consummation of the Triune God, not only in one Person, Jesus Christ, but in the church as the Body of Christ, the temple of God, the kingdom of God, and the house of God. This is a corporate Person, and this corporate Person lives Christ unto the fullness of God, the expression of God in full. This is the development in the twenty-two books from Acts to Jude of the initiation in the Gospels. Today we are in this development.
The second section of the New Testament still talks about the same Person, but in a further stage. In the four Gospels we can see how God, the Triune, became incarnated, manifested in the flesh. The complete God, the God of the Trinity, became flesh and lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. He died on the cross for our sins to accomplish a full redemption for us, and He was resurrected. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us clearly that the last Adam, Jesus Christ, became a life-giving Spirit through death and resurrection. On the day of His resurrection, He came back to His disciples as the Spirit, the “pneumatic Christ.”
The Lord came with a resurrected body (Luke 24:37-40; 1 Cor. 15:44) into the room where the disciples were with the door shut. He was there with a resurrected body because He showed them His hands and His side. He was there in a pneumatic way. Then He breathed into His disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma which can be translated into either spirit, breath, or wind. Actually, the Holy Spirit in this verse should be translated into the Holy Breath, the Holy Pneuma. The Holy Spirit is not a separate Person from the Son, Jesus Christ. How could your breath be breathed out of your being to become a second person? This is not logical. The breath is the very release of the intrinsic essence of someone’s being. Breath is the intrinsic essence of the breather. The pneumatic Christ, the very Christ who is pneuma, came back on the day of resurrection to His disciples and breathed out the intrinsic essence of His being into them. On that day, the pneumatic Christ entered into His disciples.
From that day onward, He was not only among His disciples but also within them in order to train them to get accustomed to His invisible presence. For the three and a half years of His earthly ministry, Peter, John, James, and the other disciples were used to His visible presence, but then His presence became invisible. The disciples were not used to this invisible presence so the Lord trained them for forty days. In these forty days, He appeared to them unexpectedly without their realization (John 21:4; Luke 24:15-16). When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus realized that it was Jesus who was with them, He disappeared from them (Luke 24:31). Many times we may not have much realization that Jesus the Lord is with us. However, many saints have experienced the Lord’s appearing to them when they were going somewhere or doing something against His wishes. For example, in John 21 we see that Peter returned to his old occupation, backsliding from the Lord’s call (Matt. 4:19-20; Luke 5:3-11), due to the trial of the need of his living. It was then that the Lord appeared to them on the shore. He appears to us many times in order to restrict us and enlighten us to keep us on the way that leads to life.
Since His resurrection, the Lord’s presence is invisible in the Spirit. His manifestation or appearings after His resurrection were to train the disciples to realize, to enjoy, and to practice His invisible presence, which is more available, prevailing, precious, rich, and real than His visible presence. This dear presence of His was just “the Spirit” in His resurrection, whom He had breathed into them and who would be with them all the time.
In the twenty-two books of the Bible from Acts to Jude we see the Spirit as the Son. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us that the last Adam, Jesus Christ, became a life-giving Spirit, and 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us, “the Lord is the Spirit.” In these twenty-two books, the main figure is the Spirit—the Spirit as the Son with the Father. John 14:23 says, “Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” This means that when the Son comes, He always comes with the Father. The Epistles tell us clearly that the Spirit is the Son; He is also with the Father because the Father is always with the Son. The Spirit as the Son with the Father is the consummation of the Triune God in the church.
The embodiment of the Triune God was in Jesus Christ, and the consummation of the Triune God is in the church as the Body of Christ and the temple of God. The Body of Christ is the kingdom of God, and the temple of God is the house of God living Christ. The church today is living Christ. We all are living Christ every day unto the fullness of God, which is the very expression of God, the Triune God. This is in the twenty-two books of the Bible from Acts to Jude as the development. Christ was the initiation to develop into His enlargement which is the church, the fullness of the Triune God.