Luke 1:35 and Matthew 1:18 and 20 also show us that the Son came by the Spirit. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit was the very Spirit of God the Father, the very essence of God the Father. When the Spirit entered into the womb of Mary, that was the essence of God the Father entering into the virgin. This was a divine conception accomplished in a human virgin’s womb. The divine essence was mingled with the human essence to produce a child born as a God-man. This shows how the Son came with the Father’s essence and by the Spirit.
When I was younger, I could not understand why the Lord needed to do things by the Spirit since He was almighty. The Lord Jesus told the Pharisees that He cast out demons by the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28). When the Son came, He came with the Father. When He worked, He worked by the Spirit. The Triune God is a mystery. It is a mystery that the Son of God is almighty, yet He still needed to do things by the Spirit. In the four Gospels we do not see the Son alone, but we see the Son, with the Father, by the Spirit.
The Trinity was mingled with the human nature. This one conceived in the womb of Mary was the complete God and the perfect Man. The Son came with the Father by the Spirit to be mingled with humanity, thus becoming a God-man. This is God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). This is the incarnation of the Word and this is our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the Triune God mingled with man. In Him we see the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and in Him we see a perfect Man. He is the very God-man, the embodiment of the Triune God in the Man, Jesus Christ.
The Word’s incarnation was the Triune God’s incarnation—the Son of God, with the Father, by the Spirit became flesh. This was God, the Triune, becoming a man; therefore, this Man is the very embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ as God’s dwelling place, the tabernacle and the temple, living the life of God to develop into the kingdom of God. This was the initiation of God’s New Testament economy. Initiation does not only convey the thought of beginning, but it also conveys the thought of beginning by creation. It denotes something new that has never before existed. The Triune God’s incarnation created a new thing, and this new thing created by the Triune God’s incarnation was an initiation. A new realm, a new sphere, with a new embodiment came into existence. In this new realm or new sphere, God became one with man. There had never been such a thing. This was something absolutely new. God’s incarnation brought in a new creation. Eventually, this new creation will consummate in the New Jerusalem, the center of the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1-2).
This Person is universal, excellent, marvelous, wonderful, and unique. Before the incarnation, there was not such a Person. In the age to come, this Person will be developed, enlarged, and increased to the uttermost. That will be the New Jerusalem as the center of the new universe, the new heaven and the new earth. That will be the ultimate consummation of the development of such a wonderful, excellent Person.
The entire New Testament is an unveiling of such a unique Person who is the embodiment of the Triune God in a Man. This Man is Jesus Christ. In this perfect Man, Jesus Christ, is the Father, the Son, the Spirit—the complete God. This perfect Man is the container, the holder, of the Triune God. He is the embodiment of the Son, with the Father, by the Spirit.
Some teachers of the Bible told people that in the Old Testament is God the Father, in the Gospels is God the Son, and in the rest of the Bible is God the Spirit. I received this teaching sixty years ago, but after my personal study of the Bible, I discovered that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were all in the Old Testament. Isaiah 9:6 refers to the eternal Father. Genesis 1:2 tells us that the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters. Also in Genesis 18, the Lord Jesus came as a real man to Abraham, and Abraham prepared water for Him to wash His feet and fed Him. Before the incarnation, God had already appeared to Abraham as a man. This man’s name in Genesis 18 was Jehovah (v. 1). The Lord Jesus walked with Abraham as a friend in Genesis 18. This is why James tells us that Abraham was the friend of God (2:23). This again shows us the mystery of the divine Trinity. The Old Testament, the Gospels, Acts through Jude, and Revelation reveal to us the same wonderful Triune God-man.
Many of us Christians believe in Christ, yet we do not know Him in His Person. His Person is so excellent, so wonderful, and so marvelous. He is the embodiment of the Triune God who mingled Himself with humanity to be born a God-man, in whom we see the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—the complete God and a perfect man for the purpose of dispensing the Triune God into us. We must learn to know this Person, to describe this wonderful Person, and to present this excellent Person to others.