In the first five books of the New Testament we have seen that Christ, the God-man, after entering into His resurrection, became the Spirit of life as the breath breathed into His disciples (John 20:22). Then after His ascension, as the Spirit of power, as the wind, He poured out Himself upon His disciples. In the Acts we see a group of people on this earth filled with the Spirit inwardly for life and outwardly for power. They were persons of the Spirit, having the divine life within essentially and possessing the divine power economically. They walked, lived, worked, moved, and did everything as persons of the Spirit. They were persons living God to accomplish and carry out God’s economy. They were persons enjoying the seven basic items of the New Testament blessings. They were regenerated, having God’s life and possessing God’s nature. They had the Triune God living in them. By these basic elements, they were being transformed and mingled with the Triune God to have His divine image and to enter into His divine glory.
The remaining twenty-two books of the New Testament show us the details of how this wonderful Spirit makes sinners the sons of God, including the book of Romans, which mainly reveals that the Spirit who transforms sinners into sons of God is the Spirit of life. The term, “the Spirit of life,” is used only once in the entire New Testament—in Romans 8:2. The all-inclusive, compound Spirit in Romans is the Spirit of life. Romans tells us how the Triune God, in His consummation as the Spirit of life, makes sinners the sons of God who become the living members of the Body of Christ. These members, who form the Body of Christ, have been regenerated and possess God’s divine life and God’s divine nature. Every member is wrapped up with the divine Trinity, who is being wrought into their tripartite being. Thus, they are being transformed, renewed, and even conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son of God. Even their mortal bodies are being supplied with the divine life (Rom. 8:11) to make them living members of Christ. These members are put together into a Body to express Christ, and this Body is manifested in many localities as the local churches. Romans, then, gives us the details of how the Spirit of life works in the tripartite man with the Triune God. This is the message, the revelation, and the vision that is carried out in this book.
The Spirit of life is the Spirit of God who dwells in the believers. Romans 8:9a says, “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” The Spirit of God in this verse is not the same as the Spirit of God in Genesis 1:2 where He was brooding upon the face of the waters. The Spirit of God in Romans 8:9 now dwells in the tripartite man and is now the Spirit of Christ who possesses humanity as well as divinity. In Genesis 1 the Spirit of God had not yet gone through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. The Spirit of God in Romans 8, however, is the Spirit of life who in Christ has gone through incarnation, lived a human life on this earth, died an all-inclusive death, entered into an excellent resurrection, and is now in His exalting ascension. All these elements are compounded with the Spirit of God, who is no longer outside of us but inside of us to dwell in us. This is the consummation of the Triune God living in us.
When many Christians hear the term “the Spirit of God,” they think this is the Spirit of the Creator. According to the human concept, the term God mainly denotes the Creator. The Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9b), however, denotes a great deal. Christ is the Son of God, even God Himself. Christ is also a man. He is Jesus, the Redeemer, our Savior, our sanctification, righteousness, holiness, life, light, and everything. The title “the Spirit of Christ” conveys the all-inclusiveness of the One who is living in us. This title includes not only God the Creator but also Christ the Redeemer with all His divine and human elements and all the items of His achievements, attainments, and obtainments. All these are compounded in the Spirit of Christ.
Many Christians have not seen such a compound Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. This Spirit is compounded with divinity, humanity, incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. Even though I was in organized Christianity for years, I never heard a message concerning the Spirit of Christ. As a young man, I read through Romans again and again, but I was not impressed with the Spirit of Christ. It was not until I read Andrew Murray’s book The Spirit of Christ that the Lord really impressed me with this divine title. I treasured this book to the uttermost. Over fifty years ago, Brother Nee told me that he would pay the publication expenses if someone would translate Andrew Murray’s book into Chinese. A few years later, he repeated the same thing to me. This gave me a deep impression concerning this book. As a result, I myself read this book, and I arranged for some young ones to help me translate. When we were working on this book, I was deeply impressed with chapter five which covers “The Spirit of the Glorified Jesus.” This chapter indicates that in the Spirit of Christ, there is the human element. From that time, I began to see the all-inclusiveness of the Spirit.
Some of us may have read this book in the past, but we still did not have much spiritual apprehension or impression concerning the Spirit of Christ. However, if Andrew Murray had taught concerning Mark 16:17-18 where it talks about casting out demons, speaking with new tongues, picking up serpents, drinking something deadly without being harmed, and healing diseases, we would have immediately been impressed with this book. There would be no need to read it two or three times since you would immediately be impressed with these miraculous things. The reason for this is because even without reading such a book, all these things are already in our natural mentality. Many Indian magicians cannot only pick up things, but they can also wrap snakes around their arms and neck. In the matter of picking up serpents, their “foretaste of the millennium” may be much better.
Most readers of Andrew Murray’s book of thirty-one messages, one message for each day of the month, have retained nothing in their memory concerning it because in this book, he is talking about something which is far, far beyond our limited, natural comprehension. There is nothing in the natural concept concerning the Spirit of Christ. Many Christians may know something concerning the “Holy Ghost” or the Spirit of God. The Spirit of Christ, however, is something foreign to their understanding. After many years, one day when I was studying Romans 8 these three words, “the Spirit of Christ,” impressed me deeply. This caused me to study Romans 8 again and again. I have spent much time studying Romans 8 and have given many, many messages on this chapter. There are many riches here. In this chapter we can see the Triune God working Himself, in His Trinity, into the tripartite man. In Romans 8:9 the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are synonyms which are interchangeably used with a particular significance. The Spirit of Christ is the pledge that we are of Christ. Romans 8:9 says, “but if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” We know that we are of Christ because the Spirit of Christ is in us. Also, this Spirit of Christ in us is the very Spirit of God as the Spirit of life.