The life-giving Spirit is searching Christ as the depths of God (2:10, 12, 14). When anything is searched, that thing is stirred up and cannot remain calm. Without the life-giving Spirit, Christ is everything to you, but in a calm situation. You may have the all-inclusive Christ, but the Christ in you may be nearly nothing to you because He is so “calm” within you. There is the need of someone who is so active and so living to come to search, to stir up the Christ within you. This someone is the life-giving Spirit.
First Corinthians unveils to us that the very Christ, who is the portion of all believers, and into whose fellowship we all have been called, is all-inclusive. He is firstly our portion, our fellowship (1:2, 9). He is God’s power and God’s wisdom as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption to us (1:24, 30). He is our glory for our glorification (2:7; Rom. 8:30), hence, the Lord of glory (2:8). He is the depths (deep things) of God (2:10). God is mysterious enough, yet with this God, there are the depths. Christ is the depths of this most mysterious God. He is the unique foundation of God’s building (3:11). He is our Passover (5:7), the unleavened bread (5:8), the spiritual food, the spiritual drink, and the spiritual rock (10:3-4). Christ is the moving rock, the following rock, which followed the children of Israel. He is the Head (11:3) and the Body (12:12). In chapter fifteen of 1 Corinthians we see that Christ is the firstfruit (vv. 20-23), the second Man (v. 47), and the last Adam (v. 45). Because Christ is the first, the second, and the last, He is everything. As such a one, Christ became the life-giving Spirit (15:45), the aggregate of all the foregoing items. The all-inclusive Christ, with the riches of at least nineteen items, is totaled in the life-giving Spirit. God has given such a One to us as our portion for our enjoyment.
The main work of the life-giving Spirit is to search Christ, to stir up Christ within us concerning these nineteen items. Christ is our wonderful portion for us to enjoy. The Spirit that gives life is searching Christ to stir up this Christ in our love, pursuit, and experience of Him. This searching is still going on to show us and to bring us into the realization of Christ as our portion, our wisdom, our power, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. The Spirit would do some further searching to show you that Christ is the Lord of glory, the depths of God, the foundation, the Passover, the unleavened bread, the spiritual food, the spiritual drink as the living water flowing out of the cleft rock, and the spiritual rock following us all the time. This searching is still going on to further show us that Christ is the Head, the Body, the firstfruit, the second Man, and the last Adam. Christ is the first, the second, and the last, indicating that He is everything to us. This is the searching by the life-giving Spirit to stir up Christ in our realization of Him and to show us every item of what He is.
The best way to study the Word is to search. Do not merely read or study the Bible but search the depths of God, Christ. Today this Christ is hinged on the life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is the hinge, and Christ is altogether wrapped up with this Spirit. He is the life-giving Spirit moving and searching within us. By this searching, He imparts the riches of Christ into our being.
Christ as the life-giving Spirit is dwelling in the believers, who are the temple of God (3:16-17). This is altogether heavenly language. On this earth there is not a religion which tells people that their God dwells in them. Even the Jewish religion, which was founded according to the Old Testament, never tells others that God dwells in His people. Only the New Testament, God’s New Testament economy, tells us that our God as the consummation of the Triune God, the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, dwells in us. In the entire universe only One can dwell in us in a positive sense and He does dwell in us in this sense—as the life-giving Spirit, the consummation of the Triune God. This is marvelous! Nothing can compare with the indwelling God. We should all boldly declare that we are the richest people on earth! Nothing in this entire universe can dwell in us in the way that He does. The consummation of the Triune God, who is the life-giving Spirit, dwells in us and counts us as His temple. Christ as the life-giving Spirit is our indwelling treasure (2 Cor. 4:7).