Ephesians 4:30 tells us that the members should not grieve the Spirit, in whom they were sealed unto the day of redemption. Once the Spirit gets into us, He is always with us and will never leave us. Even if we offend Him or insult Him, He remains within us. We cannot be divorced from the Spirit, but we can surely grieve Him. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and this sealing is going on continually unto the day of redemption. Since the day of our salvation, unto the day of the redemption of our body, this sealing is always taking place. Do not forget that this sealing brings us the divine element. Day after day the divine element is being added into our being and the divine mark within us is being made more striking, more evident, and God’s ownership of us is strengthened more and more. This sealing brings us into the transfiguration of our body, which will be the redemption of our body. We should not be those who grieve the sealing Spirit.
We must realize that actually the Spirit is the Word of God. Ephesians 6:17 charges us to receive “the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.” The antecedent of which is Spirit, not sword, indicating that the Spirit is the Word of God, both of which are Christ (2 Cor. 3:17; Rev. 19:13). The Bible is the Word of God, yet if we do not have the Spirit with us when we come to the Word of God in the Bible, the Bible is merely dead letters to us. When we have the Spirit with us, the Spirit with us makes the black and white dead letters the living Word of God. Therefore, the Spirit is the Word of God and such a Spirit is a sword, a weapon, for us to fight the battle against God’s enemy to bring in His kingdom, which is the church. In Ephesians we see such a wonderful Person— the Triune God consummated in the Spirit to produce, to build up, to strengthen, and to enrich the church to live Christ, to express God, and to fight the battle for God’s children to bring in His kingdom.
In Philippians 1:19 the Apostle Paul uses a special expression—“the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” The first mention of the Spirit is in Genesis 1:2 which tells us that the Spirit of God brooded upon the death waters. Philippians, however, refers to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We must realize that these are not two Spirits. In creation the Spirit was the Spirit of God. However, after creation, incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. In our Christian experience the Spirit of God is no longer merely the Spirit of God, but He is now the enriched, compounded, processed, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit—the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7) includes Jesus’ incarnation, humanity, human living, suffering, and crucifixion. The Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9) includes Christ’s divinity, victory over death, resurrection, and power of resurrection. All these items added together issue in a compound. This is why we say that today the aggregate Spirit is a compound Spirit. It is compounded with the divine nature, the human nature, human living, human suffering, the all-inclusive death, Christ’s victory over death, His resurrection, and the power of His resurrection. These are the elements of the compound, processed, all-inclusive Spirit. The Spirit of God in Genesis 1 was like a glass of plain water. Through the marvelous processes which the Triune God has gone through, many elements were added to this “water.” Through the Triune God’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Spirit of God has been compounded with divinity, humanity, human living, human suffering, crucifixion, resurrection, and the power of resurrection. Today the Spirit of Jesus Christ is the all-inclusive, processed, compound, life-giving, indwelling Spirit. In Him there is a bountiful supply! Do you need anything? Whatever you need, He is! He is the bountiful Spirit of Jesus Christ.