Thus far, we have seen that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament reveal a wonderful Person. This Person is mysterious, excellent, marvelous, and wonderful. The focus of the New Testament is this living Person.
Since we all believed in the Lord Jesus, we became members of this marvelous Person. We were chosen by God the Father in eternity past. This was done according to God the Father’s foreknowledge, and is carried out in time in the sanctification of the Spirit (1 Pet. 1:1-2). All the believers in Christ were chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2). God chose us before the foundation of the world, in eternity past (Eph. 1:4). The divine foreknowledge was exercised, and the sanctification of the Spirit follows unto the obedience of faith in Christ. Our believing in Christ results from the Spirit’s sanctifying work. We were sanctified, separated, by the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. The issue of the Spirit’s sanctification is our participating in the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Sanctification brought us to the sprinkling of the blood shed by the Savior on the cross and separates us unto this divine provision. We are now the redeemed ones. We were chosen by God the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, and sprinkled by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is marvelous and wonderful in the full, complete, perfect, and eternal salvation of and by the Trinity. We are no longer people who were merely created by God, but we were chosen by God the Father, sanctified by God the Spirit, and sprinkled by God the Son.
First Peter 1:10-11, furthermore, tells us that the Spirit of Christ in the prophets made clear to them concerning Christ’s sufferings and glories. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God who is the Holy Spirit is also called in the New Testament age the Spirit and the Spirit of Christ. This is the same Spirit with different divine titles, and every title carries a particular denotation. The titles “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” denote that the Spirit conveys God and conveys Christ. For example, a cup of coffee or a glass of milk denotes that the cup conveys coffee and the glass conveys milk to the one who drinks. In like manner, the Spirit of God conveys God, and the Spirit of Christ conveys Christ. The title “the Spirit” is an all-inclusive title. This is the unique, complete, perfect, and full Spirit. Also, the Spirit of God denotes that the Spirit is God, and the Spirit of Christ denotes that the Spirit is Christ. Expressions like the life of God or the love of God denote that life is God and that love is God. The Son of God also denotes that the Son is God (John 5:18). On the one hand, the Lord Jesus was the Son of God, and on the other hand, He was God because the Son of God means the Son is God (John 5:18).
John 7:39 tells us that “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Spirit of God was there from the very beginning (Gen. 1:1-2), but the Spirit as the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19), was not yet at the time the Lord spoke this word because He was not yet glorified. Jesus was glorified when He was resurrected (Luke 24:26). After His resurrection, the Spirit of God became the Spirit of the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Jesus Christ, who was breathed into the disciples by Christ in the evening of the day He was resurrected (John 20:22). After His resurrection the Spirit was there because the Spirit then comprised not only the divinity of God but also the humanity of the incarnated God, Jesus Christ. Within the Spirit of Christ are the elements of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ. The Spirit in the New Testament is the compound, all-inclusive Spirit.
Since Jesus was not resurrected yet, how could such a compound, all-inclusive Spirit be in the Old Testament prophets? In order to answer this question we must see that in Genesis 18 the Lord appeared to Abraham as a man even before He was incarnated (vv. 1-2). Also, Revelation 13:8 tells us that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. Once the creatures came into existence there was the need of redemption, so from the foundation of the world Christ was slain in the eyes of God. According to our understanding, Christ was crucified a little over nineteen hundred years ago. This understanding is in the realm of time according to our human, mental apprehension. In God’s apprehension, however, there is no time element. He only recognizes the fact that the Lord’s death is eternal. Constitutionally speaking, the Lord Jesus was crucified nineteen hundred years ago, but functionally speaking, He was slain from the foundation of the world. In the same way, although the constitution of the Spirit of Christ is dispensational, constituted dispensationally through and with Christ’s death and resurrection in the New Testament time, His function is eternal because He is the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14).
This New Testament Spirit of Christ was in the Old Testament functioning to help the Old Testament prophets search out what time and in what manner of time Christ had to die and resurrect. The prophets knew that according to the prophecies and types in the Pentateuch, God’s Messiah had to die, so the Old Testament prophets did their best to search out when, where, and how the Messiah would die. When they were researching, the Spirit of Christ within them made the time and the manner of time concerning Christ’s death and resurrection clear. Daniel told us that the Messiah would be cut off at the end of the sixty-ninth week (9:25-26). The Spirit helped the prophets inwardly to realize when the Messiah would be cut off. Isaiah 53 tells us how the Messiah would be cut off. He was “brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (v. 7). Verses like this in the Old Testament show us that the Old Testament prophets found out the way, the time, and even the place (Dan. 9:25-26; cf. Luke 13:33) of Christ’s all-inclusive death. The Spirit of Christ was there even in the Old Testament. Constitutionally speaking, He was not yet, but functionally speaking He was there.