At this juncture we need to consider the way the four Gospels end. The Gospels end with a record regarding the resurrected Christ who has become the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit. In the evening of the day of His resurrection, this One came back to His disciples in an altogether mystical way (John 20:19-22). We cannot say that He appeared to them merely in a spiritual way, because He still had a body of flesh and bones. He said to them, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you behold Me having." And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet (Luke 24:39-40). The disciples could see the mark of the nails in His hands and touch His body. Although the resurrected Christ had a body of flesh and bones that could be seen and touched, He suddenly appeared to the disciples without coming through a door (John 20:19). He did not knock on the door, and no one opened the door, yet He came and stood in their midst. His coming in this way was actually His appearing, His manifestation (21:1, 14). He appeared suddenly to the disciples and then He disappeared suddenly. Although the Lord Jesus had a physical body, He suddenly appeared in the room where the doors were shut. His appearing and disappearing at the end of the four Gospels is not merely spiritual; it is mystical, something that no one can explain.
John 20:22 says, "He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit." This word indicates that Christ was there with the disciples not only in a physical way but also as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), as the pneumatic Christ. If He had been present only physically and not as the Spirit, His disciples could not have received Him as the holy pneuma, the holy breath. If the Lord had not come to them as the Spirit, they could have touched His physical body of flesh and bones and they could have embraced Him, but they could not have received Him by breathing Him in. In John 20 the resurrected Christ exhaled, breathing Himself out, and the disciples inhaled, breathing Him in. This indicates strongly that in resurrection He has become the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit.
In resurrection Christ as the last Adam in the flesh became the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is not simple, for this Spirit includes divinity, humanity, death, and resurrection. The Christ who appeared to the disciples in John 20 had four elements as four factors and four qualifications. He was God with the element of divinity and He was a man with the elements of humanity, death, and resurrection. As the One who had become the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, He had these four factors.
This life-giving Spirit is the all-inclusive, compound Spirit typified by the compound anointing ointment in Exodus 30:23-25. Now the Spirit is no longer just the Spirit of God typified by the olive oil but is the compound Spirit typified by the ointment formed by compounding a hin of olive oil with four spices—myrrh and cinnamon (signifying Christ's death with its effectiveness) and calamus and cassia (signifying Christ's resurrection with its power). As the compounded, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, He is now an ointment compounded with the four factors of God, man, Christ's death, and Christ's resurrection.