Today, Christ as the indwelling Spirit indwells our spirit. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” The very Christ who is made everything to us is now in our spirit. And we are one spirit with Him, continually enjoying His indwelling. This is made clear by the above mentioned verses and the last part of 1 Corinthians 15:45, “The last Adam was made a life-giving Spirit.” We can never forget this verse.
We have seen that the Spirit of God dwells in us. Now we see that this Spirit is Christ as the life-giving Spirit. Then 1 Corinthians 12:13 shows us something more. “For in One Spirit were we all baptized into one body...and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” Now we have the Spirit that dwells in us, the life-giving Spirit, and the Spirit that is good for drinking. Do you believe that these are three Spirits? Of course not. We all know that these three are just one Spirit. The Spirit of God is the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit is the Spirit of drinking. Eventually, we see that Jesus is just a kind of drink to us. Day by day we are drinking of Him.
We all know that baptism is to put people into the water, and drinking is to put the water into people. This is exactly what 1 Corinthians 12:13 says. We have been baptized in one Spirit, and now we are all drinking of that one Spirit. We also have seen that these two aspects are also recorded in Matthew and John. In Matthew, we were baptized into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19). Then in John, this Triune God gets into us (John 14:17, 20). Now 1 Corinthians tells us the same thing. We have been baptized into the Spirit and we are drinking of Him.
To drink of Christ as the Spirit is the way that we apply Him as our everything. When we say, “O Lord Jesus,” we take a drink of Him. By doing this, we partake of Jesus as our strength. When we are sorrowful, we drink of Him as our joy. The more we drink of Him in this way, the more we practically take Him as our person. We don’t live by ourselves anymore, but by Him.
There are not many Christians that practice this kind of drinking. We do praise the Lord in the last few years, many saints among us have begun to practice in this way. Yet I still feel that our practice is not adequate. It must be intensified. We should never consider that we are professional in this matter. All day long we must practice the drinking of Jesus. We have all been put into Him (Gal. 3:27), and He is made everything to us. But He can only be everything to us by His indwelling, and we can only realize His indwelling by our drinking of Him. All day long we must drink of this life-giving Spirit. “O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus!” This is the real drink of the Spirit.
If our husband or wife begins to argue with us, we should not use our mouth to argue with them. Instead, we must use our mouth to say, “O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus!” While they are arguing, we must drink of the Lord Jesus in this way. It is by this drinking that we enjoy the indwelling of Jesus. And it is by His indwelling that He becomes everything to us in a practical way. This is the way to take Him as our person. Whatever we are going to do, we must say, “O Lord Jesus!” Whenever we are going to the store to make some purchases we must say, “O Lord Jesus.” When we are beginning to argue with someone, first of all we must say, “O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus!” It seems so simple, like the practice of a little child. But there is no other way that is so living, practical, real, and prevailing. Jesus as the life-giving Spirit indwells our spirit, and we must all learn to drink of Him again, and again, and again.
I recently heard of a couple in New Zealand that drinks eleven cups of tea a day. That really seems to be a lot of drinking, but to drink eleven times of Jesus in a day is too little. We must drink of Him hundreds of times. Do you think that to drink of Jesus one hundred times in one day is too much? No! It could never be too much. We must learn to drink of Him countless times a day.
Now we can see that 1 Corinthians has one verse that puts the two aspects together. We all have been baptized in one Spirit, and we all have been made to drink of one Spirit. To be baptized into one Spirit is revealed in Matthew, and to drink of one Spirit is basically revealed in John (John 7:37-39; 4:14). Now in 1 Corinthians we have one verse which puts these books together. Paul is quite wise. In one short verse he covers Matthew and John. We all have been baptized into the Triune God, and now this wonderful One is our drink. We all have been put into this wonderful water, and we all have been positioned to daily take this water into us. It is by this daily drinking that He is made everything to us, and we learn to take Him as our person and live by Him. Then eventually we become His expression on the earth as the corporate Christ. It is all by the indwelling of Christ.