Many Pentecostal friends say that according to 1 Corinthians 12, there are nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. But actually there are many more, because among the nine manifestations listed in 1 Corinthians 12, there is no mention of dreams. Dreams are mentioned in Acts 2, where it says that in the last days God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh and men shall dream dreams (Acts 2:17). I have had real experiences of dreams in the Holy Spirit. Within a period of two months in 1943, I had a series of four dreams. Before I was imprisoned by the Japanese military police who had invaded China during the war, I had a dream. On the very day that I was imprisoned the dream came to me again, and after three weeks another dream came. All these dreams were completely fulfilled. The Lord comforted me by the dreams. Even before the Japanese military police came to arrest me, I knew through the dreams what was going to happen. The night I was arrested and imprisoned, another dream came. In the dream the Lord told me, "Be at peace. You will not be hurt." It happened exactly according to the dream. Praise the Lord!
These experiences are signs proving that God has put us into Himself. As believers in Christ, we have all been put into the Triune God. But do not try to systematize this experience. To argue about which name to use when baptizing people is to systematize. To insist upon speaking in tongues is also to systematize. I am not against baptizing in the name of the Lord Jesus, and I am not against speaking in tongues, but I am strongly against systematizing. We must forget about every kind of systematizing.
Do not be so bold to tell people that you know when you were put into the Triune God. You may feel a certain way, but probably the real experience does not actually correspond to your feeling. You may feel that it happened in San Francisco in 1971, but it might have happened a few weeks earlier. We cannot trust our sensations; they simply are not accurate. For example, I may feel cold when the temperature is over 90 degrees. This is my sensation, but it is not the fact. Forget about your sensations and take the fact according to the clear, definite, and faithful Word of the Lord: "Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).
In the churches we need to have faith in the faithful Word of the Lord Jesus when we baptize people. According to His Word, we baptize people, putting them into the Triune God. Do not think that the Triune God means that we have three Gods—one called God the Father, the second called God the Son, and the third called God the Holy Spirit. This is a wrong impression received from the traditional teachings concerning the Trinity. We do not have three Gods; we have one God, one all-inclusive God. We have one God who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We can never fully understand the Triune God. In fact, we cannot even fully understand ourselves. Although we have a spirit, a heart, a mind, an emotion, and a will, we do not understand them very well. If we cannot even understand ourselves, how can we understand the Triune God? Our God is one God who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We cannot understand Him, but we have Him, and we are in Him.
In an earlier chapter I referred to a portion in Andrew Murray's book, The Spirit of Christ. Let us consider that paragraph once again: "In the Father we have the unseen God, the Author of all. In the Son, God revealed, made manifest, and brought nigh; He is the Form of God. In the Spirit of God we have the indwelling God: the Power of God dwelling in human body and working in it what the Father and Son have for us...what the Father has purposed and the Son has procured can be appropriated and take effect in the members of Christ who are still here in the flesh, only through the continual intervention and active operation of the Holy Spirit."* I do agree with this word. This is the Triune God. To be baptized into the Triune God simply means to be put into such a wonderful and all-inclusive God. Then the Lord Jesus—Jehovah-plus and God-plus—will be with us all the days until the consummation of the age (Matt. 28:20). Hallelujah!
This is the kingdom. We have been put into the Triune God, and we have put on the Triune God. The Lord Jesus who is Jehovah-plus and God-plus is with us all the days until the consummation of this age. This is the conclusion of the book of Matthew. Matthew ends by putting us into the Triune God, who will be with us all the days. We need such a vision to govern and control us.