For Christ to become our life, He had to take two steps. The first step was the incarnation, when “the Word became flesh.” The second step is described in 1 Corinthians 15:45, Gk.: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” The first “became” was God becoming a man to accomplish redemption; the second “became” was Christ becoming the Spirit so that He might reproduce Himself in us.
When did this last Adam become a life-giving Spirit? It was when He arose from the dead after spending three days and three nights in the tomb.
There is a troublesome verse in John (7:39) about the Spirit: “But this He said concerning the Spirit, Whom those who believed in Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Why does it say “the Spirit was not yet”? (The word “given” in the King James Version was added by the translators.) Even Genesis 1 says, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (v. 2). If the Spirit was there thousands of years ago, why does the Scripture say “the Spirit was not yet”? For years this verse puzzled me. I did not find the answer until I read Andrew Murray’s Spirit of Christ. Chapter five explains that at Pentecost the Spirit of the glorified Jesus came to communicate to us, not the life of God as such, but that life as it had been interwoven into human nature in the Person of Christ Jesus. It was this Spirit with humanity as well as divinity that “was not” until the resurrection of Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 3:17 it says, “Now the Lord is that Spirit.” What Spirit is being referred to? If you check J. N. Darby’s translation, you will see that he puts verses 7 through 16 in parentheses, indicating that the thought in verse 17 directly follows that in verse 6, which says, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” By putting these two verses together, we can see that the Lord is the Spirit that gives life. Here, then, is a confirmation that the Lord Jesus today is the life-giving Spirit.
“He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). Sinners like us can be one spirit with the Lord! Do you have the liberty to participate in worldly entertainments when you are one spirit with Him? When I am speaking for the Lord, this assurance that I am one spirit with Him is the source of my authority. Our being one spirit with the Lord affects everything we do.
“By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13, Gk.). By having been immersed into Christ we are positioned to drink of Him as the one Spirit. Nothing less than this inward and outward mingling of ourselves and Christ as the wonderful, all-inclusive Spirit constitutes the church life.
Christ can be our life because he has passed through death and resurrection and become the Spirit.
Now that we have considered how Christ is life to us, we shall refer to 1 Corinthians to show how Christ can be the reality to us. In this one Epistle Christ is presented to the church as eighteen items.
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