In Romans 8 there are at least four terms used to describe the Spirit: the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from among the dead. The aspect of the Spirit in Romans 8 that is most crucial is not the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life, or the Spirit of the One who raised Christ from among the dead. The crucial aspect in this chapter is the Spirit of Christ.
The title Christ includes incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. Christ is the anointed One. As God’s anointed One, Christ passed through birth, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Today the Spirit of Christ contains the extract of His death, resurrection, and ascension. It even contains the extract of His birth and human living. Therefore, the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit, the extract, of Christ’s birth, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. We have seen that the spirit of a substance is the extract of that substance. Applying this principle to the Spirit of Christ, we may say that the extracts of Christ’s birth, living, death, resurrection, and ascension are now all elements of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, in this one Spirit we have the effectiveness of Christ’s birth, living, death, resurrection, and ascension.
It is only through experience that we can have this understanding of the Spirit of Christ. When we walk according to spirit, we have Christ’s incarnation and His human living. We do not have merely an imitation of the way Christ lived. Furthermore, we also have His death, resurrection, and ascension.
Apart from the Spirit of Christ, we cannot have the experience of being seated with Christ in the heavens (Eph. 2:5-6). Some Bible teachers present Ephesians 2:5-6 merely as a doctrine. They claim that being seated with Christ in the heavenlies is a positional matter and that we should simply take the fact by faith. However, when we believe as a matter of position that we are seated with Christ in the heavens, nothing happens. This is not the way Paul teaches. According to Paul’s teaching, the extract of Christ’s ascension is included in the Spirit of Christ. In the Spirit we have the experience of sitting with Christ in the heavens.
Most of today’s Christians are lacking in spiritual experience. In His recovery, however, the Lord is going on. We cannot deny that, by His mercy and grace, we have learned much concerning the Spirit throughout the years. We received light doctrinally from other Bible teachers. From experience we have learned that reckoning and taking our position by faith do not work. Some teachers of the Word claim that what we need to do is take the accomplished facts by faith. According to this understanding, we should not do anything except believe the facts. I practiced this, but it did not work. The more I tried to believe the facts, the more dead I became. I did not experience any of the divine stimulation. However, I can testify that when I prayed and contacted the Spirit, I did experience the Lord’s stimulation.
In the past centuries a number of saints experienced the Spirit, even though they had not been enlightened concerning the compound Spirit. When they prayed, they were stimulated by the Spirit and spontaneously experienced the element of the death of Christ included in the Spirit. They experienced this because they prayed themselves into the Spirit. Because they were in the Spirit, they experienced the extract of the death of Christ contained in the Spirit of Christ. There was no need for them to reckon themselves dead, and it was not necessary for them to take the position by faith. Simply by being in the Spirit, they experienced the effectiveness of the death of Christ.
Today we also need to experience the effectiveness of Christ’s death in a practical way. When we are in the Spirit experiencing the extract of Christ’s death, our flesh, our temper, and our natural disposition are put to death. Furthermore, our natural goodness is terminated. We even come to hate this natural goodness because we realize that it is something derived from our natural birth. After praying and contacting the Spirit, we realize that God does not want anything that has its source in our natural life. Natural goodness is an imitation of the Spirit.
When I was in China, I was bothered by the fact that the behavior of many disciples of Confucius was better than that of many Christians. These disciples of Confucius were patient, kind, sympathetic, and helpful. However, all that good behavior was natural. It had nothing to do with the Spirit.
The majority of Christians live a life of imitation. Unbelievers can also be kind, humble, patient, and helpful. This certainly has nothing to do with the Spirit. If we Christians live like this, we are making an imitation of the ointment, something that is strictly forbidden in Exodus 30. Nevertheless, in many religious gatherings, Christians are taught and encouraged to live a life of imitation. They are urged to be kind, loving, and honest, all without Christ and without the Spirit. This is an abomination in the sight of God. It is possible that we may practice the same thing. If we do not see the matter of the compound Spirit, in our daily living we may be the same as those who imitate the Spirit.
The disciples of Confucius practice his ethical teachings. They claim that they have been taught by Confucius and they respect him. This is an aspect of Oriental culture. But in the West something very similar is practiced under the name of Christ and in the atmosphere of Bible teaching. In both cases, people behave in a natural way. The culture of the West has been influenced by the Bible, in much the same way as the culture of China has been influenced by the ethical teachings of Confucius. This means that the teachings of Confucius exert a moral influence in China and that the teachings of the Bible exert a moral influence on western culture. If we live according to this influence, we shall have an imitation of the Spirit.
Actually, every kind of living that is according to ethics is artificial. People may act patient, but this patience is artificial. There are artificial flowers, and there are real flowers. Because real flowers are organic, they live and grow. In these flowers, there is the element of life. Artificial flowers may have the same color, shape, and appearance as real flowers, but they do not contain the element of life. Certain Christians and certain disciples of Confucius may behave in a way that is humble, patient, and loving. Their humility, patience, and love outwardly may seem to be the same as the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5. However, the fruit of the Spirit is organic and full of life. But good natural behavior according to ethics is a dead work. It does not have anything of life. Those who live according to the ethics of Confucius have dead works. Then what about those Christians who imitate the Spirit by living according to their natural goodness? In their case also there is a kind of living that is artificial and lifeless, an imitation of the compound Spirit.
We should not take this word concerning the compound Spirit merely as a doctrine. Rather, we need to understand it in an experiential way and learn to apply it in a practical way.