If we do not take the Word and receive the Spirit, what way is there for God to be wrought into us? If to us God is only on the throne in heaven as the object of our worship, how can He be our life and how can He be wrought into our being? It would not even be possible for us to be born of Him if He were only in heaven.
John 1:12 and 13 indicate that those who receive the Lord Jesus are born of God. Birth involves an intimate, organic relationship. Because we are born of our parents, we have an intimate, organic relationship with them. Because we have been born of God, God in a very real sense has been born into us. This is what makes us sons of God. If we were not born of God, how could we be sons of God? According to the Bible, we are not God’s sons-in-law nor merely His adopted sons. As those born of God, we are sons of God in life. In John 3:6 the Lord Jesus declared, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Once again we say, we have been born of the Spirit to receive the Spirit.
In the foregoing message, the matter of being born of the Spirit was made clear. But I do not have the assurance that we are clear about how to receive the Spirit. The word receive is used in many places in the New Testament (John 7:39; 20:22; Rom. 8:15; Eph. 6:17). In Galatians Paul speaks definitely about receiving the Spirit (3:2, 14). The Spirit we have received and whom we continue to receive is the processed Triune God. Some may object to this statement and may claim that the Spirit refers only to the Holy Spirit, the third of the Godhead, not to the Triune God. But according to the New Testament, especially Paul’s Epistles, the Spirit we are receiving is the processed Triune God.
Some find fault with the word “processed” and argue that it is impossible for God to be processed because He is eternal and unchanging. Although God is eternal and unchanging, He has nevertheless passed through a process. Was not incarnation a process? From eternity past until the incarnation of Christ, God did not have a body of flesh. But when He was born in a manger, He was the mighty God incarnated as a baby. According to Isaiah 9:6, the child born to us is called the mighty God. As we pointed out in the foregoing message, this child, God incarnate, lived in a carpenter’s home for years. Imagine that the Creator of the universe lived in the home of a carpenter in Nazareth! Was that not a process? Likewise, were not the crucifixion and resurrection a process? God certainly was processed through Christ’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. Our God today is not a “raw” God, but a processed God. Today He is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
Those who care only to debate about doctrinal concepts neglect the living Person of the Triune God. How sad! The Spirit we have received and are still receiving is the very Triune God who has been processed for us. The Spirit is the all-inclusive, compound Spirit. When we receive this Spirit, we receive the Triune God: the Father, the Son, and Spirit. The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit. We should not hold the concept that when we receive the Spirit, we receive only the Holy Spirit and not the Father and the Son, who supposedly remain far away in heaven. No, when we receive the Spirit, we receive the Triune God.
A certain preposition used in the Gospel of John indicates that the Son comes not only from the Father, but from with the Father (6:46; 7:29; 16:27). When the Son came, He did not leave the Father. On the contrary, He came with the Father. This was the reason the Lord Jesus said that He was not alone, for the Father was with Him (John 16:32). Just as the Father came with the Son when the Son came from with the Father, so the Spirit comes with the Father and the Son. It is not possible to separate the Father, the Son, and Spirit, for They are one. The Spirit is the realization of the Son, and the Son is the embodiment of the Father. To have any one of the Triune God is to have all three. They are inseparable. Praise the Lord that when we receive the Spirit, we receive the Father and the Son also!
Now we come to the crucial matter of how to receive the Spirit. According to your experience, how do you receive the Spirit? The proper Christian life is the life of receiving the Spirit continually. Our physical life is an illustration of this. Physical life depends on breathing. Our life is a breathing life. As soon as a person stops breathing, he dies. Many Christians today have stopped their spiritual breathing; therefore, their spiritual life has come to a standstill. To breathe spiritually is to receive the Spirit continually.
The way to receive the Spirit without ceasing is mainly to pray. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Paul charges us to pray without ceasing. This does not mean, however, that we should exercise our mind to pray about material needs. Instead, we should exercise our spirit to call on the Lord. Our greatest need is the Triune God Himself. Moment by moment, we need the Spirit. Therefore, continually we need to exercise our spirit to call on the Lord. Many of us can testify that when we call on the Lord from the depths of our being, telling Him that we love Him, we breathe in fresh spiritual air. We breathe in the pneuma, the Spirit. As Christians we need to be pneumatic, full of pneuma, full of the Spirit. The Spirit is the heavenly air for us to breathe. By exercising our spirit to call on the Lord, we breathe in the Spirit and thereby receive the Spirit.
For years I was troubled by Paul’s word in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 about praying without ceasing. I simply did not know how I could pray unceasingly. Eventually I came to realize that to pray is simply to breathe. Just as our physical breathing does not cease, neither should our spiritual breathing cease. This means that we must build up the habit of exercising our spirit to pray continually. The basic element in receiving the Spirit moment by moment is that we use our spirit to call on the Lord.