In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul says, “And the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” On the one hand, Paul says that the Lord is the Spirit; on the other hand, he speaks of the Spirit of the Lord. According to the context, the Lord in 2 Corinthians 3:17 refers to Christ the Lord (2 Cor. 2:12, 14-15, 17; 3:3-4, 14, 16; 4:5). This, then, is a strong word in the Bible telling us that Christ is the Spirit.
The expression “the Spirit of the Lord” is used both in 2 Corinthians 3:17 and in Acts 8:39. According to the entire context of the book of Acts, the Spirit of the Lord refers to Jesus Christ. The same is true in 2 Corinthians 3:17, where the Spirit of the Lord refers to the Lord as the Spirit. Therefore, in the same verse Paul says that the Lord is the Spirit.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul goes on to say, “And we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” The Lord Spirit may be considered a compound title like the Father God and the Lord Christ. The expression “the Lord Spirit” again proves that the Lord Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Lord Christ. Because the Lord is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Lord, He is called the Lord Spirit. This is the pneumatic Christ.
In the Gospel of Mark we see Jesus, and in the book of Acts we have the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of Jesus. Then in 1 Corinthians 15:45 Paul speaks of Christ as the life-giving Spirit. To be sure, the last Adam is Jesus, the very Jesus presented in the Gospel of Mark. Paul says that this last Adam has become a life-giving Spirit. He became the life-giving Spirit through the process of death and resurrection.
We may say that the Spirit of Jesus is the transfiguration of Jesus. The Lord Jesus was the seed that passed through the process of death and resurrection. In resurrection He, the last Adam, “blossomed” and became the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, we may say that the life- giving Spirit is the blossoming of the Lord as the seed that passed through death and resurrection. Let us use a carnation seed as an illustration. Both the seed and the blossom are a carnation. The difference is that the seed is the carnation in seed form, whereas the blossom is the carnation in blossom form. In a similar way, we may say that the seed in Mark is Jesus, and the “blossom” in Acts is the Spirit of Jesus.
Today do we participate in the Lord as the seed or the blossom? The correct answer to this question is that we experience Him as both the seed and the blossom. We enjoy Him as the seed who has become the blossom in resurrection.
In Romans 8:2 Paul speaks of the Spirit of life, and in Romans 8:9, of the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is related to the Lord’s death and resurrection. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the One who passed through death and entered into resurrection. Now that we have this Spirit in us, we have not only Christ, but Christ in His death and resurrection.
The Lord’s death was an all-inclusive termination, and His resurrection was an all-inclusive germination. In His death we were terminated, and in His resurrection we were germinated. Praise the Lord that we have the all-inclusive Christ with the all-inclusive termination and germination! The Spirit of Christ, therefore, is the totality, the aggregate, of the all-inclusive Christ with His all-inclusive death and resurrection. Because we have this Spirit as the blossom of Christ, we have the all-inclusive Christ and His all-inclusive termination and germination. As those who have been terminated and germinated, we are now in this wonderful Spirit.
Because we have received the wonderful Spirit of Christ, we should praise Him and not merely pray. Let us praise Him because we already have the Spirit. If we only pray but do not praise, in our experience we may be like the disciples in the Gospel of Mark. In a sense, James and John prayed when they asked the Lord that He would grant them to sit at His right and left in His kingdom. We today are not in Mark 10 nor even in Mark 16—we are in Romans 8. Since we are in Romans 8, we should not tell the Lord in prayer how miserable we are or how pitiful our condition is. Instead of asking the Lord to help us with our problems, we should praise Him that we are in the all-inclusive Spirit. In this Spirit we have life, strength, power, ability, might, and authority.