What is it to abide in the Lord? Our Lord was God, who became man to be the last Adam. Since Adam sinned, there was the need of another Adam to accomplish redemption. The first Adam sinned, but the last Adam came to redeem. Only the last Adam could redeem us because we are all descendants of Adam. The first Adam sinned causing all of us little Adams to fall into sin. Hence, the last Adam came to redeem us. However, there are those who do not wish to receive Jesus, but whoever is willing to receive Him will be redeemed. We thank and praise the Lord that here today we all are willing and we have received Him; thus, we have been saved. As our last Adam, He has redeemed us.
In this respect Christianity is right. However, Christianity is not willing to go on and see that this last Adam has now become the life-giving Spirit. He is not only the last Adam; even more He has become the life-giving Spirit. The last Adam is for redemption, whereas the life-giving Spirit is for dispensing life. His redemption on the cross is objective to us, but His dispensing of life must be subjective to us. Thus, as the life-giving Spirit He entered into us. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” Today the Lord is in our spirit. Romans 8:9 says, “If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Then it goes on to say, “Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” We have Christ; therefore, we belong to Christ and we are joined to Christ. Then verse 10 says, “But if Christ is in you.” These few verses first mention the Spirit of God, then the Spirit of Christ, and then Christ. Never think that these three are three different ones. Rather, these three all refer to the same One. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is Christ. After reading the entire context, you will see that today our God, our Savior Christ, is the consummated Spirit.
If the Lord Jesus did not go through death and resurrection, then there would not be the “story” of the life-giving Spirit. If He did not go through death and resurrection, there would only be the story of the last Adam. If God did not become flesh, there would not be the story of the last Adam; there would only be the story of God. God is in three stages: before His incarnation, He was the story of God; after He was incarnated to be a man, He was the story of the last Adam; and after His death and resurrection, He became the story of the Spirit.
However, it is sad that today Christianity receives Christ only in certain aspects. One is the aspect of His being God before He became flesh. Another is the aspect of His being the last Adam in His becoming flesh to be a man. They also receive Christ in the aspects of His being our Savior in His death and resurrection, in His ascension to the heavens, and in His being seated on the throne. However, Christ did not stop there. Through death and resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Today our Savior has been consummated to be the Spirit. After His resurrection, He remains in resurrection and has entered into us. He is in resurrection and is living in us. This is altogether a story of the Spirit. Today He is the Spirit. This is not another Spirit that is apart from God. God is Spirit and the Lord Jesus became the life-giving Spirit, but this is not to say that the Spirit of God and the life-giving Spirit are two different Spirits. The two Spirits are one Spirit. Not only so, the Triune God has the aspect of being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but this is not to say that God is Spirit and that the Holy Spirit is another Spirit.
God is Spirit, and from eternity He is Spirit. The title the Spirit of God appears as early as Genesis 1:2. There it says that the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters. According to essence, God is Spirit. However, although God was Spirit before His incarnation, He had no relationship with man and had no story of man. First of all, one day God was born into Mary through the Holy Spirit. After the conception was completed, He with the human nature was born to be a God-man, possessing both divinity and humanity. At that time the Bible began to use the title the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of God. The title the Holy Spirit was not used until the Lord Jesus was conceived to be born. This title was not used in the Old Testament. The first record of the Spirit of God is in Genesis 1; the first record of the Holy Spirit is in Matthew 1. Matthew 1 shows us that this One who was conceived in the womb of Mary and born of her was of the Holy Spirit. He is sinless and holy; He is the Holy One. From this time the Spirit of God began to have a relationship with man.
The Lord lived and worked on earth for thirty-three and a half years, and eventually He died on the cross to accomplish redemption. Then He was resurrected from the dead to become the life-giving Spirit. Before God was incarnated, He was Spirit. Even after He became flesh, He still could not be reckoned as the life-giving Spirit. For God to dispense life into man is not simple. He needed to go through many processes. As the divine Spirit He could not directly and suddenly come into man to give man life. There were still many problems in man, many problems that had not been solved. God had to first become man, pass through human living, and go to the cross to deal with all of man’s problems, such as sin, the world, Satan, flesh, and the old creation. If these problems were not dealt with and terminated, then God could not dispense life into man. Suppose you want to put something into a vessel. If the vessel is dirty, you must first wash and even sterilize it; otherwise, the contents placed in the vessel would be contaminated. If God did not deal with all of our problems, He could not dispense Himself as life into us. Even though God is Spirit, without going through incarnation, death, and resurrection He would have no way of dispensing life into us. It was only through His incarnation, death, and resurrection that He could deal with all the problems. Hence, it was at the completion of all these processes that He became the life-giving Spirit. He is not merely the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit but the life-giving Spirit. He advanced from being the Spirit of God to being the Holy Spirit, and then from being the Holy Spirit to being the life-giving Spirit. These are not three Spirits but one Spirit. By this time He had not only accomplished creation as the Spirit of God, He had not only accomplished redemption through the Holy Spirit, but even more He as the life-giving Spirit had consummated God’s new creation, which is the church.
In this consummation, God is the life-giving Spirit. Today we are all in God’s new creation, which is the church. This does not mean that we are not the created ones, nor does it mean that we have not been redeemed. Rather, it means that we have gone through creation and redemption and are now in the new creation, which is the church. What we need here is the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. Today this life-giving Spirit is the Triune God. Romans 8:10 says, “Christ is in you,” and 2 Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” The Lord who is in us is the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the Triune God Himself, but this is not the God who had not gone through incarnation, death, and resurrection. Because He has gone through incarnation, death, and resurrection, He is now in us as the One who has been processed. In Genesis 1, He had not gone through the process, but today in the Epistles in the New Testament, He is a processed God. He is the Triune God who has passed through incarnation, death, and resurrection. Today He is the life-giving Spirit dwelling in our spirit.