There is one Body and one Spirit. I absolutely believe that at this time the Lord’s Spirit has led us to touch the matter of the Body, and from the Body to touch the new man. What we saw in the past was not very clear. Ephesians speaks of the Body at the very beginning and continues to speak of the Body, connecting it to the new man. Whenever it speaks of the Body, it connects it to the new man. We have seen not only the one Body but also the one new man. Now we can say, “One Body, one new man, and one Spirit.” In this message we will fellowship about the Spirit.
We know that the Body needs life, and the new man needs a person. With regard to the church as the Body of Christ, there is the need for Christ to be our life; with regard to the church as the new man, there is the need for Christ to be our person. At this time we want to point out clearly that on the one hand, the Spirit is life, and on the other hand, He is a person. The Spirit is not only life to us, but also a person. In the New Testament, you can find certain passages that emphasize the Spirit as life. For example, the Lord said, “It is the Spirit who gives life;...the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). There is no doubt that the Spirit here refers to life. This Spirit is not a matter of person but of life. In other words, the Spirit here is not with respect to making decisions but with respect to supplying. The Spirit is life to be our supply. Some passages, however, refer to the Spirit with the emphasis on the person and not on life. For example: “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). The emphasis concerning the Spirit in this passage is not on life but on a person; the emphasis is not on life’s supplying, but on a person’s leading and making decisions.
We admit that this point is new to us. I fully believe that in the past we did not have this utterance, that the Spirit is, on the one hand, life to us and, on the other hand, a person to us. In the past we spoke something about life being in the Spirit, and we also spoke about the Spirit being the person of the Lord. Jesus is the name, and the Spirit is the person. When we call, “Lord Jesus,” the Spirit comes; we immediately get the Spirit. At the same time, when this Spirit enters us, He becomes our life. Although we have spoken about these things, the light has never been as clear as it is today. Today we can clearly see that with respect to the Body, the Spirit is life, and with respect to the new man, this Spirit is a person. One Body, one new man, and one Spirit. This one Spirit is the life of the Body and the person of the new man.
First Corinthians 12:13 says that whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all baptized into one Body. Where were we baptized? In one Spirit. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body. Furthermore, we were all given to drink one Spirit. This passage refers to the Spirit twice: once for baptism and once for drinking. Baptism is our being put into this Spirit, and drinking is our getting this Spirit into us. The emphasis here is not on the Spirit as a person but as life.
Another portion, Philippians 1:19, speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. You must admit that this refers to the Spirit as a person. Since it is He who comes to supply us, it is not just a matter of life but of person.
We must be clear that for both the Body and the new man, what we need is this Spirit. Without the Spirit, the Body is short of life and the new man is short of a person.
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