In this small book and particularly in this chapter, we want to see what our urgent need is today. Our need today is nothing other than the Triune God as the Spirit. The book of John stresses our need of the Spirit, who is the reality of the divine life. John also shows us the principle of life versus good or evil. If we desire to have a proper church life, we need to live and work according to the tree of life, not according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We will see something concerning this in chapter two. In chapter three we will fellowship concerning the two kinds of fruit out of the divine life. We need to walk by the Spirit to bear the fruit of Christian virtues so that we can be prevailing in the gospel to bear the fruit of saved persons regenerated with the divine life.
The relationship between us and God is something that we cannot fully describe. According to Genesis 1:26, God created man in His own image. It is a great matter for us to be created in the very image of the Triune God. The Bible shows us that the intention of God in making us in His image is to make us one with Him. Man as the creation of God is to be made one with God. God’s desire was for humanity to be made one with divinity. Not many Christians realize that God’s intention is to make Himself one with us. When God makes us one with Him, He is making Himself one with us.
It is wonderful to have our sins forgiven and receive the redemption of Christ. It is wonderful to be regenerated with God, of God, and by God. But we must remember that God’s intention in redemption and regeneration is that we and He would be joined together as one. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” As believers in Christ, we are joined to the Lord and we are one spirit with Him. When you are living in your daily life, do you realize that you are one with God, that you are one spirit with the Lord? The Bible says that we were made according to the image of God, that we have been reborn of God (John 1:13; 3:3, 6), and that we are one spirit with the Lord.
Now we have to ask how we could be one spirit with the Lord. The Bible shows us that God as a whole is Spirit (John 4:24), and it also refers to the Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2; Rom. 8:9). In resurrection the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Furthermore, the third of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God, the life-giving Spirit, and the Holy Spirit are the one Spirit. We need the sixty-six books of the Bible to reveal the one Spirit to us. Eventually, in the book of Revelation, this one Spirit becomes the seven Spirits (4:5; 5:6). God’s intention to make Himself one with us could only be accomplished by His being a Spirit. If God were not a Spirit, there would be no way for Him to be one with us. God has to be a Spirit, and He is the Spirit. God became a man, and after He accomplished redemption on the cross as the Lamb of God, in His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit. Then when He comes to us as the third of the Trinity, He is the Holy Spirit. By being such a Spirit, He is capable of being one with us.
After the Lord Jesus, the incarnated God, died on the cross and entered into His resurrection, He came back to His disciples, breathed into them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). At that time He was the Spirit, and He breathed Himself into His disciples as the Spirit. It is so easy for the air to get into us and be one with us. Wherever we go on this earth, the air follows us and is even at our destination, waiting to meet us. If we do not breathe the air for even a short period of time, we can die. The Triune God is like the omnipresent air to us. He is a wonderful, divine person mingled with humanity as the divine air for us to breathe in and enjoy. We cannot understand Him to the uttermost, but we can experience Him all the time.
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