Before incarnation, the Triune God did not pass through any processes. In eternity past, He created the universe without going through a process. He spoke, and it was; He commanded, and it stood (Psa. 33:9). He said, “Let there be light; and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). He said there were to be the heavens and the earth, and the heavens and the earth were produced. It was not until two thousand years ago when He became flesh that the Triune God began to go through various processes. He first entered into the womb of the virgin Mary where He was conceived, and then He was born as “the holy thing” (Luke 1:35). In the past, we may have thought that the One who became flesh was only the Son. However, Isaiah 9:6 clearly says that the child born in the manger was the “Mighty God,” the Triune God. This is the first process the Triune God went through.
Since God is almighty and whatever He says comes into being, why did He not become a man instantly? Instead, He came to be in the womb of a virgin for nine months and then was born. Then He grew from a babe to become an adult, just like any normal human being. Moreover, the process of His growing up was not simple. For thirty years He did carpentry in a poor carpenter’s home. The foolish Jews thought that God was in the temple, so they went there to worship and serve God by burning incense and offering sacrifices. Actually, God was not in the temple; He was a carpenter in Nazareth. The almighty God became a lowly carpenter named Jesus. This was hard for the Jews to believe, and they were stumbled by it.
At the age of thirty, as the Lord Jesus began to minister, the Spirit of God descended upon Him to be His power economically. As the Triune God He already had the Holy Spirit within Him. However, for His ministry, His work, He still needed the Spirit to descend upon Him as His power. In His three and a half years of ministry, He lived an extraordinary life in which God was expressed. Afterward, He was crucified on the cross, entered into the tomb, and descended into Hades. He stayed there for three days and accomplished something further, and then He came out in resurrection. The Bible tells us that in His resurrection, the last Adam, the lowly carpenter, became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Therefore, on the night of His resurrection, when He came to the disciples, He was actually the Spirit. In Greek, Spirit and breath are the same word—pneuma. When the Lord breathed into the disciples, He was actually breathing Himself as the Spirit of reality into them.
Afterward, He spent forty days to train the disciples to live by this wonderful and mysterious One and to practice His invisible presence. It was hard for the disciples to see Him come and go and not know what was happening. Actually, His going was His coming, and His coming was His going. He was with the disciples in a hidden way. When there was the need, He would reveal Himself to them. This was to train them to realize His invisible presence. After forty days, He told the disciples “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, You heard from Me” (Acts 1:4). He then ascended to the heavens from the Mount of Olives before their eyes.
According to the Lord’s word, the disciples waited and prayed for ten days, after which the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them. Who was this Holy Spirit? He was the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. At this point the Triune God was no longer simple. Thirty years before, He was only God; He did not have humanity. He had not entered into the womb of a virgin, and He had not become flesh. Moreover, He had not passed through the processes of death, resurrection, and ascension. Now, however, the Triune God is different. He has divinity with humanity, and He has passed through death and resurrection, entered into ascension, and descended. He passed through a complete process to become the ultimate expression of the Triune God.
What we received when we were saved was this Spirit. He is the Spirit of life within us for our living. He is also the Spirit of power upon us for our work. According to the truth, on the night of the Lord’s resurrection the Spirit of life was breathed into the believers as breath (John 20:22). Fifty days later, on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of power descended like a great wind upon the believers. Now both matters have been accomplished and have become history. It is at this point that Peter spoke with reference to Joel that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Acts 2:21). Therefore, God had to pass through the necessary processes in order to pour Himself down so that when men call on the Lord’s name, they can be saved. If God had not been processed to such an extent, it would not be possible for man to be saved.
Now we want to see what it is to be saved. To be saved ultimately is to receive the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, those who were touched by Peter’s preaching asked, “What should we do?” Peter said, “Repent and...be baptized...for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38). Repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Spirit—this is to be saved. The Holy Spirit we received through salvation is the Triune God. He is to be not only our life but also our power.
Doctrinally, there are two aspects to our receiving of the Spirit. Experientially, however, the two aspects are not in sequence. That a person is saved does not mean that he first has the experience of John 20 to receive the Spirit of life breathed into him and then has to wait for another day to have the Spirit of power descend upon him. In doctrine, this is a sequence of two steps, but today in our experience it is not as complicated. This is because the Spirit is a complete Spirit—He is the Spirit of life and also the Spirit of power. When we believe in the Lord and call on His name, immediately we are saved, and the Lord as the Spirit comes into us to be our life and also descends upon us to be our power.