The Spirit is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit—the third in the person of the Triune God (Gen. 1:2; Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 2:11; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). In the Bible the Spirit of God is first mentioned as the brooding Spirit. Genesis 1:2 says that the Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the waters. The brooding of a hen over its eggs is for the purpose of producing some living things. The Spirit of God was brooding, stretching out His wings, over the death situation for the purpose of producing life. The Spirit of God in Genesis 1:2 is for God’s move in His creation.
In the New Testament, the Spirit of God is mainly mentioned for God’s new creation. In God’s old creation, the Spirit of God brooded. In God’s new creation, the Spirit of God does not just brood over us, but He has entered into us and dwells in us. This is mentioned in Romans 8. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God moved to brood over the face of the waters for the producing of life in God’s old creation. In the New Testament, the Spirit of God also moves and acts in God’s new creation, but He does this in a deeper and a more subjective way. In the New Testament, the Spirit of God dwells in us.
First Corinthians 2:llb-12 says, “So also the things of God no one has known except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things which have been freely given to us by God.” This means that the moving Spirit of God is also the revealing Spirit. When He moves in us, that is, when He dwells in us, He reveals to us the things of God. This very Spirit—the moving One, the indwelling One, the revealing One—is the third in the divine Person. The third means the ultimate one, the last one. Matthew 28:19 gives us the complete title of the divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our God is one God, but our one God has three aspects. He is one but in three persons.
Verse 1 of hymn #608 in Hymns, says:
What mystery, the Father, Son, and Spirit,
In person three, in substance all are one.
How glorious, this God our being enters
To be our all, thru Spirit in the Son!
Instead of saying, “In person three, in substance all are one,” it would be better to say, “In substance three, in essence all are one.” We may say that God has three substances, but only one essence. In the three substances of the divine Trinity, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, is the third one. He is the consummated One, and this consummated One is the consummation of the Triune God. When the Triune God was consummated, He was revealed in the way that we who believe into Christ can be baptized into Him. This indicates that we, the believers of Christ, can have an organic union with the consummated Triune God.
The first time that the New Testament speaks of our spiritual baptism, it says that we are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Later, when the Acts and the Epistles speak concerning spiritual baptism, they speak of being baptized in the Spirit (Acts 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13). This indicates that when we are baptized into the Spirit, we are baptized into the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is because the Spirit is the consummation and the totality of the Triune God. The Father as the source is embodied in the Son, and the Son as the embodiment of the Father is realized as the Spirit. Therefore, all three of the Triune God are present in the Spirit. When we were baptize in the Spirit, or into the Spirit, we were baptized into the Triune God. The Spirit has become the consummation of the Triune God.
When this consummation had been accomplished, the Triune God was ready for us to get into Him, to have an organic union with Him. Before the consummation of the Spirit, the Triune God was not ready for anyone to get into Him. Thus, baptism was not in the Old Testament. Baptism into the Triune God was only begun after the accomplishment of Christ’s resurrection. His resurrection was the final step for the Triune God to be processed and to be consummated. After that step the Spirit had been consummated, which means that the Triune God had been consummated. The consummated Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God. After this consummation, the Triune God was ready for us to be organically united with Him.
Because we are now in the Triune God, 2 Corinthians 13:14 tells us that the grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit is with us for our portion, for our enjoyment. Matthew 28:19 shows the organic union we have with the Triune God because we have been baptized into Him. Second Corinthians 13:14 shows us that in this organic union we have a fellowship. This fellowship is the flow of the consummated Spirit in the source of God’s love and in the passage of the Son’s grace.
The Bible shows us first that the Spirit of God moved in God’s old creation. Second, the same moving Spirit in God’s new creation dwells in us to reveal all the things of God to us. This Spirit—the moving Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, the revealing Spirit—has been consummated to be the third in the divine person of the processed and consummated Triune God. Now the Triune God is ready for His chosen people to get into Him, to have an organic union with Him, making them one with Him. Day after day we can enjoy Him as our portion from the Father’s love, through the Son’s grace, and by the fellowship, the flow, of the Spirit.