We have seen that in the Old Testament, the Spirit is revealed simply as the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, and the Spirit of holiness. But when we come to the New Testament, the revelation concerning the Spirit is very complicated. According to the New Testament revelation, the Spirit has passed through a number of stages. Of course, He was the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, and the Spirit of holiness throughout the Old Testament. Throughout these four thousand years of human history, the Spirit of God never changed. But to say that God the Spirit has never changed is a big mistake. This is because after four thousand years of human history, the Triune God Himself entered into a period of time in which He passed through many processes. These processes were incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Now He is working in His heavenly ministry, which will be concluded at His second coming.

Hebrews 1 says that He will come the second time, not as the only begotten Son of God but as the Firstborn (vv. 5-6). As the only begotten Son of God, He possesses merely divinity. But He will come the second time not mainly in His divine status but in His human status. Before His incarnation Christ, the divine One, already was the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18; Rom. 8:3). By incarnation He put on an element, the human flesh, which had nothing to do with divinity. Then He went through death and entered into resurrection. In resurrection His humanity was "sonized," was made divine. Resurrection was a birth to Christ (Acts 13:33), and in that birth Christ in His humanity was born to be the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29; 1:4). In resurrection He brought His humanity into the divine sonship. Now as the firstborn Son of God, He possesses humanity as well as divinity.

Furthermore, as the Firstborn He brought forth many sons in the same birth and on the same day. On the day of His resurrection, not only He but also all God's chosen people were begotten (1 Pet. 1:3). Since He was the Firstborn, surely there were many others to follow Him. Millions of others were born with Him on the same day, the day of resurrection. He was the Firstborn, and we are the many-born sons of God.

In His resurrection He was also made the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). That was the consummation of God's processes. Since the Triune God has gone through so many processes, how could the Spirit of God have remained the same, without any change? Actually, the Spirit of God has undergone a great change. The Spirit changed into the Holy Spirit for the bringing forth of Christ into humanity, for His conception (Matt. 1:18, 20). At that point the Spirit of God entered into a new age with a new title — the Holy Spirit. Actually, the literal translation of the Holy Spirit is "the Spirit the Holy." This means the Spirit is the Holy One. Only God is "the Holy." In the New Testament age, the first thing God did was to enter into man for the purpose of making man God, not in the Godhead, but in life and nature. He became God in man that man might become God so that man might be holy. Now not only God is holy; the man made by God can also be holy (Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:15-16).