John 6:63 says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Here the Lord tells us that the words which He has spoken to us are spirit, meaning that the Word is spirit. John 14:17-20 says, “Even the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” On one hand, the Word is spirit, and on the other hand, the Spirit is the Spirit of reality.
Second Corinthians 3:17 states, “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Then verse 18 continues, “But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” The Spirit is not only the Spirit of reality but also the Lord Spirit.
Ephesians 3:16-17 and 19 say, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love...may be filled unto all the fullness of God.” This portion mentions three things—first, that God would grant us to be strengthened through His Spirit into our inner man; second, that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith; and third, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
Spiritual reality hinges on the Spirit of God entering our spirit and fellowshipping with our spirit. This is what produces spiritual reality. Spiritual reality originates from God’s desire, which is for Him to mingle Himself with man. God is Spirit, and for the purpose of mingling Himself with man, He created a spirit in man. The human spirit is of the same nature as the Spirit of God. Hence, the human spirit is a vessel to receive the Spirit of God. The truth and the center of the entire Bible is concerning God as the Spirit entering into the human spirit to mingle with man as one spirit.
In the Old Testament, we can see that God has a desire, an intention, which is for Him to enter into man and be joined to man. However, such an intention was not realized in the age of the Old Testament. It was not until the time of the New Testament that God became flesh. Incarnation was the first union of God and man. John 1:14 tells us that the Word became flesh. This verse reveals two things—the Word and the flesh—and also unveils that the Word and the flesh were mingled to be one. Since the Word is God, and the flesh is man, the Word becoming flesh is God becoming man. This was the first union of God and man in the universe.
From the creation of Adam to the birth of the Lord Jesus is a total of approximately four thousand years. In these four thousand years, God greatly desired to achieve the goal of entering into man and mingling Himself with man as one. However, from Adam to John the Baptist, there was not a proper man who could allow God the opportunity to enter into him and mingle with him as one. This was the case until one day when something happened in Bethlehem—the God who is the Word became flesh, entered into a man, and became a man. The baby Jesus who was lying in the manger was the issue of God’s mingling with man.