John 16:13 says, “But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.” This verse does not speak merely of understanding the truth but of being guided by the Spirit of reality into all the reality.
God has a purpose in this universe, and this purpose is to mingle Himself with man to the extent that man would be exactly the same as He is. God is Spirit—His essence, nature, and being are Spirit. Thus, for Him to mingle with man, man must have a spirit that is identical to and compatible with the essence of God. Only in this way can God’s Spirit be mingled with the human spirit, interact with the human spirit, and be joined with the human spirit as one spirit. For God to enter into man, mingle with man, and make man exactly the same as He is, He first had to become flesh. The Lord Jesus’ becoming flesh was His coming by the Spirit into man (cf. Matt. 1:20). Becoming flesh was the first step that the Lord Jesus had to take.
After becoming flesh, the further steps that the incarnated Lord Jesus took were to die, resurrect, and ascend to the heavens. The Lord’s death dealt with all the problems in the universe between God and man. Man’s sin, the world, Satan, the flesh, man’s corruption, and man’s opposition toward God have all been dealt with and terminated by the death of the Lord Jesus. This is the significance of His death. The significance of His resurrection is that it enables man to receive everything of God, that is, it brings man into all the riches of God. On the negative side, death solves all the problems between God and man, and on the positive side, resurrection brings man into the riches of God.
In addition to dying and resurrecting, the Lord Jesus also ascended to the heavens. He entered into and attained to the heavenly nature and the heavenly blessings. When He ascended, this God who is Spirit was no longer merely God or merely Spirit, because by that time He had already passed through incarnation, death, and resurrection. Before incarnation, our God was in the heavens. At that time He was purely God, purely Spirit, and there was nothing other than the element of God and Spirit in Him and on Him. He was God, and He was Spirit. This was His situation before His incarnation.
One day God came down from the heavens and entered into man to become flesh. God’s becoming flesh was God’s putting on of man—His putting on of the element and nature of man. However, God did not stop there. He not only became flesh but also passed through death and resurrection. When He became flesh, the element of humanity was added into Him; when He passed through death, the element and power of death was added into Him; when He passed through resurrection, the element of resurrection was added into Him; and when He ascended to the heavens, the element of ascension was added into Him. Thus, today God is not the same as He was before incarnation. He is not merely God or merely Spirit. Now He has more elements—the elements of incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension are all in Him.
After becoming flesh, dying, resurrecting, and ascending, God descended on the day of Pentecost. The One who descended was the Holy Spirit; however, the Holy Spirit who descended was not the God before incarnation but the God who possessed additional elements to those He originally possessed. When He descended on the day of Pentecost, He had already passed through incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. When He descended, He was surely God, but in addition to possessing the element of God, He also possessed the element of man because He had become flesh. Moreover, He not only possessed the element of man as a result of becoming flesh, He also had the elements of death, resurrection, and ascension within Him as a result of dying, resurrecting, and ascending. Hence, the Holy Spirit who descended from heaven on the day of Pentecost was very rich. Within Him there was God, man, death, resurrection, and ascension. We can also say that this Spirit possessed the death of the cross, the life of resurrection, and the riches of ascension.
The Christ who died, resurrected, and ascended descended as the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and all that God is and has, as well as all that He had done, had passed through, had accomplished, and had attained to were in Him. God Himself and the humanity that God had put on were in Him. The death of the cross and its effectiveness were in Him. The power of resurrection and its effectiveness were in Him. The ascension of Christ with its reality, content, and authority were also all in Him. God and all that He has passed through were in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and continue to be in Him today.
After we are saved, the Holy Spirit lives within us, but very few of us realize how rich this Holy Spirit who dwells in us is. Not only is God in the Holy Spirit, but the humanity of the God who was incarnated is also in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the death of the cross, resurrection, ascension, and the riches and authority of the heavens are in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when the Holy Spirit comes into us, He comes into us with all His riches.
God is the Spirit, and the Spirit is God Himself, but when God became flesh, He passed through man and put on humanity. From that day on, God had no way to put off His humanity. Hymns, #132 says that today in heaven God still has humanity. Today our Savior God still has humanity in heaven (Acts 7:56). How do we know this? We know this because He passed through humanity and put on humanity, and after His death and resurrection, He entered into ascension with this humanity (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 2:32-33).
Today the Holy Spirit has the element of God, the element of man, the element of death, the element of resurrection, the element of ascension, and the element of the riches of the heavens in Him. This is the Holy Spirit who is in us. Although we are so small and He is so great and so rich, the Holy Spirit is within us.
Before God entered into us, He passed through incarnation in Bethlehem and crucifixion on Golgotha. He also passed through burial in the tomb, resurrection, and even ascension, in which He received all the authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). After passing through all these processes, God as the Spirit descended and entered into us. The riches of all that God is and has done are in this Spirit.