In chapter four it says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (v. 24). What is it to worship Him? In this chapter we are told that the real worship of God is not to bow down, to prostrate, before Him but to drink of Him. God is Spirit. If you really want to render true worship to Him, you need to drink Him. To drink Him is to receive Him into you. God is Spirit; to drink Him and receive Him are the real worship of Him.
In chapter six we see that after the Lord Jesus fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, the people marveled and were trying to “take Him by force to make Him King.” The Lord Jesus, knowing their thoughts, “withdrew again to the mountain, Himself alone” (v. 15). This is because the Lord Jesus came not to be King but to be food to man. The next day, the Lord came back and told the people, “I am the bread of life” (v. 35). The Lord seemed to be saying, “I am not a king; I am bread. Don’t make Me a king. It would be better if you eat Me. I am the bread of life, and he who eats Me shall live because of Me.” At first neither Peter nor John, the Lord’s disciples, understood this, but gradually they did. I tell you, on the day of Pentecost Peter ate and was truly full. This Galilean fisherman was full of Jesus within him. He ate and drank Jesus to such an extent that he was full of Jesus; all that he had within him was Jesus.
We have said that the living water is the Spirit. The bread of life is also the Spirit. The Lord said, “It is the Spirit who gives life;...the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (v. 63). The living water is the Spirit, and the bread of life is also the Spirit. Then chapter seven says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me,...out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet” (vv. 37-39). This is an extraordinary word. At that time, there was the Holy Spirit, but there was not “the Spirit.” Many Bible readers are not clear about this. Gradually we have seen that there is a difference between the Spirit and the Spirit of God. The Spirit was not yet because the Lord Jesus had not yet been glorified, that is, He had not yet resurrected from the dead. Then when did the Spirit come into being? The Spirit came into being when the Lord Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
Then in chapter fourteen the Lord Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter...even the Spirit of reality” (vv. 16-17). This Spirit of reality is the Spirit. The Spirit of reality came; now He is not only with us forever but also in us. When He is in us, the Lord is in us because the Lord is He, and He is the Lord. Therefore, the Lord said, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (v. 20). This is a mysterious thing. The Lord Jesus is in the Father, we are in Him, and He is in us. This is a matter entirely in the Spirit.
After His death and resurrection, the Lord was different when He came into the midst of the disciples. According to the record in the Bible, when He came, the doors were shut where the disciples were (20:19). Wondrously and mysteriously, although the door was not open, this physical body entered. He asked the disciples to touch His side, which was physical. As the Spirit He came with a resurrected body. As a matter of fact, He did not enter; rather, when the disciples were meeting there, He stood in their midst, and then He breathed into them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). This indicates that when our Lord was breathing into the disciples, He was the Spirit. He entered His disciples through breathing. From that day on, the Lord was with them. Therefore, in John 20 there is no record saying that the Lord left after He breathed into them. Neither is there a record in the Gospel of John of the Lord’s ascension. This is because from that day onward the Lord was always with them. When the disciples were in the house, so was the Lord; when they were at the seaside, so was the Lord. The Lord was in them.
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