In this message we will cover two main points: the Triune God being processed to be the life-giving Spirit, and the tripartite man being created with a spirit to be the receiver and container of the divine life. Hence, the subject of this message is the two spirits, the divine Spirit and the human spirit. The first Spirit is God Himself processed to be the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit is the consummated Triune God. The Triune God became the Spirit in order to give life to the tripartite man. This is one side. The other side is that man has been created with a spirit as the receiver and container of the divine life. On God's side, there is the life-giving Spirit, and on man's side, there is the human spirit. In order to have the proper experience of life, we must know these two spirits.
The process of the Triune God is clearly revealed in the New Testament, but this matter has been missed by most Christians. Although such words as process and Trinity cannot be found in the Bible, the facts which these words describe are definitely revealed in the Bible. Theophilus of Antioch (A.D. 115-188), one of the early church fathers, was the first to use the word Trinity in his writings. The word triune also began to be used at about the same time. Thus, both Trinity and triune were brought into Christian theology.
The revelation of the Triune God can be found throughout the New Testament. In Matthew 28:19, the Lord Jesus charged the disciples to baptize the nations "into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." In this verse, name is singular in number, yet the one name refers to three persons. This shows that there is one name for the divine Trinity (see notes 5 and 6 on Matthew 28:19 in the Recovery Version). The word person is often used to describe the Three of the divine Trinity, yet we must be careful in using such a term. Speaking of the term person, Griffith Thomas, one of the founders of Dallas Theological Seminary and a highly respected student of the Bible, said in his book The Principles of Theology (p. 31), "Like all human language, it is liable to be accused of inadequacy and even positive error. It certainly must not be pressed too far, or it will lead to Tritheism....While we are compelled to use terms like 'substance' and 'Person,' we are not to think of them as identical with what we understand as human substance and personality."
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not three separate persons or three Gods; they are one God, one reality, one person. Hence, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are denoted by one name. The name denotes the person, and the person is the reality of the name. The name of the divine Trinity is the sum total of the divine Being, equivalent to His person. God is triune; that is, He is three-one. In some theological writings, the preposition in is added between three and one to make three-in-one. However, it is more accurate to say that God is three-one. Being three-one, He is one God, with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as His reality, His person. Thus, the name of the Triune God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Father, Son, and Spirit are not three different names; they are the unique name of the divine Trinity. Such a name is a compound title. Many of the divine titles in the Bible, such as "God the Father," "the Lord Jesus," and "the Lord Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18), are compound titles. The compound name in Matthew 28:19 is composed of three parts—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.