The Spirit is also the firstfruit (Rom. 8:23) in the believers that they may have a foretaste of all that the processed Triune God is. Foretaste indicates two things: first, that the enjoyment is fresh; and second, that there will be a fuller enjoyment in the future. Today the believers’ experience and enjoyment of the Spirit, regardless of its measure, is but a foretaste. At the Lord’s coming they will enjoy the Triune God in full; that will be the harvest. Today the believers’ enjoyment of the foretaste may differ in measure, yet the nature is the same. By having a foretaste of the Spirit as the firstfruit, the believers can participate in and enjoy the processed Triune God.
The Spirit is the blessing promised by God to Abraham for all the nations of the earth (Gal. 3:14), to be experienced and enjoyed by the believers as the foregoing items. The Spirit actually is God Himself processed in His Trinity through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection for the believers to receive as their life and their everything. This is the focus of the blessing of God’s promise. The physical aspect of the blessing God promised to Abraham was the good land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 17:8; 26:3-4), which was a type of the all-inclusive Christ, whereas the spiritual aspect is the Spirit. Since Christ is eventually realized as the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17), the blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds to the blessing of the promised land. Hence, the Spirit, whom the believers have received, is the fulfillment of the promise of God’s New Testament economy and the sum total of God’s promised blessing.
The believers’ being joined to God the Spirit is of two aspects. On the one hand, they have received Him inwardly and essentially; on the other hand, they have been baptized into Him outwardly and economically. For the believers to be baptized into Him economically is for them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8b; Acts 1:5b; 11:16b) to receive Him as the Spirit of power for their spiritual work and function. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of power was poured out economically first on the day of Pentecost to baptize the Jewish believers in the Spirit (Acts 2:4), and then in the house of Cornelius to baptize the Gentile believers in the Spirit (Acts 10:44-45). By these two steps all the believers of the Lord Jesus, in all times and in all places, have been baptized once for all in the Spirit and into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13). This matter has been accomplished once for all; it is an accomplished fact.
The believers have been baptized into the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of power (Acts 1:8a; Luke 24:49b). The Holy Spirit is not only in them as the Spirit of life essentially, but also upon them as the Spirit of power economically. They have the Spirit of life in them that they may have the Lord’s life with its supply and sustenance; they also have the Spirit of power upon them that they may testify of the Lord and preach Him as the gospel. Therefore, the believers not ‘only need to be joined to God the Spirit essentially as the Spirit of life, but they also need to be joined to Him economically as the Spirit of power.
The believers’ being baptized into the Holy Spirit economically and receiving Him as the Spirit of power is their having the Holy Spirit poured upon them (Acts 2:18, 33b; 10:45). God has poured out the Holy Spirit upon men outwardly. This matter is mentioned only twice in the New Testament, in Acts 2 and in Acts 10. In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost; in Acts 10 He was poured out upon the Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius. This was Christ’s baptizing the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers into the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is an accomplished fact that the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the believers, that is, that the believers have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now, by faith the believers may apply and experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and be joined to Him.
The believers’ receiving the Holy Spirit economically is their having the Holy Spirit fall upon them (Acts 1:8a; 8:16-17; 19:6a). Concerning this matter, Acts presents five cases. Two of them are for the accomplishment of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. These are the cases which took place on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius. The other three, the cases of the Samaritan believers, Saul of Tarsus, and the twelve believers in Ephesus, are considered extraordinary, needing some members of the Body of Christ to identify them with the Body by the laying on of hands. Besides these five cases, in many cases of conversion, such as the three thousand and the five thousand, there is no mention of the believers’ receiving the Holy Spirit economically—the Holy Spirit’s falling upon them—because in all these cases the believers were brought into the Body of Christ through their believing in a normal way. Hence, they all should have received the Holy Spirit’s falling upon them economically in a normal way through their believing into Christ that they might be joined to the Holy Spirit as one.