The Holy Spirit’s being poured out upon the believers, His falling upon them, is to clothe them (Luke 24:49), to be joined to them. Concerning the Spirit of life, we need to breathe Him in as the breath; concerning the Spirit of power, we need to put Him on as the uniform that we may have the authority to carry out God’s New Testament economy.
The foregoing points show us clearly that the Holy Spirit’s coming to us is of two aspects: the inward aspect and the outward aspect; the essential aspect and the economical aspect; the aspect of life and the aspect of power. Hence, our experience of being joined to the Holy Spirit is also of two aspects: the inward and the outward. We must not stress the Holy Spirit’s inward aspect of life while neglecting the Holy Spirit’s outward aspect of power. Neither should we respect the outward Holy Spirit of power while ignoring the inward Holy Spirit of life. We must attach equal importance to both the essential aspect and the economical aspect; we must stress both the inward aspect and the outward aspect; we must have both the Spirit of life and the Spirit of power. The believers should maintain such a normal condition.
The believers are joined to God the Spirit by receiving Him essentially and being baptized into Him economically. On the one hand, when the believers receive Him essentially, they receive Him into them that He may live in them for their existence, being, life, and living. He is in them as the Spirit of reality that they may have the reality of the divine Trinity and of the divine things realized in them: as the Spirit of life continually imparting into them God’s eternal life until their whole being is filled with the Spirit of life; as the anointing ointment, typified by the holy anointing ointment in the Old Testament, anointing all the riches of the processed Triune God into them that they may be filled with His elements; as a seal to mark them out as God’s possession and to impress them with the image of God that they may be like God and may express Him; as the pledge, the foretaste, guarantee, and sample, to guarantee that God and all that belongs to God are their eternal portion; as the firstfruit for them to have a fresh foretaste of all that the processed Triune God is and for them to expect a fuller enjoyment in the future; and as the blessing of God’s promise, which is the fulfillment of the promise of God’s New Testament economy. On the other hand, when the believers are baptized into Him economically, they are baptized in the Holy Spirit for their spiritual work and function. As the outward Spirit of power He has been poured out upon them, falling upon them, to clothe them that they may testify of Christ and preach the gospel to carry out God’s New Testament economy.