In the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of transformation, the believers experience and enjoy the processed Triune God in the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. We have seen the believers’ experience and enjoyment of God as the Father in the love of the Triune God and their experience and enjoyment of Christ as the Son in the grace of the Triune God. Beginning with this lesson we will go on to see the believers’ experience and enjoyment of the Spirit as the consummation of the Divine Trinity in the fellowship of the Triune God.
After passing through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the Triune God has become the all-inclusive, life-giving, and consummated Spirit to transmit all the riches of the Triune God into us for our experience and enjoyment. Second Corinthians 13:14 speaks of “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” The love of God is the source, since God is the origin; the grace of the Lord is the course of the love of God, since the Lord is the expression of God; and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the impartation of the grace of the Lord with the love of God, since the Spirit is the transmission of the Lord with God, for our experience and enjoyment of the Triune God-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with Their divine virtues. Hence, when we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, we can experience and enjoy the processed Triune God in the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The Spirit as the consummation of the Divine Trinity is the reality of Christ for our enjoyment. John 14:17-20 shows us that the Spirit, the Comforter who is coming, is the embodiment of the Lord Jesus. Verse 17 says, “The Spirit of reality...abides with you.” Verse 18 says, “I [Christ] am coming to you.” Verse 17 says, “He [the Comforter]...shall be in you.” Verse 20 says, “I [Christ] in you.” This clearly shows us that when the Holy Spirit comes, Christ comes; that when the Holy Spirit is in us, Christ is in us; and that the Spirit who indwells us is the Christ who died and was resurrected and who comes to abide in us.
John 16:12-15 also indicates that the Spirit dwells in us to glorify Christ by revealing Christ to us that Christ may become the reality in us. Verse 13 says, “When He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.” The Spirit of reality does not guide us into the doctrines concerning Christ. Rather, He guides us into all the reality of Christ that all that Christ is and has may become real to us. All that God is and has is embodied in Christ (Col. 2:9; John 16:15), and all that Christ is and has is received by the Spirit and declared as reality to us through the Spirit (John 16:14-15). Hence, when the Spirit is in us, it is Christ who is in us. The Spirit is in us not as the representative of Christ but as the reality of Christ.
The Spirit as the reality of Christ includes everything of the Spirit in His person. Concerning His person, the Spirit is the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15b, 35; Matt. 1:18, 20; John 20:22; Rom. 15:16), who is related to the incarnation of Christ. Incarnation is a matter of bringing God’s holy nature into His creatures, His chosen people, to make them holy in the divine nature so that they may be holy even as He is holy. The Spirit is also the Spirit of God (Matt. 3:16; Rom. 8:9), who is God reaching us and being applied to us for our experience and enjoyment. The Spirit is also the Spirit of the Father (Matt. 10:20), the flow of the Father that flows with the Father into us, His children, for our intimate enjoyment of Him. The Spirit is also the Spirit of the Lord (Luke 4:18; 2 Cor. 3:17), the Spirit of Jehovah in the Old Testament. Jehovah in the Old Testament is Jesus in the New Testament; hence, the Spirit of the Lord in the New Testament sense is the Spirit of Jesus, the Lord Jesus Himself. The Spirit is also the Spirit of the Son of God (Gal. 4:6) as the reality of the divine sonship to make the divine sonship real in our life, nature, and living. Furthermore, the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9; 1 Pet. 1:11), the Spirit whom Christ became in His resurrection; this Spirit is Christ Himself dwelling in our spirit to dispense Himself into us as the resurrection life and power to deal with the death that is in our nature. The Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7) as the reality of Jesus for Jesus to be near to His believers. The Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19) as the reality of the incarnated One, the One who lived a human life in humanity, who was crucified and resurrected, who is now both in the heavens and dwelling in the believers, and who will be the center of God’s economy for eternity. The Spirit is the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18); this strongly proves and confirms that the Spirit is the Lord Christ and the Lord Christ is the Spirit. The Spirit is the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3) and the living God Himself. The Spirit is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b); in resurrection Christ became such a Spirit with a spiritual body, ready to be received by His believers. Not only so, the Spirit is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), who is Christ Himself as life imparted into us, the tripartite men; the Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29), the Triune God in the Son becoming the Spirit for our enjoyment; the Spirit of reality (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 4:6) as the reality of God, the Father, the Son, the Lord, sonship, life, grace, and every divine thing; the Comforter (John 14:16), the Spirit of reality, as our Advocate taking care of our case; and the Spirit of power (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8) poured upon us for our ministry and move that we may carry out the Lord’s commission. Moreover, the Spirit is the Spirit of glory and of God (1 Pet. 4:14). The Spirit of glory is the One through whom Christ was glorified in His resurrection (Rom. 1:4). This very Spirit of glory, being the Spirit of God Himself, rests upon the suffering believers in their persecution for the glorification of the resurrected and exalted Christ, who is now in glory. The Spirit is the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14), who, not being limited by time or space, makes the redemption accomplished by Christ through His death eternally efficacious. The Spirit is also the seven Spirits (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6), the sevenfold intensified Spirit, to strengthen the church in the time of degradation. Ultimately, the Spirit of God is the Spirit (Mark 1:10; Matt. 4:1; 12:31; John 3:5, 34; 7:39; Acts 6:3; 8:18; Gal. 3:2; Rev. 2:7; 14:13; 22:17), the processed, compounded, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, sevenfold intensified, consummated Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God, as the eternal portion of the chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified tripartite men to be their life, life supply, and everything.
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