In the Divine Trinity, the Father is the source, the Son is the course, the expression, and the Spirit is the flow, the reaching. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the Triune God reaching us. When the Triune God reaches us, He is the Spirit. When we receive the Spirit, we receive the Triune God. This does not mean that when the Spirit comes, neither the Son nor the Father come. When the Spirit comes, the Triune God comes. The error of tritheism is that it asserts that when Jesus Christ came, He left the heavenly Father on the throne, and after He resurrected, ascended, and sat down at the right hand of God, He sent the Holy Spirit as His representative to enter into man. Hence, in 1967 we began to defend the truth concerning the Divine Trinity and published numerous messages to utterly expose the erroneous, heretical teachings concerning the Triune God.
We are fighting the battle for the truth with the Scripture as our basis. The heretical scholars do not study the Bible thoroughly. They say things based upon the limited knowledge they have obtained by studying only the traditional theology. They despise me, considering me to be merely an old Chinese man. They are not willing to believe that although their Western missionaries went to China to teach the Bible to the Chinese and to preach to them, now there is a Chinese man coming to teach them. They are not willing to accept and believe this fact. They would not consider the fact that although they have studied theology a little, I have been studying the Bible in depth for sixty years and have put out quite a few books. When I fight, I can defeat them just by quoting a few verses from the Bible.
The truth concerning the Divine Trinity is that the Father is the source, the Son is the course, coming with the source, and the Spirit is the reaching, the flow, coming with the source. Hence, the Holy Spirit comes with both the Father and the Son. Today the Lord Jesus is not only sitting in heaven at the right hand of God but is also living in us. Galatians 2:20 says, “It is Christ who lives in me,” and Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Moreover, in Ephesians 3:17 Paul prayed that Christ would make His home in our hearts. It is wrong to say that Christ is in heaven but not in us. According to the pure truth of the Scriptures, Christ is not only dwelling and living in us, but He is also making His home in us.
Therefore, I invented several terms to explain the truth that is in the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit today is the processed, all-inclusive Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Today in the light of the Lord’s recovery, the Spirit whom we enjoy and experience is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God.
Since there is a consummation, there must have been a process. First, God passed through incarnation. The One who was incarnated was not merely the Son but the entire Triune God, comprising the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. As proof of this matter, John 1:1 and 14 say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....And the Word became flesh.” The incarnated God is not just one-third of God but the Triune God in His entirety. Under the influence of traditional theology, most Christians believe that it was only the Son who was manifested in the flesh. Actually, the One who was incarnated is nothing less than the Triune God Himself.
Furthermore, when the Lord Jesus lived on the earth, it was not only the Son but the Triune God who was living on the earth. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, it was not only the Son but the Triune God who passed through death. Acts 20:28 proves this point, saying, “The church of God, which He obtained through His own blood.” Usually we refer to the blood as the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, but Paul says that it was God’s blood. This shows that the One who died on the cross was not merely a man. He was also God; He was nothing less than the Triune God.
Therefore, it was the Triune God who was incarnated, who passed through human living, who died, and who resurrected. In resurrection, the Spirit came. This Spirit is the life-giving Spirit, the issue of the incarnated Triune God who passed through the process of death and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45). In other words, the Spirit is the ultimate consummation and the ultimate expression of the processed Triune God.
Hence, the New Testament shows that for us to receive the Spirit is to receive the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, that is, to receive the processed Triune God. Today the Holy Spirit is the processed Triune God. He is not the Triune God before incarnation but the Triune God who has passed through incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. There are all kinds of riches in the Triune God—divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death, the all-conquering resurrection, the all-transcending ascension, and the all-receiving descension. Today the Spirit is moving in the universe for man to receive Him. This gospel is truly great!
Genesis 1 reveals that prior to God’s restoration of the heavens and the earth, the Spirit of God brooded upon the surface of the waters (v. 2). This Spirit was the Triune God but not the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, the all-inclusive Spirit, or the processed Triune God. The Spirit in Genesis 1 had only the element of divinity and not the elements of humanity, human living, death, resurrection, or ascension. He was the “raw” Triune God, the initial expression of the Triune God. However, the Spirit who is moving in the universe today is different from the Spirit in Genesis 1. This does not mean that there are two Spirits. They are the same one Spirit, but this Spirit has been processed. The Spirit in the beginning was the initial expression of the Triune God, and the Spirit at the consummation is the ultimate expression of the Triune God. Today the Spirit whom we receive is the Spirit in Genesis 1 who has been processed and consummated.
In the past there was a co-worker in Hong Kong who was against me because I said that the Christ in Revelation is different from the Christ in the Gospel of John. Indeed, the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Christ in Revelation are different, but this does not mean that there are two Christs. When John saw the Christ whom he wrote about in the Gospel of John, he was not afraid of Him and even reclined on His breast (13:25). The same John saw the Christ whom he described in the book of Revelation. This occurred several decades later, by which time John was already old and was not afraid to suffer or die. However, when he saw Christ this time, he was frightened, and he fell at His feet as dead (1:17). Moreover, the Christ in the Gospel of John had two eyes, but the Christ in Revelation has seven eyes (5:6). Then how can we say that the Christ in the Gospel of John is the same as the Christ in Revelation? We surely cannot say that the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Christ in Revelation are the same. But the fact that the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Christ in Revelation are different does not mean that the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Christ in Revelation are two different persons. Rather, the Christ in the Gospel of John and the Christ in Revelation are still one and the same.
In the same way, we do not say that there are two Holy Spirits. What we say is that the one Holy Spirit is different dispensationally. In Genesis 1, the Holy Spirit was in the initial stage and had not passed through a process. In Revelation, however, the Holy Spirit is no longer in the initial stage. He is in the highest and ultimate stage and has become the seven Spirits (1:4; 4:5; 5:6). The seven Spirits are not seven individual Spirits but one Spirit intensified sevenfold.