After God’s creation, God had contact with man. God’s contact with man was another move of God. In this move, the Spirit is called the Spirit of Jehovah (Gen. 2:7-8; 6:3). Throughout the Old Testament, when God came to contact man, the Spirit of Jehovah came upon certain persons (Judg. 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Sam. 16:13). Thus, the Spirit of Jehovah is for God to move in contacting man.
Two thousand years ago, God was incarnated to become a man. This was God’s greatest move. In this move the Spirit was called the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). The Holy Spirit was for making God’s creature holy. Man was God’s creature, but before the time of Christ’s incarnation, man was never made holy. But now God in His move desired to come into man to be one with man, even to be born of man. In such a move the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit.
But God still desired to move on. First, He moved in creation; God created man. Then He moved to have contact with this man. After a period of time, God moved to enter into man to make Himself one with man. This is incarnation. In incarnation God became a little child in a manger. We need to realize that this child in a manger was God who had become one with man. However, this is not all. When God became a man, He made Himself one with man. After He made Himself one with man, He desired that man would be one with Him. Therefore, God had to take a further step to live on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, to die on the cross, to be buried, and to rise up to become the life-giving Spirit. In the New Testament, this Spirit is called the Spirit.
John 7:39 says that “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” This word is difficult to understand. The Spirit of God was there, the Spirit of Jehovah was there, and even the Holy Spirit was there, but the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified. This indicates that when Jesus died, was buried, and rose up to be glorified, He Himself became the Spirit. Today, whenever a person opens to Him, the Spirit will enter into him, saturate him, sanctify him, transform him, and mingle with him to make him a man who is one with God.
In His move God needed to take four steps. These four steps were creation, contacting man, becoming man (that is, becoming one with man), and making man one with God. First, God created the heavens and the earth with man. Then, second, God contacted man, and, third, God made Himself one with man by becoming a man. Then, in the fourth step, the very God became a life-giving Spirit to enter into man, to regenerate man, to saturate man, to transform man, and to sanctify man, in order to make man absolutely one with God.
In the first step of God’s move, the Spirit is the Spirit of God. In the second step, to contact man, the Spirit is the Spirit of Jehovah, and in the third step, to become a man and to become one with man, the Spirit is the Holy Spirit. However, after becoming one with man, God still wanted to make this man one with Himself. In making man one with God, the Spirit is simply called the Spirit. Therefore, this wonderful One is the Spirit of God for God’s creation, the Spirit of Jehovah for God to contact man, the Holy Spirit for Christ’s incarnation, to make God one with man, and the Spirit to make man one with God. It is the Spirit who makes us one with God.
The last mention of the Spirit of God in the Bible is in Revelation 22:17. This verse begins, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come!” The divine title used in this verse is not the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, or the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit. The Spirit is the conclusion, the final title, of the Spirit of God in the Bible.