The Spirit who is operating in us is the all-inclusive Spirit of Jesus Christ, and He is operating in us in seven ways. First, He is within us imparting His divine life to us (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6b). He imparts His divine life into our being in the same way that water flows through a garden hose. The more water we use, the more water flows into the hose. There is a bountiful supply of water which flows out without our effort; we simply turn on the water hose. Likewise, in order to receive the supply of the Spirit, you simply need to turn to the operating Spirit. He will flow in you as the divine life and impart life into you.
Second, the Spirit bears in us the fruit of all human and divine virtues. Galatians 5:22-23 says that the Spirit within us is bearing many kinds of divine virtues, such as love, joy, and peace. All these divine and human virtues are brought forth by this life-imparting Spirit.
This Spirit also sets us free from dead letters and from dead knowledge (2 Cor. 3:6, 17). Apart from the Spirit within us we may know many doctrines, but in a dead way. The more we learn doctrine in a dead way, the more we become bound by dead knowledge. Only the Spirit can set us free from dead knowledge.
At the same time, this life-giving Spirit sets us free from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2). In our sinful nature there is a law, a natural power, of sin and death. By ourselves we are unable to deal with it, but when we give ourselves to the Spirit, the life-giving Spirit sets us free from this binding law of sin.
This Spirit also transforms us into the image of Christ from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). Whether we are good or bad, our being is still natural. Anything that is natural is of no worth to God. Therefore, we all need to be transformed. To be transformed is not merely to change our character outwardly; it is to be changed in life by the divine element from within us. This is a metabolic change in which the old things are being discharged and all the new elements are being added. We all are now undergoing this kind of metabolic change. The life-giving Spirit is changing us, transforming us from within, not merely to correct us, but to change us metabolically with His divine element. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that we are being transformed into the same image of the Lord from glory to glory, that is, from one level of glory to another. The church life should be filled with this kind of transformation.
The life-giving Spirit is also renewing us. Because we all were born in the old creation, we all are old regardless of our age. Even little children are old. Therefore, we need the divine life, a new life with a new element. This life-giving Spirit is now renewing us with the divine life and with the divine essence (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23-24; Col. 3:10-11).
Finally, the Spirit is building us together to be the habitation of God (Eph. 2:22). As we are being transformed and renewed, spontaneously we are being built together to be the habitation of God. This habitation is the church life. The church life is simply all the saints built up by the renewing Spirit to be God’s dwelling place.
For this seven-fold operation of the Spirit, there is always in this Spirit the full, bountiful supply of the unsearchable riches of Christ (Phil. 1:19; Eph. 3:8). We should not say that we cannot make it, that we are weak, or that we have many shortcomings. We should forget about all this and realize what the Spirit is. We are weak, but the Spirit is strong. We are poor, but He is rich. When we cooperate with Him, He supplies us with all His bountiful supply.