Even if we have the adequate vocabulary we still need the Spirit. The book of Acts shows us that we need to be filled with the Spirit and we need to receive the outpouring of the Spirit. Inside we need to be filled and outside we need to receive the outpouring of the all-inclusive, processed, compound, life-giving, indwelling, sevenfold intensified, and consummated Spirit.
This Spirit has two aspects—the essential aspect and the economical aspect. The essential aspect is that He would enter into us as our spiritual and divine essence to be our very life supply and the spiritual content of our divine life for our life and living. The essential aspect is the inward aspect, the aspect of the divine essence. The Holy Spirit, who is today’s consummated life-giving Spirit, is God’s very essence, God’s divine substance (John 4:24). This Spirit has come into our spirit (Rom. 8:16), and He enters into our being to be the very essence of God to us. He Himself is this divine essence and He comes into us to become the divine essence within us. To be regenerated is to be born of God, and to be born of God is to receive God’s very essence into our being. God’s divine essence has been born into our being, and this essence is nothing less than the Spirit of God. This is the essential aspect of this wonderful Spirit.
The other aspect of the Spirit is the economical aspect. The economical aspect refers to God’s plan, God’s dispensation. The essential aspect of the Spirit is for our life and living, while the economical aspect of the Spirit is for our ministry and work to accomplish God’s plan. The Spirit enters into us as the essence, and He comes upon us for the economy. This is why we see in the Acts that the Spirit fills the disciples inwardly and comes upon the disciples, being poured out upon the disciples, outwardly. These are the two aspects of the same, one all-inclusive Spirit. First Corinthians 12:13 tells us that we were all baptized in one Spirit. This is the economical Spirit. Furthermore, we were all given to drink one Spirit. This is the essential Spirit. To be baptized is to get into the water. To drink is to get the water into you.
We are short of these two aspects of the one Spirit. It is a divine fact that we have Him within us as the essence and upon us for the economy of God, yet in our experience we are short of Him within and we are short of Him without. Inwardly we do not have much of the divine essence, and outwardly we do not have much of the Spirit for God’s economy. All the saints in the Lord’s recovery have to rise up to seek after the filling of the Spirit and after the outpouring of the Spirit. May the Lord stir us all up to seek after these two aspects of the same one Spirit.
Generally speaking, fundamental Christians do not care for the Spirit and some even dare not to talk about the Spirit. On the other hand, the practices of Pentecostalism related to the so-called Spirit are not built upon the divine Word. They build nearly everything upon their feelings and experiences without a strong scriptural base. We all have to come back to the pure Word. In the pure Word of the Bible, especially in the Acts and the Epistles, the Spirit is greatly emphasized. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and the seven Spirits are among the many titles of the Spirit’s person. We must realize that we need the Spirit.
In the New Testament the life-giving Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God. The Triune God, after being processed, has been consummated in the sevenfold Spirit. Today the Triune God is not “raw,” but He has been processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension. This processed Triune God is now consummated in the all-inclusive Spirit. This is why 1 Corinthians 15:45 says that “the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit,” and 2 Corinthians 3:17 says “the Lord is the Spirit.” Today our God is the Spirit; our Savior is the Spirit; our Redeemer, our Master, our Lord, our Jesus Christ, is this Spirit. We all need to seek the filling of this Spirit inwardly for our life and living and outwardly for our ministry and work to carry out God’s economy.
For our meetings we need to be gathered together into the Lord’s dear name. Then we will enjoy His presence in our midst. In our gathering we have to speak. Everybody should speak and learn to speak the Word, which is Christ Himself. We need to speak the word of Christ, the words of the New Testament, and sometimes even the word quoted from the Old Testament. We also need to have an adequate knowledge of the Word. This is why Paul tells us that God “desires all men to be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). If we mean business with the Lord for His recovery, especially concerning the meetings, we all have to learn the Word. Second, we have to be filled with the Triune God and we have to have the Triune God poured upon us. We have Him within and we have Him without. We all need to be wrapped up with Him. We need Him as the Spirit.