Prayer: Lord, thank You for Your mercy, for Your love, and for Your grace. We thank You for Your rich provision. Lord, You have given us Your blood, Your Spirit, and Your Word. Lord, we trust in all of Your provisions. Have mercy on us again. We treasure Your love, and we thank You for Your grace. Lord, we want to exercise our spirit to touch You. Grant us Your rich anointing in the speaking of Your word. Lord, under the precious blood, we thank You that You are the victorious One and that we are overcoming the world, sin, and our self in You, with You, and by You. Lord, be our help at this hour. Grant us to be one spirit with You in the speaking of Your word. Lord, vindicate Your way, and speak to us. Make our speaking divine speaking. Lord, we thank You and worship You again. Amen.
We saw in chapter one that 1 Corinthians is on Christ as our portion for our enjoyment. In the past I pointed out there are at least nineteen items of Christ as our portion in 1 Corinthians (see note 92 in 1 Corinthians 1—Recovery Version). Paul first says that Christ is our portion. He is “theirs and ours” (1:2). The concluding aspect of Christ in 1 Corinthians is that He, as the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit (15:45). If we are going to enjoy Christ as our portion, we have to realize that this portion today is the Spirit. All the items of Christ in 1 Corinthians, such as Him being our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification redemption (1:24, 30), are included in the life-giving Spirit. Without being the life-giving Spirit, how could Christ be our wisdom? Without being the life-giving Spirit, how could the objective Christ who is sitting on the throne in the heavens, be our spiritual food and spiritual drink (1 Cor. 10:3-4)? It would be impossible. He had to go through a process to become the life-giving Spirit so that we could eat and drink Him.
If someone put a big cow in front of me, I would have no way to eat it. The cow would have to go through a process to become steaks to make it eatable. The “raw” God could not be our portion. Because God has been processed, “cooked,” we can enjoy Him as our portion. The Word who is God became the last Adam in His incarnation. God became a man. Through death and resurrection this Man became the Spirit. John 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:45b tell us of these two “becames.” The Word became flesh, and the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. Our God went through these two major processes. Thus, the “raw” God became the “cooked” God, and the “cooked” God today is the life-giving Spirit.
This truth is not according to today’s traditional theology which says that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not only distinct but also separate. The Bible, however, tells us that God is one. He is one God, yet He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. He is three-one. W. Griffith Thomas, the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, said that we may borrow the word persons to describe the three of the Godhead, but if we press this too far it will lead to the heresy of tritheism, the teaching of three Gods. According to the truth of the Scriptures the three of the Godhead are distinct but they are not separate. Our portion, who is God embodied in Christ (Col. 2:9), went to the cross as the last Adam in the flesh to die. He then resurrected, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit.