In order to produce the church, God in Christ passed through a long process. This process includes incarnation, human living, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and becoming the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the processed Triune God. He passed through such a process in order to be life to the church. We do not speak here of the God in eternity who had not passed through any of the processes. The processed Triune God passed through incarnation, thirty-three and a half years of human living, and crucifixion. He went into death and experienced Hades, coming out with a great victory, and then He resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, today He is no longer the God who has not been processed; rather, He is the processed Triune God. This is not my invention but the biblical revelation. If we desire to have the subjective knowledge and experience of what Christ is, we must see this revelation. Otherwise, we will have nothing much to do with the wonderful being of Christ, and consequently, the church will easily become degraded to be an organization in society.
Our God is the eternal, infinite God in eternity, yet He entered into the womb of a created virgin for His conception. When the Holy Spirit entered into Mary’s womb, that was the eternal, infinite God entering into Mary’s womb for her to conceive a child. The element of God is the source of this conception. God entered into the womb of the virgin Mary, a small, created being, and stayed there for as long as nine months, and then was born in a manger. Therefore, Isaiah 9:6 says, “For a child is born to us;...His name will be called...Mighty God.” This tells us clearly that the child who was born in a manger was the Mighty God. This is a prophecy spoken by Isaiah before 700 B.C. Isaiah 7:14 says, “Behold, the virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel.” Then chapter nine tells us that the child who was born was the Mighty God. What a mystery! The Lord Jesus’ being born through the conception of the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb was the process of God’s incarnation.
Not only so, the Lord Jesus was born into a carpenter’s family to be a carpenter for thirty years. When He reached the age of thirty, He went out to preach, perform miracles, and declare God the Father for three and a half years. When His neighbors saw Him, they asked, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matt. 13:55). Within those thirty-three and a half years He tasted everything of the human life. This was the process of His human living.
Later, He delivered Himself to the place of death. He was arrested, judged, crucified, and buried in a dark tomb. He entered into death, passed through death, overcame death, and came out of death. After He had abolished death, He transcended death and resurrected. Eventually, He became the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. This was the last Adam becoming the life-giving Spirit. This process was the consummation of the processes that Christ passed through.
This God who created the universe and all things and whom we worship, after passing through such a long series of processes, accomplished the work of redemption and became the life-giving Spirit. He is now waiting to enter into those who would believe in Him, for Him to be their life and everything that they, as a group of people with His life, may become the church, which is the Body of Christ to be the expression of God’s fullness.
The life-giving Spirit is also the all-inclusive Spirit. Like the air He is readily available, and He is moving everywhere. This Spirit is the seven Spirits in Revelation 5:6 who are sent forth into all the earth. The Spirit’s being sent forth into all the earth means that the Spirit is moving throughout the whole earth, waiting for people to believe into the Lord by repenting and calling upon His name that He may enter into them to be their life. When one calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus, immediately he receives the Lord Jesus as the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, as his life. The name of the Lord Jesus denotes Himself, and He Himself is the life-giving Spirit.
When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He chose a group of disciples. After He became the life-giving Spirit in His resurrection and entered into His disciples, they began to preach the gospel and to write the New Testament books. Therefore, to this day both the gospel and the Bible are in circulation. When the disciples preached the gospel, many repented, called upon the name of the Lord, and thus were regenerated. The life-giving Spirit entered into them to be their life and life supply. Furthermore, they went on to be saved every day in the Spirit of life. In this way tens of thousands of people have received the gospel and have thus been regenerated and saved. Moreover, they have received the life-giving Spirit as life in them, and they have all been placed on the same line, which is the line of life.