This is the Lord’s indwelling between His baptism and His coming back. By His baptism He puts us all into Him. By His coming He will take us as His Bride. This is why we need His indwelling, transforming work. The Bride needs to be prepared. We are still so ugly and unsuitable. A man would never marry such a woman. This is exactly today’s situation. How could the Lord Jesus come today? Hence, we need a long period for His indwelling work. This is the finest work He is doing. It was easy for Him to accomplish incarnation once and for all. His crucifixion only took six hours. The resurrection and ascension did not take long. Even the baptism was accomplished on both parts of the Body in a short time. His coming back will also not take long. But to prepare us takes a lot of time. If we did not have the indwelling Christ, I am afraid that we all would give up. Praise the Lord that it is not a hopeless case! Christ is in us, the hope of glory. Eventually we all will be in the New Jerusalem. All the time He is working within. We may say that we do not like the church life, but still He is working. The Lord has a way to work in us, and to work us into His glory. The way is by His indwelling. We all have the same life indwelling us. He is so rich, so present, so available, so ready, so constant, so instant, and so continually working in us.
The indwelling of Christ is really hidden and mysterious; yet it is so real, strengthening, empowering, satisfying, enlightening, comforting, refreshing, and watering. This is why we have such a wonderful church life. If we only had the baptism accomplished once and for all, and were waiting for Him to come back, we would be miserable. But today we do have His indwelling. This is because He has become the life-giving Spirit. The last Adam was Jesus in the flesh. Then this last Adam has become the life-giving Spirit.
We should never forget that Jesus took two wonderful steps in order to become something. The first step was the Word becoming flesh. He was God, yet He became flesh. That was Jesus. He was no longer merely God, but God plus humanity. He was God becoming flesh so He could be our Redeemer as the Lamb of God. Then in resurrection, the Lord Jesus as the last Adam became something else. Here He took another step. This time He became the life-giving Spirit. His first step was for Him to become our Redeemer. His second step was for Him to be our life-giver. To be the Redeemer He needed to become flesh. To be the life-giver He needed to become the Spirit. The flesh is for redemption, and the Spirit is for life-giving. It is indeed sad that most Christians have never heard that Christ became the life-giving Spirit. Rather, some Christians even condemn this as heresy. But what can they do with 1 Corinthians 15:45b? It tells us clearly that the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit.
Now we are clear that the Lord has taken two steps. He was God, yet He took the step to become flesh. Then He became Jesus, the last Adam. After He finished His redemptive work, He took another step as the last Adam to become the life-giving Spirit. First of all He was for redeeming; now in the second step He is for life-giving. After we are redeemed, we need the life supply, the life-giving, and Christ as the life-giving Spirit is the indweller to supply the life to us. In the past, we never heard that Christ today is the life-giving Spirit. If we need to have a Bible study, we should study the verses concerning Christ as the life-giving Spirit. Christ as the life-giving Spirit is indwelling us, imparting life to us all the time.
Following 1 Corinthians 15:45b, we have 2 Corinthians 3:17. “Now the Lord is that Spirit.” John the Baptist declared, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Now the Apostle Paul declares, “Now the Lord is that Spirit!” The Lord is no more just the Lamb of God for redemption. Now He is the Spirit for life-giving. Darby’s New Translation puts brackets around verses six through seventeen of 2 Corinthians 3. This indicates that verse seventeen continues verse six. Verse six says that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Then verse seventeen continues to say that now the Lord is that Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives life, and now the Lord is that Spirit that gives life. This is marvelous! Today the Lord Jesus is the Spirit that gives life.