In this book we will present a series of messages covering the matter of man. From the Bible we see that the relationship between God and man, whether before man’s fall or after man’s fall, is a matter of the spirit. If man’s spirit is right, he is right; but if man’s spirit is wrong, he has a problem. In this chapter we will see that the right kind of person, the kind of person God wants, is one who walks only according to the spirit.
In the seven points listed in the outline, some very particular adjectives are used. For example, the Triune God is referred to as the processed Triune God. In Romans our God is no longer simply God as He was before the incarnation, before He was processed. According to the revelation in the Bible, with God there are two periods. The first period was before His incarnation, when He did not possess humanity. At that time He was God, but not man, possessing divinity, but not humanity. He was purely the self-existing, ever-existing, eternal Creator, who has no beginning nor ending. The second period began at His incarnation, when He put on humanity. He became flesh to be a man, passed through human living, entered into death, came out of death, and entered into resurrection. After His resurrection, in one of His last meetings on earth with His disciples, He revealed to them the name of the Triune God, the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), declaring the Triune God in full.
Hence, we see that before the resurrection of Christ, the Triune God had not yet been completed in a consummated way. Indeed, in eternity He was perfect, but not completed. It was not until after He passed through all the processes that He became the consummated and completed God. Therefore, in Acts He is no longer just God, but the God-man, possessing divinity with humanity and having divinity within His humanity. With Him there is also the experience of human living, death, and resurrection. Therefore, when we come to Romans, the God we experience is the processed God. If He had never passed through the processes of incarnation, death, and resurrection, even His entering into us would have been impossible, not to mention our experiencing Him. But now He can enter into us because He has completed two great things: incarnation and death with resurrection. These two great things opened up the way for Him to enter into fallen sinners, even into you and me, who still had sin within us. The God we preach today is not just the Creator, the Redeemer, and the self-existing, ever-existing, eternal God, but the God who passed through the processes of incarnation, death, and resurrection. He is the God-man with humanity, who passed through human living, tasted hardship, and suffered mistreatment. He went to the cross with sinners, sin, and all negative things upon Him and was crucified. Then He resurrected from the dead. Today He is the processed Triune God.
Concerning man, the old man mentioned in Romans is a tripartite man, with a spirit, a soul, and a body. When a man dies, outwardly we see that the body dies. But actually both the spirit and the soul within the body are also affected. We are a tripartite man (1 Thes. 5:23).