The Spirit of God is not only the Spirit of the Triune God, but also the Spirit of the consummated and completed Triune God. This Spirit is the consummated and completed Triune God. Today the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is the consummated completion of the Triune God. Today He is lacking in nothing, for in Him there is divinity, humanity, incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. This consummated and completed Spirit is just God Himself.
The spirit mentioned in Romans 8:4 is not just the Spirit of God, nor is it just the spirit of man; rather, it is the mingled spirit, the mingling of God’s Spirit with man’s spirit. The Spirit of God is the processed, consummated, and completed Triune God; the spirit of man is the spirit that has been regenerated and indwelt by the regenerating Spirit. These two have been mingled as one spirit. When we walk by the spirit, we are walking according to the mingled spirit. Many Bible translations take this spirit as the Holy Spirit. But Darby points out clearly that this spirit is the human spirit with the presence of the Holy Spirit. These two spirits in themselves are already quite complicated, but the spirit which is the mingling of these two is, of course, even more complicated. I hope all of you would have a thorough understanding of this spirit. If you want to know how to experience God as your life, you must know all the things concerning God and man mentioned above.
The emphasis in this message is to help you know what a Christian is. In the past we have said simply, though accurately, that according to the Greek a Christian is a Christ-man. He is one who has Christ’s life and nature within and lives Christ out. But we did not point out that the secret to being a Christian is the spirit. A Christ-man is one who has the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is just the consummated and completed Triune God. If we read the context of Romans 8:10 carefully, we will see that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and Christ are just one. He is one with three aspects. This is the Triune God. Therefore, the Spirit of Christ is just the Triune God.
Today the Triune God is the Spirit who has come into us and who now indwells our spirit. Hence, there is life in our spirit. It is the resurrection life, the life of God that never dies. The created life which we possess will die, and in some it has died already. But this life, which is the Triune God who passed through death and lives again, can overcome, conquer, and resist death. He has become the enjoyment in our spirit. Romans 8:23 says that we have the Spirit as our firstfruit. He is within us as our life and as the firstfruit for our enjoyment. We are the first to taste this enjoyment.
When we enjoy this firstfruit, we enjoy the Spirit, who is the processed Triune God. This enjoyment makes us right and proper persons. According to the revelation in the Bible, whenever we are short of the Spirit, we are improper persons. If you are very short of the Spirit, you are surely an improper person; but if you are even a little short of the Spirit, you are still improper. As long as you lack the Spirit, you are improper. If we were to measure the so-called saints in the world by this standard, none would come up to it because they do not even talk about the Spirit. But neither are we proper, because we do not walk according to the spirit. God does not need right persons or wrong persons; neither does He need good persons or evil persons. He only wants people who walk according to the spirit and who walk only according to the spirit. This kind of people are proper persons.
Since our youth, we have been told not to do wrong things. But we were never taught that we need to walk according to the spirit. It was after we were saved that we realized that the Bible teaches us to walk according to the spirit and to walk only according to the spirit.
I am afraid that you may have the wrong concept, thinking that you have come to this training to learn some techniques. The first technique to learn is door-knocking. You must learn to do it right, do it properly, do it well, and do it effectively. In addition, you need to learn some rules and methods. It is true that our training does have these things, but these are not the goal of our training. It is like a peach tree having both good leaves and bad leaves, both old leaves and new leaves. The leaves are part of the peach tree. The tree is indeed a peach tree. But a peach tree is not just for growing leaves; it is for bringing forth peaches.
In the same principle, we are not training you to keep rules and practice methods, but we are perfecting and equipping you in the truth of the Bible and in the divine life according to the Bible. You must dive deep into the truth and grow in God’s life. To dive deep into the truth and to grow in life are our two basic requirements. A student’s main purpose in attending school is not to learn rules or wear uniforms, but to be prepared and equipped academically. If he studies medicine, he will be equipped in medicine; if he studies physics, he will be equipped in physics. Our training is to equip you in the truth and in life. The result will be as 2 Timothy 3:17 says, that the man of God will be fully equipped in truth and life, lacking in nothing, and will become a complete and proper person.