The Spirit is, Pt. 2

The Spirit of God is God’s quickening glory, transferred to all who trust in Him (see Mark 9:2, 3, 7; Luke 9:29, 34; 2 Corinthians 3:10-18; John 17:24; Exodus 34:30). The Spirit is the gift of spiritual oil in  our heart, our spirit, and our body that makes our face to shine (see Zechariah 4:2-6, 11, 12; Psalm 104:15). The Spirit of Christ is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6, cf Rev. 5:6; 10:1). Today, the wonderful transformation of the thoughts and intents of our heart is but a taste of the Spirit’s glory (see Hebrews 6:4, 5); however, in eternity we will receive It in full (see Daniel 12:4; Isaiah 66:18; 1 Corinthians 15:42, 43, 51-53; Philippians 3:10, 11; Revelation 21:23-26; 22:4, 5). On the Mount of Transfiguration, It connected Earth with heaven’s holy atmosphere in wavelengths above the humanly detectable spectrum, and the divine ionosphere made contact in power. By faith visible to His Father only, it transported Jesus into His Father’s presence because He longed for a taste of His former home. Then It represented His Father on the holy mount while his voice “came from heaven” (2 Pet. 1:18), by which He put His fear in the disciples (see Matthew 17:17:5; Luke 9:34,35). 

The Father, in His Spirit representative form, was a full representation of His “own self”. “O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”  (John 17:5). It was His personal presence, yet also an extension of His person (see Psalm 139:7), i.e. “The Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is...” (2Cor. 3:17). But, it was no different from the soul that man is and has (see Genesis 2:7; Psalm 42:2,5). Such a similar prayer from His Son was irresistible.

So, His Father removed the divide between Them that was caused by the uncleanness of Jesus’ human flesh. “He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.” (Isa. 25:7). He replenished Jesus’ previous brilliance and gladness, rest and power that He had with His Father before the world was. By His same “Spirit of glory and of God” (1 Pet. 4:14, cf 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 Pet. 1:11) the Father conscripted holy men of old to speak what they often couldn’t fully understand and what they sometimes shrank from saying. His promised Spirit of glory will also rivet our souls to obedience as It did our Master and His prophets of old. The world will know that we’ve been with Jesus and they will confess to Him, “Happy are Thy men, happy are these Thy servants, which stand continually before Thee, and that hear thy wisdom” (1 Ki. 10:8). God’s strong Spirit gives power to His children to be “partakers of His inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12), “the glory of His inheritance in the saints, …the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power” (Eph. 1:18, 19).

Thus, the Spirit of God creates the glory of God. This occurs because God’s Spirit is holy, in contradistinction to His subjects, whether intelligent or inanimate (and all are His), and the holiness of God manifests in the power of God for the betterment of His creation, and then His power releases His glory, from Himself and in His creation.

We have one God, the Father, in whom are all things, and we in Him. God’s glory is potential power. His glory is His power repressed; His power is His glory expressed. As we showed above from 2Corinthians 3:17 and John 4:24, God is a Spirit and God has a Spirit, i.e. “the Lord is that Spirit”--“the Spirit of the Lord”. His Spirit is Him and the part of Him that reaches us and to all of His vast creation. Thus, God’s Spirit can be crudely understood by a transitive formula of cause and effect, or of source and manifestation: God’s Spirit=>God’s holiness=>God’s divine power=>God’s glory. Similarly, a man has a mind, which invents a generator, which produces electrical power, which produces light and heat and work. We see this in an earthly representation: Man's spirit=>his invention of the electric generator=>electrical power=>light, heat, work.

The “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) is “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16) that we can have. It is the gift to all who are “spiritually minded” (Rom. 8:6), a gift which He will give us when we are reborn of God through Jesus (see Romans 7:25-8:2). Christ discerns the deep things of God, and everyone will possess that discernment whoever has been “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8, cf Dan. 1:17; Gen. 40:8; Mal. 3:16-18). Spiritual things “are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). But, without Jesus anointing the natural man with His Spirit, spirituality appears to be pure foolishness. This is because unbelievers do not desire to stake a claim in the holy Spirit of at-one-ment with God. That oneness of Their Spirits, known by Jesus in His greater Father, “the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him” (John 14:17, cf Deut. 6:4). (Christ’s use of “Him” will be explained further in another blog post.)

The unity in the Godhead’s Spirit— “The LORD our God is one LORD”, “one Lord,... one God and Father of all”, “one Spirit” (Deut. 6:4; Eph. 4:5,6,4)—“one body” of souls who are convicted of, and have surrendered to, the Godhead’s Law of self-sacrificing love. All are born again who have responded to the call from above to dwell in God and His love, abiding under His Law that commands love. They are adopted into the family of heaven; they are “raised…up together,” and made to “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). For them, the breech with heaven has been remade. “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21).

But, those without this resurrection into a new disposition toward heaven have no assurance of salvation because for them there is no salvation. It may be that some of these are “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34); but they are not yet in His kingdom’s government and Edenic refuge. Otherwise, they would repeat to others the story of their rebirth into His freedom and a new life. They would have something good to say about the merciful work of God for them through Jesus. Their conversations would be more about heavenly things and issues than of earthly things and issues (see Philippians 3:20, 21). They will jealously guard the minutes of the Sabbath to talk of Jesus and they would commune with Him on His holy day. They are at rest like an infant in its mother’s arms, “bound in the bundle of life with the LORD” (1 Sam. 25:29). All who have been adopted into Christ know it, and are able to confidently say, “We have now received the atonement” (Rom. 5:11). The atonement is the song that they own; and they hold it close so that no one and no idol can take it away. To them redemption is not someone else’s song, but a tailor-made song of the uphill battles, sometimes in darkness, which they fought to get back to God. They have a unique, real testimony of God’s salvation that no one else can sing.

The “Spirit of the LORD” (Isa. 59:19) is “mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Cor. 10:4). That Spirit, the strong will of God shining from Jesus who could not save Himself for our sakes or stanch His love for us, must be revealed to our conscience and divinely expressed upon our will, for by His “will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ” (Heb. 10:10). The Spirit is God’s omnipotent, redemptive virtue that flows ever from Him and  the regenerative principle hidden in the gospel; “for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith” (Rom. 1:17). By faith in Christ’s virtue we find that hidden regenerative principle and are made whole, “clean every whit” (John 13:10). His Spirit will make us well dressed servants of righteousness, instead of field slaves to sin (see Romans 6:13-22).

The Spirit of “the most high God” (Gen. 14:19, cf Rev. 4:8) is the Power of the Highest. Christ sends His Spirit to make effectual in our soul the damnation that He suffered in our stead, while He bodily mediates His sacrifice before His Father to provide for the remission of our sins. The Spirit is God working through His Prince and “Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14), “Messiah the Prince” (Dan. 9:25), who personally works His Father’s Law into our minds, blots out our sins, and sprinkles our hearts from an evil conscience (see Hebrews 10:16-22; 12:11).

I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put Me in remembrance (Isa. 43:25, 26).

The Spirit is the representative agency of our heavenly High Priest. It is “the arm of the LORD” (Isa. 53:1), the Father’s long reach from heaven to earth. The Spirit of God is the manifested goodness of God, the Power of the Most High, “which worketh all in all” (1 Cor. 12:6) throughout His vast cosmos. The Spirit is the footprint of divinity upon creation; It is God’s invisible fingerprints that linger on all His “diversities of operations” (1 Cor. 12:6), physical and spiritual. The Spirit is the residual aroma that He leaves behind in all His works (see Song 5:13; Psalm 45:8; 85:11). “Thy paths drop fatness.” (Ps. 65:11). This aroma our spirits sense “for in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). The Spirit is the present echo of the distant, but effective “word of the LORD” (1 Sam. 3:21) spoken from the throne of heaven, which only those who have an ear to hear can detect. The Holy Ghost is the living shadow of the invisible God through His Son that “hath shined in our hearts” (2 Cor. 4:6). The Spirit of the Son is the light that lightens every man that comes into the world.

The “Spirit of the LORD” (Jdg. 3:10) is God’s personified strong “arm” (Isa. 51:9, cf Isa. 53:1), which Isaiah prayed might awaken to save His people. The Spirit is “God’s holy Spirit” that pleads with us to yield to His holiness (Steps to Christ, p. 32.2). “The spirit” (Eze. 3:14) is the providential and revelational “hand of the LORD” (Eze. 3:14; 8:1; 40:1), that grabs the conscience and keeps it from falling, the soul’s tangible reality of “the LORD of hosts” (Eze. 3:14, cf 1:28-2:1, 2). God’s powerful Spirit is Himself; It is the same “Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead” (Rom. 8:11), and which without our submitting to and receiving His redemptive Spirit through His Son, we are “none of His” (Rom. 8:9). Anyone having less than this “cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5); they are “sensual, having not the Spirit” (Jude 19). To His church the Spirit of Christ says, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me” (John 13:8, cf Eph. 5:26).

Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (2 Cor. 13:5).

The Father making His abode with us (see John 14:23), by our accepting His Son’s Spirit and truth, is the utmost mandatory requirement for salvation and baptism. Unless “the power of the Lord [is] present to heal” (Luke 5:17), no pardon comes. There is no healing, and no entrance into the book of life (see Matthew 13:58; Hebrews 3:19). Without faith in the Son, the Father cannot “quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit” (Rom. 8:11) which abides in every soul that has been reconciled to God by the lifeless “body of Christ” (Rom. 7:4, cf vs. 24, 25).

The Spirit of God, who is Spirit and the origin of all truth (see John 4:24), is our Comforter Father. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:3, 4). The reason the comfort of Pentecost came with greater power than the disciples had had from Jesus’ earthly ministry was because the comfort at Pentecost came through Christ from a reconciled, powerful Father.

“The Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11) incarnated His Son into “a quickening Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45, cf John 3:34; 5:19, 20; Heb. 9:14) so that Christ could give dynamic power to judges, prophets, and kings of the Old Testament and even more so to apostles and witnesses of the New. That Spirit of God in Christ was “His holy Spirit” (Isa. 63:11); It was “the Spirit of the LORD” (1 Sam. 10:6, cf vs. 9) which turned King Saul into a new creature, anointing him with a new heart. And the Spirit of the Law in Christ Jesus, “who is our life” (Col. 3:4) through faith in His word, raises up our wretched bodies of death. Without the quickening Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, we are still dead in sin.

The Spirit is God’s restored union with fallen mankind; It is “the spirit which is of God” (1 Cor. 2:12), “the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11), “the Spirit of your Father” (Matt. 10:20, cf 16:17), who “is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working” (Isa. 28:29, cf 1 Cor. 12:4, 7; Eph. 2:10). The Spirit is God’s determined love, “My Spirit” that strives with all of humanity (Gen. 6:3, cf Zech. 6:8; 4:6; Prov. 1:23; Isa. 30:1; 44:3; Eze. 36:27; Joel 2:28; Zech. 4:6; Luke 23:46; Gal. 5:17), strongly condemning their sin, but patiently offering His provision of mercy through His Son. The Spirit of truth is God’s bitter “chastisement of our peace” (Isa. 53:5), that holds us “in derision” (Ps. 2:4), keeping us under the Law until He humbles our mischievous, estranged hearts. Our humiliation must happen before we can be comforted with reconciliation, “the comfort wherewith we…are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:4, cf Gal. 3:24). Thus, God’s Spirit calls us to surrender, beginning with His extended chastening. Then, the Spirit of God and glory He pours upon all who surrender to His lengthy, scourging Law, and who trust in Jesus’ balm (see Acts 5:31; Hebrews 12:6; John 6:37; Jeremiah 8:22; Luke 18:7, 8). “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21) is the confluence which brings the sometimes rushing, washing “holy Spirit of promise”, and which normally are “waters…that go softly” (Eph. 1:13; Isa 8:6, cf Acts 2:16-18; Joel 2:23; Zech. 12:10). It is “the promise of the Spirit through faith”, “the blessing of Abraham” (Gal. 3:14), and is full of precious promises to every humbled, repentant captive who the Lord put into bondage (see Leviticus 26:40-42).

The gift of the covenanted Spirit was the promise to the disobedient Jews going into captivity. “I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them” (Eze. 36:27). The promised Spirit to Israel became the basis for the new covenant to the Gentiles. “This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer. 31:33).

The Spirit is the evidence of our redemption. “The evidence of the purchase” (Jer. 32:11, cf vs. 10) for which Jesus paid, signing it with every drop of His blood, and sealing it with His eternal Spirit from His Father’s sanctuary above (see Isaiah 53:12; Ephesians 1:13, 14; Revelation 5:6). His Spirit of promise gives us the assurance of His love and our certainty of His salvation. “The Spirit Itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Then we can confidently say, We “have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but…the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). By His own Spirit, Christ’s divine presence in His promises and resolutions quickens the needy soul that operates by hope, and is the Father calling and seeking to reconnect with that one through His Son. The Son’s touch (see 1 Samuel 10:26) provides the sorrowing, fatherless one the evidence of his acceptance (see Hebrews 10:15-18) and of his adoption into the family of heaven. “God setteth the solitary in families” (Ps. 68:6, cf Eph. 3:15). He “hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). “And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God” (Ps. 40:3).

The holy Spirit is “the Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4) in the powerful Son of God. The Word’s holy Spirit of promise is the foretaste of “the powers of the world to come” (Heb. 6:5). The sealing power of “that holy Spirit of promise…is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Eph. 1:14, cf 2 Cor. 1:21, 22). “Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:5). The present power of God’s Spirit is God’s avowed future, full gift of a nature free of sin’s bondage, for which all the children of God long. The Spirit of Christ is the powerful inheritance that transfigured Christ, and which awaits the saints’ transfiguration (see 1 Corinthians 15:43). God’s Spirit is the “glory and honour and immortality, eternal life” (Rom. 2:7), “the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…we shall be changed.” (1 Cor. 15:52). Today, God’s omnipotent Spirit will transform us into the sons of God, expectant citizens of the still more potent heavenly kingdom at Christ’s return. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). “In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven…. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:2, 4, 5, cf 15:52-54). “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9, cf Isa. 64:4), who “wait for Him” (Isa. 30:18) and “love His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8).

The Spirit is Jesus, “the water of life” (Rev. 22:17, cf Phil. 1:19) because Jesus quenches our dry souls with His revelation of God’s love (see Psalm 42:1; Jeremiah 17:7, 8). “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink” (John 7:37, cf vs. 38, 39). Did Jesus mean that He was the source of life only while He was living among us? Did He mean that after His ascension a third person of the Godhead would take His role as life giver? No. He said of Himself that as He was alive for evermore, He would continue to give us the life that springs up forever.

“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). “The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek Him: your heart shall live for ever” (Ps. 22:26).

“The Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10) since Jesus, the “righteous Branch” (Jer. 23:5), is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Vs. 6) and “in Him was life” (John 1:4). “In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely” (Jer. 23:6). Jesus is “the life” (John 14:6 cf, 2 Cor. 4:10), “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2); Jesus is “the God of my life” (Ps. 42:8). There has ever been one channel of life (see Zechariah 4:2, 6) ― Jesus, the only way to “the eternal, self-existent One” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 36.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2).

If there had been a Law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe” (Gal. 3:21, 22).

For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3).

God means for His Law to give sinners death. Only saints find life in the Law of God; but, their sanctification He provides for. Therefore, He chooses to bring Adam’s children of the flesh to righteousness and life through His dying lamb. Otherwise, we have no chance for abundant life from the Law of morality. Everything that performing moral acts will do is grind us to powder. Nevertheless, God puts His holy Law between us and Himself, as if to say to us, “Talk to the hand.” We must go to His Prince and study the Prince closely to know Him personally. Then He and we can come together before the holy KING and receive a new spirit. The Law of God is a stone wall, the height of which is “an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel” (Rev. 21:17). God’s holy Law is 650 foot high so that He can easily stonewall us until we understand that we must come to Him by the only access through His stone wall—the gate of His sanctuary “by a new and living way, which [Jesus] hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb. 10:20). The gate to the gospel sanctuary is the Law, and the gate to the Law is the gospel sanctuary.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Heb. 10:19, 22).

Today, Jesus alone is the giver of life and love through His interceding communion from above (see John 5:21, 25; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Colossians 3:4; Hebrews 7:25; 3:15). “He that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5:12, cf John 3:36). The Spirit of the Lord says, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:25, 26). “Now the Lord is that Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17), and there is power in the Spirit He gives. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Rev. 22:17), even as the heavenly Husband through His church beckons to the world, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28, cf Matt. 28:20). “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39, cf John 6:37).