10 Affirmation & Critique

THE SECOND
BECOMING
OF CHRIST
The Word became
The last Adam became
by Ed Marks
is
I
would ask the reader to take note of two great be-
comings in the New Testament. The first becoming
in John 1:14: The Word became flesh. The second be-
coming is in 1 Corinthians 15:45: The last Adam became
a life-giving Spirit. These becomings involve the two
greatest events in the history of both man and God
incarnation and resurrection. They embrace the history of
the Triune God coming out of
eternity and passing through
processes in time to accom-
plish His hearts desire. Let
the reader take note that we
are not speaking of the essen-
tial Trinity here but of the
economical Trinitythe as-
pect of the Trinity in His
coming forth in His move in
time to accomplish His desire.
(See A Biblical Overview of the Triune God in A & C,
Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 29-30.) The desire of the Triune Gods
heart is to dispense Himself as life into man for the build-
ing up of the Body of Christ to be the bride and wife of
Christ for His eternal expression as the New Jerusalem,
which is the city of life. From Genesis to Revelation we
can see what T. Austin-Sparks called the battle for life.
There is a battle in this universe between God, the One
who wants to dispense Himself as life into man, and Sa-
tan, the one who wants to dispense himself as death into
man. The truth of the second becoming of Christ is a
great issue in this battle for life. Indeed, if Christ had not
become the life-giving Spirit, the life that expresses God
and swallows up death could not be ours. In this article
we want to see the intrinsic significance of Christs second
becoming with His first becoming as the foundation. In
particular, we want to see that it is by His second becoming
that Christ accomplishes the good pleasure of God. In light
of this great truth, we also want to see that our desperate
need today is to know and experience Christ as the Spirit
for the building up of His Body.
The First Becoming of Christ
The Word Became Flesh
John 1:1 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The Word
here is the eternal Christ, who
is the very God defined, ex-
plained, and expressed. John
1:4 tells us that in Him was
life. This life in Greek is zoe,
which is the divine, eternal,
uncreated, indestructible, in-
dissoluble life of God Himself.
It is indeed wonderful that in
Christ, the Word, is life; but His desire is not that there
would be just life in Him but also that there would be life
in us. In order to dispense Himself as life into us, He took
a major step. John 1:14 tells us that this Word became
something He had never before been. The Word became
flesh. Andrew Murray said, We know how the Son, who
had from eternity been with the Father, entered upon a new
stage of existence when He became flesh (38, emphasis
added). The self-existing and ever-existing Word came out
of eternity into time and with divinity being brought into
humanity became the incarnate Word. The invisible, ab-
stract, untouchable God became a visible, physical, tangible
man named Jesus. Such a man, as typified by the meal of-
fering being made of fine flour mingled with oil (Lev.
2:4-5), was the mingling of divinity with humanity.
vine
G
od became a man of flesh and visited man personally
and affectionately. He lived a human life full of the di-
attributes of God which became His human virtues.
He was God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). In
John 10:10 He told us why He came: I have come that
they may have life [Gk. zoe] and may have it abundantly.
He was the embodiment of the divine life, even the divine
life itself. What a marvel that the man Jesus declared on
this earth, I am...the life (John 14:6a)! The Gospel of
John reveals Christ as the very God who wants to be life
to man. John 2 shows us that lifes principle is to change
death into life, as illustrated by the changing of water into
wine in verses 1 through 11, and that lifes purpose is to
build the house of God, as illustrated by the building up
of the destroyed temple of His body in three days in
verses 12 through 22. This spiritual house is the church,
the Body of Christ, and consummately the New Jerusa-
lem. Chapters three through eleven reveal that Christ as
life meets the need of every mans case. The need of the
moral is lifes regenerating (3:1-36), the need of the im-
moral is lifes satisfying (4:1-42), the need of the dying is
lifes healing (4:43-54), the need of the impotent is lifes
enlivening (5:1-47), the need of the hungry is lifes feed-
ing (6:1-71), the need of the thirsty is lifes quenching
(7:1-52), the need of those under the bondage of sin is
lifes setting free (7:538:59), the need of the blind in
religion is lifes sight and lifes shepherding (9:110:42),
and the need of the dead is lifes resurrecting (11:1-57).
I
n order for mans need to be universally met by Christ
as life for Gods purpose, Christ had to pass through
the process of death as the Lamb of God to redeem fallen
man. Christ became flesh to carry out Gods judicial re-
demption as the procedure to accomplish His desire to
dispense Himself as life into His people. Gods desire
from mans very inception in Genesis is seen in His long-
ing for man to partake of Him as the tree of life (2:9).
God warned man that if he ate of the tree of the knowl-
edge of good and evil, he would surely die (v. 17). This
tree of death signifies Satan, the devil, who has the might
of death (Heb. 2:14). Thus, at the inception of mans ex-
istence, we see the battle between life and death, with
man as the battlefield faced with the choice of life or
death. Genesis records that man chose death and that
death pervaded his entire tripartite being. Through one
man, Adam, sin entered into the world, and through sin,
death; and thus death passed on to all men because all
have sinned (Rom. 5:12).
In spite of sin and death entering into man, Gods intention
to dispense Himself as life into man remained the same.
Because man had become poisoned with sin and death,
God had to do something to deal with this poison to clear
the way for Him to dispense Himself as life into man. Fur-
thermore, the fall of man violated the legal requirements of
Gods righteousness with His holiness and glory. These re-
quirements had to be satisfied for the righteous, holy God
of glory to impart Himself into the man who had been
poisoned with sin and death. The wages of sin is death,
and Christ in our stead paid these wages by His death on
the cross. He died that we might live. Through His devil-
destroying death He nullified death (2 Tim. 1:10) and
satisfied the judicial requirements of God for our redemp-
tion. We praise the Lord for the all-inclusive death of
Christ! By His death He terminated every negative thing in
the universe. He destroyed the devil (Heb. 2:14), took
away the sin of the world (John 1:29), terminated the
flesh of fallen man (Gal. 5:24), judged Satans world (John
12:31), abolished in His flesh the law of the command-
ments in ordinances (Eph. 2:15), and crucified the old
creation represented by the old man (Rom. 6:6). The in-
carnate Word, Christ in the flesh, went to the cross as the
last Adam, the end and conclusion of Adam. Adam, the
representative head of the old creation in whom all men of
the old creation are included, is no more.
E
ven more striking, the Lords death was a grand release
for Him! In His earthly life and ministry, He was con-
strained and pressed until His unlimited divine life and
infinite divine being could be released from within Him. In
Luke 12:50 He said, I have a baptism to be baptized with,
and how I am pressed until it is accomplished! Note 2 of
this verse in the Recovery Version says:
The Lord was constrained in His flesh, which He put
upon Himself in His incarnation. He needed to undergo
physical death, to be baptized, that His unlimited and infi-
nite divine being with His divine life might be released
from His flesh. His divine life, after being released
through His physical death, became the impulse of His
believers spiritual life in resurrection.
In John 12:24 the Lord likened Himself to a grain of
wheat falling into the ground to die. If the grain does not
die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit,
brings forth many grains, in resurrection. The death of
Christ as the grain of wheat was a life-releasing death to
accomplish Gods purpose to bring forth the many sons
of God. The release of His life by His death continued
with the impartation of His life in His resurrection.
The Second Becoming of Christ
The Last Adam Became a Life-giving Spirit
When a grain of wheat blossoms in resurrection, it is clear
to all that this grain was indeed wheat; we may say that the
grain which died and resurrected has now become desig-
nated wheat. This is a marvelous picture of Christs being
designated the Son of God. Christ was the only begotten
Son of God from eternity, possessing only divinity;
through incarnation His humanity became the outward
shell of His divinity, just like the outward shell of the
life-germ of a grain of wheat. By His death the shell of
humanity was broken and His divinity, the divine
life-germ, was released. In His resurrection His human-
October 1996 11
ity was brought into divinity to cause Him to be
designated the Son of God (Rom. 1:3-4). He thus
was born in resurrection to become the firstborn Son of
God with both divinity and humanity (Acts 13:33; Rom.
8:29). Furthermore, when a grain of wheat resurrects, it
produces many grains. In the same way, when Christ
rose from the dead, He brought forth many brothers. In
Gods sight, Christs resurrection was the regeneration
of the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3). These many sons,
Christs brothers, are His reproduction and duplication
with His life and nature. First Corinthians 15 is a chap-
ter on the truth of Christs resurrection. Paul said, But
someone will say, How are the dead raised? And with
what kind of body do they come? Foolish man, what
you sow is not made alive unless it dies (vv. 35-36). As
the grain of wheat, Christ had to fall into the earth and
die so that He could be made alive in resurrection.
When a grain of wheat resurrects, it is transfigured into
another form. In the same way, Christ was transfigured
into another form in resurrection. He was transfigured
from the flesh into the Spirit. Indeed, the last Adam,
Christ in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit (v. 45b).
T
he unveiled truth of Christs resurrection includes
these three great things: the birth and designation of
Christ as the firstborn Son of God, the regeneration of the
many sons of God, and the last Adam becoming a life-
giving Spirit (Lee, Practical Way 32-35). Christ as the
firstborn Son of God is the Head of the Body, the many
sons of God are the members of the Body, and the life-
giving Spirit is the reality and life of the Body. The
product of Christs marvelous, all-surpassing resurrection
is the desire of Gods heart to have the Body of Christ
with the life-giving Spirit as its essence. There is one Body
and one Spirit (Eph. 4:4). The one Body is the goal of
Gods economy. Gods economy (Gk. oikonomia1 Tim.
1:4) is His household administration, His divine plan ac-
cording to His hearts desire, to dispense Himself as life
and everything into His chosen and redeemed people to
make them His spiritual house, the Body of Christ, which
ultimately consummates in the New Jerusalem. The one
Spirit is the means by which God accomplishes His econ-
omy. Whatever we do in our Christian life and work
should be governed, not by right and wrong, but by our
being able to affirmatively answer two questions: Is this
for the Body? and Is this by the Spirit? Whatever we
do must be by the life-giving Spirit for the building up of
the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem.
On the evening of the day of His resurrection, Christ ap-
peared to His disciples and did something remarkable. He
did not give them a stirring teaching. Instead, He
breathed into them and
said to them, Receive the
Holy Spirit (John 20:22).
The Greek word for Spirit
is pneuma, which may also
be translated as breath. A
persons breath is his very
essence, his essential being.
Here the Spirit as breath
was breathed as life into
the disciples for their life. By breathing the Spirit into the
disciples, the Lord imparted Himself into them as life and
everything (Recovery Version, John 20:22, note 1). The
resurrected Christ is the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who
is the life-giving Spirit, the holy breath, the holy pneuma.
We may desire to know the historical Christ, the objective
Christ, the Christ in the flesh, but we need to press on to
know the pneumatic Christ, the Christ today, the subjec-
tive Christ, the Christ as the Spirit. When Paul expressed
his strong aspiration to know Christ (Phil. 3:10a), it was
to know the pneumatic Christ in his experience. Paul said,
Even though we have known Christ according to the
flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer (2 Cor. 5:16).
Now we know Christ as the Spirit in our spirit.
G
od breathed Himself into man twice. Both of these
breathings were of great significance. Genesis 2:7
says, The Lord God formed man of dust from the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul (lit.). The Hebrew word
for breath here is neshamah, the same word used for spirit
in Proverbs 20:27: The spirit of man is the lamp of the
Lord. The breath of life breathed into mans nostrils be-
came mans human spirit and made him a living soul.
Mans human spirit is to be the receptacle, the container,
of the divine Spirit. On the day of resurrection, God
breathed once again into man! This time He breathed
Himself as the holy pneuma into man. When we believe
into Christ, we receive Him as the Spirit, the pneuma,
into our spirit. Thus, the divine Spirit dwells in our hu-
man spirit, and these two are mingled together as one
spirit. The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) with our spirit
(2 Tim. 4:22); the Spirit witnesses with our spirit (Rom.
8:16); we worship God who is Spirit in, with, and by our
spirit (John 4:24); and he who is joined to the Lord is
one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). Because the divine Spirit dwells
in and is mingled with our human spirit to be one spirit,
this mingled Spirit is the mark of Gods economy. We
do not want to be those who miss the mark. This is why
we want to live, walk, move, work, and have our entire
12 Affirmation & Critique
When Paul expressed his strong aspiration to know Christ,
it was to know the pneumatic Christ in his experience.
Paul said, Even though we have known Christ according to the
flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer.
Now we know Christ as the Spirit in our spirit.
being according to the life-giving Spirit in our spirit (Gal.
5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4; cf. Zech. 4:6).
G
ods second breathing, the breathing of Christ as the
Spirit into man in Christs second becoming, was
prophesied by Christ in John 7. We can see the intensity of
the desire of Christ to be
mans life and everything in
John 7 when He was at the
Feast of Tabernacles (v. 2).
This was the last feast of
the year for the Jewish peo-
ple, the culmination of their
years labor on the good
land. It was a feast in which
they enjoyed the rich har-
vest of the good land in their worship to God (Deut.
16:13-15). Such a feast signifies the enjoyment of the suc-
cess of human life. But the enjoyment of any success in life,
no matter how great, is temporal; it has a last day.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him
come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the
Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers
of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit,
whom those who believed into Him were about to re-
ceive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet
been glorified. (John 7:37-39)
Notice that Jesus cried out to the people at this feast.
This is the cry of life, the cry of Christ, throughout the
ages to the water-seeking thirsty ones. His cry is for
them to come to Him and drink. According to the Lords
word to the Samaritan woman in John 4, we are to drink
of something called living water (v. 10). When we be-
lieve into the Lord Jesus by receiving Him as our Savior,
He enters into our spirit as the life-giving Spirit to be-
come in us a fountain of water gushing up into eternal
life (v. 14). According to the Lords promise, out of our
innermost being (our spirit, cf. Dan. 7:15) will flow the
Spirit as rivers of living water.
John 7:39 says that this Spirit, the indwelling Spirit as rivers
of living water flowing out of the Lords believers, was not
yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The word
given was added to the phrase the Spirit was not yet in both
the King James and New American Standard Versions, but
the word given is not in the original Greek. Andrew Murray
points out that this expressionthe Spirit was not yetif
accepted as it stands, may guide us into the true under-
standing of the real significance of the Spirits not coming
until Jesus was glorified (37-38). Although the Spirit of
God was there from the beginning (Gen. 1:1-2), the
Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the life-giving Spirit,
was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Jesus
glorification was His resurrection (Luke 24:26). It was in
resurrection that He as the last Adam became a life-giving
Spirit. The glorified Jesus is now the life-giving Spirit who
can be received as living water and can flow out of His be-
lievers innermost being as rivers of living water!
After Jesus resurrection, the Spirit of God became the
Spirit of the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Jesus
Christ, who was breathed into the disciples by Christ in
the evening of the day on which He was resurrected
(20:22). The Spirit is now the another Comforter, the
Spirit of reality promised by Christ before His death
(14:16-17). When the Spirit was the Spirit of God, He
had only the divine element. After He became the Spirit
of Jesus Christ through Christs incarnation, crucifixion,
and resurrection, the Spirit had both the divine element
and the human element, with all the essence and reality of
the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ.
Hence, the Spirit is now the all-inclusive Spirit of Jesus
Christ as the living water for us to receive. (Recovery
Version, John 7:39, note 1)
T
he only way that Christ can be mans very life is for
Him to be glorified in resurrection to become the
life-giving Spirit. It is only as the Spirit that He can enter
into our spirit to be our very life. This is why the Lord
told the disciples in John 16 that it was expedient for
Him to go away, for if He did not go away through His
death and resurrection, He could not come into them as
the life-giving Spirit (v. 7). Christ in the flesh could only
be among them. Christ as the Spirit could dwell in them
forever.
The promise of Christs becoming the life-giving Spirit in
resurrection is also spoken of by the Lord in John 14: I
will ask the Father, and He will give you another Com-
forter, that He may be with you forever (v. 16). The
Lords promise of another Comforter implies that He was
the first Comforter who was with the disciples temporarily
in the flesh. This other Comforter would be with them for-
ever as the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot
receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but
you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in
you (v. 17). Notice that the Lord in verse 17 uses the third
person, He, in speaking of the Spirit of reality who would
be in the disciples. But in the very next verse the He
October 1996 13
When we believe into the Lord Jesus
by receiving Him as our Savior, He enters into our spirit
as the life-giving Spirit to become in us
a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life.
changes to I when the Lord says, I will not leave you as
orphans; I am coming to you. This shows that He, the
Spirit of reality in verse 17, is I, the Lord Jesus in
verse 18. The I, the first Comforter in the flesh among
the disciples, would become He, the second Comforter
as the Spirit in the disciples in resurrection. The Lord con-
tinued by telling the disciples that in that day, the day of
resurrection, they would know that He is in the Father,
and they in Him, and He in them (v. 20). This shows that
the Spirit of reality who would be in them in verse 17 is
the resurrected Christ in them in verse 20. The Christ who
was in the flesh as the first Comforter became the
life-giving Spirit in resurrection as the second Comforter
to be in and with the disciples forever. Andrew Murray
said that by Christs being glorified in resurrection,
a new era has commenced in the life and the work of the
Spirit. He can now come down to witness of the perfect
union of the Divine and the human, and in becoming our
life, to make us partakers of it. There is now the Spirit of
the glorified Jesus: He hath poured Him forth; we have
received Him to stream into us, to stream through us,
and to stream forth from us in rivers of blessing. (40)
W
hen the life-giving Spirit comes into us, He comes
as the totality of the Triune God. It is fallacious to
say that the three of the Godhead are separate. Yes, they
are distinct and coexistent, but they also coinhere; they
are eternally inseparable. When we receive Christ as our
Savior and life, He enters into our spirit as the Spirit, and
the Spirit comes as the Son and with the Father. The en-
tire Triune God comes to dwell in the believers. The
Father is in us (Eph. 4:6), the Son is in us (Col. 1:27),
and the Spirit is in us (Rom. 8:9). The Triune God has
come to dwell within as the wonderful Spirit in us! It is
helpful to compare what the Lord said in John 14:26 and
15:26 concerning the sending of the Spirit. John 14:26
says, But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Fa-
ther will send in My name. Here the Father sends the
Spirit in the Sons name. In the Sons name means as the
Son. Thus, the Father sends the Spirit as the Son. John
15:26 says, But when the Comforter comes, whom I
will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of reality,
who proceeds from the Father, He will testify concerning
Me. Here the Son sends the Spirit from the Father. The
sense in Greek of the word from is actually from with. The
Spirit comes not only from the Father but also with the
Father. These two verses show us that the Father sends
the Spirit as the Son, and the Son sends the Spirit from
with the Father. Therefore, we may say that the Father as
the Son sends the Spirit as the Son with the Father. The
Spirit as the reaching and presence of the Triune God co-
mes to dwell in the believers.
The life-giving Spirit also comes into us as the consumma-
tion of the processed Triune God. (This subject is treated
in depth in The Processed and Consummated Triune
God in A & C, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 4-16.) Consummation
means completion. The Triune God had to complete His
journey on the bridge of time by passing through a series
of processes to reach a consummation. His becoming a
man of flesh and blood by entering into the womb of a
human virgin and being born as a man was a process
(Matt. 1:18, 20). His passing through human living for
thirty-three and a half years was another great process. In
His human living He denied Himself and lived by the Fa-
ther (John 6:57). He spoke the Fathers word (14:24;
7:16-17; 12:49-50), did the Fathers work (14:10b;
5:17, 19), did the Fathers will (5:30; 6:38), and sought
the Fathers glory (7:18). He did not do anything out of
Himself (5:19, 30; 8:28); the Father was the source of all
that He said and did. Such an indescribable life and min-
istry are a pattern of what the Christian life should bea
life of a God-man. He also passed through the process of
crucifixion to terminate every negative thing in the uni-
verse. The process of resurrection followed in which He
was consummated to be the life-giving Spirit. The
life-giving Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9), the
Spirit of Gods Son (Gal. 4:6), the Spirit of our Father
(Matt. 10:20), and the Spirit of reality (John 14:17).
This Spirit is the reality of Christ, who is the embodiment
of the Father. God the Father is embodied in Christ the
Son, who is realized as the life-giving Spirit.
T
he life-giving Spirit is the all-inclusive Spirit of Jesus
Christ spoken of by Paul in Philippians 1:19: For I
know that for me this will turn out to salvation through
your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus
Christ. Verses 20 and 21 show that Paul enjoyed such a
bountiful supply to live Christ for His magnification. The
Bible in Basic English says that this bountiful supply is the
giving out of the stored wealth. The life-giving Spirit con-
tains the stored wealth of the unsearchable riches of the
incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and God-exalted Christ
(Eph. 3:8). This Spirit is not merely the Spirit of God but
the Spirit of the God-man, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who
gives life to us to make us men of life who magnify Christ
in all of our circumstances. This Spirit includes the ingredi-
ents of the divinity, humanity, human living, effective death,
and powerful resurrection of Christ. In this sense, the
life-giving Spirit is like an all-inclusive drink which contains
many elements. The supply of such a Spirit is truly bounti-
ful. Whatever we need, He is. All of the person of Christ
with His life, nature, accomplishments, attainments, and
obtainments is included in and made real by the life-giving
Spirit of reality.
Paul needed such an all-inclusive Spirit to be his bountiful
supply for his salvation. The Greek word for bountiful
supply means the supplying of all needs [of the chorus] by
the Choregus. So the words here mean the supplying of all
needs [of the Christian] by the Spirit (Conybeare and
14 Affirmation & Critique
Howson 727). When we were regenerated, Christ as the
Spirit came into our spirit to be our divine Choragus, the
One who supplies all our needs. Paul wrote the book of
Philippians from Rome, where he was imprisoned (Phil.
1:13), but within him dwelt the all-sufficient Spirit as his
divine Choragus to supply all his inward needs. In his im-
prisonment Paul said that he knew this would turn out to
his salvation through the saints petition and the boun-
tiful supply of the all-inclusive Spirit. The salvation
spoken of here does not refer to eternal salvation because
Paul was undoubtedly saved in this sense. According to
the context, for Paul to be saved was for him to not be
put to shame in any of his dire circumstances by living
Christ for His magnification. In the eyes of the Roman
jailers, Paul enlarged, extolled, and made Christ great.
How could he do this? He did this by the bountiful sup-
ply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This Spirit is the Spirit of
the man Jesus (Acts 16:7), a man with abundant strength
to radiate and express God in
the midst of intense suffering.
Paul lived out this man by the
life-giving, bountiful Spirit of
reality, the Spirit of the
God-man who makes this
man real to us. This Spirit is
also the Spirit of the resur-
rected Christ with the power
of resurrection, the surpassing
greatness of Gods power to-
ward us who believe, the
power that raised Christ from
the dead, seated Him in the
heavenlies far above all, sub-
jected all things under His
feet, and gave Him to be
Head over all things to the
church (Eph. 1:19-22). To know the power of Christs
resurrection, we must know the Spirit of the resurrected
Christ in our spirit. In the midst of his imprisonment,
Paul was enjoying the Spirit of the man Jesus and of the
resurrected Christ, with all the ingredients of what He is
and what He accomplished. Actually, those who saw him
in prison saw Christ because when Paul lived, that was
Christ who lived. For him to live was Christ. The follow-
ing portion from note 1 on Acts 28:9 in the Recovery
Version describes the kind of life which Paul lived as seen
in his imprisonment-voyage in the book of Acts:
This life was fully dignified, with the highest standard of
human virtues expressing the most excellent divine attrib-
utes, a life that resembled the one that the Lord Himself
had lived on the earth years before. This was Jesus living
again on the earth in His divinely enriched humanity!
This was the wonderful, excellent, and mysterious
God-man, who lived in the Gospels, continuing to live in
the Acts through one of His many members! This was a
living witness of the incarnated, crucified, resurrected,
and God-exalted Christ! Paul in his voyage lived and
magnified Christ (Phil. 1:20-21).
Paul was a pattern to us believers of living and magnify-
ing Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus
Christ.
H
e also revealed to us a simple way to enjoy and appro-
priate this Spirit. First Corinthians 12:3 says, No one
can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit. Paul said in
the same chapter that we were all given to drink one
Spirit (v. 13). When we say with a proper and exercised
spirit, Jesus is Lord! we are in the Holy Spirit. Hence, to
call on the name of the Lord Jesus is a way to enjoy, partici-
pate in, experience, and drink of the bountiful Spirit. When
we call, Lord Jesus, we are in the Holy Spirit, and the
kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the
Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).
This shows that by calling on
the name of the Lord we can
live in the reality of Gods king-
dom to enjoy Him as right-
eousness, peace, and joy in the
Spirit. David said, What shall I
render to the Lord / For all His
benefits toward me? / I shall lift
up the cup of salvation, / And
call upon the name of the
Lord (Psa. 116:12-13). In
Psalm 27:1 David declared
that the Lord was his salvation.
David then revealed that he
could lift up the cup of salva-
tion and drink of the Lord as
his salvation by calling on the
name of the Lord. This matches Pauls thought in 1 Corin-
thians 12. In Philippians Paul said that every tongue should
openly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God
the Father (2:11). This again is to call on the name of the
Lord. Paul told us in Romans that the Lord is rich to all
who call upon Him; for whoever calls upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved (10:12-13). To call on the name of
the Lord is the way to enjoy the riches of the bountiful sup-
ply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, not just for our initial
salvation but for our daily salvation to live and magnify
Christ. Calling on the name of the Lord is first mentioned in
Genesis 4:26 when Seth named his son Enosh. At that time
men began to call upon the name of the Lord. It is signif-
icant that Enosh in Hebrew means (mortal) man (Jackson
30). When man realizes that he is mortal and, hence, weak,
fragile, worthless, and frail, he begins to call upon the name
of the Lord for his daily salvation. Paul said that we are
earthen vessels, vessels who are worthless and fragile, but
within these vessels is an incomparable, heavenly treasure of
worth and strength, the glorious Christ as the all-inclusive
October 1996 15
In the midst of his
imprisonment, Paul was enjoying
the Spirit of the man Jesus
and of the resurrected Christ,
with all the ingredients of what
He is and what He
accomplished. Actually, those
who saw him in prison saw Christ
because when Paul lived,
that was Christ who lived.
Spirit (2 Cor. 4:7). We can appropriate this treasure by call-
ing on the name of the Lord. He is rich to all who call upon
Him. When we call a persons name, we get the person of
that name. When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus in
prayer, we get His person, and His person, His very pres-
ence, is the Spirit. We all need to learn to invoke the Lords
name to enjoy Him continually as the vivifying Spirit
throughout the day.
1 O Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord!
Forgive me if I say,
For very love, Thy sacred name
A thousand times a day.
O Jesus, Lord, with me abide;
I rest in Thee, whateer betide;
Thy gracious smile is my reward;
I love, I love Thee, Lord! (Hymns 191)
P
aul was able to magnify Christ in his imprisonment
because he had learned the secret (Phil. 4:12) of en-
joying the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ
through letting his requests be made known to God in
everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving
(v. 6). Calling on the Lords name through prayer and
petition in everything saves us so that we can be anxious
in nothing. It is in this way that Christs divine attributes
in Himself as the Spirit become our human virtues for us
to magnify Him, extol Him, and make Him great in the
eyes of all those around us. May the Lord as the Spirit of
reality guide us into all the reality of Himself for our daily
salvation to magnify Him for His glorious expression.
A. B. Simpson wrote a wonderful hymn on breathing in the
Lord as the Spirit (Hymns 233). This hymn, which describes
the continual experience of the Lord breathing Himself as
the Spirit into the believers, should be our prayer:
1 O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me,
Teach me how to breathe Thee in;
Help me pour into Thy bosom
All my life of self and sin.
I am breathing out my sorrow,
Breathing out my sin;
I am breathing, breathing, breathing,
All Thy fulness in.
2 I am breathing out my own life,
That I may be filled with Thine;
Letting go my strength and weakness,
Breathing in Thy life divine.
3 Breathing out my sinful nature,
Thou hast borne it all for me;
Breathing in Thy cleansing fulness,
Finding all my life in Thee.
4 I am breathing out my sorrow,
On Thy kind and gentle breast;
Breathing in Thy joy and comfort,
Breathing in Thy peace and rest.
5 I am breathing out my sickness,
Thou hast borne its burden too;
I am breathing in Thy healing,
Ever promised, every new.
6 I am breathing out my longings
In Thy listening, loving ear;
I am breathing in Thy answers,
Stilling every doubt and fear.
7 I am breathing every moment,
Drawing all my life from Thee;
Breath by breath I live upon Thee,
Lord, Thy Spirit breathe in me.
Because the Lord is the holy pneuma, the holy breath, the
holy air, we need to breathe Him in continually by calling
on His name. Jeremiah experienced this spiritual breath-
ing when he said, I called upon thy name, O Jehovah,
out of the lowest dungeon. / Thou heardest my voice;
hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. / Thou
drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou
saidst, Fear not (Lam. 3:55-57, ASV). Many times in
our experience we feel that we are in the lowest dungeon,
but in that lowest, darkest place of suffering we can
breathe in the Lord as the Spirit by calling on His name.
We truly sense inwardly His drawing near to us to be our
courage, as we breathe the divine pneuma. It is in this
way that we experience the life-giving Spirit as the reality
of resurrection. Breathing in the Lord Spirit by calling on
His name is not a religious form. It is as normal and
spontaneous as breathing physically. This is the only way
we can obey the New Testament command to pray un-
ceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17). To pray unceasingly is to
breathe unceasingly. If we stop breathing for too long,
we will die. This is true both physically and spiritually.
We can call, Lord Jesus, loudly, we can call quietly, or
we can even call silently and inwardly. We can call by say-
ing, Lord Jesus, I love You, or, Lord Jesus, I need
You. We can call, Lord Jesus, by conversing with the
Lord about everything. This is to breathe out what we
are and what troubles us, and to breathe in what He is as
the unique answer. As the aforementioned hymn says,
out of our love for the Lord, we should speak His sacred
name a thousand times a day. It is in this way that we can
be transformed into His image and live Him for His
magnification. This results in our growth in the divine life
which builds up the Body of Christ.
A
nother way that we can breathe in the Lord as the
life-giving Spirit is through the Holy Scriptures. Sec-
ond Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is God-breathed.
16 Affirmation & Critique
We do agree that we should study and read the Scrip-
tures, but we should learn to turn our study and reading
into prayer. This makes our study a prayerful study and
our reading a prayerful reading, and this causes the Lords
word to become the Spirit, the breathing out of God, for
us to breathe in. The words which the Lord speaks to us are
spirit (John 6:63), and we need to receive the sword of the
Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God, by means of all
prayer and petition (Eph. 6:17-18).
The Spirit is...the very essence,
the substance, of the Scripture,
just as phosphorus is the essential
substance in matches. We must
strike the Spirit of the Scripture
with our spirit to catch the divine
fire. (Recovery Version, 2 Tim.
3:16, note 2)
The way to strike the Spirit of the
Scripture with our spirit is to pray
with the very words of the Scrip-
ture. Then we can catch the divine
fire. The Lord said in Jeremiah
that His word is like fire (23:29).
Furthermore, we need to practice
turning Gods words into prayer
for our personal enjoyment of
Christ as the Spirit in Gods
Word. In this way we gain spiri-
tual food for the great benefit of
the Body of Christ. (See the Auto-
biography of George Mller,
pp. 206-210, for his morning by
morning experience of reading
Gods Word by means of prayer.)
Pray-reading Gods Word is a
wonderful way to enjoy the riches
of Christ as the bountiful supply
of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
W
e must remember that the
main function of the Spirit
is to give life. He is the life-giving,
life-dispensing Spirit. Nowhere in the Scriptures is this
more apparent than in Romans 8, which unveils to us the
law of the Spirit of life. The title the Spirit of life implies
that the nature of the Spirit is life. The Spirit Himself is
life. He functions as the life-giving Spirit to impart Him-
self as life to the believers for their organic salvation in
life. Romans 8:2 and 9-11 speak of the Spirit of life, the
Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ, and the in-
dwelling Spirit. These are all interchangeable terms. They
all refer to the Spirit who gives life.
The life-giving Spirit is called the Spirit of life, the Spirit
of life is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is the Spirit
of Christ, the Spirit of Christ is just Christ Himself. Fur-
thermore, this Spirit who is of life, of God, of Christ, and
Christ Himself dwells in us as the indwelling Spirit to dis-
pense life to us all the time. This is the pneumatic Christ.
(Lee, Divine 15)
Romans 8 shows that this life-dispensing Spirit imparts life
into our entire tripartite being to make us men of life.
First, He gives life to our spirit to
make our human spirit life (v. 10).
What a marvel that the regenerat-
ing life-giving Spirit came into our
spirit to make our spirit life (Gk.
zoe), the eternal uncreated life of
God, which is Christ as the em-
bodiment of God realized as the
Spirit of life. A regenerated be-
lievers innermost being, his spirit,
is zoe! The life-dispensing Spirit
goes further in transformation to
give zoe to the believers mind.
Romans 8:6 says that the mind set
on the spirit is zoe. When we set
our mind, the leading part of our
soul, on the life-giving Spirit in
our spirit, our mind becomes zoe.
Finally, the Spirit who indwells us,
according to Romans 8:11, gives
zoe to our mortal bodies. All this
takes place by the zoe-giving Spirit
dispensing zoe into our spirit, soul,
and body to make us men consti-
tuted with zoe and channels of zoe
to others for the building up of the
Body of Christ. The apostle John
points out in 1 John 5:16 that if
we see our brother sinning a sin
not unto death, we should ask and
give him life, zoe. This shows that
we should be one with the
zoe-giving Spirit to such an extent
that we become zoe-giving mem-
bers of the Body of Christ. How
can we be such? When we see a brother with a weakness of
sin in his character or living, we should ask. We need to be
askers not criticizers. When we ask as one who is abiding
in the Lord in one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17), the
Lord gives zoe to us to make us channels of zoe to the one
for whom we ask. This zoe can swallow up the death that
comes from sin and make a deadened member a living,
functioning member of the Body of Christ. We all need to
be ministers of zoe by being one with the Lord as the
zoe-giving Spirit. He is the zoe and He came that we might
have zoe abundantly! We can have zoe abundantly because
He is the zoe-giving Spirit.
October 1996 17
The main function
of the Spirit
is to give life.
He is the life-giving,
life-dispensing Spirit.
The Spirit Himself
is life.
He functions as
the life-giving Spirit
to impart Himself
as life
to the believers
for their organic
salvation in life.
C
hrist became a life-giving Spirit in resurrection in or-
der to carry out Gods organic salvation to
accomplish His hearts desire to build up the Body of
Christ which consummates the New Jerusalem. Without
Christs being the life-giving Spirit, we could not be saved
organically for the building up of His Body. It is as the
Spirit that Christ can give life to and indwell our spirit in
regeneration (John 3:6; Rom. 8:16). It is as the Spirit
that He can nourish us with Himself as the green pasture
of life to be our spiritual food in His organic shepherding
(1 Cor. 10:3). It is as the Spirit that He can make us holy
partakers of the divine nature for our sanctification so that
ultimately we can be His holy wife, the holy city (1 Thes.
5:23). It is as the Spirit that He renews us to make us a
new creation (Titus 3:5). It is as the Spirit that He trans-
forms us into precious stones for Gods building (2 Cor.
3:18). It is as the Spirit that He shapes us, conforms us,
into the image of Himself as the firstborn Son of God
(Rom. 8:29). Finally, it is as the Spirit that He glorifies us
with the glory of God so that we become exactly like Him
in life, nature, and appearance, but not in the Godhead
(Phil. 3:21; 1 John 3:2).
It is as the life-giving Spirit that Christ can be everything
to us as the solution to all the problems in the church. The
church in Corinth was full of serious problems, such as di-
vision (1 Cor. 1:10-13), incestuous fornication (5:1), and
even lawsuits (6:1-8). How would we write to help such a
church? Paul as our pattern ministered the all-inclusive
Christ as the life-giving Spirit to them. Paul addressed his
Epistle in this way: To the church of God which is in
Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Je-
sus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is
theirs and ours (1:2). Christ is theirs and ours; that is,
He is our God-allotted portion, the portion of the saints
(Col. 1:12). We have been called to call; that is, we
have been called to enjoy Christ as our portion by calling
upon the name of our Lord in every place. Paul told the
Corinthians that God had called them into the fellowship
of His Son, who was their God-given portion (1 Cor.
1:9). The Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, means joint
or common participation. We were called to participate
in Christ, to partake of Him daily as our portion in the
most intimate relationship with Him so that He can be
life and everything to us. This fellowship of Gods Son is
the fellowship of the Spirit which Paul speaks of in the
concluding verse of 2 Corinthians.
B
y being the life-giving Spirit, Christ can be every-
thing to us in our experience. In 1 Corinthians 1
Christ is Gods power and Gods wisdom as righteous-
ness, sanctification, and
redemption to us (vv. 24,
30). In chapter two He is
the crucified One (v. 2),
the Lord of glory (v. 8),
and the deep things of
God (v. 10). In chapter
three He is the foundation
of Gods building (v. 11).
In chapter five He is the
real Passover (v. 7) and the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth (v. 8). In chapter ten He is our spiritual food,
our spiritual drink, and our spiritual rock (vv. 3-4). In
chapter eleven He is the Head of every man (v. 3), and in
chapter twelve He is the Body of the Head (v. 12). In
chapter fifteen He is the firstfruits (vv. 20, 23), the second
man (v. 47), and the last Adam (v. 45). Finally, He is the
life-giving Spirit (v. 45). The life-giving Spirit is the total-
ity of all that Christ is as the all-inclusive One. We should
focus our entire being on Christ as the life-giving Spirit in
our spirit. We should focus on Him as such a One, not on
any persons, matters, or things other than Him so that all
the problems of sin and death among the believers may
be solved.
First Corinthians shows that Christ the Lord is the all-
inclusive, life-giving Spirit and that He dwells in our
spirit, where we are joined to Him to be one spirit with
Him (6:17). The apostle Paul wrote this Epistle to the
Corinthians in order to motivate them to aspire to the
growth in life that they might be spiritual men. This
book reveals that we can be one of three kinds of men:
fleshly men, soulish men, or spiritual men. Paul told the
Corinthians that they were fleshly, even fleshy. Not only
did some among them live by the flesh, but also some
among them were totally of the flesh, that is, fleshy
(3:1, 3). Others of them were soulish (2:14). This means
that their soul was the predominant, most powerful part
of their being. Paul said that such persons do not receive
the things of the Spirit of God because they are dis-
cerned spiritually (v. 14). Paul indicated that the
Corinthians should aspire to be spiritual men who live
and walk according to the spirit (v. 15), men who are
dominated, governed, directed, led, and moved by their
mingled spirit, their human spirit mingled with the life-
giving Spirit as one spirit. Only the spirit of man knows
the things of man, and only the Spirit of God knows the
things of God (v. 11). In order to know the things of
Christ, the God-man, we must live, walk, move, and
have our being according to the Spirit of the God-man,
18 Affirmation & Critique
In order to know the things of Christ,
the God-man, we must live, walk, move,
and have our being according to the Spirit of the God-man,
the life-giving Spirit, in our spirit.
the life-giving Spirit, in our spirit. Which part of our tri-
partite being will dominate us, and what kind of men
will we be? May we pray daily for the Father to
strengthen us with His divine power into our inner man
(Eph. 3:16), our regenerated spirit with Gods life as its
life, that we may be spiritual men, men of Christ as the
life-giving Spirit, for the
building up of His Body.
P
auls second Epistle to
the Corinthians may be
considered his autobiogra-
phy and shows that he was
a spiritual man whose life
and ministry were focused
on Christ as the Spirit who
gives life. Paul said that his ministry, the New Testament
ministry, was the ministry of the Spirit (3:8). He said that
God had made him and his co-workers sufficient as minis-
ters of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the
Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (v. 6). Paul
did not minister the letter of the law to the saints. Instead, he
ministered the life-giving Spirit to them. He went further to
say in verse 17 that the Lord is the Spirit. According to the
context of this verse, the Lord here is Christ the Lord (2:12,
14-15, 1; 3:3-4, 14, 16; 4:5). Paul is most emphatic when he
says, For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as
Lord (4:5). It is abundantly clear from 2 Corinthians 3:6
and 17 that the Lord, Christ Jesus, is the Spirit who gives
life, the life-giving Spirit. In verse 18 Paul speaks of Him as
the Lord Spirit. This is a compound title like the Father
God and the Lord Christ. The Lord Christ indwells us as the
transforming Lord Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 1 the Spirit is re-
vealed as the anointing Spirit (v. 21), the sealing Spirit (v. 22),
and the pledging Spirit (v. 22). In chapter three He is the in-
scribing Spirit as the divine ink ministered by the apostles
into the believers hearts to make them living letters of Christ
so that others can read and know Christ in their being (v. 3).
In this chapter He is also the life-giving Spirit (v. 6), the
ministering Spirit (v. 8), the liberating Spirit (v. 17), and the
transforming Spirit (v. 18). Finally, in chapter thirteen He
is the transmitting Spirit (v. 14). As the Spirit of fellowship,
He transmits into the believers the reality of the grace of
Christ and the love of God with all their mysterious import.
This was prophesied by the Lord Jesus in John 16:13-15:
But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide
you into all the reality; for He will not speak from Him-
self, but what He hears He will speak; and He will declare
to you the things that are coming. He will glorify Me, for
He will receive of Mine and will declare it to you. All that
the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He
receives of Mine and will declare it to you.
These verses reveal the Spirit as the transmission of the Di-
vine Trinity to the believers. All that the Father is and has
is the Sons and is embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9); all that
the Son is and has is received by the Spirit, who declares it
to the believers and, in so doing, guides them into all the
reality of the Triune God. This is our joint participation in
the Spirits transmission of the grace of Christ with the
love of God for the building up of the Body of Christ.
In John 14 the Lord Jesus reveals the Triune God dispens-
ing Himself into the believers. The Father is embodied in
the Son and seen among the believers (vv. 7-14). Then the
Son is realized as the Spirit to abide in the believers (vv.
15-20). It is in this way that the Triune God makes His
abode with the believers (vv. 21-24). This revelation is ex-
pressed deeply and poignantly in the following hymn of
praise to the Lord by Watchman Nee (Hymns 446):
1 Lord, when the Father neer was known,
The Father came through Thee below,
That we who lived in ignorance
Might through Thyself the Father know.
2 But, Lord, when Thou wast here on earth,
How scarce were those Thyself who knew;
A veil there was twixt Thee and them;
They crowded round, but saw not through.
3 Now as the Spirit Thou hast come
Een as the Father came in Thee;
As we through Thee the Father know,
Now through the Spirit we know Thee.
4 Not with the flesh Thou now art clothed
Then must Thou walk with toil around;
But as the Spirit in our heart
Thou dost supply Thyself unbound.
5 Thou, Lord, the Father once wast called,
But now the Holy Spirit art;
The Spirit is Thine other form,
Thyself to dwell within our heart.
6 By knowing Thee as Spirit, Lord,
We realize Thy lifes outflow,
Thy glory and Thy character,
And all Thy beings wonders know.
7 Praise to Thy Name now floods our heart;
There is no one as dear as Thee;
For since we know how real Thou art,
No other one could lovelier be.
October 1996 19
All that the Father is and has is the Sons and is embodied in
the Son; all that the Son is and has is received by the Spirit,
who declares it to the believers and in so doing, guides them
into all the reality of the Triune God.
Our Desperate Need Today
T
here is a desperate need for all of the Lords children
to know Him as the vivifying Spirit. This is because
the attack on the church is the attack of death. There is
truly an ongoing battle for life in this universe. In Mat-
thew 16:18 the Lord said that the gates of Hades, the
power of death, shall not prevail against the church. Shall
not prevail indicates an ongoing attack of Satan, who has
the might of death, on the church as the Body of Christ,
the corporate vessel to contain, experience, enjoy, minis-
ter, and express Christ as life. Through Christs wonderful
death, He destroyed the devil, who has the might of
death (Heb. 2:14). But the controversy between life and
death is not yet concluded because the sentence of Satans
destruction must be executed in time through the Body
of Christ. We must be those who pay the price in this age
to enjoy the life-giving Spirit as the reality of Christs res-
urrection life. To deny that Christ is the life-giving Spirit
is equal to denying the reality of resurrection. The
life-giving Spirit is the life pulse of Christs resurrection
(Lee, Conclusion 797-798). If resurrection life is to prevail
in the church today, we must know Christ as the
life-giving Spirit. We must be daily filled in our spirit
with the life-giving Spirit (Eph. 5:18).
We are deeply grieved by todays aberrations in relation
to the truth and experience of Christ as the life-giving
Spirit. There is a markedly distorted view of the truth and
experience of the Spirit in much of todays charismatic
movement, as John F. MacArthur, Jr., has factually
pointed out in his book Charismatic Chaos. But there has
also been a missing, an avoidance, and a neglect of the
truth and experience of Christ as the Spirit in todays
Protestantism. Some, because of their tradition or incom-
plete view of the whole truth of the Divine Trinity in
both His essential and economical aspects, have even
twisted the clear word of the Bible in 1 Corinthians
15:45 and 2 Corinthians 3:17 to virulently oppose the
truth that Christ is the vivifying Spirit. (Please see the
sidebar on this page and the next for an answer to such
distortion and twisting.) If we remain merely in the truth
and realization of Christs first becoming, we have merely
an objective Christ who is sitting at the right hand of
God. Romans 8 reveals that Christ is not only sitting at
the right hand of God (v. 34) but also that Christ is in us
(v. 10). He is in us as the pneumatic Christ, the
life-giving Spirit as the reality of resurrection. It is as the
life-giving Spirit in our spirit that He can be subjectively
real to us to swallow up all that is of death.
I
f we deny the truth of Christ being the Spirit in our
spirit, all that is left for us is to live by the soul, to be
soulish men to whom the things of the Spirit of God are
foolishness (1 Cor. 2:14). Indeed, the source of much of the
work we see today is from the soulish ability of man with his
20 Affirmation & Critique
TWO LIFE-GIVING SPIRITS?
Let us now turn to 1 Corinthians 15:45. This
verse says, The first man, Adam, became a living
soul; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
According to this verse, the last Adam, who is
Christ, became a life-giving Spirit. Some twist this
verse, saying that it speaks of a life-giving Spirit,
not the life-giving Spirit. But besides the Holy
Spirit who gives life is there another Spirit who
gives life? To say that there are two Spirits giving
life is to teach another great heresy. Whether the
article is definite or indefinite, the last Adam, who
is Christ Himself, became a Spirit, a life-giving
Spirit. At this point we must refer to John 6:63,
where the Lord says, It is the Spirit who gives
life. In this chapter the Lord Jesus said that He
was the bread of life to give life to people. Eventu-
ally, He indicated that in order to be life to people
as the bread of life, He must be the Spirit, for it is
the Spirit who gives life. Furthermore, 2 Corin-
thians 3:6 says, The letter kills, but the Spirit
gives life. Is not the Spirit in this verse the Holy
Spirit? Can we say that besides this Holy Spirit
who gives life there is also another Spirit who
gives life? No, we dare not say this.
A second way of twisting this verse is to say that
the life-giving Spirit here is not the Holy Spirit,
but the Spirit of Christ as a person. Those who
twist the verse in this manner say that just as we
have a spirit, so Christ also has a spirit. Then they
proceed to say that the spirit here is the spirit of
Christ, not the Holy Spirit. Certainly, the Spirit in
this verse is the Spirit of Christ. But do you be-
lieve that besides the Holy Spirit there is another
Spirit called the Spirit of Christ? Or, to put the
matter another way, do you believe that besides
the Spirit of Christ there is another Spirit called
the Holy Spirit? If you believe this, your mind
must be darkened. No one with an enlightened
mind would believe this.
Those who twist 1 Corinthians 15:45 in this man-
ner do not know that the Holy Spirit today is not
only the Spirit of God, but also the Spirit of Christ
(Rom. 8:9) and even the Spirit of Jesus (Acts
16:7). Romans 8:9 testifies that the Spirit of God
today is the Spirit of Christ, and Phillipians 1:19
testifies that the Spirit of Christ is also the Spirit of
Jesus Christ. In a chapter entitled, The Spirit of the
Glorified Jesus, in his book The Spirit of Christ, An-
drew Murray says that after Christs ascension the
natural gift, eloquence, or enthusiasm, instead of being the
demonstration of the Spirit with His power (1 Cor. 2:4).
Watchman Nee points out that the work of the Spirit can
be counterfeited by what he refers to as the latent power of
the soul (457-516). The soul of man is living, but it cannot
give life. Adam became a living soul, but Christ became a
life-giving Spirit. The soul is the center and life pulse of the
old creation, but the life-giving Spirit is the center and
life-pulse of the new creation. It is Christ as the Spirit and
Christ as the Spirit alone who gives life to produce the new
creation (John 6:63). The coming Antichrist, whom the
Scripture calls the man of lawlessness (2 Thes. 2:3), will be
a charismatic man with a powerful soul who will be able to
perform wonders and signs which are according to Satans
operation and are a lie (vv. 9-10). This Antichrist, who is
the embodiment of Satan, is likened to a beast in Revelation
13. Todays apostates are also likened by Jude to beasts,
animals without reason (v. 10). Jude goes on to say,
These are those who make divisions, soulish, having no
spirit (v. 19). Henry Alford points out that these ones
have not indeed ceased to have a spirit, as a part of their
own tripartite nature [1 Thes. 5:23]: but they have ceased
to possess it in any worthy sense: it is degraded beneath
and under the power of the psyche [soul], the personal
life, so as to have no real vitality of its own. (1777)
If we do not use our spirit or care for our spirit by exer-
cising our spirit to enjoy Christ as the vivifying Spirit, we
are doomed to be soulish brutes. Job 12:10 says that in
Gods hand is the soul of every living thing, and the
spirit of all mankind (lit.). The beasts have a soul, but
only man has a spirit in which Christ as the life-giving
Spirit can dwell. It is through the soul of man that Satan
can attack the church with death. In Matthew 16 Peter
rebuked the Lord after the Lord revealed that He must
go to the cross. The Lord then turned and said to Peter,
Get behind Me, Satan! (v. 23). He went on to reveal
that if we want to follow Him we must deny ourselves,
rejecting our soul-life (vv. 24-26). Satan as death can
come out through the opinion of mans soul. Because of
the fall, the life of mans soul has been contaminated by
Satan and must be denied so that the faculties of the soul
can be used by and subjected to the Lord as the
life-giving Spirit in mans regenerated spirit. In this way
the soul with its faculties is filled, enriched, and uplifted
by the life-giving Spirit for Christs magnification.
Satan as death is also spread by the works of the flesh
(Gal. 5:19). Death is spread in the church in a prevailing
way by gossip, criticism, slander, and an unwillingness to
forgive and seek to be forgiven by others. This is why
Paul said in Galatians,
If you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be
consumed by one another. But I say, Walk by the Spirit
October 1996 21
Holy Spirit did not come as before. In the Old Tes
-tament, He came only as the Spirit of God, but
after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, the
Spirit came not only as the Spirit of God, but also as
the Spirit of the man Christ. Furthermore, John
7:39 says that prior to Christs death and resurrec-
tion this Spirit was not yet. However, the Spirit
of God was already there. The critics apparently do
not know that the Holy Spirit today is not only
the Spirit of God, but also the Spirit of Christ.
This Spirit, who is the Spirit both of God and of
Christ, is the life-giving Spirit. After and through
His resurrection, Christ became such a life-giving
Spirit. Undoubtedly, this Spirit is the Holy Spirit.
Paul was careful in writing 1 Corinthians 15:45.
He did not say, The last Adam became a Spirit.
He added the modifier, life-giving, saying, The
last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. There is no
ground for argument. Who is the Spirit who gives
life? Do you believe that besides the Holy Spirit
there is another divine Spirit who gives life? This
is impossible.
A third twisting of this verse says that the spirit
here is the human spirit of Christ. But if the spirit
here merely denotes the human spirit of Christ,
then there was no need for Him to become a spirit
because he had a human spirit already. Several times
in the Gospels there are references to Christs hu-
man spirit. For example, He knew fully in His
spirit (Mark 2:8); He groaned deeply in His
spirit (Mark 8:12); He was moved with indigna-
tion in His spirit (John 11:33); and He became
troubled in His spirit (John 13:21). Hence, there
was no need for Him to become a human spirit.
A fourth twisting claims that Adam, as a whole,
became a soul; that Christ, as a whole, became a
Spirit; and that this Spirit is not the Holy Spirit
who gives life. I definitely agree that Adam be-
came a soul, for the Bible says so. I also believe
that Christ altogether became a Spirit. But I can-
not believe that this Spirit is something other than
the life-giving Holy Spirit. Do you believe that be-
sides the Holy Spirit there is another Spirit who
gives life? This is illogical. Which will you ac-
ceptthe twistings or the clear word of the Bible?
We all should be simple and should say, Amen
to whatever the Bible says.
Lee, Witness. The Truth Concerning the Trinity.
Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1994.
and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh. For
the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh; for these oppose each other that you would not do
the things that you desire. (vv. 15-17)
This shows the war between the flesh and the Spirit,
which is the war between death and life. The mind of the
flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace
(Rom. 8:6). For if you live according to the flesh, you
must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the prac-
tices of the body, you will live (v. 13).
Our eyes need to be opened by the Lord to see that
there are two different worlds in this universe. There is
the physical world, the kingdom of Satan, built up by
the satanic trinitySatan, sin, and the flesh (Rom. 5:12;
Gen. 6:3; Matt. 16:23). There is also the spiritual
world, the kingdom of God, built up by the Divine
Trinitythe Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This king-
dom is the Body of Christ which will consummate in the
New Jerusalem. Ephesians 4:4-6 reveals the one Father
as the Originator and source of the Body; the one Lord,
the Son, as the Creator and element of the Body; and
the one Spirit as the Executor and essence of the Body.
Just as the blood in our physical body is the life essence
of our body, the life-giving Spirit is the blood, the life
essence, of the Body of Christ. The circulation, the flow,
of this blood, is the fellowship of the Spirit. Without
the flow of the life-giving Spirit, we cannot have the re-
ality of the Body of Christ; all that is left is a corpse and
a theory of the Body of Christ. The fellowship of the
Spirit and the ministry of the Spirit build up the organic
Body of Christ, which is Gods spiritual world. Satans
world, the old creation, is altogether physical; Gods
world, the new creation, is altogether spiritual.
We thank the Lord for the first becoming of Christ. It is
marvelous that the Word became flesh. This Word be-
come flesh was the physical Jesus, the Lamb of God, for
Gods judicial redemption of man as seen in the Gospels.
Because of His satisfying Gods righteous requirements to
redeem us, we now have the forgiveness of sins (Eph.
1:7), the washing away of our sins (Heb. 1:3), justifica-
tion (Rom. 3:24), reconciliation (Rom. 5:10a), and posi-
tional sanctification (Heb. 13:12; 10:29). We are His
redeemed people who belong to Him. But is this all?
Many Christians stop with the Lords first becoming, but
the Lord did not stop. He went on to have a second be-
coming. As the last Adam, He became the life-giving
Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, in resurrection. His first be-
coming was for His second becoming, and His second
becoming was the goal of His first becoming. His first
becoming was for His earthly ministry to carry out the
procedure of His salvation as a foundation. His second
becoming is for Him to carry out His heavenly ministry
to accomplish the purpose of His salvation. In His
heavenly ministry, Christ as the life-giving Spirit saves us
to the uttermost organically from the regeneration of our
spirit, through the transformation of our soul, and unto
the glorification of our body. We need to press on to
come out of the earthly and physical realm into the divine
and mystical realm of the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving
Spirit. If we miss, neglect, or oppose the truth of Christ
being the life-giving Spirit, we will come far short of the
desire of Gods heart to complete His eternal economy by
dispensing Himself as the life and life supply into His cho-
sen and redeemed people to build them up as the organic
Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem. It is
by our knowing, experiencing, and ministering Christ as
the life-giving Spirit that the desire of Gods heart will be
fulfilled and that we will be fully satisified.
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22 Affirmation & Critique