III. IN THE BREATHING OF THE ESSENTIAL SPIRIT INTO THE BELIEVERS
In John 20 the Lord resurrected. After the Lord was crucified, the disciples were frightened and sorrowful. They might not have been able to sleep well, but the Lord rested well in the tomb, and on the day of resurrection He came out of the tomb. When Mary went to the tomb, she saw that the stone had been taken away (v. 1). She then told Peter and John, and when they came and saw the empty tomb and the grave clothes lying in order, they believed that the Lord had resurrected (vv. 2-8). The two then returned to their home, but Mary lingered at the tomb and wept for the Lord (vv. 10-11). At that time Jesus appeared to her and said to her, "Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brothers and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God" (v. 17). The Lord wanted to present the freshness of His resurrection to the Father.
In His word to Mary the Lord Jesus referred to the disciples as His brothers, and He referred to God as His Father and their Father, and His God and their God. It was at that time that the disciples became the brothers of the firstborn Son of God. On that morning Jesus, who had been the only begotten Son of God, became the firstborn Son of God with many brothers. Mary announced this to the disciples, but they were not comforted and still shut the doors to the room where they were for fear of the Jews. All of a sudden Jesus stood in the midst and said to them, "Peace be to you" (vv. 18-19). He showed them His hands and side, and they rejoiced when they saw the Lord (v. 20). Then He breathed into them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (v. 22).
The breathing of the Lord into His disciples was greater than His incarnation and His resurrection. It was the practical impartation of the resurrected Christ, the pneumatic Christ as the life-giving Spirit, into His believers. It was also the breathing of the Holy Spirit as the consummated, processed Triune God into His chosen people. The goal of all the events in the Gospel of John was the consummation of the Triune God. In eternity past the Triune God was not consummated. He was only divine, not human; He had only divinity without humanity. The element of the wonderful all-inclusive death of Christ was not yet in Him, and although He was resurrection (11:25), He had never had the experience of resurrection. After going through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Triune God was consummated as the complete God with divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death and its effectiveness, and resurrection with its power. Today our God is not only divine but also human. In His humanity He passed through incarnation and human living, He entered into death and passed through that death, and He then entered into resurrection and remained in that resurrection. Now He has everything: divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death, and the powerful, excellent resurrection.
Such a processed and consummated God became the best "dose" in the universe. When we take this dose, His element is dispensed into us, and the "antibiotics" in this dose kill all the "germs" within us. He is everything. He is God, He is man, He is death, He is resurrection, and He is life. He is such a dose to us, the sick ones. When the Lord Jesus came to the disciples on that night, He brought such a consummated dose for them to breathe in. When we receive the processed and consummated Triune God as our dose, we are healed, supplied, and supported by the dispensing of Himself into our being. This is the breathing of the essential Spirit into the believers.
Our heavenly, divine, and spiritual birth took place at Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3), and we began to breathe when Christ breathed Himself as the life-giving Spirit into His disciples. This is true even though we were not present physically at the time that these things took place. When a doctor gives us an injection in the arm, the injection is for our entire body. We do not need to receive the injection in every part of our body, because after a few minutes the injection we received in our arm spreads to the rest of our body. When Christ breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples, this breathing was an injection of the Holy Spirit into His entire Body, of which we are members. Just as there is no element of time with God, there is also no element of separation with the members of the Body. What God does is for every part of the Body. We were born again in Christ’s resurrection, and we began to breathe at His breathing of the consummated Triune God into His believers. This is the divine dispensing.
Our God’s eternal intention is to transmit, infuse, impart, dispense, and work Himself into us. Before His incarnation, God did not dispense Himself into man, but from the time of His incarnation, human living, all-inclusive death, and resurrection until today, His dispensing has been taking place. His breathing never stops. This is for His continuous, unceasing dispensing within us that we may be one with our Triune God. Ephesians 4:4-6 says that we --the one Body --and the one Spirit, the one Lord, and the one God and Father are mingled together. There is such a mingling in this universe, and this mingling is the church. The church is the dispensing of the Triune God into the called and chosen people to make them one with God.
(The Central Line of the Divine Revelation, Chapter 22, by Witness Lee)
