THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SPIRIT
Second Corinthians 13:14 says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all" (Gk.). The grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Spirit are with us. Love is the source, grace is the course, and the fellowship is the flow. The fellowship is a matter of transmission, of conveying something into us. With the Father, the source, we have love. When the love comes forth, we have the course, the grace of Christ the Son. When this grace is conveyed to us, it becomes the fellowship of the Spirit. The fellowship of the Spirit transmits into us for our enjoyment all that Christ is along with the Father. This transmission is the flow, the fellowship. It is the transmission into our being of the very God the Spirit so that we may enjoy Him. Here in this transmission we enjoy the grace of Christ and we taste the love of God. Here we are in the fellowship, the communication, the flow, of the Triune God. Day and night something is being transmitted into our being for our enjoyment. In this way we enjoy the love of God and the grace of Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit. Today this Spirit is constantly flowing into us, through us, and out of us. This is the fellowship of the Spirit.
THE TRIUNE GOD ISSUING IN THE SPIRIT
Thus far, we have covered two aspects of the Spirit: that God is Spirit and that the Triune God issues in the Spirit. The Triune God with the Father as the source and with the Son as the course issues in the Spirit as the flow. The Father and the Son come to us in the flow of the Spirit. Therefore, the Triune God issues in the Spirit for our enjoyment.
THE REDEEMER BECOMING A LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT
Now we come to a crucial point: the fact that Christ, the Redeemer, became a life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45 says, "The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit" (Gk.). The last Adam was Jesus Christ in the flesh. As a man in the flesh, He was the Lamb of God who took away our sins. Furthermore, when He was crucified on the cross, He dealt with our natural life, our natural man, and our self. By dealing with our sins and our self, Christ made it possible for us to receive the divine life. God’s intention was to impart His life into us. As the Lamb of God, the last Adam accomplished these two things on the cross, taking away our sins and dealing with our self and natural life. Both are included in the glad tidings. We need to see that our sins have been taken away and that our self has been dealt with. Thus, we are able to receive the divine life. After dying on the cross to take away our sins and to deal with our natural life, the last Adam, our Redeemer, became in His resurrection a life-giving Spirit to impart Himself as life into us.
When we believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him as our Redeemer, it was the life-giving Spirit who came into us. Many believers do not realize that they received the Lord Jesus not only as the Redeemer and the Savior, but also as the life-giving Spirit. When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we knew that we were sinful. Therefore, we prayed, repented, confessed, and received Him as our Redeemer. However, we were not told that He would come into us to be our life. At least I was not told this when I believed in Him. However, I later found out that after believing in Him, there was something inside me that made me happy and joyful. Sometimes I even felt like leaping. Have you not had this experience? This is the experience of Christ as the life-giving Spirit. Although we received Him as our Redeemer, He came into us not only as our Redeemer, but also as the life-giving Spirit. Today He is in us mainly as the life-giving Spirit.
If you ask believers where their Redeemer, the Lord Jesus, is, many lift up their eyes, point to heaven, and say, "He is in heaven." Rarely do you find a Christian who, when asked where the Lord Jesus is, will say with rejoicing, "Christ is in me!" If you ask me where my Jesus is, I will say, "Jesus my Redeemer is, on the one hand, in the heavens as my Lord and, on the other hand, in me as the life-giving Spirit." For this reason sometimes I am rejoicing, bubbling, and even beside myself with joy. Rejoice, Jesus Christ is the life-giving Spirit within us! Before coming into the churches, you probably never heard that the Redeemer became a life-giving Spirit. But there is a verse in the Bible telling us that the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. It seems that those in Christianity do not have the second part of 1 Corinthians 15:45. After completing the work of redemption, Christ became the life-giving Spirit.
(The Spirit and the Body, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)
