THE LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT GIVING US LIFE FOR OUR
TRANSFORMATION INTO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST
This Spirit is the all-inclusive, compound, processed, life-giving Spirit. This all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of life. He is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2) who gives life (2 Cor. 3:6), so He is the life-giving Spirit. In this life-giving of the Spirit, God dispenses Himself into all His believers. The life-giving of this all-inclusive Spirit is a crucial and vital point.
Second Corinthians 3:6 tells us that the Spirit gives life, and 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us that the Lord is the Spirit. John Nelson Darby indicates that in 2 Corinthians 3, verses 7 through 16 are a parenthesis. This means that the Spirit who gives life in verse 6 is the Lord in verse 17. The Lord is the life-giving Spirit. Henry Alford, who was an authority on Greek New Testament words, also indicated that the Lord is identical with the Holy Spirit. M. R. Vincent, who is noted for his word studies in the New Testament, says, "The Lord Christ of verse 16 is the Spirit who pervades and animates the new covenant of which we are ministers (v. 6)." Andrew Murray, in his book The Spirit of Christ, tells us that the Spirit is the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the God-man. He tells us that the humanity of Jesus is in the Spirit of the glorified Jesus. That Christ is the Spirit is a great truth in the New Testament.
We have seen that the New Testament reveals to us the Triune God embodied in the Son to be a man, and this man was the last Adam who went to the cross and died to clear up all the negative things in the universe. In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Thus, the Son is realized as the Spirit, and this Spirit is all-inclusive as the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God compounded with all that God is, has, is doing, can do, and will be doing. This Spirit is also compounded with Christ’s person, work, and the processes He has gone through including all His accomplishments, attainments, and obtainments. When we have the Spirit, we have everything. When this Spirit dwells in you, God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, and the uplifted, resurrected, and ascended Man dwells in you. The incarnation, human living, the effectiveness of the all-inclusive death of Christ, and the power of His resurrection are in you. All the attributes of God and all the riches of Christ are in you. Life, light, love, grace, holiness, righteousness, power, might, strength, divine energy, and all the virtues of man and attributes of God are in your spirit.
This all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of life, the life-giving Spirit, giving life to us all the time. First, He gives life to your spirit to make your spirit life (Rom. 8:10). Then He imparts life into your mind to make your mind, along with your entire soul, life (Rom. 8:6). Finally, He gives life to your mortal body (Rom. 8:11). The life-giving Spirit gives life to your spirit, soul, and body, to make your entire being life, making you a man of life. As the Spirit of life, He makes you a man of life. While He is giving life to you, this life transforms you metabolically. The Lord is not interested in outward correction and adjustment but in our transformation, our being changed metabolically. This Spirit of life dwells in you to give you life, and this life changes you metabolically, transforms you organically, into the image of the glorified Christ from one degree of glory to another degree of glory (2 Cor. 3:18).
(The Divine Economy, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee)
