THE MINISTERING SPIRIT
This Spirit is also the ministering Spirit (3:8). He ministers Christ into us. Then He ministers Christ to others through us.
THE LIBERATING SPIRIT
This ministering Spirit is the liberating Spirit (v. 17), who breaks all the bonds, takes away the veils, and releases us. The essence of Christ must be dispensed into us to liberate us.
THE TRANSFORMING SPIRIT
Eventually, this all-inclusive Spirit is the transforming Spirit (v. 18). He transforms us, not by correcting or adjusting us, but by putting more and more of the life essence of Christ into us. We have the life power of Christ to shape us with His life essence so that we can be shaped into His life form. As an illustration, the life power of the peach life shapes the peach with its life essence to produce the form of a peach. We are being transformed and conformed into Christ’s glorious image from glory to glory by the Lord Spirit.
I want to emphasize the fact that we are being transformed. We are as mirrors beholding and reflecting the Lord to be transformed into His image from glory to glory. When a carnation comes into full blossom, that is its glory. One day we will come into full blossom, and that will be the glorification and manifestation of the sons of God. That will be a glorious liberty, the liberty of glory. The entire creation is groaning and waiting for that liberty (Rom. 8:19-22). That freedom of the manifestation and glorification of the sons of God will be the consummation of our transformation.
Praise the Lord that we are now in the process of being transformed. We should not try to outwardly adjust or improve ourselves. Instead, we need to be anointed and sealed with the Spirit. We need to enjoy the Spirit as the foretaste. We need to be inscribed with the Spirit and enjoy His life-giving power. Finally, we need to experience the ministry of the Spirit and enjoy Him as the liberating and transforming One. The more we read the word prayerfully and call upon the name of the Lord, the more we will enjoy the compound Spirit so that we can be transformed and conformed to the Lord’s glorious image.
(The Experience of Christ as Life for the Building Up of the Church, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee)
