The Spirit today is Christ in application, Christ coming to us for our experience. Practically speaking, only when we are in the Spirit are we in the reality of the divine transfer. Our daily living depends almost entirely on where we are. "Where art thou?" (Gen. 3:9) was the first question God addressed to the human race, and today He is still asking this same question. Paul’s desire was to be found in Christ as a realm (Phil. 3:9). Our need is not to behave in a certain way but to be found in Christ by being found in the Spirit through our union with the Spirit.
Our spirit deep within is one with the consummated Spirit of the processed and consummated Triune God. The all-inclusive Spirit, who includes the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, is in us and is mingled with our spirit. Our spirit is joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), and His Spirit witnesses together with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16), that we may live together, exist together, work together, and speak together as one spirit. To be one spirit with the Lord is to be in the reality of the divine transfer.
Romans 8:5-6 shows a miniature Garden of Eden, with the flesh and death on one side, the spirit and life on the other side, and the mind in the middle. What realm we are in depends on where we set our mind. When our mind is set on the spirit, our mind is full of life. We also have peace because there is no discord between our outward behavior and our inner being. Then when we speak, life is embodied in our words because we are one with the Lord.
The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in those who walk according to the mingled spirit (v. 4). If we try to be a Christian, we are in the flesh. That is the old man trying to keep the law. Being a Christian is a living out of the life of God by walking according to the mingled spirit within. If we would see this vision, give up our effort, and simply be in the spirit, another One will live in us. The Spirit always acts according to the righteous requirements of God’s law.
We reign in life with grace over all things unto eternal life (5:17b, 21). Righteousness gives us the ground to claim God as our grace. We may say, "Lord, You cannot withhold Yourself from me as grace, because I stand on the ground of my justification. You have given Christ to me as my righteousness as a gift, and I stand on this position. Lord, give Yourself to me as grace for my enjoyment." Grace means that we cannot do what God requires, but the Triune God can do it. We cannot be what we should be, but there is One living in us, the consummated Spirit as grace, who can be. We have an abundance of grace, and in this grace we reign unto eternal life.
Romans 5:21 speaks of reigning through righteousness unto eternal life. Unto eternal life is a particular expression. John 4:14 says, "But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life." Into eternal life actually means "into the New Jerusalem" because the New Jerusalem is the totality of eternal life. Just as a person’s being is the totality of his life, the New Jerusalem is the totality of the life of God. The consummation of the gushing living water that we drink will be the New Jerusalem as the totality of the eternal life. For grace to reign unto eternal life means that we are now enthroned as kings and we are reigning in life over all things unto an issue, a consummation. The issue of our present reigning in life will be the New Jerusalem as the universal incorporation of God and man. Revelation 22:5 says, "And they will reign forever and ever." That reigning is an issue, a glorious, eternal, corporate consummation of our present reigning in life through the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness unto eternal life.
(Crystallization-Study of the Complete Salvation of God in Romans, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)