THE SEALING SPIRIT
In between the anointing and the transforming, there are another six aspects of the Spirit: the sealing, the pledging, the writing, the life-giving, the Christ-ministering, and the liberating. The anointing becomes the sealing within us (2 Cor. 1:22), giving us the mark and the impression of the image of God to show that we belong to God.
THE PLEDGING SPIRIT
The seal of the Spirit, which is constituted with the elements brought in by the anointing, becomes the pledge, the guarantee, the down payment, the foretaste, of the Spirit (v. 22). This means that we have the Spirit for our taste, our enjoyment. The Christian life is not a matter of meditating in the mind but a matter of tasting the Lord in the spirit (Psa. 34:8; 1 Pet. 2:3). We can taste the heavenly things and the things of the age to come (Heb. 6:4-5) by the transmitting Spirit. He also transmits the things in eternity and in the New Jerusalem to us because He is the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14).
He transmits all the heavenly things and elements of Christ into us not for our mental knowledge but for us to taste, to enjoy. We need to be those who are continually tasting the heavenly, spiritual, eternal things by the compound Spirit. Everything in the New Jerusalem is included in the compound Spirit, who has been given to us as a foretaste, a sample, of the full taste of the Spirit in the ages to come. The quantity of the Spirit we have in this age might be smaller, but the quality and the taste are the same. We have to learn how to taste the Lord by continually calling upon His name.
We can never be humble by being taught to be humble. Actually, the more we are taught to be humble, the prouder we will become. If we are taught to love others, eventually we will not love anyone. The real love and the real essence of love are in the compound Spirit. God is love (1 John 4:8), and He is the compound Spirit today. The more we touch the compound Spirit, the more the essence of love will get into us. There is no need for us to learn to love others. When we are infused with the essence of love in the compound Spirit, we will spontaneously love others.
Love is the essence of the divine life. A carnation flower does not bloom by being taught, but by its growth out of its life essence. The more the flower grows, the more it expresses its life essence. Likewise, the more we grow in the divine life, the more we express the essence of the divine life. We cannot be holy, spiritual, and heavenly by being taught. Eventually, we will become worldly. The heavenly essence is not in any teaching, but in the compound Spirit.
(The Experience of Christ as Life for the Building Up of the Church, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee)
