The Spirit
This wonderful Spirit eventually becomes so simple in title: the Spirit (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 14:13; 22:17). In Revelation we have the seven Spirits and the Spirit. In the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation, the beginning of each epistle refers to the Lord Jesus as the One writing to the church in a certain place. Then the end of each epistle tells us to “hear what the Spirit says.” Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say…”
The Spirit is compounded, processed, and all-inclusive. He is the consummation of the Triune God reaching His chosen people. According to John 4:24, our God is Spirit. Not only the Spirit of the Trinity is Spirit, but the entire God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—is Spirit. God is Spirit, and this God includes the Father, Son, and Spirit.
John tells us that when the Son came, He came in the name of the Father (5:43). Then the Father sent the Spirit in the name of the Son (14:26). The Son came in the name of the Father; this means that He came as the Father. Then the Spirit came in the Son’s name; this means that the Spirit came as the Son. The Son sent the Spirit to us from with the Father, and the Spirit proceeded to us from with the Father (see footnote 261 in John 15, Recovery Version). When the Spirit came, the Son was there, and the Father was also there. The Son was in the Father, and the Father was in the Son (14:10). When the Son was there, the Father was there. All three were there because They are one God. You cannot separate Them, yet They are distinct as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
THE FUNCTION OF THE SPIRIT
The Spirit is the reality of Christ (v. 17; 15:26; 1 John 5:6). When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we receive the Spirit as the reality of Christ (John 14:17), and this Christ, the Son of God, is the very embodiment of the Father (Col. 2:9). The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is fully realized as the Spirit. Colossians 2:9 says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. Christ, then, is the embodiment of God, fully realized as the Spirit. This is revealed in John 16:13-15.
The Spirit gives life to the believers (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6) and regenerates them in their spirit (John 3:5-6). He anoints the believers (2 Cor. 1:21), seals them (Eph. 1:13; 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:22a), and is Himself a pledge of God given to them (v. 22b). By this anointing, which brings in the divine element, He fills the believers. Sealing shapes the element into a certain form as an impression and becomes a mark. The pledge means that He is the guarantee that God is our inheritance. On the one hand, sealing proves that we are God’s inheritance; on the other hand, God as our inheritance for our enjoyment is also guaranteed by the indwelling Spirit as the pledge.
He is also the bountiful supply to the believers (Phil. 1:19). He sanctifies us not just positionally but dispositionally (1 Pet. 1:2; Rom. 15:16) and experientially as well. He transforms the believers (2 Cor. 3:18).
All believers have been baptized in this one Spirit into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13). On the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius, when Christ the Son, the ascended One, poured out the Spirit on the believers, that was His baptizing His Body into the Spirit. First Corinthians 12:13 says that we were all baptized in one Spirit into one Body. Christ finished this baptism just as He finished His crucifixion. All who believe have been crucified (Gal. 2:20). In the same principle, we were all baptized on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius. We have been baptized and have been given to drink this one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). Now we are drinking this Spirit. To be baptized is outward; to drink is inward. Outwardly, we have been baptized; inwardly, we are drinking of the one Spirit.
With the Lord’s ascension to the heavens and the pouring out of the Spirit, the whole operation of the Triune God was completed. The Father planned with the Son and the Spirit, and the Son came with the Father and the Spirit to accomplish what the Father had planned. Finally, the Spirit came with the Father and the Son to apply what the Father had planned and what the Son had accomplished. This applying Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God. He is not just by Himself as a separate Spirit, having nothing to do with the Father and unrelated to the Son; He is the consummation of the Triune God, the consummation of the Divine Trinity, to reach us.
The Spirit’s reaching us has two aspects: the inward aspect and the outward. The inward was accomplished on the day of resurrection. On that day the resurrected Lord came back to His disciples and breathed Himself into them (John 20:22). This was altogether for life, the inner life.
Fifty days later at Pentecost, He poured out the Spirit upon the disciples like a mighty wind (Acts 2:1-2). Breath is for life, but wind is for power. At Pentecost the disciples were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). The clothing of the Spirit is like the putting on of a uniform. The uniform gives its wearer power, authority. A policeman with a uniform has authority to stop us. If he did not have a uniform, we would not listen to him. The Spirit as our life, the life-giving Spirit, even the Spirit of life, is also the Spirit outside us, poured upon us as the Spirit of power from on high. All of this has been accomplished.