Experiencing the Bountiful Supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Compound Spirit

How wonderful it is to realize that we are joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17)! A Christian is one who has God in Christ as the Spirit dwelling in him, and he is one spirit with the Lord. The Spirit today is with our spirit, witnessing that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16).

If we look at ourselves as human beings, we are so complicated, complex, and even mixed with all kinds of things, people, situations, and issues.

On God’s side, He is also complicated – He is God (incomprehensible and intangible for human beings) who became a man (a great mystery, God was incarnated!) and who then became a life-giving Spirit (somehow a human being with God’s essence inside of Him was transformed, transfigured, into the Spirit).

The New Testament doesn’t call the Spirit simply “the Spirit”, but there are many titles that involve many functions and aspects of the one Spirit of God. In the Epistles we see that the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of life, the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and eventually in Revelation He is the seven Spirits of God!

Today the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ with a bountiful supply for us to enjoy and experience so that we may live Christ and magnify Christ in our Christian life. Hallelujah for such a Spirit! We praise the Lord for becoming the Spirit of Jesus Christ with a bountiful supply for us to enjoy and partake of in our daily life today!

The Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ

Why so many terms for the Spirit? Is there more than one Spirit? In Romans 8:9 Paul speaks of the Spirit of God dwells in us, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.

The Spirit of Christ here is used interchangeably with the Spirit of God, and it refers specifically to Christ’s resurrection and His resurrection life. In Acts 16:7 it says that the Spirit of Jesus did not allow the apostles to go in a certain direction – this aspect of the Spirit is related to Jesus’ human living with His limitation under the cross.

What about “the Spirit of Jesus Christ” in Phil. 1:19? This title is a compound title, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ includes both Christ’s humanity, His human living, His suffering under the cross, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension – all are in this Spirit!

In the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, and the Spirit of Christ. All these titles are indicating different aspects of this all-inclusive compound Spirit.

We need to see that it is only in the completing ministry of Paul that we can see the rich aspects and functions of the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, who is today the Spirit of Jesus Christ with a bountiful supply not only to meet our need in any circumstance but also to cause us to be fully saved and magnify Christ!

Hallelujah, what a Spirit! Today we are joined to the Lord as such a Spirit – we are joined in spirit with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, enjoying His bountiful supply. This is why we say that the secret of the Christian life is the Spirit with our spirit. It’s all in this organic union of the two spirits.

The Spirit of Jesus Christ is Typified by the Compound Ointment

In Exodus 30:23-25 God gives Moses specific instructions on making the holy anointing ointment with which everything related to the tabernacle had to be anointed. This holy anointing ointment, with its spices, measurements, and compounding, typifies the compound Spirit, which is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

When God became a man, divinity was brought into humanity, and humanity was added to divinity. Now God is no longer only divine: He has humanity added to Him!

Through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension, God “picked up” certain elements which have all been compounded into the Spirit of Jesus Christ with His bountiful supply. Here are more specific details on how the compound ointment in the Old Testament typifies the compound Spirit in the New Testament:

The elements of the compound ointment: oil (typifies the Spirit of God, divinity), myrrh (typifies Christ’s death), cinnamon (signifies the effectiveness of Christ’s death), calamus (signifies Christ’s resurrection), and cassia (represents the power of Christ’s resurrection. When all these elements were added together, the oil (the divinity, the Spirit of God) did not remain the same but it was compounded, enriched.

The Spirit of Jesus Christ today is compounded with Christ’s divinity (oil), Christ’s death (myrrh), the effectiveness of Christ’s death (cinnamon), Christ’s resurrection (calamus), and the power of Christ’s resurrection (cassia). The Spirit dwelling in our spirit has all these elements, and we can experience them by practicing to live one spirit with the Lord today!

The numbers involved in the compound ointment: there are four spices and one hin of olive oil. The four spices represent man, and the one hin of oil represents God – these are joined and blended together. God and man are joined, blended, compounded, and added together in the Spirit.

More specifically, the four spices typify Christ’s perfect humanity, His all-inclusive death, His life-imparting and death-destroying resurrection, and His all-transcending ascension. What a compound Spirit we have dwelling in us! He’s now available, ready to apply all these elements to our being in our experience as we turn to Him, exercise our spirit, and live one spirit with Him.

The amounts of spices used in the ointment: myrrh was 500 shekels, cinnamon 250 shekels, calamus 250 shekels, and cassia 500 shekels. These numbers are not “randomly picked”; rather, they typify the Triune God, where the second of the Divine Trinity, Christ, has been “split” on the cross by God’s judgement. Wow! Even this shows us that Christ, as the embodiment of the Triune God, has gone through a process while on earth.

The process the ointment went through: both the olive oil and the four spices had to go through a process of cutting, pressing, mixing, and blending. This signifies that the Spirit of Jesus Christ was produced through Christ’s sufferings (see Matt. 26:36 and footnote there).

For the Spirit of Jesus Christ to be produced, Christ had to go through a process involving suffering. For us to enjoy the application of the Spirit of Jesus Christ today, we also go through a process which involves sufferings, and in the midst of those sufferings, we can enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in all its rich aspects.

Experiencing the Bountiful Supply Today

We can mentally apprehend the significance of the compound ointment in the Old Testament and the many titles of the Spirit with their significance in the New Testament, but this is not enough. We need to exercise not only our mind but also our spirit to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Everything we need is now in the Spirit with our spirit. Whenever we go through situations, no matter how difficult, pressing, constraining, and troublesome they are, we can always retreat into, return to, and exercise our spirit so that we may enjoy the bountiful supply.

The resources of this Spirit are available to us as a bountiful supply, and in the Spirit, we have Christ’s divinity, His uplifted and proper humanity, His proper and perfect human living, His wonderful death with its effectiveness, and His resurrection with its power.

This is what Paul experienced and longed to experience when he said, To know Him and the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10).

We want to experientially and subjectively know Christ as the Spirit in all the situations of our human life. He is ready: He has been processed and consummated, and now as the Spirit He’s joined to our spirit to impart and apply all these elements to our being. May we turn to Him, cooperate with Him, and live one spirit with Him!

Lord Jesus, keep us turning to our spirit in all the situations and circumstances of our daily life. We don’t want to mentally apprehend and understand all the aspects of the all-inclusive Spirit of Jesus Christ; we want to experience and partake of the bountiful supply of this Spirit! Lord, we yearn to know You experientially and subjectively in our daily life. Keep us one spirit with You that we may enjoy and partake of Your divinity, Your humanity, Your death, and Your resurrection! Hallelujah, it’s all in the Spirit with our spirit!

References and Further Reading

• Inspiration: Portions in, The Completing Ministry of Paul (ch. 7), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, “The Completing Ministry of Paul“, week 4 entitled, The Spirit with our spirit.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Pure myrrh and cinnamon, / Calamus and cassia— / These are Thy elements, / Jesus my Lord! / In olive oil they’re blent / In wondrous measurement— / O what an ointment this, / Anointing us!
  # Jesus Christ, the Spirit, / All-inclusive cure, / Is a compound ointment, / Life-giving and pure; / By His sweet anointing / All are sanctified; / For the church, the Spirit / Is intensified.
  # Though God in nature cannot change, / He passed through womb and cross; / The Lamb of God has been prepared, / Yet, nothing has been lost. / The Spirit is the compound God; / The One that was “not yet“; / The seven Spirits, seven eyes, / Today are “The Spirit“.