Only the Spirit can Live the Christian Life, so Breathe in the Life-Giving Spirit!

John 20:22 And when He has said this, He breathed into them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Jesus promised the disciples that He will send the Spirit of reality as another Comforter (see John 14:15-16, 26; 15:26; 16:7-8, 13), and after His resurrection He came among His disciples and breathed into them saying, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22).

The expected Spirit in John 7:39 and the promised Spirit in John 14-17 has been breathed into the disciples by the Lord Jesus who in resurrection became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).

The Lord Jesus has been transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit, and then He breathed out the Spirit into the disciples in John 20:22 (this was for their life essentially) and He poured out the Spirit as power upon them as power in Acts 2 (this was for their work, economically).

Today the Triune God is the breath of life, and we simply need to breathe Him in. The Christian life should be filled with breathing out ourselves and breathing in God as the Spirit. Everything we need is in this breath, and it is the Spirit as the breath of life coming into us and filling us that can live the Christian life and accomplish God’s purpose.

The Christian life is not only hard to live – it is impossible to fulfill all the high requirements of the New Testament. But the Spirit can live the Christian life in us.

We simply need to breathe Him in by calling on the name of the Lord, and the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit will fill us, saturate us, and live in us the Christian life for God’s expression.

Only the Spirit can make us an overcomer. Only the Spirit as the breath of life can be a Christian. We need to be persons full of the Spirit, persons who walk by the Spirit and according to the Spirit, and then the Lord will produce us as overcomers!

Christ as the Word and the Last Adam was Transfigured to Become a Life-Giving Spirit

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God – and the Word became flesh, tabernacling among us, full of grace and reality (John 1:1, 14).

As the Word of God, Christ became a man to become a man in the flesh (John 1:14), to be the Lamb of God and accomplish redemption for man (John 1:29), to declare God to man (John 1:18), and to manifest the Father to His disciples – who later became His believers (John 14:9-11).

As the Word of God (who is God), Christ took a second step: He died and resurrected to be transfigured into the Spirit so that He might impart Himself into the Believers as their life and everything, so that He might bring forth many sons of God – His many brothers – for the building up of the church to express the Triune God for eternity.

As the grain of wheat, Christ fell into the ground and died, and in resurrection He was transfigured to become a life-giving Spirit to regenerate many believers (the many grains of wheat) for His Body, His corporate expression (John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3).

As the last Adam in the flesh, Christ went through death and resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit, the realization of the Father with the Son, even the Spirit of reality (1 Cor. 15:45).

The Triune God went through a long process to become a life-giving Spirit, and in resurrection He came to His disciples (while they were locked into a room for fear of the Jews) and said to them, Peace to you. Then, He breathed into them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22).

The Lord visited them in a special way and breathed into them the Spirit whom He had become. He didn’t give them a list of do’s and dont’s – He breathed into them. As long as the disciples received the breath, everything was alright!

The very God as the eternal word came to be flesh and live among the disciples (John 1), and at the end of the gospel of John we see that He came again to them to breathe into them the Holy Spirit, the holy breath! As the word Christ could dwell among them, limited by time and space; now as the Spirit, He is with them and in them all the time, not limited by time or space!

Only the Spirit as the Breath of Life can Live the Christian Life!

The promised Spirit in John 14-17 (which was expected in John 7:39) is the life-giving Spirit Christ became through His resurrection, which Spirit was breathed into the disciples by the resurrected Christ on the day of His resurrection (John 20:22).

The Lord today is the Spirit who gives life, and this Spirit is our breath. He has come into us as the consummated Spirit through regeneration, and He as the breath of life is everything to us in the living of our Christian life.

We cannot live the Christian life without the Spirit. It is the Spirit who joins us to the Triune God as the universal vine to express the Father and bear fruit for Him (John 15). It is as the Spirit that we can be one with Christ and He can visit us in the church today to sing praises to the Father from within the believers.

The Spirit is the breath of the Son – the Spirit is one with the Son Himself! The Father is the source, the Son is the expression, and the Spirit is the realization. The Triune God has been processed and consummated to become the life-giving Spirit as the breath of life.

We need to realize that apart from the life-giving breath we cannot be a Christian. We cannot fulfill the high requirements of the New Testament in ourselves. We cannot have the kind of righteousness, holiness, life, or love that the New Testament speaks of. Instead of trying to fulfill the words of the Bible in and by ourselves, we need to enjoy the life-giving Spirit with our spirit, and we need to allow the Spirit to impart life to us!

Only the Spirit in us and through us can be a Christian. Only the Spirit can produce us as overcomers.

We need to do some serious spiritual breathing to take the consummated Spirit into us as the breath of life. Whenever we call on the name of the Lord, the reality of His Person – the Spirit – is being given to us.

When we call on the name of the Lord, we breathe out anything that is negative in us and we breathe in God as life. When we call on the name of the Lord, we breathe Christ as the Spirit in, and He can live in us.

The secret and the key to the mending ministry of John is breathing in the Spirit who gives life. We are being mended inwardly and we are being given the ministry of mending when we call on the name of the Lord!

We need to know and experience the Triune God and the consummated Spirit as the breath of life. Then, when we go to shepherd or mend others we will not impart “our scriptural knowledge” with “our good heart” but we will breathe the Spirit of life into them!

Oh, Lord Jesus! We want to call on Your name to receive You as life. Lord, You are the life-giving breath. Breath by breath we live upon You. We are breathing out our sorrow, sins, sicknesses, problems, and everything negative. Lord, we are breathing You in as the life-giving breath. Triune God, we love You! Thank You for becoming a man and then becoming the Spirit to impart life into us! Keep us breathing You in as the life-giving Spirit as we do this and that day by day. Make us breathing Christians! Oh, Lord Jesus! Loooord Jeeesuuuuus!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of John (msgs. 46-47), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Mending Ministry of John, week 2 / msg 2, The Revelation of the Triune God and of the Consummated Spirit..
• Further reading: see John 20:22 footnote 1 in the Recovery Version Bible.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me, / Teach me how to breathe Thee in; / Help me pour into Thy bosom / All my life of self and sin. / I am breathing out my sorrow, / Breathing out my sin; / I am breathing, breathing, breathing, / All Thy fulness in.
  # O, say, aren’t you glad that the Spirit’s outpoured / And God, fully processed, is flowing in us? / So freely we’re breathing this life-giving Lord, / And breathing, receiving His life, glorious!
  # Take time to inhale Him—His Word we may breathe; / By breathing it, God’s very life we receive— / He breathes Himself out so that we may breathe in / The life, the reality, fullness of Him.