This week we are focusing on an unbelievably grand subject and reality in the Bible, the compound Spirit. The term “compound Spirit” cannot be found in the Bible, just as the “Triune God” is not mentioned literally, but the absolute undeniable fact is there.
This Spirit is the Spirit of God – it is not “another Spirit”, yet today such a Spirit has been compounded by a Compounder, and the Compounder and the Compound are the same party.
It took many years of study by many Bible teachers to reach the highest revelation and vision concerning the compound Spirit, and today we stand on the shoulders of many seeking believers who dove into the word of God to reach the depths of this matter. Andrew Murray, for example, had much to say concerning this in his book, The Spirit of Christ.
Why do we need to spend much time to know and thoroughly understand the compound Spirit? It is mainly because this matter of the Spirit has been wrongly understood for the longest time by the Christians, and the Lord has a recovery of the Spirit in which the proper understanding and the wonderful experience of the compound Spirit is recovered.
We are in the midst of a terrible superficial and superstitious Christian realm, and in this matter of the Spirit, almost all Christians in their sects, denominations, and gatherings have an inadequate understanding of what the Spirit is. We need to be brought back to the depth of the divine revelation and not settle for what many Christians are happy with regarding the Spirit.
May the Lord save us from the traditional teaching of today’s Christianity concerning the Spirit of God and bring us back to the pure Word and the pure revelation in His holy word. The Spirit has been made by Christianity today to be some kind of a “representative divine force” or “divine power”, often likened to a dove, which does things on behalf of God on earth.
The Pentecostals, on the other hand, consider the Spirit as something supernatural, paranormal, even scary, that makes you speak in strange “tongues” and does all kinds of works of power. We do not deny that there are manifestations of the Spirit and gifts of the Spirit, but this has been pushed to the extreme and understood in the wrong way.
Seeing the Progressive Revelation of the Compound Spirit in the Word of God
The revelation in the holy Word is always progressive, and as we read the Bible we see a progressive revelation of the Spirit. In Genesis 1 we see the Spirit of God hovering over the darkness upon the waters to bring in life, and generate things in God’s creation, and in Rev. 22:17 we see “the Spirit” and the bride say, Come!
From the first chapter to the last the chapter of the Bible we see a progressive revelation of “the Spirit of God” to “the Spirit”. In between there’s a long journey, and the Spirit picked up a lot of things, elements, experiences, and ingredients, and all these were compounded into the Spirit to become “the Spirit”, the compound Spirit.
The Spirit at the end of the Bible is the same Spirit from the beginning of the Bible, but at the same time it is not the same, because many elements and ingredients have been added to it to make it a compound Spirit.
The Spirit at the end of the Bible is all-inclusive; He has been processed, compounded, and even consummated as the totality of all the aspects of the Spirit of God; the Spirit in Rev. 22 is the ultimate Spirit, the final Spirit of God, the ultimate consummation of the Triune God.
There are thirteen titles of the Spirit of God in the Bible, each describing a different aspect and process that He passed through:
- The Spirit of God (Rom. 8:9, 14; 1 Cor. 2:14) – related to God’s creation and generation of life.
- The Spirit of Jehovah, the Spirit of the Lord (Acts 5:9; 8:39; 2 Cor. 3:17) – related to God’s relationship with man.
- The Holy Spirit (Acts 16:6; Rom. 15:13, 16) – related to the conception of the Lord Jesus, God mingling with man.
- The Spirit of reality (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13) – it has all the further elements promised in John 14:17; 15:26; and 16:13.
- The Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7) has the elements of humanity, human living, and crucifixion.
- The Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9) has the element of resurrection.
- The Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19) has the bountiful supply of all the elements of humanity, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection.
- The Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2) has the riches of the divine life.
- The life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6) is for the impartation of the divine life.
- The Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18) has the elements of ascension and lordship.
- The Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29) is for supplying us with the divine riches as our enjoyment.
- The seven Spirits (Rev. 1:4) are for the sevenfold intensification.
- The Spirit (Rom. 8:16, 23, 26, 27; Gal. 3:14; 5:16-18, 22, 25; 1 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 2:7; 14:13; 22:17) includes all the elements of the foregoing titles. the Spirit is the aggregate, the totality, of all the aspects of the Spirit of God.
Hallelujah for the Spirit and the progressive revelation in the holy word of God concerning the Spirit! The ultimate Spirit is the processed, compound, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, sevenfold intensified, consummated Spirit as the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God to be the eternal portion of His chosen, renewed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified tripartite people as their life and life supply and everything.
Hallelujah for such a wonderful Spirit!
Lord, we want to see the progressive revelation of the Spirit in the holy word of God! Thank You for being processed and consummated to become the all-inclusive compound Spirit who today dwells in our spirit! Hallelujah, the life-giving, indwelling, all-inclusive compound Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God is our eternal portion so that we may be renewed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified as we enjoy this Spirit as our life, life-supply, and everything! Hallelujah!
The Compound Spirit is for the Purpose of Anointing God’s Dwelling Place and His Priesthood
After God revealed the details concerning the tabernacle and all the furnishings in the tabernacle, He spoke in Exo. 30 toward the end concerning the compound ointment which was to be made according to the work of a compounder, and it was used for the anointing of the tabernacle with its furnishings and the priesthood.
This indicates that the compound ointment (which typifies the compound Spirit) is solely for the purpose of anointing God’s dwelling place and His priesthood (see Exo. 30:26-28, 30; cf. 1 Pet. 2:5; Psa. 133:2).
Only after God’s dwelling place and the priesthood come into existence can the compound ointment also come into existence and be enjoyed; this means that the compound Spirit is not for God’s people to enjoy and share apart from God’s dwelling place and apart from the priesthood. If we are not part of the dwelling place of God and if we’re not functioning as priests in a priesthood, we have no share in the compound Spirit, the anointing oil.
On the one hand we need to have the dwelling place of God, the living of Christ in the church for God’s expression, and on the other hand we need to have the priesthood – serving God, worshipping God. This is what God desires: He wants a dwelling place and He desires worship; in the New Jerusalem we have the dwelling place of God with man, and His slaves shall serve Him (in the way of worship).
When we live Christ to express Him and we serve God by worshipping Him, the compound Spirit anoints us for God’s building and His priesthood.
Thank You Lord for becoming the compound Spirit for the purpose of anointing us as Your dwelling place and as Your priesthood. May our living and our serving be as part of God’s dwelling place and of the priesthood, so that we may enjoy the anointing of the compound Spirit. Lord, we want to enjoy You so that we may live You out for Your expression so that we may be Your dwelling place. We want to serve You by worshipping You to be part of the priesthood. Oh Lord, may we realize that the compound Spirit is for anointing the church as God’s dwelling place and His priesthood!
The Spirit of God with the Element of Divinity is Active to Generate Life for God’s Purpose
We need to see all the aspects of the Spirit of God in the Bible – we need to see the progressive revelation of the Spirit from Genesis to Revelation, and we need to enter into the experience of the marvelous compound Spirit.
First of all, in Genesis 1 we see the Spirit of God in creation “And the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters” (Gen. 1:2b).
The spirit of a certain substance is the extract of that substance; for example, the spirit of an orange is not the orange itself but the extract of that orange. In the same principle, the Spirit of God is the extract of God – God is Spirit, this is His substance, His essence (John 4:24).
The Spirit of God – as the Spirit of life (see Rom. 8:2) – came to brood over the waters of death in order to generate life for God’s purpose; especially, the Spirit of God was brooding so that He may generate and produce man, the one who can fulfill God’s purpose (Gen. 1:26).
In our spiritual experience, the Spirit’s coming is the first requirement for generating life; when we hear the living word of God, we receive the Spirit, and the divine life is generated in us (John 6:63). The Spirit of God has nothing but divinity, and this divinity which has life and is life can generate life in others, and can generate other kinds of lives (the plant life, the animal life, the bird life, and the human life).
It is through the Spirit of God that God created all things; because creation came into being by the Spirit of God with the element of divinity, then according to Rom. 1:20, creation manifests God’s eternal power and divine characteristics. Hallelujah!
When we look at the physical creation manifests something that is so powerful and beautiful, something that is divine; the scenes in the nature are “divine”, because they came from the divine One!
Hallelujah for the Spirit of God with the element of divinity which is active to generate life for God’s purpose! Lord, thank You for coming to us as the Spirit to bring in the divine life into our being. You are the life-generating Spirit, the Spirit with the element of divinity which has life, is life, and can generate life in others. We praise You, Lord, for what You are as the Spirit of God and for what You have done in creation: Your creation manifests God’s eternal power and divine characteristics!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, brother Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Exodus, msg. 160 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (3), week 10 (week 34), The Compound Spirit.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# God’s Spirit is of Christ today, / The Spirit of reality, / He dwells in me with Christ as life / To make this Christ so real to me. (Hymns #243)
# God is Spirit, and He comes / As the Spirit into man. / To man’s spirit He will come / To be one, one with man. / There He’ll live and make His home— / The two spirits will be one. / As the Spirit, God will come / Into me, into me! (Song on God being the Spirit)
# God’s Spirit His transmission is, / In Him God enters into us; / It is in Him that God in Christ / May be experienced by us. (Hymns #610)
About aGodMan
In God’s creation the Spirit of God was active: “And the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters” (Gen. 1:2b). Anything substantial must have an element, and the Spirit of God is surely something substantial. What element is in the Spirit of God? The element of the Spirit of God is God, divinity.
The spirit of a certain substance is the extract of that substance. For example, the spirit of a grape is not merely the grape itself; it is the extract of the grape. In the same principle, we may say that the Spirit of God is the extract of God. This Spirit has divinity, that is, the element of what God is. Because creation came into being by the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God has the element of divinity, then, according to Romans 1:20, creation manifests God’s eternal power and divinity. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, p. 1721)
Amen! God is in the Son, the Son is the Spirit now, He is the wonderful, all inclusive and compounded Spirit, united and mingled with our spirit. Hallelujah! Thank You Lord Jesus! Amen. … “When we live Christ to express Him (who is our eternal life for our living) and we serve God by worshipping Him, (John 4:23-24) the compound Spirit anoints us for God’s building (a dwelling place of God in spirit) and the priesthood (in serving Him and worshipping Him).” O Lord Jesus! We love You Lord! Amen.
John 4:23-24 says, “But an hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. (24) God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.”
“Hallelujah for the Spirit of God with the element of divinity which is active to generate life for God’s purpose!” Amen! Thank You Lord Jesus! Thank You Lord, for Your life-giving and life-imparting Spirit, Your life-generating Spirit, full of the divine life of God, to meet Your heart’s desire, for Your building and the priesthood. Amen!