To be a
proper local church, we are committed to God. We commit to express our Father an=
d to
love and live out the Son, who expresses the Father‘s glory (Heb
1:3a). To fulfill this commit=
ment,
we need the Spirit. Though the
Spirit works in many ways that affect the believers, at this time we will
identify a few that merit our closest attention.
At the heart of God’s new covenant is the
Spirit who gives life (2 Cor 3:6). When we come=
in
contact with this new covenant, its core reality is that the Spirit gives l=
ife,
making us alive in our spirit (Rom 8:10). In God’s new covenant He
“inscribes” Himself into us inwardly as the law of the Spirit of
life (Rom 8:2). He performed a
heart transplant, removing our old stony heart and installing a new pliable=
and
responsive heart. He gave us =
a new
spirit and put His Spirit within us (Ezk 36:26-=
27;
Heb 8:10-11; Rom 8:9). With o=
ur new
heart we love the Son, and with His Spirit indwelling our new spirit we have
the Son’s life and nature to live Him.
Jesus Christ came that we would have life (John
10:10b, 7:37-39). Our
commitment, then, is a commitment to be alive to Him in our daily life (
The Spirit Transmits God to Us -
Receive!
In the divine trinity, we find the Spirit
fulfilling the role of “transmission.” The Spirit transmits God to us in
fellowship with Him (2 Cor 13:14). All that the Father has belongs to=
the
Son and the Spirit receives of the Son and declares it to us (John
16:12-15). The Lord promised =
the
disciples that the Spirit would provide what they needed, when they needed
it. The Spirit transmit=
s what
we need (Phil 1:19), and He needs (Jn 15:26), s=
o that
He would be expressed (Rom 8:16).
The Spirit distributes God’s operating life to each of the
“gifts” in the Body as God wills, to benefit Himself and the
church, His expression (1 Cor 12:4, 7-11).
The Spirit brings the reality of God to us. The eternal Spirit (Heb 9:14) is a=
lways
available through every circumstance in our daily life. Our state may vary but the spirit =
dwells
in us forever (Jn 14:16). We are one spirit with Him (1 Cor 6:17). The
Spirit is a “river of water of life . . . proceeding out of the thron=
e of
God and of the Lamb,” conveying God to us for our immediate need, our
complete transformation over time, and for God’s ultimate expression =
(Rev
22:1, 2 Cor 3:17-18). The word “transmission”=
; is
not found in the Bible but the fact of God’s transmission to man in t=
he
Spirit is clearly shown.
The Spirit is always transmitting. Are we receiving (cf
Gal 3:3; Mk 13:14-15; Heb 3:7-8)? &nb=
sp;
The Spirit had something to transmit (speak) to the seven churches in
Revelation 2-3. Only some of =
the
believers were open to the transmission - that is, only some would hear.