The Spirit of God today

B141 C196 CB242 E242 G242 K196 R209 S112 T242
1
The Spirit of God today
The Spirit of Jesus is,
The God-man who died and rose,
Ascending to glory His.
2
'Tis from such a Jesus came
The Spirit of Jesus to us,
To make His reality
Experience unto us.
3
The Spirit of Jesus has
All elements human, divine,
The living of man in Him
And glory of God combine.
4
The suff'ring of human life,
Effectiveness of His death,
His rising and reigning too
Are all in the Spirit's breath.
5
With all these components true
His Spirit in us doth move,
And by His anointing full
The riches of Christ we prove.
6
This Spirit of Jesus doth
Encompass both great and small;
Inclusively He doth work
In us, making God our all.

Copyright Living Stream Ministry. Used by permission.

12
Ishar

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Wonderful hymns.


Shulammite Apiag

Ozamiz City, Sinacaban, Philippines

Hallelujah for the Spirit of Jesus!

Praise the Lord that the Spirit of Jesus has the elements-human and divine-the living of man in Him and glory of God combine!

Hymns, #242 expresses this truth in a poetic way.

Stanza 3 of this hymn says,

The Spirit of Jesus has

All elements human, divine,

The living of man in Him

And glory of God combine.

According to the first two lines of this stanza, the Spirit of Jesus has both the human element and the divine element. That the Spirit of Jesus has these two elements means that He has two natures, the human nature and the divine nature. Both the divine nature, which is all that God is, and the uplifted human nature are in the Spirit of Jesus today.

COMBINING THE HUMAN LIVING AND THE DIVINE GLORY

The third line of stanza 3 says, "The living of man in Him." This refers to the Lord's human living as a man on the earth. Jesus lived as a man on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. He did not go to the cross and die on the first day of His life. If He had done this, He would not have experienced human living. During His human living of thirty-three and a half years, He experienced all the different aspects of human life. Therefore, in the Spirit of Jesus there is the element of Jesus' human living.

The final line of this stanza says, "And glory of God combine." This means that in the Spirit of Jesus, the living of man and the glory of God combine. The first two lines of stanza 3 say that the Spirit of Jesus has both the human element and the divine element, that is, both the human nature and the divine nature. The living of man is the outward expression of the inward human nature, the inward human element. In the same principle, the glory of God is the outward expression of the inward divine nature, the inward divine element. In the composition of this stanza, the two elements, the human element and the divine element, are mentioned first. Then the stanza continues by speaking of the outward expression of the human element, that is, the living of man, and the outward expression of the divine element, that is, the glory of God.

INCLUDING JESUS' SUFFERING, DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND REIGNING

Stanza 4 of the hymn says,

The suff'ring of human life,

Effectiveness of His death,

His rising and reigning too

Are all in the Spirit's breath.

According to this stanza, Jesus' suffering in His human living, the effectiveness of His death, His resurrection, and His reigning in His ascension are all included in the Spirit as the divine breath.

MOVING IN US AND ANOINTING US WITH ALL HIS ELEMENTS

Stanza 5 says,

With all these components true

His Spirit in us doth move,

And by His anointing full

The riches of Christ we prove.

This stanza says that the Spirit of Jesus moves in us with all His elements, including the elements of humanity, divinity, human living, the divine glory, the suffering of human life, the effectiveness of Christ's death, the power of Christ's resurrection, and the kingship of Christ with His kingly authority. Today the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, including all the elements of Jesus' person and the processes that He passed through. Now this wonderful Spirit of Jesus moves in us with all His elements. His moving in us is like the application of paint to an object. When an object is painted, all the elements in the paint are applied to the object. Likewise, the moving of the Spirit of Jesus in us applies all the elements in this Spirit to our inner being.

The Spirit of Jesus not only moves within us but also anoints us with all His elements. When a painter uses a paint brush or a paint roller to paint a wall, he "anoints" the wall with paint. Whatever surface the brush or roller moves on will receive a coat of paint. Likewise, the Holy Spirit's moving within us is not merely a moving but an anointing that "paints" us with all the riches of Christ. By the Spirit's moving, all that Christ is, is painted into us.

ENCOMPASSING THE THINGS OF GOD AND THE THINGS OF MAN AND MAKING GOD OUR ALL

Stanza 6 of this hymn says,

This Spirit of Jesus doth

Encompass both great and small;

Inclusively He doth work

In us, making God our all.

In the first two lines of this stanza, the word great implies God, and the word small implies man. This indicates that the Spirit of Jesus includes all the things that belong to God, who is great, and all the things that relate to man, who is small. In the universe there are great things and small things. The great things belong to God, and the small things belong to man. Everything belonging to God is great, and everything related to man is small. Since Jesus has both the nature of God and the nature of man, He includes all the great things and all the small things. All the things of God and man are included in the Spirit of Jesus. This Spirit of Jesus works in us inclusively to make all the things of Jesus as the glorified God-man everything to us.

If we are adequately impressed with the significance of the words of such a hymn, when we sing these words, they will be more meaningful to us.

John 7:39 says that the Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The glorification of Jesus was the uplifting of Jesus' humanity into divinity in His resurrection. The Spirit was not yet because Jesus' humanity had not yet been uplifted into divinity in His resurrection. In the first part of the Bible, the Spirit of God had only divinity without humanity. But in the last part of the Bible, the Spirit is unveiled as the Spirit of life who has both divinity and humanity. Thus, to say that the Spirit was not yet means that the Spirit of both divinity and humanity was not yet. But after Christ's resurrection, when Christ had uplifted His humanity into His divinity, the Spirit became something more. After Christ's resurrection, the Spirit was not merely the Spirit of God possessing divinity only, but the Spirit of both God and man, possessing both divinity and humanity.

Many in traditional theology say that the Holy Spirit of God possesses only divinity. They say that the Spirit of God is not the Spirit of man. They do not see how He could possess humanity. But the Bible eventually unveils to us that the Spirit of God became the Spirit of the God-man. This God-man is Jesus. Hymns, #242 says that the Spirit of God today is the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus is a God-man. So the Spirit of Jesus is now possessing not only divinity, but both divinity and humanity. The Spirit of God today is the Spirit of the man Jesus.

Piano Hymns