THE teaching of the New Testament on this subject is perhaps more simple than we are generally aware of. We become “Spiritual,” or “Spirit,” by faith in Jesus risen, then we are born of the Spirit, and become Spirit, or with the seed of God in us. Then, joined to the Lord, we are one Spirit with Him; we derive a life from the second Adam, for He is a quickening Spirit. “The Lord is that Spirit.” The Spirit is received by the hearing of faith. The ministration of the word of the New Testament is the ministration of the Spirit. We serve in newness of Spirit, when we believe in Jesus risen, and thus we become spiritual by faith in the Lord. (See Rom. 8:66For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Romans 8:6); 1 Cor. 6:17, 15:45; 2 Cor. 3 Gal. 3 &c.) This is matter of revelation; the Scripture thus tells us that faith in the risen Jesus makes us spiritual, and our first duty is to believe this faith; when revelation is made, experience may, and will follow, but faith is the first duty. God as a Revealer is honored by faith, and then He will honor the faith, giving it a seal which is called experience; but the moment we are thus spiritual, or “one with the Lord” by faith, we become such as the Holy Ghost can and will own. For it is the Lord in us whom He thus owns, and Him He can of course own anywhere. He could never own or adopt the flesh, but the word of grace unites us as one Spirit to the Lord; nay, the Holy Ghost did not acknowledge flesh even in unfallen Adam, for Adam was not a temple of the Holy Ghost, but He can own even a poor sinner who by faith is one with the Son. Our individual bodies He owns, just because He finds the Lord there (1 Cor. 6:17, 1917But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17)
19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)); our collective bodies, or the church, He owns, because in like manner He finds the Lord there. (Eph. 2:20, 2120And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: (Ephesians 2:20‑21).) He makes both of these His temples, dwelling in them, because the Lord is there. And thus the believer is not only spiritual, as being by faith one with the Lord, but he becomes a temple of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost enters, and dwells in him; then the Spirit bears witness, with the believer’s spirit. (Rom. 8:1616The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (Romans 8:16).) His own spirit tells him that he is a child, because by faith he is one with the Son of God’s love, and the Holy Ghost joins in this testimony because He has entered us, as owning the Son in us, and then in us raises the cry, or draws out the breathing, “Abba, Father.” But even this indwelling of the Holy Ghost is matter of revelation, as well as our oneness with the Son, or our being Spirit; therefore it is to be neither prayed for, nor experienced, but believed. Sweet, and refreshing, and purifying fruit of this indwelling will surely be known and enjoyed, and that more or less, as we walk in holy diligent cultivation of the spiritual mind, and in communion with God, and that will be our experience. But at first we are not to put the soul to any effort to experience the indwelling of the Spirit, but to believe the revelation that he does in-dwell; the happy way to reach experience, is simply to have faith in the revelation, and it is, moreover, on this very ground, that our responsibilities arise. We are all debtors under this dispensation to walk in the Spirit: believers in old time were not thus spiritual. A prophet, or the like, may have been called spiritual, while the Spirit was in Him to prophecy, but that was far different from being spiritual in the sense of being joined to the Lord; that is the glory of this dispensation.
From all this, we gather that the Spirit is imparted by the word of the gospel, that “word” is the seed of new or spiritual life in us, and is received by faith, and then the Holy Ghost comes and dwells in us, as spiritual, or one with the Lord: and this shows us that there is connection, but not identity, between the word of grace and the Holy Ghost. The word of grace gives liberty to the sinner, purifies the conscience by faith in the blood, makes us one with the Son, and thus prepares us for the entrance and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. And, in connection with this, I might observe, that the Lord had been born of the Holy Ghost before He was anointed; as the Holy Thing in the virgin’s womb, He was of the Holy Ghost, and afterward the Holy Ghost descended, and rested on Him, and He was then full of the Spirit; and so in their way and measure with the saints. They are born of God, and children by faith in Christ Jesus, for then they are united to Christ, and have put Him on, and He is the Son. (Gal. 3:2727For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:27).) But afterward they become the temples of the Spirit, are sealed with the Spirit of adoption, the earnest of the inheritance, “for if children, then heirs.” (See Eph. 1:13, 1413In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13‑14).) And this seems to have been expressed to us in this, when the Lord rose from the dead He breathed on His disciples, imparting the life; when afterward He ascended, He gave the Holy Ghost in power.
The love that is to continue forever, is “Love in the Spirit,” the affections which are to live, and have their exercise through eternity, are spiritual not natural. The springs which are in the heart, will be dried up at the resurrection, or when the present body which carries the heart, or human affections is laid down, and then we are not to know each other at all after the flesh any more forever. We shall survive in our own identity of course, but it will not be to know either ourselves or others in human or natural relationship. For the Spirit alone will be the ever living fountain of all our faculties and affections. So that there will be no effort to lay aside the human recollections and feelings, because the heart, the root of them will have been withered, and be gone, nor will there be human regrets. It is at times asked, shall we not with pain miss some from the glorified hosts? but that inquiry can arise only from the thought that we shall carry our heart of nature with us into the midst of these hosts: but that will not be; it is the Spirit that will rule there, and be the source and order of all our affections.
For the present life to be without natural affection is the sign of a reprobate mind; a mind not found according to God; and that because we have still the heart of human nature, the affections of the human family in us, and are debtors to its claims. But in the church we are learning the character, the power, and the claims of the Spirit, and know no man after the flesh. For our conversion is entrance on a new life, on a new creation, where new relations are owned, and new affections accordingly felt, and this itself is a new thing. In Israel it was not exactly this, human affections were to have their play there, and the scene of their full and holy exercise, for their citizenship was on earth. (See accordingly Mal. 4:66And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:6).) But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is not the heart as the spring of well regulated human affections, but it is the Spirit as the eternal source of new and living streams. For that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit. A distinct principle of life in us having its proper acting’s, its due faculties and affections. Thus St. Paul speaks of serving in the Spirit (Rom. 1:99For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; (Romans 1:9)), living and walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:1616This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16)), having strength, or faculty to comprehend in the Spirit (Eph. 3:1717That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, (Ephesians 3:17)), having a conscience in the Spirit (Rom. 9:11I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, (Romans 9:1)), loving in the Spirit (Col. 1:88Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. (Colossians 1:8)), having bowels in the Spirit (Phil. 1:88For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:8)). These are a few instances wherein the Spirit is owned, as the principle of a distinct life, the spring of its own peculiar faculties and affections; as it will by and bye be also the life of its own peculiar and suited body (1 Cor. 15), for then the spirit, that which has already been detached from the corruptible body, and gone to Jesus, will take up, and seat itself in the glorious body.