The Economy and Dispensing of God, by Witness Lee

More excerpts from this title...

IN RESURRECTION
CHRIST AS THE LAST ADAM
BECOMING THE LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT
AND ENTERING INTO HIS BELIEVERS
AS THE HOLY SPIRIT

Chapter one of the Gospel of John tells us that Christ was God in eternity past (v. 1). This very God who was the Word became incarnated to be a man (v. 14). Then, chapter twenty tells us that after His death, this Christ entered into resurrection, and in resurrection He changed His form and became a life-giving Spirit (vv. 19-22). In incarnation He changed His form from the form of God to the form of man. In resurrection He as the last Adam changed His form again, from the form of the human flesh to a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b).

The word life-giving implies dispensing, because to give is to dispense. The British call a drugstore a dispensary. This means that the store dispenses different kinds of medicines and drugs. Christ as the life-giving Spirit is dispensing life as food to His believers. Within our physical food there is medicine; the nourishment in the food kills the germs. Within Christ as the food there is the real "medicine" that kills all the spiritual germs.

In Greek the word for spirit is pneuma. This word can also be translated breath. On the night of His resurrection, the Lord came back to visit His believers. He did not give them a message or any teaching or instruction. He did only one thing: He breathed into them (John 20:22). By breathing into them, He breathed Himself into them. At that time Christ was the life-giving Spirit. Thus, by Christ’s breathing, all the disciples received Him as the life-giving Spirit.

CHRIST AS THE COMPOUND SPIRIT
BECOMING THE ANOINTING OINTMENT
AND AS THE CONSUMMATION
OF THE PROCESSED TRIUNE GOD
BECOMING THE BOUNTIFUL SUPPLY
OF THE DIVINE TRINITY FOR HIS DISPENSING

Christ is not only the life-giving Spirit; He is the compound Spirit as well. The compound Spirit is the Spirit of God compounded with Christ’s humanity, death, and resurrection. In this way He became the anointing (dispensing) ointment (1 John 2:20, 27). Even the anointing is a dispensing. This compound Spirit as the anointing ointment is the consummation of the processed Triune God.

In eternity past, God had only divinity; He did not have humanity, and He did not have the elements of death and resurrection. By His passing through incarnation, death, and resurrection, a number of elements were added to Him. In His incarnation He added humanity; in His crucifixion He added the element and effectiveness of death; and in His resurrection He added the divine power of resurrection. With all these elements He became the life-giving Spirit. As such a Spirit, He is compounded with the elements of divinity, humanity, the all-inclusive death, and the powerful resurrection. All these elements were compounded with the Spirit of God as the base, as the oil, to produce the compound Spirit.

In Exodus 30 we can see the record of the compounding of the anointing ointment (vv. 22-25). In this record the Spirit of God is signified by the olive oil, which is the base for the ointment. Into this base were added four kinds of spices, which, when compounded with the oil, became an ointment for anointing. When this ointment anointed, all the elements of the compound ointment were applied to the objects that were anointed.

(The Economy and Dispensing of God, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee)