24.2 One Spirit Together

Indeed, we also inside of one Spirit were immersed into one body… and have all been made to drink one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). – The one who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6).

How is drinking of one Spirit together an essential part of our human design? How is it that our being immersed into one body inside of one Spirit becomes the very physical presence of Jesus in heaven-earth? These are profound thoughts, ones we have not really considered before. And the topic of “the Spirit” is one that is hard to delineate or specify. This is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and, according to Paul, our Spirit and the Spirit of the Church as well.

Understanding the Spirit. We know absolutely nothing about the relationship between God the Father and His Devoted Spirit. Nothing in the Bible or in nature gives us the slightest clue. Augustine’s definition of three equal and distinct beings sitting together is profoundly wrong, unsupported by Scripture and by the metaphors of creation. We have the general thought of the Spirit emanating or flowing out from God, but nothing specific concerning what that means.

Of course, the biggest split in church history, between the Romans and the Greeks, came over the argument of whether “the Spirit emanates from both Father and Son, or just from the Father.” The Romans wanted both; the Greeks wanted just the Father; none of them wanted Jesus inside of them.

“Seven Spirits of God.” John saw “seven Spirits of God” in his vision, in conjunction with Zechariah’s similar vision. I believe that is metaphorical, that God does not have seven distinct and different Spirits, but rather, that the Spirit of God, that is, the Spirit of Christ, that is, our spirit, that is, the Spirit of the Church, has seven qualities as expressed by Isaiah.

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of (1) the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of (2) wisdom and (3) understanding, the Spirit of (4) counsel and (5) might, the Spirit of (6) knowledge and of (7) the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:1-2). – Let’s put this in front of us whether we draw from it or not.

Our Human Nature. I have the capacity to drink of God’s Spirit. I am designed such that my spirit and the Spirit of Christ can be one. More than that, the very act of drinking of God’s Spirit myself, even while you are drinking of that same One Spirit, immerses both of us, baptizes us, places us utterly and permanently into one body, the visible expression of Jesus.

It is our human nature to be FILLED with the Spirit of God. God designed us with great thought and in minute detail to drink of one Spirit together. We once thought that we were contrary to God, but that’s because we were trying to be “like God,” that is, like an image of superiority, even while we refused to know a God who expresses Himself as us. – Genesis 3 full stop.

The Gifts of the Spirit. Yet Paul sets this wondrous piece of knowledge, that as we drink of one Spirit together so we are immersed into one body as the very outward expression of the Lord Jesus, into a much larger discussion of “the gifts of the Spirit.”

There are many varieties of graces or spirit gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord. There are varieties of operations, that is, effects of Energeia, but the same God who energeoes all inside of all. To each one is given the appearance or disclosure of the Spirit for shared profit (1 Corinthians 12:4-7).

Now, to the Spirit, Paul gives a list of nine gifts given, nine among many. But to Jesus, Paul gives serving one another, and to God the Father, he gives “effects of Energeia.”

For Shared Profit. But it is verse 7 that is most important to the purposes of this lesson. – To each one is given the appearance or disclosure of the Spirit for shared profit. When Paul says “shared profit,” he is speaking of the same thing as Ephesians 4:16, “being fitted together” and “causing growth of the body.” Shared profit, shared increase, shared treasure – comes from the tangible expression of the Spirit out from each one of us towards each other.

God gave me eight years inside the Blueberry Church partly so that I might know the NORMALITY of Spirit giftings, including the nine listed by Paul, flowing back and forth in all worship and in life together daily.

Tangible Expressions. And Paul’s argument is clear. It is this very reciprocity of tangible expressions of Spirit giftings that gives to Jesus the Body in which He walks the earth.

We have to realize this fact. Everything Paul expands on in Chapters 12, 13, and 14, and even including the second half of Chapter 11, is meant to place and to “fine tune” this reciprocal flow of the tangible expressions of Spirit giftings. But that “reciprocal flow of the tangible expressions of Spirit giftings” is the main thing. Chapter 11 suggests that participating in worship without regarding the body of Christ is the cause of spiritual sickness. Chapter 12 shows how these expressions immerse us into one body and equates “shared profit” with “the same anxious care for one another.”

Normality. Then, Chapter 13 places the Father as Love inside the Body of Christ that exists by these tangible expressions of the Spirit. And Chapter 14 gives us some specifics on the harmonious flow of peace as the individual members of the local church share these tangible expressions of Spirit giftings with one another.

As I look at Paul’s list of nine Spirit giftings, I see the faces of different individuals at Blueberry across those eight years. I see those faces in the services, yes, but also through all the doings of the day. And the normality of every single one of these Spirit giftings flowing back and forth from one to another, some giftings in every service, others, not always, but quite often, the normality was just, shall I say, NORMAL.

A Dwelling Place of God. We drank of one Spirit together, and by our drinking, we were immersed by that Spirit into one body, the Body of Jesus.

Is there a Body of togetherness, that serves as a dwelling place through which God expresses Himself, apart from the tangible expressions of the Spirit of God made normal and every-day?

It doesn’t make any difference to anyone if there were. Why? – Because it ain’t what is that counts, but KNOWING what is. And so all these people gathered in a room, sitting there in their human intellects, talking about a God they do not know, might be “the body of Christ,” but it does them no good, because they cannot KNOW the God who dwells among them apart from the miraculous and visible operations of the Spirit.

In His Temple. Inside of Whom the whole building, being fitted together, is increasing into a temple, holy inside the Lord. Inside of Jesus, you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God inside the sphere of Spirit (Ephesians 2:21-22).

Life is to know God. Death is not knowing God. The God Paul describes here is the God we are to know. And that God is known in His temple and nowhere else. And that temple is the togetherness of “being fitted together” inside the sphere of the miraculous and tangible expressions of the Spirit coming through each member of that togetherness in unique and wondrous ways. These are not outward human gifts, but outward Spirit gifts.

The Only One Who Knows. This is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, that the Spirit of God ALONE knows the things of God.

So – ignorance of the moving of the Spirit inside the gathering of the Church is ignorance of God, that is, death. Conversely – knowing the moving of the Spirit inside the gathering of the Church is the outward part of knowing God, which is life. (The inward part is always each individual person connected to a vital knowing of the Father sharing life with them.)

When I heard the brother say, “Union with Christ means I don’t need the gifts of the Spirit,” here is what I heard. “I (Christ as me) am ignorant of God and His beauty revealed in the Church, and my ignorance defines all things.”

The Beauty of God. Consider, then, the Beauty of God in His Church that we come to KNOW as we experience the tangible expressions of the Spirit throughout the daily interactions of the local church. Our minds, our whole way of thinking, the direction of our lives, are shaped by the certainty of God among us.

A family visiting the community attends the morning devotions. Their teenage son asks for prayer from a few of the elders as most everyone is leaving the Tabernacle. Those few gather around to pray, but the moment their hands touch him, demonic spirits manifest themselves. Those of us still in the Tabernacle gather around as if the discerning of spirits is normal and sing and pray together until the young man is free.

NORMAL! – The Beauty of God.

Worship Inside of Spirit. God is Spirit, and it is necessary that those worshipping Him, should worship inside of Spirit and truth (John 4:24).

When the members of a local church acknowledge God together inside a commitment to share one another’s lives, then it is normal for the effects of the Spirit among them to be continual. Then, inside this Spirit environment, as they speak Christ made personal as each of them, yet in unison, and as they receive one another as the Lord Jesus, then they will KNOW the Father among them just being Himself. And the Father, just being Himself among a people who, in unison, acknowledge Him as sharing their lives with them, will take their breath away with every wondrous surprise, new every morning.

The Problem of Schizophrenia. In my own experience, as I have described, we knew the effects of the Spirit as a normal part of our lives because we acknowledged Christ in ourselves and in one another. Yet at the same time, because we also acknowledged sin in the flesh in ourselves and in one another, we could not know the Father sharing our lives with us, and thus God Himself remained cold and distant to us. This ignorance of God was without purpose, utterly unnecessary, but as James said, those who practice the imagination of schizophrenia, two words, two minds, two lives, cannot please God.

Now we see that when Paul instructed us to be of one mind and of one spirit, he did not mean we would not perceive things differently, but that our own lives would be one and together.

God Expressing Himself. Many different types of graces, many different types of services, and many different effects of energeia, all of these mark a people drinking of one Spirit together as one body. Then, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, when strangers come into the midst of such a gathering together, with Father Love at its center, they will know that they are seeing God.

Yet this seeing of God as He expresses Himself through all these many Spirit effects, is woven all through the daily lives of the people, all through their work and interaction. An individual person going around putting on a show of miracles from one place to the next is not part of God’s expression, though He shares life with and carries all.

Being a Human. A body You have prepared for Me (Hebrews 10). – We are speaking of the visible expression of the Lord Jesus Christ to all heaven-earth, inside the physical and the spiritual at the same time, and inside of Jesus is the Father.

I am convinced that Jesus has no other form and that those who see a single human form in the heavens are seeing a vision, and NOT Jesus as He is. The evidence of that assertion is that this “seeing of Jesus” does not make them just like Him, and thus cannot be “as He is.”

Yet when strangers see Jesus expressing Himself through regular folk sharing one another’s lives and drinking of the same Spirit together, they will know that becoming like Jesus is what being a human is all about.