Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
—John 7:37-39
It is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul”; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
—1 Corinthians 15:45
When we were born again we received the life-giving Spirit. It is as the life-giving Spirit that God comes into us and brings us into all the reality of His life within us. According to Johhn 7:37-39, it was not until after Jesus was resurrected (or “glorified”) that God could come into us as “the Spirit” to be our life within. According to First Corinthians 15:45, Christ, the last Adam, became “a life-giving Spirit” in resurrection. When we were born again, we received Him as the life-giving Spirit.
It is this same Spirit that Christ spoke of to the disciples. “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you” (John 14:16-17). “But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality” (John 16:13a). Christ as the life-giving Spirit has come into our human spirit and will guide us into all the reality of what we have received.
Adapted from Born Again, page 23.
Tomorrow: “Brought Into the Reality by the Spirit”