III.　Our spirit is the dwelling place of God; we are "being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit"—Eph. 2:22:

A.　We should look to the Lord to have mercy on us and to open our eyes to see that the processed and consummated Triune God as the all-inclusive Spirit dwells in our spirit and is mingled with our spirit as one spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; cf. Rev. 3:18.

B.　The most pleasant thing in the eyes of God is that we remain in our spirit, the dwelling place of God; all day long, "in spirit" should govern us and direct all our activities; our highest enjoyment and experience is that the Lord as the Spirit is with our spirit, and we can enjoy Him in our spirit as the presence of grace—Rom. 1:9; 8:16; John 4:24; 2 Cor. 2:13; 2 Tim. 4:22; Gal. 6:18.

C.　Our regenerated spirit as God's dwelling place, the house of God, is the base on earth where Christ as the heavenly ladder has been set up; hence, whenever we turn to our spirit, we experience Christ as the ladder bringing God into us and us into God for the mingling of God and man—Gen. 28:12-17; John 1:51.

D.　Our spirit is the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of the pneumatic Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God who is typified by the Ark, within which were the hidden manna (signifying God the Father as the divine source of all supply), the budding rod (signifying Christ the Son as the resurrection), and the tablets of the law (signifying the Spirit of life as the inner law of life)—Exo. 25:22; 26:33-34; Heb. 9:3-4; 10:19-22; John 11:25; Rom. 8:2, 16:

1.　Through our prayer at the incense altar, typifying the resurrected Christ in ascension, we enter into the Holy of Holies—our spirit—where we expe-rience Christ as the Ark of the Testimony with its contents.

2.　Through such an experience of Christ in our spirit, we are incorporated into Him to become a part of the corporate Christ as God's testimony for His manifestation—Exo. 38:21; 1 Cor. 12:12.

E.　The reality of the church as the Body of Christ is a living in the mingled spirit:

1.　Our spirit is where the building up of the church, the dwelling place of God, takes place; the reality of all spiritual things is in the spirit; the church itself is in the spirit, the building of the church is in the spirit, and the eternal testimony of the church is in the spirit—Eph. 2:22.

2.　Living in the spirit is the secret and the key to our Christian life and church life; to live in the spirit is to let Christ fill and saturate us until He permeates our whole being and is thereby expressed through us.

IV.　Our spirit is our inner man, our new person, our new spirit, our new man; we need to pray to be strengthened with power into the inner man for the reality of the Body life, which is the inner experience of the indwelling Christ as life for God's glory in the church—3:16-21:

A.　In Ephesians 1 our spirit is revealed as an organ for us to receive a revelation concerning the church; in Ephesians 3 our spirit is a person, the inner man, for us to experience Christ for the church; our regenerated spirit, indwelt by and mingled with the Lord as the Spirit, is the inner man:

1.　Before we were regenerated, our person was our soul, our old man; after our regeneration, our new spirit, our new person, our new man, is our inner man—Rom. 6:6; Acts 2:41; Heb. 12:9b; John 3:6; 2 Cor. 4:16; Ezek. 36:26.

2.　The reality of the Body of Christ is the sum total of all the new persons within all of us, the totality of all our spirits, issuing in one great corporate person, one great God-man, the Body of Christ as the one new man, con-summating in the New Jerusalem as the new invention and new creation of the Triune God—Heb. 12:9b; 2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 2:10, 15; Col. 3:10-11; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Rev. 21:2.

B.　When we are strengthened into our inner man, Christ as the indwelling Spirit in our spirit supplies, saturates, possesses, and controls every part of our heart to become the new person in our heart—Eph. 3:16-17.

C.　Ephesians 3:17 reveals that the Triune God has come into us to do a building work with Himself as the element and also with something from us as the material; this is illustrated by the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:

1.　The Lord sows Himself as the seed of life into men's hearts, the soil, that He might grow and live in them and be expressed from within them; the seed is sown into the soil to grow with the nutrients of the soil, producing a composition of elements from both the seed and the soil—vv. 3, 23.

2.　We have within us certain nutrients created by God as a preparation for His coming into us to grow in us; God has created the human spirit with the human nutrients along with the human heart as the soil for the divine seed—cf. 1 Pet. 3:4.

3.　The rate at which we grow in life depends not on the divine seed but on how many nutrients we afford this seed; the more nutrients we supply, the faster the seed will grow and flourish—Psa. 78:8; Matt. 5:3, 8:

a.　If we remain in our soul, in our natural man, there will not be any nutrients for the growth of the divine seed, but if we are strengthened into our inner man and if we pay attention to our spirit and exercise our spirit, the nutrients will be supplied and Christ will make His home in our hearts—Eph. 3:16-17; Rom. 8:6; 1 Tim. 4:7; cf. Jude 19.

b.　In order for the Lord as the seed of life to grow within us to be our full enjoyment, we have to open to the Lord absolutely and cooperate with Him to deal thoroughly with our heart—Matt. 13:3-9, 19-23.

4.　On the one hand, God strengthens us with Himself as the element, and on the other hand, we afford the nutrients; through these two God in Christ carries out His intrinsic building—the building of His home—in our entire being.

D.　Christ making His home in our hearts causes us to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ that we may be filled unto all the fullness of the Triune God for His corporate expression, His glorification—Eph. 3:19-21; cf. Gen. 24:47, 53, 61-67.