Definition
Transmission (Nee/Lee: transmission; Lat. transmissio = conveyance, passing on) is the functional designation for the role of the Holy Spirit as the final form in which God comes to the human being: the Spirit transmits everything that the Father in the Son is and has to the human spirit of the believer. Transmission is thus not one property of the Spirit alongside others, but the pneumatological definition of His economic function in salvation history. The concept forms for Nee/Lee the counterpart of oikonomia (the economy of God): the oikonomia describes the Trinitarian structure; transmission describes its operation at the level of the individual believer.
Usage in the Corpus
Watchman Nee & Witness Lee
Nee/Lee formulate transmission as the quintessence of the Trinitarian economy: “God the Father is the source; God the Son is the course and expression of the Father; and God as the Spirit is the transmission of God into man. Therefore the Father is the Spirit, the Son is also the Spirit, and the Spirit is of course the Spirit. The Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Spirit, and the Spirit is in us as the transmission of God, who is continually dispensing everything that God is and has in Christ.”
The content of this transmission is the totality of Christ’s redemptive work: “Have you ever realized that the Holy Spirit is the best ‘dose’ in the world? Just one dose is enough to meet all our need. All that the Father and the Son are and have is in this wonderful Spirit. Consider how many elements are in this dose: God’s divine nature, His human nature, His human life with its earthly suffering, the wonderful operation of His death, His resurrection, His ascension and His enthronement.”
Transmission is not a one-time transfer but a continual process: “This Holy Spirit, with the fullness of the Father in the riches of the Son, has entered into our human spirit and dwells there to work into our being everything that God is.” The outcome of this transmission is the mingling (mingling) of the divine and human spirit into one functioning unity (1Cor. 6:17). [Nee/Lee, The Economy of God, Ch. 2]