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Scripture Reading: 14, John 4:23-24; 1:12; 3:5, 6b; 14:23; 17:26a; Heb. 2:12
III. The worship in the dispensing of God:
А. To worship the Father — John 4:23:
1. By becoming the Father’s children — 1:12; 1 John 3:1a.
2. By knowing the Father’s name — John 17:26a; Heb. 2:12a.
3. By enjoying the Father’s presence — John 14:23.
B. In the Son as the reality — 4:23-24:
1. By experiencing the Son as the good land — Deut. 8:7.
2. By enjoying the riches of the Son as the rich produce of the good land — vv. 8-10.
3. By presenting the Son to the Father as the peace offering — Lev. 3:1, 6, 12; 7:11-13.
C. In our spirit mingled with the Spirit of God — John 4:23-24:
1. By being born of the Spirit of God in our spirit — 3:5, 6b.
2. By being baptized into one Body in the Spirit of God — 1 Cor. 12:13a.
3. By drinking of the Spirit of God — v. 13b; John 4:14.
4. By being in the unique place of worship where God’s habitation is — Deut. 12:5; Eph. 2:22.
D. In the dispensing of the Triune God:
1. Having been baptized into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — Matt. 28:19b.
2. Enjoying the Father’s love, the Son’s grace, and the Spirit’s fellowship — 2 Cor. 13:14.
Focus: The worship in the dispensing of the Triune God is the worship to the Father by His many sons with His firstborn Son as the offerings and in His Spirit who mingles Himself with our spirit as the unique place for our worship.
In this lesson we want to continue our fellowship on the practice of the Lord’s table meeting. In the previous lessons we fellowshipped about the practice of remembering the Lord and worshipping the Father. Now we want to see something concerning the worship that we need to offer to the Father in the Son as the reality and in our spirit mingled with the Spirit of God. This is a worship in the dispensing of God.
Paul’s writings are filled with the concept of the divine dispensing of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not referred to by Paul in a doctrinal way but in an experiential way. Ephesians 2:18 reveals that we have access to the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. Ephesians 3 says that the Father strengthens us through His Spirit into the inner man so that Christ, the Son, can make His home in our hearts (vv. 14-17). To praise the Father through the Son and in the Spirit is in the dispensing of the Triune God. To worship the Father with the Son and in the Spirit is the true worship in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
When we speak of the worship in the dispensing of God, we are still speaking of our worship of the Father. The Jews, according to their view of the Old Testament, have their kind of worship of God. That is not the worship in God’s dispensing. It is altogether not involved with the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Basically speaking, the Jews know God only in His creation. They do not know God in His dispensing. They consider God as their Creator, and they may even consider God as their Father in the sense of being their source but not in the sense of the Divine Trinity for the divine dispensing of Himself into our being.
In the Gospels there is only one chapter in which the Lord talked about the worship of God. When He talked about the worship of God in John 4, He was referring specifically to the worship of the Father. The Samaritan woman spoke of worship, but she did not use the term Father. Then the Lord Jesus told her, “An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him” (v. 23). This meant that the age had changed. Even when the Lord Jesus was talking to her, the age had changed, so the Lord used the term Father, saying that we need to worship the Father. When we use John 4:24, we usually neglect verse 23. The Lord did not say that we worship God but that we worship the Father. The Father seeks after this worship.
In verse 24 the Lord spoke of the nature of God. The nature of God is Spirit. The Lord did not say that we worship God but that we worship the Father, whose nature, as God, is Spirit. The worship here is absolutely different from the Jewish worship. The Jewish worship is altogether the worship of the Creator. But what the Lord spoke of is the worship of the Father in the Son and also in the Spirit. Thus, this is a worship in God’s dispensing, the worship by the divine dispensing. When the Jews worship God as the Creator, they do not have the thought of God being dispensed into them. But if we would have the true worship, we need God to be dispensed into our being.
In John 4 the worship to the Father, the worship in the dispensing of God, is related to drinking the living water (vv. 10, 14). To contact God the Spirit with our spirit is to drink of the living water, and to drink of the living water is to render real worship to God. To expound John 4:24 we need John 4:14. We need to drink of the living water to worship the Father in spirit and in truthfulness. If we do not drink the living water, we do not drink of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), we have no experience of God, and God is not dispensed into us.
Without drinking the living water, we cannot have a subjective worship in the divine dispensing. We can have only the Jewish kind of objective worship to an objective God as the Creator. Today our worship is subjective in the dispensing of God. Our worship is our experience of drinking the living water, the Spirit. In order to have the worship in the dispensing of God, we need to drink of the Spirit so that God may dispense Himself into our being. This is the new worship revealed in the New Testament.
Even today much of the worship in Christianity is actually in the principle of the Jewish worship, the worship of the Creator who is far away from them. Our worship, however, is not merely to the Creator but to the Father, who has regenerated us and who has put Himself into our being. Now our worship is subjective with God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — dispensed into us.
This kind of worship can be practiced mostly in the Lord’s table meeting, because in the Lord’s table meeting, after we partake of the bread and the cup, the Lord takes the lead to bring us to the Father. The Lord leads us back to the Father in the Spirit. Here we must remember Ephesians 2:18, which reveals that our worship is through the Son, in the Spirit, and to the Father. This is fully portrayed in Luke 15 with the parables of the shepherd, the woman, and the father. It is through the Son’s seeking as the Shepherd and through the Spirit’s enlightening as the woman that the prodigal son comes back to the Father. Therefore, this coming back to the Father is in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. The Son and the Spirit are wrought into the returning son. This is the true worship in God’s dispensing.
If we are to worship the Father, we first need to be reborn, becoming the Father’s children (John 1:12; 1 John 3:1a).
In John 17:26a the Lord said that He would make the Father’s name known to His disciples, and in Hebrews 2:12a we see that He declares the Father’s name to His brothers. The name denotes the person. When you call on someone’s name, the person comes, so the name of the Father denotes the Father’s person. He is not only our God who created us but also the Father who begets us. He is not only the creating God but also the begetting Father. Now we are not only His creatures but also His children born of Him, begotten by Him. He is our Father, and we have to know His person. To know His person is to know His name.
All the disciples at that time had a Jewish background. They had the concept concerning God as their Creator, but they did not have any concept about God being their begetting Father. Before the Lord’s resurrection they did not have the concept that they were to be the children of God with God’s life and nature. Before His resurrection it was hard for the Lord to declare the Father’s person to the disciples, because they did not have God as their Father. But in the resurrection He imparted the divine life into the disciples, so that made it easy for Him to make the Father’s name, the Father’s person, known to them.
On the day of His resurrection He told Mary, “Go to My brothers and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (John 20:17). The words brothers and your Father indicate an experience of life, a relationship in life. In His resurrection the Lord imparted the Father’s life and nature into the disciples. Now His Father is their Father, and they are His brothers. This is all implied in knowing the Father’s name, His person.
We worship the Father by enjoying the Father’s presence. In John 14:23 the Lord said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” The Father and the Son will come to the one who loves the Son and will make Their abode with him. This is the constant presence of the Father. When we say, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), we have a sweet inward sensation in an intimate enjoyment of the Father’s presence.
By becoming the Father’s children, by knowing the Father’s name, and by enjoying the Father’s presence, we worship the Father. If we are not born of the Father, do not know His person, and do not have His presence, we cannot worship Him subjectively; we can worship only an objective God.
We worship the Father in the Son as the reality (John 4:23-24). The Samaritan woman in John 4 tried to contend with the Lord Jesus by saying, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (v. 20). The Jews said this based upon Deuteronomy 12, which refers to Jerusalem as the unique place ordained by God for His people’s worship. We have to refer the saints back to Deuteronomy 12 and tell them that the very worship ordained by God was with two regulations. First, it had to be in the unique, central place chosen by God, and second, it was with all the rich surplus of the produce of the good land. All the children of Israel in the ancient times had to worship God by keeping these two regulations.
The Lord pointed out to the Samaritan woman that the age had changed. Deuteronomy 12 is the type, but in the New Testament we have the reality and the fulfillment. In typology the unique place of worship was Jerusalem, and in the fulfillment this place is our spirit. Today our spirit is the actual Jerusalem where God’s habitation is. Furthermore, the surplus of the produce of the good land is a type of the riches of Christ. Christ is the reality of all the offerings from the riches of the good land, including the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the wave offering, the heave offering, and the drink offering. All these offerings were the surplus of the produce of the good land as types of Christ who is the real surplus, the real offerings. Thus, in John 4:23-24 the human spirit replaces Jerusalem as the unique worship center, and Christ replaces all the offerings, the surplus of the good land.
Our worship to the Father in the Son as the reality is by experiencing the Son as the good land (Deut. 8:7).
We worship the Father in the Son as the reality by enjoying the riches of the Son as the rich produce of the good land (vv. 8-10).
We worship the Father by presenting the Son to the Father as the peace offering (Lev. 3:1, 6, 12; 7:11-13).
We worship the Father in our spirit mingled with the Spirit of God (John 4:23-24).
If we are going to worship God in our spirit, we must be born of the Spirit of God in our spirit (3:5, 6b). In John 3 there is the need to be born again, and in John 4 there is the worship in spirit. First, we need to be born of the Spirit, and then we can worship in spirit.
By being baptized into one Body in the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 12:13a), we can worship the Father in our spirit. Actually, our worship in the dispensing of God is not an individual matter. According to the type in the Old Testament, all the children of Israel came to Jerusalem to worship not in an individual way but in a corporate way. Their worship was a corporate worship. At every feast, three times a year, they came together to worship God. Therefore, the worship in the dispensing of God according to the economy of God is a corporate worship in the Body.
We also worship in our spirit by drinking of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 12:13b; John 4:14).
We must worship the Father by being in the unique place of worship where God’s habitation is (Deut. 12:5; Eph. 2:22). After we are born of the Spirit of God in our spirit, baptized into one Body in the one Spirit, and drink of this one Spirit, our spirit becomes the unique place of worship because our spirit is the very place where God’s habitation is. Christians are divided today because they will not come to their spirit to worship. If all the Christians would come to their spirit to worship, there would be no division. As long as all the children of Israel came to Jerusalem to worship, they were kept in oneness. The principle is the same today. Many Christians will not come to their regenerated spirit to worship God, so they are divided. Today we have to worship the Father in our spirit mingled with the Spirit of God.
Our worship to the Father in the Lord’s table meeting is in the dispensing of the Triune God. We have been baptized into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). We also enjoy the Father’s love, the Son’s grace, and the Spirit’s fellowship (2 Cor. 13:14). We must be in the dispensing of the Triune God. Then we can have the proper and true worship in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The focus of this lesson is as follows: the worship in the dispensing of the Triune God is the worship to the Father by His many sons with His firstborn Son as the offerings and in His Spirit who mingles Himself with our spirit as the unique place for our worship.
This fellowship should help us in the worship of the Father in the Lord’s table meeting. This is the worship that the Lord revealed in John 4. John’s Gospel tells us in chapter 1 that we have the right to be God’s children. He gave as many as received Him the right, the authority, to be His children (v. 12). These children are born of God Himself. Then chapter 3 tells us how to be born of God. We must be born of water and the Spirit to be reborn of the Spirit (vv. 5-6). Chapter 4 goes on to reveal how to worship God as the Father in our spirit as the unique place of our worship and with the Son as the real offerings (vv. 23-24). We have to experience the dispensing of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Then we can have the kind of worship that the Father seeks.
