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In this message we shall consider more aspects of God’s work in the new dispensation.
God’s work includes His calling, forgiving, justifying, reconciling, receiving, regenerating, washing, sanctifying, and glorifying the believers. Let us briefly consider these matters one by one.
Romans 8:30, speaking of God, says, “Whom He predestinated, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Here we see that we have been called by God. According to 1 Corinthians 1:9, God has called us “into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” To be called into the fellowship of God’s Son is to be called into the partaking of, the participating in, His Son. This is to be called to partake of and to participate in the all-inclusive Christ. God has called us into such a fellowship so that we may partake of and participate in Christ and enjoy Him as our God-given portion.
First Thessalonians 2:12 says that God has called us “into His own kingdom and glory.” The kingdom here is the sphere in which the believers worship and enjoy God under the divine ruling with the view of entering into His glory.
Paul speaks of God’s calling in 2 Thessalonians 2:13 and 14. “God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, to which also He called you through our gospel unto the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The pronoun “which” in verse 14 refers to salvation and belief in the preceding verse. God chose us unto salvation and belief in eternity, and then in time He called us to salvation and belief unto the obtaining of the glory of our Lord. Salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth are the procedures; obtaining the glory of our Lord is the goal.
In 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul says that God “has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose.” God has not only saved us to enjoy His blessing, but also called us with a holy calling, a calling for a particular cause, to fulfill His purpose. The purpose here is God’s plan according to His will to place us into Christ, making us one with Him to share His life and position so that we may be His testimony.
In his second Epistle Peter gives us a word regarding God’s calling, saying that God “has called us to His own glory and virtue” (2 Pet. 1:3). Glory is the expression of God, God expressed in splendor. Literally, the Greek word rendered “virtue” means excellency. Virtue denotes the energy of life to overcome all obstacles and to carry out all excellent attributes. Glory is the divine goal, and virtue is the energy and strength of life to reach the goal.
In 1 Peter 2:9 we are told that God has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Darkness is the expression and sphere of Satan in death; light is the expression and sphere of God in life. God has called us, delivered us, out of Satan’s death-realm of darkness into His life-realm of light (Acts 26:18; Col. 1:13).
In addition to calling us, God has forgiven us. Ephesians 4:32 tells us that God in Christ forgave us, and Colossians 2:13 says that God has forgiven us all offenses. According to Hebrews 8:12, God will by no means remember our sins. This means God will forget our sins. To forgive means to forget, for the forgetting of sins is the real forgiveness of sins. Without forgetting, forgiveness is not real. Hence, God not only forgives our sins but also forgets them.
First John 1:9 tells us that God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. To forgive us is to release us from the offense of our sins. The forgiveness of sins is the basic element of God’s gospel (Luke 24:47; Acts 5:31; 10:43; 13:38). Through this, the believers who receive Christ become the children of God (1 John 2:12; John 1:12-13).
A number of verses in Romans speak of God justifying the believers. Romans 8:30 says that those “whom He called, these He also justified.” Then 8:33b declares, “It is God who justifies.” According to Romans 3:24, we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus,” for God is just and justifies the one who is of the faith of Jesus (v. 26). Justification is God’s action in approving people according to His standard of righteousness. God’s righteousness is the standard, not ours. No matter how righteous we are, we cannot be approved by God according to our righteousness. Although we may be right with everyone — our parents, our children, our neighbors and friends — our righteousness will never justify us before God. We may justify ourselves according to our standard of righteousness, but this does not enable us to be justified by God according to His standard. But when God justifies us, we are approved by Him according to the standard of His righteousness.
How can God justify us, approving us according to His standard of righteousness? He can do this because the work of justification is based on the redemption of Christ. When the redemption of Christ is applied to us, we are justified. If there were no such redemption, it would be impossible for us to be justified by God. Christ’s redemption is the basis of God’s justification.
In Romans 3:30 Paul says, “It is one God who shall justify the circumcision out of faith and uncircumcision through faith.” God is one. This one God justifies both the Jews and the Gentiles. Whether we are Jews or Gentiles, it is the one God who has justified all of us so that we may be one as the Body of Christ.
God has also reconciled us to Himself. Romans 5:10 says, “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” Colossians 1:21 and 22 also indicate that as enemies we have been reconciled to God. Originally, we were not only sinners but also enemies of God. Through the redeeming death of Christ, God has justified us, the sinners, and has reconciled us, His enemies, to Himself. Because we were sinners, we needed redemption. Because we were also enemies of God, we needed reconciliation to Him. This took place when we believed in the Lord Jesus. We have received God’s justification and reconciliation by faith.
Colossians 1:20 and 22 tell us that it was through Christ as the active instrument that God’s work of reconciliation was processed, that to reconcile us to God is to make peace with God for us, and that this was accomplished through the blood of Christ. Through the death of Christ God has reconciled us to Himself in order that we may be presented holy, blameless, and without reproach before Him.
Romans 14:3 indicates that God receives the believers. God receives us according to His Son. As long as a person receives His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as his Savior, God receives him immediately. God’s receiving is based on Christ’s receiving, and Christ’s receiving is in accordance with our faith in Him. Once we have believed in Christ, we are received by God. God’s receiving ushers us into the enjoyment of the Triune God and all that He has prepared and accomplished in Christ for us as our eternal portion.
First Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead.” Regeneration, like redemption and justification, is an aspect of God’s full salvation. Redemption and justification solve our problem with God and reconcile us to God. Regeneration enlivens us with God’s life and brings us into a relationship of life, an organic union, with God. Hence, regeneration issues and results in a living hope. Such regeneration takes place through the resurrection of Christ from among the dead. When Christ was resurrected, we, His believers, were all included in Him. Thus, we were resurrected with Him (Eph. 2:6). In His resurrection the divine life was imparted to us and made us the same as Christ in life and nature. This is the basic factor of our regeneration.
To be regenerated is to receive another life, God’s divine life, in addition to our human life. Through regeneration God imparts His divine life into us. We all have been born of His divine life. This is to be regenerated by God.
James 1:18 also speaks of God’s work in regenerating the believers: “Having purposed, He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a certain firstfruit of His creatures.” God brought us forth, regenerated us, of His own will, by His intention, to carry out His purpose, so that we might be the firstfruit of His creatures. To be the firstfruit of God’s creatures is to be the vigorous life that matures first. This is by the divine birth, our regeneration (John 3:5-6), which is carried out according to God’s eternal purpose.
God brought us forth, regenerated us, by the word of truth. The word of truth is the word of the divine reality, the word of what the Triune God is (John 1:14, 17). This word is the seed of life by which we have been regenerated (1 Pet. 1:23).
First John 1:9 speaks of God’s cleansing, or washing, the believers: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous that He may forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Whereas to be forgiven is to be released from the offense of our sins, to be cleansed is to be washed from the stain of unrighteousness. In this verse “unrighteousness” and “sins” are synonyms. All unrighteousness is sin (1 John 5:17). Both refer to our wrongdoings. “Sins” indicates the offense of our wrongdoings against God and man; “unrighteousness” indicates the stain of our wrongdoings, that we are not right either with God or with men. The offense needs God’s forgiveness, and the stain requires His cleansing. Both God’s forgiveness and God’s cleansing are needed for the restoration of our broken fellowship with Him so that we may enjoy Him in uninterrupted fellowship with a good conscience void of offense (1 Tim. 1:5; Acts 24:16).
In his work in the new dispensation God also sanctifies the believers: “The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 5:23). The God of peace is the Sanctifier. His sanctification brings in peace. When we are wholly sanctified by Him from within, we have peace with Him in every way.
The Greek word for “sanctified” means set apart, separated unto God, from things common or profane. However, to be sanctified involves more than being separated from a common, worldly position to a position that is for God, as illustrated in Matthew 23:17 and 19, where the gold is sanctified by the temple and the gift by the altar in changing their position, and in 1 Timothy 4:3-5, where food is sanctified by the saints’ prayer. To be sanctified is also a matter of disposition, that is, a matter of being transformed from the natural disposition to a spiritual one, as indicated in Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18. This involves a long process, beginning from regeneration, passing the whole Christian life (1 Thes. 4:3; Heb. 12:14; Eph. 5:26), and being completed at the time of rapture, at the maturity of life.
According to 1 Thessalonians 5:23, God is sanctifying the believers wholly. This means that He is sanctifying us entirely, thoroughly, to the consummation. God sanctifies us wholly so that no part of our being, either of our spirit or soul or body, will be left common or profane.
In His work in the new dispensation God also glorifies the believers. Romans 8:30 says, “Whom He predestinated, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Since glorification will occur in the future, why does Paul use the past tense and say “glorified”? Have you been glorified? Although in our experience we have not been glorified, the Bible says that we have been glorified already. Everything mentioned in verse 30 is an accomplished fact — predestinated, called, justified, and glorified. The reason Paul speaks this way here is that although we are subject to time, God is not. He is the God of eternity. With Him, as the eternal God, there is no time. Therefore, in the sight of God, we have already been glorified. According to His concept, this has already been accomplished. Our glorification is secured and ensured in the eternal God Himself. According to our experience, glorification will take place in the future. But according to God’s view, it has already occurred. With God everything is timeless. In His sight, our predestination, calling, justification, and glorification are eternal matters.
According to Romans 5:2, we “boast in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 9:23 says that we are “vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory.” This glory will be in the revelation of the coming kingdom in which we, as sons of God, shall participate (Rom. 8:21). God has called us into this glory (1 Thes. 2:12; 2 Thes. 2:14; 1 Pet. 5:10), and Christ Himself is the hope of this glory (Col. 1:27) which we are expecting and for which we are waiting. We shall share this glory at the day of our glorification.
Romans 8:30 does not say that we shall be put into glory; rather, this verse indicates that we shall be glorified. As we have pointed out, glory is the expression of God. Christ, the hope of glory, has been sown into us as the seed of glory, and this seed will grow until it reaches the stage of blossoming, at which time the glory will come out. For God to glorify us means that the glory that has been sown into us, saturates our whole being, and is expressed through us. When our whole being has been permeated and saturated with the element of glory, that glory will come out of us. This is what it means for God to glorify us. When we experience this glorification, we shall be in the expression of God.
We have considered nine aspects of God’s work in relation to the believers: calling, forgiving, justifying, reconciling, receiving, regenerating, washing, sanctifying, and glorifying. We have been called, forgiven, justified, reconciled, received, regenerated, and washed. We are being sanctified, and we shall be glorified. All these matters are related to God’s dispensing. God’s calling, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, receiving, regeneration, washing, and sanctifying are for His dispensing of Himself into us. The final step — glorification — is for the dispensing of God in full. We need to see that all these aspects of God’s work with respect to the believers are for the goal of His dispensing of Himself into us.
Galatians 4:6 says, “Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!” God’s Son is the embodiment of the divine life (1 John 5:12). Hence, the Spirit of God’s Son is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). God gives us His Spirit of life not because we are lawkeepers but because we are His sons. As law-keepers we have no right to enjoy God’s Spirit of life. As sons of God we have the position with the full right to participate in the Spirit of God, who has the bountiful supply of life. Such a Spirit, the Spirit of the Son of God, is the focus of the blessing of God’s promise to Abraham (Gal. 3:14).
In verses 4 through 6 of Galatians 4 the Triune God is producing many sons for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. God the Father sent forth God the Son to redeem us from the law so that we might receive the sonship. He also sent forth God the Spirit to impart His life into us so that we might become His sons in reality.
Galatians 4:4 and 6 speak of two kinds of sending. Verse 4 says that God sent forth His Son, and verse 6, that God sent forth the Spirit of His Son. According to the promise in Genesis 3:15, Christ came under law as the seed of the woman in order to redeem those who were under law, that they might receive the sonship. The goal of Christ’s redemption, therefore, is sonship. Through His redemption Christ has opened the way for us to possess God’s sonship. However, if God had not sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, our sonship would be empty. It would be a sonship in position or form, not a sonship with reality. The reality of sonship, which depends on life and maturity, comes only by the Spirit of God’s Son. Thus, Galatians 4:6 declares that God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.
We should not think that the Spirit of the Son is a person separate from the Son. Actually, the Spirit of the Son is another form of the Son. The One who was crucified was Christ, but the One who enters into the believers is the Spirit. In crucifixion for our redemption this One was Christ, but in the indwelling to be our life He is the Spirit. When the Son died on the cross, He was Christ, but when He enters into us, He is the Spirit. First He came as the Son under the law to qualify us for sonship and to open the way for us to share in this sonship. After He had finished this work, He became, in resurrection, the life-giving Spirit and comes to us as the Spirit of the Son. Thus, first God the Father sent the Son to accomplish redemption and to qualify us for sonship. Then He sent the Spirit of the Son to vitalize the sonship and to make it real in our experience. Today sonship actually depends upon the Spirit of God’s Son.
Galatians 4:6 says that God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. Actually the Spirit of God came into our spirit at our regeneration (John 3:6; Rom. 8:16). Because our spirit is hidden in our hearts (1 Pet. 3:4) and because the word in Galatians 4:6 refers to a matter that is related to our feeling and understanding, both of which belong to our heart, this verse says that the Spirit of God’s Son was sent into our hearts.
Romans 8:11 says “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” The God of resurrection who raised Christ from among the dead gives life, the divine life, to the believers’ mortal bodies to strengthen their bodies and even make their dying bodies alive through His Spirit who indwells our spirit. It is by this that a believer can give life to a sinning brother as mentioned in 1 John 5:16. This brother does not give life to others by himself; he gives life to others by being one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), thus he can impart, through the life-giving Spirit, the Lord’s life to others in the fellowship of the Lord’s divine life.
In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 the Apostle Paul, the master planter in God’s farm, tells us that only God gives the growth to the believers, the spiritual plants on God’s farm. Regardless of how much Paul can plant and Apollos can water, they cannot give growth to the plants. God is the only One who makes us to grow, because He is the unique source of life with the unique life-supply. The growth God gives to us is the growth in life, which is crucially needed for us to be transformed into precious materials, the precious stones, for God’s building (1 Cor. 3:9-12a).
Philippians 2:13 says, “It is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” Philippians is a book showing us the way to experience Christ. In this verse it tells us that for us to experience Christ, God operates in us both the willing inwardly and working outwardly, that we may live Christ as our life for God’s good pleasure, as Christ did in His humanity while He was on the earth. God’s operating in us is to carry out our salvation in our daily life as indicated by the proceeding verse, even in murmurings and reasonings as pointed out in the following verse.
In speaking about spiritual gifts, concerning the distributions of operations, the Apostle Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 12:6, that God operates “all things in all.” In God’s new dispensational work, He also operates all things, especially, according to the context of 1 Corinthians 12:6, the things related to the exercise of the Spirit’s gifts for the Lord’s ministries. To carry out His New Testament economy in and through all the believers God operates all things in the believers according to His desire. This is mainly done in the church meetings through the believers’ functions in the exercise of the Spirit’s gifts for the Lord’s ministries under God’s diverse operations. This is the way that God in His divine Trinity works in the believers, according to His New Testament economy, to accomplish His eternal purpose for the expression of Himself in His manifestation.
