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In the foregoing messages we covered many aspects of God’s person. In this message we shall go on to consider God’s nature.
Recently I read a letter written by the dean of a certain Bible college. That letter accused me of teaching heresy because I say, according to the New Testament, that the believers have God’s nature. Perhaps the one who made this false accusation is not familiar with 2 Peter 1:4, a verse that tells us that we are partakers of the divine nature. To partake of God’s nature is to enjoy it and to participate in it. We can testify that day by day we not only possess the divine nature but also enjoy it. As believers, we certainly have the divine nature within us. Certain sufferings and hardships we cannot bear by ourselves; however, we are able to bear them by the divine nature.
We need to pay close attention to the matter of being partakers of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4 says, “Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises, that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.” Through the precious and exceedingly great promises given by God, we, the believers in Christ, who is our God and Savior, have become partakers of His divine nature in an organic union with Him. We have entered into this union through faith and baptism (John 3:15; Gal. 3:27; Matt. 28:19). The virtue of this divine nature carries us into God’s glory, into the full expression of the Triune God.
Through the “precious and exceedingly great promises” we may become partakers of the divine nature. We receive the divine life simply by believing, and the divine nature is the substance of the divine life. Although we received the divine life at the time we believed, the divine nature must be continually enjoyed by us. This enjoyment requires the grace of God. The more we enjoy the divine nature, the more we have His virtue, and the more we are brought into His glory.
To partake of the divine nature is to enjoy what God is. In order that we may enjoy all that He is, God will do many things for us according to His precious and exceedingly great promises. This will enable us to enjoy His nature, what He is. One of His precious and exceedingly great promises is that His grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor. 12:9). God’s sufficient grace will work within us day by day so that we may enjoy His nature.
The divine nature refers to the riches of what God is. Whatever God is, is in His nature. Therefore, when we partake of the divine nature, we partake of the divine riches. Having received the divine life at the time of our regeneration, we must go on to enjoy what God is in His nature.
This enjoyment is both for the present and for eternity. For eternity we shall continue to partake of the divine nature. This is illustrated by the tree of life and the river of water of life in Revelation 22:1 and 2. Out from the throne of God and the Lamb the river of life flows. This signifies God flowing out to be the enjoyment of His redeemed. That flowing river will saturate the entire city of New Jerusalem, and the tree of life that grows in and along the river will supply the redeemed with God as their life supply. This is a picture of what it means to partake of the divine nature.
Just as we are constituted physically of the food we eat, so we, believers in Christ, should be constituted of the God of which we partake. This should be our experience day by day. If we enjoy God and partake of Him, we shall be constituted of Him. We shall be thoroughly constituted of God’s nature.
We all are constituted physically of the food we eat. For example, someone may eat so much fish and be constituted of fish to such an extent that he even smells of fish. In like manner, we may become so constituted of God that we express God in all that we are and do. We may even give off a divine “fragrance.” If we partake of God day by day, eventually we shall partake of Him unconsciously. When others contact us, they will see in us the expression of the Triune God. All the saints need to be saturated with the nature of God. The more we are saturated with God, the more we shall express Him.
To be a partaker of the divine nature is to be a partaker of the elements, the ingredients, of God’s being. When we partake of God, the aspects of what God is become our enjoyment. This is to enjoy the constituents of the divine nature.
In 2 Peter 1:4 there is a condition for becoming partakers of the divine nature: It is “having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.” The more we escape this corruption, the more we shall enjoy the nature of God. Likewise, the more we partake of the divine nature, the more we shall escape the corruption that is in the world by lust. This is a cycle, a cycle of escaping and partaking and of partaking and escaping. If this cycle of partaking and escaping works within us in a strong, rapid way, it will be difficult for us to take in any of the corruption of the world. The divine nature will strengthen us to stay away from corruption. Then the more we stay away from the corruption of the world, the more we shall enjoy the riches of the divine nature. This is the experience of God’s economy.
To have eternal life is a matter once for all, but to partake of the divine nature is a continual matter. Although we have the divine life once for all, we cannot enjoy the divine nature once for all. During the course of our Christian life on earth, and even in eternity, we shall still be partaking of the divine nature.
The divine nature denotes what God is. We may again use eating food as an illustration of partaking of the divine nature. When we eat chicken, for example, we partake of the chicken nature. What the chicken is becomes our nourishment. When we eat chicken, we are actually eating the chicken nature, which includes various nourishing elements. These elements, or ingredients, are the constituents of the chicken nature. The principle is the same with the divine nature. Through God’s promises we are partaking of God’s nature with all the divine ingredients. Just as we do not eat food once for all, so we do not partake of the divine nature once for all. For eternity, as portrayed by the tree of life and the river of water of life in Revelation 22, we shall be partaking of the divine nature.
We have seen that the divine nature denotes what God is, that is, the constituents of God’s being. Because we are children of God born of Him, we possess God’s life and also His nature for our enjoyment. Because I have proclaimed this truth according to the Bible, some have condemned me and falsely accused me of teaching deification. They say that I am deifying myself and teaching that the church is God and should be worshipped as a part of God. We utterly repudiate this false accusation! A child born of American parents will certainly be American. Then what about those who have been born of God? Through our new birth, regeneration, we have been born of God, and we are God’s children. Because we have been born of God, in life and in nature we are the same as God. In this sense, those who are born of God are divine. But we definitely do not participate in the Godhead, and we certainly do not become an object of worship. We have God’s life and nature, but we do not become part of the Godhead.
Certain early church fathers taught concerning the deification of the believers. But they did not teach that the believers attained to the Godhead, or that they would ever be worshipped as God. Rather, they meant that Christians, those who have been regenerated of God, have God’s life and nature. We, the regenerated ones, are the same as God in life and nature, but we are not the same as God in position in the Godhead. Concerning this, we need to be very careful. It would be heretical to teach deification in the sense of claiming that believers attain to the Godhead. But it is according to the Scriptures to teach that because we have been born of God, we possess the divine life and the divine nature and that, in these aspects, we have become the same as God. We definitely cannot participate in the Godhead, or have the position to be worshipped by others as God. Nevertheless, through regeneration we have God’s life and nature.
We need to come back to the pure Word of God and to tell others that whoever believes in the Son of God is born of God and has the right, the authority, to become a child of God (John 1:12-13). As such, he has the right to partake of, to enjoy, the nature of God. Therefore, we have God’s life, we are enjoying God’s nature, and we have the position of God’s children. But we definitely do not have the position of the Godhead, the position to be worshipped by others as God. Praise the Lord that we have the position, the ability, and the provision to become partakers of the divine nature! Day by day we should partake of God’s nature and enjoy what He is, that is, enjoy the constituents of God’s rich being.
What is God’s nature? According to the New Testament God is Spirit (John 4:24), love (1 John 4:8, 16), and light (1 John 1:5). The expressions, “God is Spirit,” “God is love,” and “God is light,” are not used in a metaphoric sense, but in a predicative sense. These expressions denote and describe the nature of God.
In His nature God is Spirit, love, and light. Spirit denotes the nature of God’s person; love, the nature of God’s essence; and light, the nature of God’s expression. Both love and light are related to God as life, which life is of the Spirit (Rom. 8:2). God, Spirit, and life are actually one. God is Spirit, and Spirit is life. Within such a life are love and light. When this divine love appears to us, it becomes grace, and when this divine light shines upon us, it becomes truth.
The Gospel of John reveals that the Lord Jesus has brought grace and truth to us (John 1:14, 17) so that we may have the divine life (John 3:14-16), whereas the Epistle of 1 John unveils that the fellowship of the divine life brings us to the very sources of grace and truth, which are the divine love and the divine light. First John is the continuation of the Gospel of John. In the Gospel it was God in the Son coming to us as grace and truth so that we may become His children. In the Epistle of 1 John it is we, the children, in the fellowship of the Father’s life, coming to the Father in order to participate in His love and light. The former was God coming out to the outer court to meet our need at the altar with His grace and truth (Lev. 4:28-31); the latter is we entering into the Holy of Holies to contact Him at the ark in the divine love and light (Exo. 25:22). This is further and deeper in the experience of the divine life.
God is Spirit. This refers to His person. God is also love and light. Love refers to His essence, and light, to His expression. Both God’s love and light are related to His life. This life is actually God Himself. Life is also the Spirit.
When this life was manifested, it came with grace and truth. When we received the Lord Jesus, we received life, and now we enjoy grace and truth. This life brings us back to God to enjoy His love and light. First, God came to us so that we may receive grace and truth. Now we go back to the Father and contact Him as the source of grace and truth, and this source is love and light. Therefore, in the fellowship of the divine life we are being brought back to God to enjoy His love as the source of grace and His light as the source of truth.
This understanding of love and light is not derived from human reasoning; it comes from the divine revelation in the Word. In this revelation we have a number of items for our enjoyment, comparable to the many courses of a feast. We have God, the Spirit as the nature of God’s person, love as the nature of God’s essence, and light as the nature of God’s expression. When we have all these divine things, it means that we have been brought back to God the Father. When we are brought back to God the Father, we meet Him and enjoy Him as love, which is the source of grace, and light, which is the source of truth. How marvelous that in the fellowship of the divine life we enjoy the divine light and the divine love! Thus, in our experience we may enjoy God’s nature; that is, we may enjoy God as Spirit, love, and light.
According to His New Testament economy, God is now dispensing Himself into us. Surely what God dispenses into us is what He is in His nature. When God is dispensed into us, His nature is also dispensed into us. For God to dispense Himself into us means that He is dispensing Himself into us with what He is in His nature.
Every day my wife gives me vitamins with my food. Each vitamin has its own nature. When I take the vitamins into me, I also take in the nature of the vitamins. Taking vitamins is also an illustration of God’s feeding us with Himself. God is the best feeder. Daily He is feeding us with divine vitamins. God is feeding us with the “vitamins” of His nature.
We have seen that God’s nature includes Spirit as the nature of God’s person, love as the nature of God’s essence, and light as the nature of God’s expression. Since God is dispensing Himself in His nature into us, the more we are under God’s dispensing, the more we have of His Spirit, love, and light.
Apart from God’s dispensing, human beings have only the flesh, the soulish mind, emotion, and will, and a dormant spirit. As a result, they live only in a fleshly, psychological way. But if we are daily under God’s dispensing, we shall have more and more Spirit. Eventually, others will be able to sense the Spirit in what we do and say.
We need to experience God’s dispensing in our marriage life. Married brothers and sisters, how do you react when your husband or wife gives you a difficult time? If you react in a negative way, this indicates that you are not under God’s dispensing. If you are under His dispensing and are receiving the Spirit into you more and more, you will not react in your flesh or in your emotion. Instead, you will react with the Spirit.
Because God is love as well as Spirit, the more we are under His dispensing, the more love we have. Actually, the more God’s nature is dispensed into us, the more we become love. This means that we not only have love but that we are love. When the New Testament says that God is love, this does not mean that God merely has love but that He is love. Through God’s dispensing of Himself into us, we become love in the sense of being constituted of God as love. When love as the nature of God’s essence is dispensed into us, we shall react to others in love. Only one kind of love is genuine, and that is the love that comes out of God’s dispensing. When we are under God’s dispensing, we react with genuine love, which is God Himself.
When we are under God’s dispensing, our living will not only be with Spirit and love, but also with light. Our natural love is in darkness. Only one kind of love is full of light, and that is the love that comes from God’s dispensing.
If we are under God’s dispensing day by day, we shall behave with Spirit, with love, and with light. With how much Spirit, love, and light do you behave in your daily life? This is a test of whether or not you are under God’s dispensing.
In the foregoing messages we have seen that God’s person has many aspects, and in this message we have seen that He has a nature which is Spirit, love, and light. If we are under the dispensing of such a God, certainly He will infuse us with His nature, that is, with Himself as Spirit, the nature of His person, love, the nature of His essence inwardly, and light, the nature of His expression outwardly.
Suppose a certain brother is continually under God’s dispensing in a full way. When you contact him, you will sense that he lives and behaves with much Spirit. With him you will not see any sign of the flesh or the soul but of the Spirit. Furthermore, you will also sense love and light. When you are with him, you will have the sense that you are being enlightened. Such a brother is constituted of Spirit, love, and light because he is under the dispensing of the God who, in His nature, is Spirit, love, and light.
To live with Spirit, love, and light is very different from living only according to ethical, moral teachings. The New Testament reveals the dispensing of a God whose person is of many aspects and whose nature is Spirit, love, and light. If we are one with Him and if we are daily under His dispensing, we shall be those who spontaneously live a life that is full of Spirit, love, and light.
We need to consider all the aspects of what God is in His person. Although God’s person has many aspects, in nature He is very simple: He is Spirit, love, and light. If we are under His dispensing, our reactions will indicate to others that we have much Spirit, love, and light, even that we are constituted of Spirit, love, and light.
If we are under God’s dispensing, surely we shall participate in God’s nature as Spirit, love, and light. Then we shall become those who are living in Spirit, love, and light in the sense that we have been constituted of these elements of God’s nature. In our living there will be no need for us to perform, to act deliberately. Rather, we shall simply live a life according to the divine nature.
