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In this message we shall cover the remaining aspects of the third stage of the Spirit’s work in the believers for the divine dispensing. This is the stage in which the Spirit works in us to keep us in fellowship with the Triune God.
The Spirit is partaken of by the believers. Hebrews 6:4 indicates that we are partakers of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God, and we are partakers of such a One. We have not only received the Holy Spirit; we are now partakers of the Holy Spirit. As long as we have the Spirit, we are His partakers.
The book of Hebrews was written to show the Jewish believers that the believers in Christ have Him as a wonderful treasure, a treasure that is much more precious than the angels, Moses, Aaron, and the old covenant. This treasure is the all-inclusive Christ. However, in our practical experience Christ is the all-inclusive Spirit. Hence, Hebrews does not say that we are partakers of the all-inclusive Christ but that we are partakers of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit, who is the consummation of the Triune God, is also the reaching to us of the Triune God. Without being the Spirit, the Father and the Son could not reach us. The reaching of the Triune God is the Spirit, and this Spirit is the reality of the new covenant, which is superior to the old covenant. Now, in a way that is actual and practical, we are partakers of the all-inclusive Spirit. Because we partake of this Spirit, we partake of and enjoy the processed Triune God with all His riches. In the divine fellowship we partake of the Spirit.
Eventually, the Spirit is the fellowship, the participation in the enjoyment, of the Triune God to the believers. Actually, this fellowship is a totality of all the aspects of the Spirit’s work in the third stage, the stage of maintaining our fellowship with the Triune God.
Among the sixty-six books of the Bible, 2 Corinthians is unique in that it concludes with a blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (13:14). This blessing is composed of attributes of the Triune God: grace, love, and fellowship. The love of God the Father is the source, the fount, and grace is the flow, the expression, of love. Love is with the Father as the source, and grace is with the Son as the expression. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is a matter of communication, transmission. Therefore, love is the source, grace is the flow, and fellowship is the transmission of the flow with the source. In this way we have love, grace, and fellowship as our enjoyment, and we participate in them.
Second Corinthians 13:14 clearly says that grace is of Christ, love is of God, and fellowship is of the Holy Spirit. Because the book of 2 Corinthians emphasizes grace, grace is mentioned first in 13:14. As presented in 2 Corinthians, grace is actually the Triune God embodied in the Son and transmitted into our being through the Spirit for our enjoyment. Hence, grace is the Triune God as our life, life supply, and enjoyment. This grace issues out from the Father’s love and is transmitted into our being by the Spirit. Therefore, we have the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit — the full enjoyment of the Triune God.
The grace of Christ is the rich element of Christ, the love of God is the rich element of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the aggregate of the rich element of Christ and God transmitted into our being for our spiritual enjoyment. In this fellowship we enjoy the rich elements of the Triune God, which are the elements for our transformation. Day after day the rich elements of the Triune God are being transmitted into us, and we are being transformed.
We need to be impressed with the fact that in 2 Corinthians 13:14 love, grace, and fellowship are not three separate matters. Rather, they are three aspects of one thing. Love is the source, grace is the expression of the source, and fellowship is the transmission of the expression. Love as the source is expressed in grace, and this grace is transmitted into us by fellowship. The love of God is the source of the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit is the transmission of the grace of Christ with the love of God. Therefore, love, grace, and fellowship are all within us for our enjoyment.
We enjoy love, grace, and fellowship all at the same time. While we enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit, we also have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. Just as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not three Gods, so love, grace, and fellowship are three aspects of one thing. The Triune God is the Father full of love, the Son full of grace, and the Spirit full of fellowship. We should not think that we successively enjoy the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit. No, we enjoy the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit simultaneously.
Although we enjoy love, grace, and fellowship simultaneously, it is nevertheless true that love is the source, grace is the course, and fellowship is the destination. Our destination is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. With such a destination, we enjoy the Triune God in the three aspects of love, grace, and fellowship.
Second Corinthians 13:14 is a strong proof that the Trinity of the Godhead is not for the doctrinal understanding of systematic theology, but for the dispensing of God Himself into His chosen and redeemed people. In the Bible the Trinity is never revealed merely as a doctrine. On the contrary, it is revealed or mentioned in regard to the relationship of God with man, especially with His chosen and redeemed people. In order to redeem fallen man that He might still have the position to be one with man, God became incarnated (John 1:1, 14) in the Son and through the Spirit (Luke 1:31, 35) to be a man and lived a human life on earth, also in the Son (Luke 2:49) and by the Spirit (Luke 4:1; Matt. 12:28). At the beginning of the Lord’s ministry on earth, the Father anointed the Son with the Spirit (Matt. 3:16-17; Luke 4:18) for reaching men and bringing them back to Him. Just before He was crucified in the flesh and resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), the Lord unveiled His mysterious trinity to His disciples in plain words (John 14—17) stating that the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (14:9-11), that the Spirit is the transfiguration of the Son (14:16-20), that the three, co-existing and coinhering simultaneously, are abiding with the believers for their enjoyment (14:23; 16:7-10; 17:21-23), and that all the Father has is the Son’s and all the Son possesses is received by the Spirit to be revealed to the believers (16:13-15). Such a Trinity is altogether related to the dispensing of the processed Triune God into His believers (14:17, 20; 15:4-5), that they may be one in and with the Triune God (17:21-23).
After His resurrection Christ charged His disciples to disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), that is, to bring the believing ones into the Triune God, into an organic union with the processed God who has passed through incarnation, human living, and crucifixion and has entered into resurrection. It is based upon such an organic union of the believers with the Triune God that Paul, at the conclusion of his second Epistle to the Corinthians, blesses the believers with the blessed Trinity in the participation of the Son’s grace with the Father’s love through the Spirit’s fellowship. Such an enjoyment of the Triune God is possible through the Spirit’s work in the believers to be the fellowship of the Triune God to them.
The Spirit who dwells in us and works in us is the oneness of the Body of Christ. Ephesians 4:3 says, “Being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.” To have the proper Body life we need to keep the oneness of the Spirit. This is crucial and vital to the Body of Christ.
Oneness, strictly speaking, differs from unity. Unity is formed by many people coming together, whereas oneness is the one entity of the Spirit within the believers making them all one. Our oneness is the Lord Jesus Himself realized as the life-giving Spirit. Today Christ is the life-giving Spirit within us, and this Spirit is our oneness. Therefore, our oneness is the Spirit indwelling us as our life.
In Ephesians 4:3 this oneness is called the oneness of the Spirit. The oneness of the Spirit is actually the Spirit Himself, not something apart from the Spirit. If we talk about oneness but neglect the Spirit, this indicates that we regard oneness as something separate from the Spirit. The oneness within us and among us is the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, to keep the oneness is to keep the life-giving Spirit. Because the Spirit is the oneness of the Body, we should not act, move, work, or speak without the Spirit. We need to live, move, walk, and have our being in the Spirit. Then we shall keep the oneness. The only way to keep the oneness of the Spirit is to be in the Spirit. There is no other way.
In Ephesians 4:4 Paul continues, “One Body and one Spirit, as also you were called in one hope of your calling.” The Body is mentioned before the Spirit because the oneness among us is related to the Body and is for the Body. The reason we need to keep the oneness is that we are all one Body.
The Spirit is the essence of the one Body. Without the Spirit, the Body would be empty and have no life. The Body here is the Body of Christ, and the essence of the Body of Christ is the Spirit. Hence, the Body and the essence of the Body are one. It is impossible for the Body of Christ to have more than one essence. The unique essence of the Body is the Spirit.
The Spirit is in the Body. First Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” This reveals that the one Spirit is not only the essence of the Body but also the life and the life supply of the Body. Apart from the one Spirit, the Body could not exist as a living organism. Without the Spirit it is impossible to have the Body.
The Spirit is the reality of the Triune God. Therefore, the oneness of the Spirit denotes the oneness of the Triune God wrought into us. This oneness is called the oneness of the Spirit, and this Spirit is the Spirit in the Body. For this reason, Ephesians 4:4 speaks of one Body and one Spirit. This indicates that the Spirit is not only for the Body but in the Body. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body. The Spirit is in the Body, not only in individual members. “One Body and one Spirit” means that this one Spirit is wrought into our being and constituted into our being so that we may be constituted into one Body. The Body is the constitution of the one Spirit. When we say, “One Body and one Spirit,” we mean that the Body is the constitution of the one Spirit, that the one Spirit has been wrought into the being of the one Body. Eventually, because the Body is the constitution of the one Spirit, we can say that the Body is one with the Spirit.
To build the Body is to have the Spirit wrought into us and constituted into us, to saturate and permeate every fiber of our being, to make us one with the Spirit. The church is the very constitution of the divine Spirit. The one Body and the one Spirit, therefore, are not two separate entities. On the contrary, the one Body is one with the Spirit, and the one Spirit is one with the Body. This is the reason there must not be any division in the church. Because the Spirit is one, there can be only one Body.
The fact that Ephesians 4:4 mentions the one hope of our calling along with the one Body and one Spirit implies that the indwelling Spirit is carrying out the process of bringing the Body of Christ into glory as the fulfillment of our hope. Therefore, in this verse we have the one Body, the one Spirit, and the one hope. Because we are all in the one Body with the one Spirit and have the one hope, we are one. There is no reason for us not to be one, and there is no cause to be different. We are one Body, and we have the one Spirit working within us to bring us to the goal of our hope. As we remain through the Spirit in the divine fellowship, we are kept by the Spirit in the unique oneness of the Body, a oneness that is the indwelling Spirit Himself.
As the Spirit works in the believers, He also frees them from the letters of the law. Second Corinthians 3:17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” When the heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (v. 16). Furthermore, the Lord is the Spirit who gives us freedom. Because the Lord is the Spirit, when the heart turns to Him, the veil is taken away, and the heart is freed from the bondage of the letter of the law.
The Spirit frees us from regulations, rituals, religious teachings, and traditional doctrines. At Paul’s time the Old Testament law was a great bondage. The Lord as the Spirit frees us from the bondage of the law. The Jews were under the bondage of circumcision, the bondage of dietary regulations, and the bondage of the Sabbath. Today, however, is not the age of Moses and of the law in letters, but the age of the Lord Jesus being the Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. Moses, with the letter of the law, put the people under bondage, but with Christ there is no bondage to the law. With Him as the Spirit there is full freedom. Formerly we were under bondage to the letters of the law, but now the life-giving Spirit frees us from this bondage. Therefore, instead of being divided by doctrines, we are kept by the Spirit in the unique oneness of the Body of Christ.
Hebrews 9:8 reveals that the indwelling Spirit shows the believers the way of the Holy of Holies: “The Holy Spirit showing by this, that the way of the Holy of Holies has not yet been manifested while the first tabernacle still has its standing.” At that time the way of the Holy of Holies, that is, the way of the New Testament, had not been manifested. To say that the way into the Holy of Holies was not manifested while the first tabernacle still had its standing means that the way to enter into the new covenant had not yet been opened. In Hebrews 10:19 and 20 we see that a new and living way has been freshly cut. This is the way to enter into the Holy of Holies, into the new covenant.
The first tabernacle, the Holy Place, signifies the old covenant, and the second tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, signifies the new covenant. Now the veil that closes the Holy of Holies has been riven (Matt. 27:51) by the death of Christ since it has crucified the flesh (Gal. 5:24), and the way of the Holy of Holies has been manifested. Hence, we do not need to remain in the Holy Place, in the old covenant, in the soul; we must enter the Holy of Holies, the new covenant, in the spirit. This is the goal of the book of Hebrews. The writer’s concept is that the Holy of Holies and the new covenant are one; the Holy of Holies is the new covenant. When we come into the Holy of Holies, we come into the new covenant; and when we come into the new covenant, we enter into the Holy of Holies.
The Holy Spirit tells us that when the old tabernacle still remained, the way to enter the Holy of Holies was not yet opened. Further, by this illustration the Spirit tells us that the way to enter into the Holy of Holies has been opened and that the old tabernacle has been removed. Today we do not have the old tabernacle; we have the new tabernacle — Christ. In the book of Hebrews the tabernacle is Christ, and the offerings also are Christ. Christ is realized as the Spirit. Therefore, when we have the Spirit, we have the tabernacle and the offerings. As the eternal Spirit, Christ is everything, and this Spirit is subjective within us. This eternal Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God has become our eternal enjoyment.
Now that the Spirit within us is showing us the way to enter the inner chamber of God’s dwelling place, we should not remain either in the outer court or in the Holy Place. Rather, we should enter into our spirit and thereby enter into the Holy of Holies to dwell with God and enjoy Him as love, light, and every divine thing. This is the result of the Spirit’s work in us to keep us in the enjoyment of the fellowship with the Triune God.
The Holy Spirit testifies to the believers the law of life of the new covenant. “The Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after having said, This is the covenant which I will covenant with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their hearts and upon their minds I will inscribe them; then He says, And their sins and their lawlessnesses I will by no means remember any more” (Heb. 10:15-17). In this chapter the writer of Hebrews is seeking to prove to the believers that there was no longer any need of offering the sacrifice for sin, because Christ has accomplished the putting away of sins. The problem of sin has been solved. Now the writer emphasizes this fact by pointing out that in Jeremiah 31:33 and 34, which is quoted in chapter eight for the inward law of life, the Holy Spirit also testifies to this effect. In Jeremiah 31:33 and 34, after the Holy Spirit said that God would put His laws upon their hearts, He then said that God would not remember their sins anymore. This proves that the Holy Spirit testifies that our sins have been taken away and that the problem of sin has been solved. Not only in Isaiah 53:6, 11 and 12 was there the prediction that Christ would bear our sins, but in Jeremiah 31 there was the testimony of the Holy Spirit that our sins would be taken away and that God would no longer have any remembrance of them.
According to our natural understanding of the new covenant, the forgiveness of sins is the first item. However, it is the last item, even a supplementary one. The new covenant is mainly concerned with three things: the law of life which is written into our being, God being God to us and us being a people to Him, and the inner ability of knowing God. These three things are eternal. But because we may still remember our sins, we need a supplement telling us that God will by no means remember our sins and lawlessnesses. The crucial point here, however, is that the Spirit testifies to us the law of life of the new covenant. When we are in the Holy of Holies, that is, when we are in the mingled spirit, we realize that there is such a thing as the law of life. We are freed from the regulation of the law in letters, and now the law of life of the new covenant is real to us in our fellowship with the Triune God.
Philippians 3:3 says, “We are the circumcision, who serve by the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Here we see that the Spirit is the means for the believers to serve — worship — God. The Greek word rendered “serve” here means to serve as a priest. All New Testament believers are priests to God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Hence, our ministry to the Lord, in whatever aspect, is a priestly ministry, a priestly service. Furthermore, those who are the circumcision here are the New Testament believers, the ones genuinely circumcised by Christ’s crucifixion. They are absolutely different from the Judaizers. They serve as priests by the Spirit of God, not by the ordinances of law; they boast in Christ, not in the law; and they have no confidence in the flesh, but have their confidence in the Spirit.
In Philippians 3:2 and 3 there is a threefold contrast: believers who serve by the Spirit of God in contrast to the dogs; believers who boast in Christ in contrast to evil workers; and believers who have no confidence in the flesh in contrast to the concision. The Judaizers lived by their fallen nature, whereas the believers in Christ serve by the Spirit of God. Thus, the Spirit of God is in contrast to the nature of the “dogs.” According to the revelation in these verses, anyone who tries to do something for God without being in the Spirit opposes the genuine worshippers of God in spirit. In the eyes of God such a person is a dog.
The flesh in verse 3 comprises all that we are and have in our natural being. The fact that the Judaizers had confidence in their circumcision was a sign that their confidence was in their flesh. They trusted in their natural qualities and qualifications, not in the Spirit. By contrast Paul says strongly that we who believe in Christ serve by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ, and have no confidence in the flesh.
The last aspect of the work of the Spirit in the believers in the third stage is the Spirit’s resting upon them as glory when they are reproached. First Peter 4:14 says, “If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” “In the name of Christ” is actually in the person of Christ, in Christ Himself, because the name denotes the person. The believers, having believed into Christ (John 3:15), and having been baptized into His name (Acts 19:5), that is, into Himself (Gal. 3:27), are in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30) and one with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). When they are reproached in His name, they are reproached with Him, sharing His sufferings, in the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10).
If we are reproached in the name of Christ, the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us. Literally, the Greek says “the Spirit of glory and that of God.” The Spirit of glory is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of glory is the One through whom Christ was glorified in His resurrection (Rom. 1:4). This Spirit of glory, being the Spirit of God Himself, rests upon the suffering believers in their persecution for the glorification of the resurrected and exalted Christ, who is now in glory. The more we suffer and are persecuted, the more glory there will be upon us. This is truly a blessing. Therefore, we should rejoice when we are reproached in the name of Christ, because the Spirit of glory is resting upon us.
