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We have seen that the church needs to be recovered from the divisive and apostate ground with its deviation from the truths concerning the person of the Triune God and the person and work of Christ. The next matter we shall see is that we need to be brought back to the unique and pure ground of the oneness of the Body of Christ with its truths concerning the New Testament faith and God’s economy, the person and work of Christ, the person and the dispensing of the Triune God, the church, the Body of Christ, the corporate Christ, and the universal and local aspects of the church.
In 1 Timothy 1:3 and 4 Paul says, “Even as I urged you, when I was going into Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus in order that you might charge certain ones not to teach differently, nor to occupy themselves with myths and unending genealogies, which give occasion for questionings rather than God’s dispensation which is in faith.” The Greek words translated “God’s dispensation” may also be rendered “God’s household economy” (Eph. 1:10; 3:9). This is God’s household administration to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen people, that He may have a house, a household, to express Himself, which household is the church, the Body of Christ (1 Tim. 3:15). The apostle’s ministry was centered upon this economy of God (Col. 1:25; 1 Cor. 9:17), whereas the differing teachings of the dissenting ones were used by God’s enemy to distract His people from this.
God’s dispensation is His household economy. According to the Bible, God does not first want to have a kingdom. Rather, He first wants a house, a family. Once He has a family, His family will spontaneously become His kingdom. If He is not able to secure a family, a household, a house, He will not be able to have a kingdom. Thus, God’s dispensation is first a matter of His household economy, or family economy.
In 1 Timothy 1:4 Paul tells us that God’s dispensation is in faith. The dispensing of the processed Triune God into us is altogether by faith. The dispensation of God is a matter in faith, that is, in the sphere and element of faith, in God through Christ. God’s economy to dispense Himself into His chosen people is not in the natural realm, nor in the realm of the law, but in the spiritual sphere of the new creation through regeneration by faith in Christ (Gal. 3:23-26). By faith we are born of God to be His sons, partaking of His life and nature to express Him. By faith we are put into Christ to become the members of His Body, sharing all that He is for His expression. This is God’s dispensation according to His New Testament economy, carried out in faith.
We need to be deeply impressed with the meaning of faith in the New Testament. First, faith is God being the word spoken to us. We have God and then God as the word spoken. Through the word of God and by the Spirit of God we are infused with God in Christ. As a result, something rises up within us. This is faith. Faith then works in us to bring us into an organic union with the Triune God. Through this organic union, God is continually transfused and infused into us. As a result, we have the divine life and the divine nature to become God’s sons, members of Christ, and parts of the new man. As a totality, we become the house of God, the Body of Christ, and the new man. This is God’s dispensation in faith.
Jude 3 speaks of contending for the faith. “Beloved, using all diligence to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, entreating you to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” Faith here is not subjective; it is objective. It does not refer to our believing, but refers to our belief, to what we believe. The faith denotes the contents of the New Testament as our faith (Acts 6:7; 1 Tim. 1:19; 3:9; 4:1; 5:8; 6:10, 21; 2 Tim. 2:18; 3:8; 4:7; Titus 1:13), in which we believe for our common salvation. This faith, not any doctrine, has been delivered once for all to the saints. For this faith we should contend (1 Tim. 6:12).
With the faith given by God there is both a subjective side and an objective side. The subjective side concerns our believing, and the objective side concerns the things we believe. In Jude 3 the faith does not denote our ability to believe; rather, it refers to what we believe. Hence, the faith refers to the contents of the New Testament.
Peter tells us in his second Epistle that like precious faith has been allotted to us (2 Pet. 1:1). This faith is subjective and refers to the faith that is within us. This differs from the faith in Jude 3, for faith here is objective.
The faith in the objective sense is equal to the contents of God’s will (the document of God’s bequests) given to us in the New Testament. This will even includes the Triune God.
To contend for the faith is to contend for the basic and crucial matters of God’s new testament, His new will. One of these basic matters is Christ’s death for our redemption. We need to contend for the truth concerning Christ’s redemption against the modernists. Suppose a modernist tells you that Jesus died on the cross not for redemption but because He was a martyr and sacrificed Himself for His teachings. This understanding of the death of Christ is heretical; it is contrary to one of the main items of God’s new will. We need to contend for the faith by fighting against heretical, modernistic teachings. This faith has been delivered to the saints once for all, and now we need to contend for it.
Concerning the person and work of Christ, we must preach that Christ is God incarnated to be a God-man, that He is both divine and human. We must also preach His redemptive death. In His redemptive work He died on the cross for our sins and for us sinners. Then He was resurrected so that He could impart Himself into us as the divine life. Therefore, the gospel we preach is that Christ, the God-man, died for our sins and was resurrected.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This verse reveals that Christ, the Word, was with God and was God from the beginning. In the beginning, that is, from eternity past, the Word was with God. It is not, as supposed by some, that Christ was not with God and was not God from eternity past and that at a certain time Christ became God and was with God. Christ’s deity is eternal and absolute. From eternity past to eternity future, He is with God and He is God. This is the reason in the Gospel of John there is no genealogy regarding Him as in Matthew and Luke. In the Gospel of John He is “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life” (Heb. 7:3). We all must be very clear that our Christ was with God and was God from the beginning.
In the incarnation Christ is God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). He was manifested in the flesh not only as the Son but as the entire God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. As the Word, who is the very God, Christ became flesh (John 1:14). Therefore, He is God — the Triune God — manifested in the flesh.
We need to realize that the entire God, not only the Son of God, was incarnated. John 1:14 says that the Word, which is God, became flesh. This God, who the Word is, is not a partial God; rather, He is the entire God — God the Son, God the Father, and God the Spirit. The New Testament does not say that the Word, who became flesh, was God the Son. Instead, the New Testament indicates that in the beginning was the Word, and this Word is the entire Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Hence, Christ in incarnation is the entire God manifested in the flesh.
Because of the influence of traditional teaching, we may think that only the Son of God, not the entire God, was incarnated. Actually, the New Testament does not say that the Son of God was incarnated; it says that God was manifested in the flesh. This means that the entire God became incarnated.
John 1:18 tells us, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” The Father’s only begotten Son declared, explained, God by the Word, life (v. 4), light, grace, and reality (vv. 14, 16-17). The Word is God expressed, life is God imparted, light is God shining, grace is God enjoyed, and reality is God realized. God is fully declared in the Son through these five things.
In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul refers to the redemptive work of Christ. “Faithful is the word and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Christ came into the world to be our Savior by incarnation. He was God incarnated that He may save us through His death and resurrection in His human body. This should be constantly announced as the gospel, the glad tidings, in a local church.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 we have a brief word concerning the gospel. Verses 1 and 2 say, “Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you as the gospel, unless you believed in vain.” The gospel here is the full gospel, including the teachings concerning Christ and the church, as fully disclosed in the book of Romans (1:1; 16:25). We should stand in the full gospel, that is, in the entire New Testament, not just in certain teachings or doctrines.
In 1 Corinthians 15:2 “being saved” literally means in the way of salvation (Conybeare). After being justified in Christ and regenerated by the Spirit, we are in the process of being saved in the life of Christ (Rom. 5:10) until we are mature and conformed to Him in full (Rom. 8:29). On the one hand, we have been saved; on the other hand, we are being saved. We have been saved by Christ’s death, but we are still being saved in His resurrection.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3 and 4 Paul goes on to say, “For I delivered to you, among the first things, that which also I received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Christ’s death for our sins, His burial for our termination, and His resurrection for our germination with life, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament (Isa. 53:5-8, 10-12; Psa. 22:14-18; Dan. 9:26; Isa. 53:9; Psa. 16:9-10; Hosea 6:2), are the basic items among the first things of the gospel. The last of these items is the most vital in the gospel, for it imparts life to us that we may live Christ.
The resurrection of Christ is the vitality of the gospel. There are many philosophies and religions, but none of them is vital. On the contrary, every one of them is devoid of life. Hence, none of them has any vitality. But the Lord’s gospel contains life, even resurrection life.
Resurrection life is a life that has conquered death, a life that entered into death, remained in death for a period of time, and then came out of death. Thus, this life is a death-conquering and death-subduing life. For this reason it is called resurrection life.
The gospel of Christ not only has life; it also has the life power to subdue death, to conquer death, and to annul death. This life, the life that has subdued, conquered, and nullified death, is resurrection.
The recovery of the church also requires that we be recovered to the truth concerning the person and the dispensing of the Triune God. This matter of God’s dispensing is something that is altogether missed by many Christians today. By the Lord’s mercy we have been enlightened to see that in the New Testament economy of God there is the divine, triune Person for the dispensing of Himself into His chosen people to be their life, life supply, and everything. Because this has been neglected by many today, we need to be recovered to the proper understanding and apprehension of the divine dispensing of the riches of the processed Triune God into our being.
It is important that we make a distinction between the words “dispensation” and “dispensing.” According to New Testament usage, the word dispensation refers to God’s arrangement, God’s plan. Dispensation is a translation of the Greek oikonomia, which is composed of two words: oikos, which means house, and nomos, which means law. Oikonomia denotes household regulations or household management. Because this word refers to a household administration and management, it implies a plan. In Ephesians 3, the word dispensation means a plan, an arrangement. Therefore, when we use the word dispensation, we mean God’s household management, God’s arrangement, God’s plan. This is different from dispensing, which is the act of God’s dispensing Himself into us. Nevertheless, in God’s dispensation the crucial matter is the dispensing of the processed Triune God into us. To be under God’s dispensation is to be under His administrative government. To be under God’s dispensing is to be under His dispensing action, His act of dispensing Himself into us.
God’s New Testament economy is His plan to dispense Himself into His chosen people in His trinity. This dispensing has three steps. First, it is of God the Father, who is the source, the origin. Second, this dispensing is through God the Son, who is the course. Third, God’s dispensing is in God the Spirit, who is the instrument and sphere. Through these steps of God the Father, through God the Son, and in God the Spirit the processed Triune God dispenses Himself into His chosen people.
Matthew 28:19 speaks of the person of the Triune God. “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The word “into” indicates union, as in Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27, and 1 Corinthians 12:13. To baptize people into the name of the Triune God is to bring them into spiritual and mystical union with Him.
In Matthew 28:19 there is one name for the divine Trinity — the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The name is the sum total of the divine Being, equivalent to His person. To baptize anyone into the name of the Trinity is to baptize him into all that the Triune God is.
Second Corinthians 13:14 reveals the dispensing of the divine Trinity. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” After His resurrection, the Lord 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). This is to bring the believing ones into the Triune God, into an organic union with the processed Triune God, who has passed through incarnation, human living, and crucifixion and has entered into resurrection. It is based upon such an organic union that at the conclusion of 2 Corinthians Paul 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.
John 16:13-15 also speaks of the dispensing of the divine Trinity into the believers. Verse 13 says, “When He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.” This reality is nothing less than Christ Himself. Thus, the Spirit of reality will bring us into all the reality of Christ.
In verse 15 the Lord says, “All that the Father has is Mine.” All that the Father is and has is the Son’s. The Son is the embodiment of the Father. All that the Father is and has is embodied in Him (Col. 2:9). All that the Father is, all the fullness of the Godhead, dwells in Christ. Therefore, the Father’s fullness is the Son’s fullness, and the Father’s life and nature are also the Son’s life and nature.
In verse 14, speaking of the Spirit of reality, the Lord says, “He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall disclose it to you.” All that the Father is and has is the Son’s, and all that the Son is and has obtained has been received by the Spirit. All of the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, and the Spirit receives this from Christ.
In verses 14 and 15 the Lord says that the Spirit of reality “shall receive of Mine and shall disclose it to you.” All that the Son is and has is revealed as reality to the believers through the Spirit. This is to glorify the Son with the Father. The Spirit discloses the Son with the Father to the believers. He makes all that Christ is and has real to us.
The Father, who is the source, has many riches. All that the Father has becomes the Son’s. The Son has unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8). Whatever the Father has is the Son’s, and what the Son has is received by the Spirit. Because what the Spirit receives is disclosed or transmitted to us, we become the destination. The Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is transfigured to be the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reaching of the divine Trinity to us. All the riches of the Triune God reach us in the Spirit. Because we are organically united to the Spirit, that is, organically united to the processed Triune God, whatever He is and has now is our portion as our reality.
