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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 13:14; Col. 1:27; Gen. 1:26; Rom. 9:21; Gal. 1:14-16; 2:20; Phil. 3:7-14; 1:20-21
The Bible reveals to us that God had a good pleasure in eternity past (Eph. 1:5). According to His good pleasure, He made a purpose in eternity (v. 9). To fulfill His eternal purpose, He planned to dispense Himself into a group of human beings. The Bible calls this dispensing the economy of God (Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4).
A kitchen is a place of dispensing. First, the cook must consider how many people need to be fed and what to feed them. When these matters have been decided, a plan will be formed. To feed people is to dispense food into them. The dispensing of food implies not only that food enters into a person but also that the food is digested and assimilated by the person. In less than one day, the food that we eat becomes part of our tissues and cells. We may be familiar with the saying, “You are what you eat.” This means that we become what we eat. For instance, a man who eats fish every day will eventually be constituted with fish. He becomes fish by eating fish. We eat, digest, and assimilate food until we are constituted with the food. This is dispensing.
In eternity past God set up the universe as a great kitchen. Christ is the food in this kitchen. In John 6:35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Christ is our life supply. The church is a dining room; we come to the meetings to eat. God’s economy is God’s dispensing of Himself into us. The central line and goal of the entire Bible are the Triune God dispensing Himself into man. In order to know the Bible, we must see that God wants to dispense Himself into us.
The word triune, which comes from Latin, means “three-one.” The Triune God is the three-one God. He is three, yet He is one. There is only one unique God, yet this God is three, for He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are one God. God is triune in order to dispense Himself into man. The Father is the source, the Son is the course, and the Spirit is the flow. As the source, the course, and the flow, the Triune God flows into us. This flow is His dispensing.
Once we are saved, the Triune God flows in us every day. In 2 Corinthians 13:14 Paul says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit are not three separate matters but three aspects of one thing. The fellowship of the Spirit is the flow. When this flow is in us, the grace of Christ and the love of God are also in us. Thus, the entire Triune God is flowing in us, and we are in the central line and goal of the Bible.
In the previous chapter we saw that Christ, who is the mystery of God (Col. 2:2), is in us as a mystery (1:27). Christ is God (John 1:1, 14), the Father (Isa. 9:6), the Son (Matt. 3:17), and the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). Because Christ embodies the entire Triune God (Col. 2:9), when Christ is in us, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are in us. This is why Christ in us is a mystery.
Before a brother was saved, he may have lost his temper whenever he became upset with his wife. He may have even enjoyed losing his temper. However, once he is saved, the Triune God is flowing in him even when he becomes upset with his wife. He may begin to speak something in anger but then suddenly become silent, go to his bedroom, and begin to pray. Later he may repent to his wife. She may not understand this radical change in his conduct. This is a mystery — the mystery of God.
A sister may have liked to go shopping before she was saved. After being saved, however, she may sense a speaking within as she is browsing through a department store. As she considers what to buy, a speaking within may tell her not to purchase certain items; it may even prompt her to leave the store. This is the mystery of God. We need to realize that the mystery of God is a person, Christ, who lives within us.
Since Christ lives in us, we are persons of Christ. A Christian is a Christ-man, a God-man. God desires not good men or bad men but God-men. A God-man is a man who has God living in him and who lives God. God wants us to live Christ, who is the mystery of God.
When the Bible first mentions man, it says that God made man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26). This is a great thing. Man is the most beautiful and lovely creature because he was made according to God. We should not despise or look down on ourselves. We are a picture of God, God’s image and His likeness.
Man is a photo of God, but a photo has no life or reality of its own. Before we are saved, we do not have the life, nature, or reality of God. Romans 9:21 reveals that man was made as a vessel to contain God. A glove is made according to the form of a hand so that one day a hand may enter into the glove. The reality of the glove is the hand, for without the hand the glove is empty. Before we are saved, we are like an empty glove. When we are saved, Christ becomes our life, content, and reality, and we become His container and expression. Just as a glove moves only when the hand inside it moves, we move when Christ moves and stay when He stays. We are absolutely one with Him. We are no longer empty vessels but are vessels filled with Christ. A proper Christian is a God-man, a man filled with and expressing Christ. Many Christians who are truly saved do not live and express Christ because they are not filled with Christ. Some become worldly or even fall into sin, but most Christians live uprightly, according to religion, ethics, and morality.
As we have seen, man was made to contain God. However, after man fell away from God and lost God, men invented religion, ethics, and morality to preserve mankind. Without religion, ethics, and morality, human society could not be maintained. Religion is good because it teaches human beings that there is God and that they should fear and worship God, improve their behavior, and do good to glorify God. Ethics teaches that we should honor our parents, love our wife, submit to our husband, take care of our children, love our neighbors and our friends, and do good for society. Morality is also good and necessary for mankind. However, no matter how good these things are, they are not what God wants. God wants us to be filled with Him and to live Him. A glove may be washed, clean, and beautiful, but it will not fulfill its purpose unless it is filled with a hand. God does not want us merely to be a good person. Instead, God wants us to be a God-man, a person who is filled with God and who lives God.
As a young Christian, when I saw well-mannered persons, I thought that it would be good if they became Christians. I hoped that my denomination would gain such persons. When I saw naughty or rough ones, I thought that my denomination should not welcome this kind of person. I judged other Christians entirely according to religion, ethics, and morality. Newly saved ones often think this way. Not long after being saved, I became very religious. As soon as I stepped into the church building, I began to behave reverently — walking slowly, sitting in a proper seat, and not talking but closing my eyes and praying. However, most of the others came into the church building in a loose way. I inwardly criticized them, asking myself, “Do these people think that they are coming into a movie theater? Don’t they realize that they are in God’s house?” To be reverent is good, but it is not God. Rather, it is to be religious.
I am a quick person by nature. Before I was saved, I was bothered when I dealt with anyone who was slow. After being saved, I realized that I should be patient and sympathize with slower ones. I repented and prayed, “Lord, help me to be slow. Help me to go along with others.” I was mostly successful, and when I failed, I repented and tried to improve. This is ethics. From the time I was saved, whenever I made a mistake or did something wrong, I repented and asked the Lord for forgiveness. After being a Christian for many years, I disciplined and improved myself to the extent that I felt I did not have much need to repent. However, one day the Lord showed me that good behavior is not Christ any more than bad behavior is. Then I began to repent not only of my bad deeds but even more of my good deeds. God does not care for our good deeds; He only wants us to live Christ. I began to repent every day, praying, “Lord, forgive me for not living You from morning until evening. I have lived according to religion, morality, and ethics. The whole day I did not do anything wrong, but I was living You for only a few minutes.”
Because we were made in God’s image, we spontaneously like to do good. Moreover, we are taught to behave well by our parents and teachers. Therefore, we may live properly by habit, but we rarely live Christ. When we come into the church life, we learn to enjoy the Lord in the meetings, but outside of the meetings we may still habitually not live Christ. At the end of each day we may repent if we have lost our temper or done something sinful, but we need to repent for not living Christ.
We must forsake religion. Saul of Tarsus was a leading one in religion, but God did not want that. Instead, God wanted Christ to be revealed in Paul (Gal. 1:14-16). When Paul said in Galatians 2:20 that he had been crucified, he meant that his religious, ethical, habitual person had been terminated. Paul no longer lived religion, ethics, or habit; instead, he lived Christ. In Philippians 3:7 Paul said, “What things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss on account of Christ.” Paul counted religion, ethics, and morality as loss. He wrote, “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ” (v. 8). Paul pursued Christ to gain Christ and be found in Him (vv. 14, 8-9). He said, “According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death” (1:20). He desired to magnify Christ in every kind of circumstance. Paul continued, “For to me, to live is Christ” (v. 21). Like Paul, we should not care for religion, ethics, or morality. We should care not for good things or bad things but only for Christ. Christ should be our life and our living; He should be our kindness, our gentleness, and everything that we express. For this, we must be filled with Christ and be in spirit. When we are in spirit, we are living Christ.
