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We still need some further understanding concerning the incorporation of the Triune God with us, His redeemed people, seen in John 14:17b-20. Verse 17b shows that the Spirit of reality is in us, and verse 20 says that the Son is in the Father, we are in the Son, and the Son is in us. We have said that these four ins show the Triune God coinhering with us, and this coinhering is an incorporation.
We also need to see that the in in verse 17 is the consummation of the three ins in verse 20. The all-inclusive, compounded, life-giving Spirit is the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God. The word consummation means the totality. The life-giving Spirit is the totality of the Triune God. Therefore, His being in us equals the Triune God’s being in us, and the Triune God’s being in us is in verse 20. Christ is in the Father and we are in Christ, so we also are in the Father. Christ is in us, and because He is in the Father, the Father is also in us. Christ is the centrality and universality of the Divine Trinity because He is the embodiment of the Father and He is realized as the Spirit. The Spirit of reality is the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God. His being in us equals the Triune God’s being in us. Actually, there are only three ins, because the Spirit being in us is the totality of the three ins in verse 20. The Spirit enters into us as the reality of the Son, who is the embodiment of the Father. In other words, He enters into us as the totality of the Triune God.
Now I would like to give another short, simple sketch of the first sixteen chapters of John. The beginning of the Gospel of John unveils that God is the Word (1:1). This means that God speaks, and speaking means definition, explanation, and expression. Expression includes spreading and dispensing. The more someone speaks, the more he is spreading and dispensing himself into others. Speaking spreads and dispenses.
In the Word there is life, and the life is the light (v. 4). Life is hidden, but light expresses. The light shining equals the Word speaking for spreading and dispensing. Chapter 1 of John also mentions the Spirit (v. 32). The Spirit is for speaking and for shining, so the Spirit is the totality of God’s spreading and dispensing. God’s spreading and dispensing are through His being the Word and the light. The Word and the light added together equal the Spirit.
In John 6:63 the Lord said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” The Word and the Spirit give us life, and the light also gives us life by shining. The Word gives us life by speaking, the light gives us life by shining, and the Spirit gives us life by entering. The Word and the light come into us through the Spirit. This is the totality of God’s spreading and dispensing. Thus, chapter 1 of John reveals that we receive life through the Word, the light, and the Spirit. When we receive the Word, the light, and the Spirit, we receive life, and this life is the authority for us to be the children of God (vv. 12-13). The threefold spreading and dispensing of the Word, the light, and the Spirit produces God’s children, God’s species, through the divine life.
John 1 also speaks of the Lamb (v. 29). Although the Word, the light, and the Spirit are sufficient for us to receive life to become God’s children, God’s species, the Lamb is needed because we are sinful. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. We need Christ as the Lamb to take away our sin, which is the barrier that prevents Him from dispensing Himself into us as life. This life in us is the water (4:14). The water is life’s flow. God Himself, through His being the Word, the light, and the Spirit, spreads and dispenses Himself into us to be our life, and this life is the flowing God, the living water. This covers the first four chapters of John.
The flowing of life brings us into the enjoyment of the Triune God, signified by two feasts in John 6 and 7: the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of the Passover is for eating the meat of the passover lamb and the unleavened bread. The Feast of Tabernacles is for drinking. According to Hebrew history, there was a place at the temple where a spring was built that flowed continually. When the Lord Jesus stood and cried out on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, He stood in front of that spring, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” (7:37-38). Our feasting enjoyment in a daily way includes eating and drinking. Without eating and drinking, we do not have any enjoyment. Whatever we eat and drink gets into us and is mingled and blended with our entire being.
This enjoyment issues in something. Physically speaking, a person’s proper eating and drinking will result in him being a strong and healthy person. Whatever we eat and drink is mingled and incorporated with our being. In the divine and mystical realm, this incorporation is a divine and human constitution, the organism of the Triune God. This organism has three aspects: the house for the Father in John 14, the vine for the Son in John 15, and the newborn babe for the Spirit in John 16. Our enjoyment of the processed and consummated Triune God has one issue in three aspects for the three of the Divine Trinity.
The house is for God’s dwelling. Without a dwelling we would be wanderers with no rest and satisfaction. Furthermore, a home is the best place for someone to express himself. Also, a home with a household has children. The children of God are the fruit of the Triune God in the Son in John 15. The vine tree with its fruit is for spreading and multiplication. The children need to grow to maturity. The many children of God are the growing members of the one new man (Col. 3:10-11). This one new man is the Body of Christ. Through this man God’s economy is carried out. This grown-up man can carry out a career to consummate the New Jerusalem.
John also wrote the book of Revelation, which begins with the shining lampstands (1:12) and ends with a call to drink the living water (22:17). The drinking’s issue is the New Jerusalem. The writings of John cover the span from God to the New Jerusalem. Eventually, the triune, eternal God becomes the New Jerusalem incorporated with all of us. We do not enter into the New Jerusalem; we become the New Jerusalem. Our becoming is our entering in. This is the intrinsic interpretation of John’s writings in his Gospel and Revelation.
