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I. God, as the second crystal in the writings of John, is unveiled as the fountain (source) of life:
А. Flowing out to dispense Himself with His divine life as the life element, the life supply (Christ as the tree of life), to meet the need of His elect and to be their pleasures and satisfaction (Rev. 22:1-2; cf. Psa. 36:8-9). For this purpose, when Christ died on the cross, not only blood (signifying redemption judicially) flowed forth but also water (signifying the water of life organically to be dispensed into God’s elect) — John 19:34.
B. Whatever He flows out is “bright as crystal” — Rev. 22:1.
C. The Lord’s calling with a promise:
1. To the thirsty and water-seeking Samaritan woman He said that He had the living water, which was able to cause her to never thirst again — John 4:10, 14.
2. To those who held the Feast of Tabernacles, on the last day of their feast, He said, “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” — 7:37b-38.
3. In John’s last book, Revelation, the Lord said to all people, “I will give to him who thirsts from the spring of the water of life freely” — 21:6b.
4. The Lord as the Spirit calls with His bride, “Let him who is thirsty come; let him who wills take the water of life freely” — 22:17b.
5. The Lord as the Lamb will “guide them [those who answer His call] to springs of waters of life” — 7:17b.
6. We all know that this calling with a promise from the Lord is still sounding today to everyone who lives on the earth.
II. God’s existence:
А. Self-existing and ever-existing, without beginning and without end.
B. From eternity to eternity — Psa. 90:2.
III. God’s person:
А. God is triune, three-one — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; Matt. 28:19:
1. The three coinhere — John 14:10, 20.
2. The three are equal.
3. According to Their essence, the three are one; thus, there is the aspect of the essential Trinity. The Son is the embodiment of the Father (Col. 2:9), and the Spirit is the reality of the Son (John 14:16-18):
а. A Son is given to us, yet His name is called the eternal Father — Isa. 9:6.
b. The Son as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit — 1 Cor. 15:45b.
c. The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) and the Lord Spirit (v. 18).
d. Such words in the Scripture are strong evidence that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are essentially one.
4. According to the economy, the three are three; thus, there is the aspect of the economical Trinity. The Father is the Originator, making the divine economy (Eph. 1:9-10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4b); the Son accomplishes the divine economy made by the Father (John 5:19; 8:28); and the Spirit applies to God’s elect what the Son has accomplished (16:13). Even so, They are still one in harmony in the economical Trinity (10:30; 17:21, 23):
а. The Father spoke in heaven concerning the Son, the Son stood in the water on the earth, and the Spirit soared as the dove in the air — Matt. 3:16-17.
b. The Father chose the believers before the foundation of the world, the Son redeemed them in time, and the Spirit seals them after they believe in the Son — Eph. 1:4, 6-7, 13.
c. Words like these in the Scripture are strong evidence that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are economically three. Thus, God’s elect participate in what the Triune God has done and enjoy Their work with Themselves for their satisfaction.
B. The order among the three:
1. The Father is the Head — 1 Cor. 11:3.
2. The Son subjects Himself to the Father — John 5:19, 30; 8:28; 1 Cor. 15:28.
3. The Spirit testifies concerning the Son — John 15:26; 16:13-14.
In this chapter we come to the second crystal in the Gospel of John. The first crystal is the Word. In the beginning, that is, in eternity past, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God, as the second crystal in the writings of John, is unveiled as the fountain (source) of life. I am burdened to present a living, vivid picture of what God is and of how God is to us. In this chapter I want to stress that God our Father is a fountain. The fountain is the real source, this fountain emerges as a spring, and the spring gushes out a river. In 1977 I went with some brothers to see the Holy Land. We went to the foothills of Lebanon where there is a fountain and a spring gushing out a river, the river Jordan. This is a good picture of our God.
Very rarely is God presented to people in this way. From now on we should present our God to others in this way in our gospel preaching, not by big congregations but by our speaking to individuals in our functioning as prophets and as sons of God. We should say to people, “Have you ever gotten to know that God is a fountain, Christ is a spring, and the Spirit is a river?” Many people would open up to us when we preach the gospel in this way. Because they have never heard such a thing, they will want to know more.
Hymns, #1151 speaks of our experience of God the Spirit as a river:
God is flowing out to dispense Himself with His divine life as the life element, the life supply (Christ as the tree of life), to meet the need of His elect and to be their pleasures and satisfaction (Rev. 22:1-2; cf. Psa. 36:8-9). For this purpose, when Christ died on the cross, not only blood, signifying redemption judicially, flowed forth but also water, signifying the water of life organically to be dispensed into God’s elect (John 19:34). We are the Lord’s elect. Praise Him that He chose us and then called us to receive Him, the flowing God as the fountain, with Christ as the element in the flow. What pleasure and what satisfaction!
Psalm 36:8 and 9 say, “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light” (KJV). I picked up two words from these verses: satisfied and pleasures. A saved person should be satisfied with Christ and filled up with God’s pleasures. God is the fountain of life for satisfaction with the divine pleasures. This is the way to study the Bible to get the intrinsic, central line of life. Fountain, pleasures, and satisfaction are seen in Psalm 36. Without these three words, this psalm is merely the dead letter, which is vanity of vanities, to us. But within this psalm, we can see God as a fountain flowing like a river to satisfy us and fill us up with His pleasures.
John 19:34 says that when Christ died on the cross, blood and water flowed out of Him. No other Gospel records this fact. John is a book of signs, just like the book of Revelation. Both blood and water are signs. Blood signifies redemption judicially, and water signifies life flowing organically to be dispensed into God’s elect. As those who are God’s elect, we are in the marvelous line of life.
Whatever God flows out is “bright as crystal” (Rev. 22:1). The water of life is bright as crystal, having no dimness or opaqueness. When this water of life flows in us, it purifies us and makes us transparent as crystal. In the New Jerusalem the jasper stone is clear as crystal (21:11).
To the thirsty and water-seeking Samaritan woman the Lord said that He had the living water, which was able to cause her to never thirst again (John 4:10, 14). What a promise and what a calling! This immoral Samaritan woman had many husbands. She was thirsty, so she came to draw water, and the Lord Jesus was sitting there, waiting for her to come. The Lord Jesus purposely detoured His way to go to Samaria to sit at the well of Jacob (vv. 3-8). This Savior is omniscient. He knew that this immoral woman was coming, so He sat there to wait for her. What a mercy! The Lord said, “Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life” (vv. 13-14). This water quenches not only our thirst but also the thirst of all those whom we contact.
To those who held the Feast of Tabernacles, on the last day of their feast, He said, “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” (7:37b-38). We must believe into the Lord Jesus. We must have such a union. We must be “plugged in.” When the current of electricity flows into something that has been plugged in, it works. It is not sufficient merely to believe the Lord Jesus. We must believe into Him. We may have believed the Lord Jesus without having any connection with Him. This is why we need the preposition into. The Lord Jesus is like electricity, and we must be plugged into the current of this electricity. Then rivers of living water will flow out of our innermost being.
We lose our temper so easily because we are dry and unsatisfied. Sometimes when a person is very dry, I realize that I should not touch him. Otherwise, he may have an outburst of temper. When this is the case, I do my best to water him. Then he will not lose his temper, because he has been watered. There is a river of patience to deal with our quick temperament, which can cause us to lose our temper. On one occasion Brother Nee asked me, “What is patience?” When I could not give a satisfactory answer, he eventually told me, “Patience is Christ.” Christ as the Spirit is a flowing river to us to become our patience. Also, it is hard for us to not be proud, but there is a river flowing to us to become our humility. The rivers of living water are the many flows of the different aspects of life originating from the one unique river of water of life (Rev. 22:1), which is God’s Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2).
In John’s last book, Revelation, the Lord said to all people, “I will give to him who thirsts from the spring of the water of life freely” (21:6b). The fountain is the source; the spring comes up and emerges from the fountain; then it gushes out to be the flowing river.
The Lord as the Spirit calls with His bride, the transformed church, “Let him who is thirsty come; let him who wills take the water of life freely” (22:17b). This is a call with a strong promise.
The Lord as the Lamb will “guide them [those who answer His call] to springs of waters of life” (7:17b).
We all know that this calling with a promise from the Lord is still sounding today to everyone who lives on the earth. Hymns, #12 speaks of God as a flowing fountain. God flows first in the Son. Then He continues to flow as the Spirit to reach us and to dispense Himself as the life element with the tree of life to quench our thirst and to satisfy us. The water quenches; the tree satisfies.
God is self-existing and ever-existing, without beginning and without end.
Psalm 90:2 says that He is God from eternity to eternity. John 1 begins in verse 1 with eternity past and ends in verse 51 with eternity future.
God is triune, three-one — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (14:16-17, 26; 15:26). Matthew 28:19 says clearly that we are to baptize people into the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit. There are three persons, seemingly, yet one name. The entire Bible openly and clearly reveals the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
The three coinhere (John 14:10, 20). To coinhere is to exist in one another, to mutually indwell one another. Only the Triune God can be like this. The Lord said clearly in John 14, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” (v. 10). The Father does the work in the Son’s speaking. They are one, yet still there is the distinction between the Father and the Son.
The three of the Godhead are equal. No one is higher or lower than the others.
According to Their essence, the three are one; thus, there is the aspect of the essential Trinity. The Son is the embodiment of the Father (Col. 2:9), and the Spirit is the reality of the Son (John 14:16-18).
A Son is given to us, yet His name is called the eternal Father (Isa. 9:6).
The Son as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). He was incarnated to be the flesh. He was the last Adam. That means that after Him, there would be no flesh. He was the ending, the closing, the concluding, of the flesh. This One in resurrection became the life-giving Spirit. Thus, this One, the Son, is the Father, and eventually He is the Spirit. In 1934 Brother Nee gave a conference on the all-inclusive Christ. He said that Christ, the all-inclusive One, is the centrality and universality of God. He is the Son, yet He is the Father. He is the Son, yet He is the life-giving Spirit. Thus, He is the centrality and universality of the Triune God.
The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) and the Lord Spirit (v. 18). The Lord Spirit is a compound divine title like the Father God. He is both the Lord and the Spirit. They two are one in Him.
Such words in the Scripture are strong evidence that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are essentially one.
When we speak of the Triune God according to His economy, we are speaking of Him according to His moving and acting, not His essence. According to the economy, the three are three; thus, there is the aspect of the economical Trinity. The Father is the Originator, making the divine economy (Eph. 1:9-10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4b); then the Son accomplishes the divine economy made by the Father (John 5:19; 8:28); and the Spirit applies to God’s elect what the Son has accomplished (16:13). These are steps of one complete move. God the Father planned to do something, the Son accomplished the plan, and the Spirit applies to us what the Son has accomplished. They are still one in harmony in the economical Trinity (10:30; 17:21, 23).
The Father spoke in heaven concerning the Son, the Son stood in the water on the earth, and the Spirit soared as the dove in the air (Matt. 3:16-17). The three of the Trinity here were in three locations. Christ the Son, after His baptism, was standing in the water, and the Father said, “This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I have found My delight.” Then the Spirit as a dove soaring in the air descended upon Him. The Father as the source must be in heaven, the Son in His incarnation as the course must be on the earth, and the Spirit as the flow must be soaring in the air.
This is different from the view of the Triune God in John 14. In John 10:30 the Lord said, “I and the Father are one.” He did not say, “I am one with the Father.” We can say that we are one with one another. But the Lord Jesus and the Father, They two, are one. In John there is the mystical view that the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. No doubt, They two are also in the Spirit, and the Spirit is in Them. This is essential.
The Father chose the believers before the foundation of the world in eternity past, the Son redeemed them in time, and the Spirit seals them after they believe in the Son (Eph. 1:4, 6-7, 13).
Words like these in the Scripture are strong evidence that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are economically three. Thus, God’s elect participate in what the Triune God has done and enjoy Their work with Themselves for their satisfaction. By God acting economically, we can participate in what He is and what He has worked out for our pleasure and satisfaction.
Although the three are equal, there is an order among Them. This is similar to our situation in the church. Although we are equal, there is also a proper order in the church. The Father is the Head (1 Cor. 11:3), and the Son subjects Himself to the Father (John 5:19, 30; 8:28; 1 Cor. 15:28). How marvelous it is that one of the three, who is the centrality and universality of the Triune God, subjects Himself to the Father, admitting that the Father is the Head. He is the Head’s subordinate. Also, the Spirit testifies concerning the Son (John 15:26; 16:13-14). The Spirit never talks about Himself. He always talks about Christ, testifies of Christ, to glorify Christ.
Concerning the Triune God, the theology of today’s Christianity is deformed. Actually, many believe that there are three Gods. This is tritheism, which is a great heresy. This is why we put out the booklet entitled What a Heresy — Two Divine Fathers, Two Life-giving Spirits, and Three Gods! Such deformed theology has forced us to put the truth in writing through publications such as Affirmation & Critique. Through these writings, the Lord will vindicate His truth.
