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I. The divine dispensing of God the Father:
А. In choosing the believers in Christ, that His chosen believers may have His divine nature and thus may be sanctified — Eph. 1:4.
Ephesians 1:4
Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love.
B. In predestinating the believers through Christ, that His predestinated believers may have His divine life and thus may become His sons — Eph. 1:5.
Ephesians 1:5
Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.
II. The divine dispensing of God the Son in redeeming the believers, that His redeemed believers:
А. May be put in Christ.
B. May have Christ as their element and sphere and thus may be made God’s inheritance according to God’s economy by such a dispensing of His divine element — Eph. 1:7, 10-11.
Ephesians 1:7
In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses, according to the riches of His grace.
Ephesians 1:10-11
Unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in Him; (11) in whom also we were designated as an inheritance, having been predestinated according to the purpose of the One who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
III. The divine dispensing of God the Spirit as the sealing and pledging in the believers, that the believers:
А. May be sealed unto God’s image, as a mark that they are God’s inheritance — Eph. 1:13.
Ephesians 1:13
In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise.
B. May have a foretaste of God as the blessing of the believers’ inheritance — Eph. 1:14.
Ephesians 1:14
Who is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory.
IV. The divine dispensing of the Triune God in the transmission to the believers by the surpassingly great power that He caused to operate in Christ, with the threefold divine dispensing of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, producing the church:
А. As the Body of Christ.
B. As the fullness of the One who fills all in all — Eph. 1:19-23.
Ephesians 1:19-23
And what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the operation of the might of His strength, (20) which He caused to operate in Christ in raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, (21) far above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come; (22) and He subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, (23) which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
This series of messages emphasizes the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. From this chapter on, we will consider the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity from the book of Ephesians. I hope that we would all pray much so that the Lord would allow us not only to read but also to see these matters covered here. Superficially, the words in the Bible say one thing, but when we dive into them and experience them, it is another thing. This is especially true with a book as deep as Ephesians. On the surface the book is not too difficult to understand, but when one probes into it, he will realize that it is not easy. Ephesians 1:4-5 says that God chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy before Him and that He has also predestinated us unto sonship through Jesus Christ. Superficially speaking, the expressions to be holy and to have the sonship are not too difficult to understand. But if anyone asks how we, the common people, can become holy, and how we, the sons of men who are born of men, can receive God’s sonship, it will be very difficult to explain. If we try to find out further how in experience we can become holy and receive God’s sonship, we will find it even more difficult to understand. We can say that on the surface the entire book of Ephesians does not mention the term the divine dispensing. Actually, every point concerns the divine dispensing.
I would first fellowship one thing with all of you. God’s economy, that is, His plan, purpose, and arrangement of things to accomplish His desire, is carried out in ways very different from ours. For example, God wants us to please Him. When we read this word, immediately we would make up our mind, pray, and even fast, saying, “God, be gracious to me. I do have the desire to please You. But You know that I have all kinds of obstacles, problems, and weaknesses. I cannot do it. Please help me.” Everyone would justify this kind of prayer and would think that it is right. But although God wants us to please Him, He has no intention that we please Him by our own effort. Rather, He wants us to please Him through living by His life and even by Himself. Stanza 1 of Hymns, #499 says, “Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives.” This is the overall subject of the hymn. However, in the experience of many people, for Christ to live within is not peaceful but bothersome. The above hymn continues to say, “With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives.” What is this glorious fact? “Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives.” It is no longer I that live. This is truly wonderful! Now it is Christ that lives. This is glorious! However, is it really true that from morning until evening, it is no longer I that live, but Christ within me lives? Even today, from morning to evening, is it no longer I that live? I know that most of us would say that sometimes it is He and not we. But most of the time it is we and not He. This is our real condition.
We have to realize one thing here. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible tells us that God requires man to do many things. But He has no intention that man would do them by himself. God wants man to do these things, but He has no intention for man to do them by himself. Everything that God wants us to do is something that we cannot do in ourselves. God says that we have to honor our parents, but we cannot do it. God says that we have to be humble, but we cannot be humble. It is true that God wants every one of us to be humble. But He has no intention that we be humble by ourselves. Rather, God wants us to be humble by depending on Him. This is why the New Testament has the expression in Christ or in the Lord. We have to walk in love in the Lord. God’s commandment to us is that we walk in love, but He has no intention that we walk in love by ourselves, because we have no love in ourselves. On the contrary, we are full of hatred. If we have no love in ourselves, how can we live by our love? Hence, we have to remember well that God has chosen us to be holy, but He does not need us to accomplish this work of being made holy. We cannot accomplish it or fulfill it. It is also true that God has predestinated us unto sonship, but He has no intention that we obtain the sonship by ourselves.
God’s way is to do everything Himself and work His holiness into us. This is dispensing. He wants us to be holy, but He has no intention that we take upon ourselves the work of holiness. Rather, He is working His holy and divine element, that is, His nature, into us to be our element. This results in our becoming holy. God is adding His divine nature into us. This is what we mean by dispensing. God wants us to have the sonship, but we cannot achieve this. Now God is giving His Son to us. Paul testified that at one time he was very zealous for God, but one day God showed him that His pleasure was to reveal His Son in him (Gal. 1:15-16). For God to reveal His Son in Paul was for Him to dispense His Son into Paul. By this, Paul became a son of God with the sonship, that is, the life, the position, and the nature of the Son of God. As such, he could live the life of a son and enjoy the sonship. This is what we mean by dispensing. Now we want to consider this matter specifically from Ephesians chapter 1.
The dispensing spoken of in Ephesians is the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. Our God is one, yet He is triune. He is one God, yet He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is a fact. Our God is unique and only one. Yet He is three — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. When He dispenses Himself, He does so through His Divine Trinity.
Chapter 1 of Ephesians begins by showing us the dispensing of God the Father (vv. 4-5). The Father’s dispensing is seen in His choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world. The purpose of His choosing was for us to be holy. Immediately after choosing us, He predestinated us. His purpose in predestinating us was that we would receive the sonship through His Son. Both the choosing and the predestination speak of His dispensing. He chose us to be holy. This indicates that He has given us His divine nature. With His divine nature we can become holy. Some may say that since the Father’s choosing was before the foundation of the world, there was no dispensing yet. However, with God there is no element of time. Thus, in God’s eyes, at the very time that He chose us, although we were not yet created, and although the heavens and the earth were not yet made, in His foreknowledge He saw us already, chose us, and gave us His nature in order that we might be holy. This is dispensing.
After God the Father chose us, He marked us out and predestinated us unto sonship. Hence, in order for God to make us holy, He gave us His holy nature, and in order for us to become His sons and have the sonship, He gave us His life. We are not God’s adopted sons; rather, we are the children begotten by God’s life. John 1:12 says, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God.” These are not begotten of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. For God to predestinate us unto sonship means that He begot us and dispensed His life into us. Hence, God has not only put His nature into us to make us holy, but He has imparted His life into us to make us His sons. Both of these involve God’s dispensing.
Since God has chosen us to be holy, we do not need to struggle to be holy by ourselves. What we have to do is realize that God put His nature within us at the time of His choosing. Hence, we do not need to strive or struggle. Instead, we need only to fellowship with our Father. Every morning when we wake up, we should say to the Father, “Abba, Father, You are my Father. You have given me Your life and Your nature. Praise You that I can be Your son and can be holy.” If we would do this, I can guarantee that we would be holy the entire morning. Before lunch we should say a few words like these to our Father again. At every meal we should say something to our Father. This will be a shield to protect us from the distractions and attacks of the evil one and will make us holy. God has no intention that we become holy by ourselves. Before the creation of the heavens and the earth, He already put His life and nature within us. As long as we live a life of enjoying our Father every day, we will surely be holy. This is the dispensing of God the Father.
God the Son is also dispensing His divine riches into us (Eph. 1:7, 10-11). Based on the choosing and predestinating of God the Father, we have the redemption of God the Son.
Although the Father chose and predestinated us and gave us His life and nature, we became fallen in Adam. For this reason we need redemption. Without the redemption of the Son, even if the Father wanted to give us His life and nature, He could not do it. This is because on our side there is the problem of sin. Hence, God the Son came to accomplish redemption. He died for us, bore our sins away, and redeemed us. God also forgave us in Christ. Once a person believes in the Lord, he is redeemed and put into Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). Once he is in Christ, his sins are forgiven, death is over, and all his problems are solved. This is the dispensing of the Son into us. Ephesians reveals that when we believe in the Lord, we are put into Christ. This is not superstition or empty terminology. Rather, it is a fact. He is the real One. He is the Spirit, the reality, and the grace. When we are in Him, we are in the reality and in grace. Hence, Christ becomes our sphere and our element. In this sphere we are protected, and in this element we enjoy all the divine benefits.
There is a short song following Lesson 25 of Life Lessons, which says,
If every morning, afternoon, and evening and even before we go to bed, we will sing this song concerning our being in Christ, we will be victorious every day. While we sing, the Spirit will operate in us and bring us into the reality. In this way we will be in Christ, and Christ will become our sphere and element. With this divine element God will make those who are in Christ His chosen inheritance. We are not only God’s redeemed ones in Christ; we are His precious inheritance produced in Christ and with Christ as our sphere and element so that God can inherit us. God has purchased us with the blood of His Son. Now we are in His Son, and His Son has become our sphere and our element. If we live in Christ every day, Christ will become our sphere and element, that is, the producing ingredient with which God will make us His inheritance. This is the dispensing of God the Son.
None of us can redeem ourselves, and none of us can become an encircling sphere and an element to make ourselves a precious inheritance to God. Only Christ Himself, God the Son, can dispense to us such a blessing so that He becomes our sphere to surround and protect us, and also our element for our daily enjoyment, so that day by day we may be made more and more precious and may become God’s precious inheritance. This is the dispensing of God the Son.
After speaking of the Father’s choosing and predestinating and of the Son’s redeeming through which He has become our sphere and element so that we might be made God’s precious inheritance, Ephesians 1 speaks of the dispensing of God the Spirit as the sealing and the pledging in the believers.
God the Spirit put Himself into us as our seal. This seal seals us unto God’s image, as a mark of God’s inheritance. The “ink” used in this seal never dries; it will remain wet forever. This ink will saturate and permeate our entire being. In the beginning of our Christian life, the image imprinted by the seal is not very clear. But the more the seal seals us, the clearer and more distinct the image becomes. Moreover, the seal expands until our whole being — body, soul, and spirit — is saturated with this seal. In ourselves we could never carry out such a sealing, but God has dispensed His Spirit as a seal into us to seal us. Once this seal is on us, we can never remove it.
The Spirit within us is not only a seal that permeates and saturates us, but He is also a foretaste within us for our enjoyment.
When I was young, I was taught that when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, he will have the living water flowing out of him. Because of this word, I sought after this experience by praying and confessing my sins. One day I was brought to a Pentecostal meeting. There I saw some people jumping, some rolling on the floor, and some laughing. I was told that these people were filled with the Holy Spirit. But I could not accept that kind of being “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Later, the Lord raised up a church in my home. We did not laugh, jump, or shout; we simply prayed, met, sought after the Lord, and preached the gospel in a quiet way. Not far from us was a Pentecostal meeting. One day the leading one from that group attempted to convince me to accept the Pentecostal practices. I pointed out to him that when the church began to meet in my home, only about ten saints attended the meetings, whereas the number in his meetings might have been a little larger. After a period of time the number in our meetings increased to over eight hundred, whereas the number in his meetings, after all their jumping, shouting, and being “filled with the Holy Spirit,” still remained at only forty or fifty.
I say these things to point out to you through my many years of experience that God has no intention that we jump and shout; in fact, all the things of life that God has given to us are quiet and calm. We go to bed on time, sleep calmly, rise calmly, wash up, pray-read, take our breakfast, do our work, and study calmly. Other than some physical exercise, we do everything in a calm way. To live this way is most healthy. It is the same with the plant life. In growing flowers, it is harmful to overfertilize or water too much. We should not disturb the plants too much. Instead, we should allow them to live calmly. Even if we do not water the plants, sometimes the heavens will give them water and make them grow. Sometimes we are “cold” toward the Lord; we may not even go to the meetings anymore. At other times we may love the Lord so much that we become very zealous. Formerly, it was difficult just to read through half of a chapter in the Bible. Now it is easy to read through five chapters a day. But because both our “coldness” and our “hotness” are something of ourselves, they do not last. Only those who are unhurried and steady will remain and persevere.
Since we have the Spirit in us as a seal, pledge, and foretaste, every morning when we wake up, we should spend ten to fifteen minutes to open up the Lord’s Word and read two or three verses successively. We do not need to shout or yell. Of course, we should call on the Lord. This is like our breathing. But we do not need to seek for a feeling. We should simply pray and pray-read several verses in a calm and ordinary way. We should do this every day, fellowshipping with the Lord all the time. We should refrain from anything that gives us unrest and should do the things that make us feel peaceful and make the Lord happy. When there is a meeting, we should always attend. In the meetings we do not have to be that excited; there is no need to stand up to shout or yell. If we have anything to say, we simply say it in a calm way. If we have any testimony to give, we share it in a quiet way. If we continue to live this kind of steady life, we will surely be a healthy Christian. We will enjoy the Father’s continual transfusing and dispensing of the life of His Son and His divine nature into us.
We have to realize that very few spiritual things are accomplished once for all. As with our physical life, most spiritual things must be repeated again and again. For example, we need to eat, drink, and breathe for our physical life every day; we cannot graduate from these things. However, we do not need to do these things excessively; we simply need to do them in small portions over a long period of time. Likewise, the calmer our Christian life is, the better it will be. Daily we should allow the Father to dispense His life and nature into us. This can be compared to electricity, which steadily flows bit by bit into the house. If too much comes in all at once, it will be dangerous. First, we must see that whatever our God wants us to do, He does not want us to do it by our own striving but by Him. Second, whatever God gives to us is not given all at once so that it becomes unbearable to us. Rather, it is given bit by bit. For this reason we have to live a steady and normal Christian life. The less special and the more normal we are, the better.
The dispensing of God the Father is in His choosing us to be holy and predestinating us to have His sonship. The dispensing of God the Son is in His redeeming us so that we can be saved into Himself to be made God’s precious inheritance. The dispensing of God the Spirit is in His sealing us and being our enjoyment and foretaste. In this way daily we receive the dispensing from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. As a result, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as the Divine Trinity becomes our divine dispensing, and we enjoy Him every day.
Finally, Ephesians 1 shows that God’s surpassingly great power operated in Christ to resurrect Him from Hades, the grave, and death. This great power also caused Him to ascend to the heavens, seated Him on the throne, and made Him the Head over all things. All of this was accomplished by the surpassingly great power that God caused to operate in Christ. Although this power operates in Christ, it is toward us. The term toward us conveys the sense of transmission. God has raised Christ from the dead, seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things. All these accomplishments are “to the church.” All that God has accomplished in Christ has been transmitted to the church today. This transmission is a kind of continual dispensing. It can be compared to the transmission of electricity into a building. By such a transmission the building and all the electrical systems in the building “enjoy” the dispensing of the electricity.
Christ in us is like electricity. Every day He is transmitting, and this transmission is a dispensing. The result of this transmission, this dispensing, is that the church is produced. This church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. Because Christ is so great, all-inclusive, all-extensive, and fills all in all, He needs a universal Body, which is the church. By the dispensing of the Father, the dispensing of the Son, the dispensing of the Spirit, plus the all-surpassing transmission of Christ, God has transmitted Himself into us. The result is the producing of the church. The church is not an organization, nor is it merely a gathering of the believers. When we enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity and come together to transmit this dispensing to others, making it their enjoyment as well, that is the church.
