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Scripture Reading: John 1:14; 3:5, 3:16; 12:24; 19:34; 1 Pet. 1:3b; John 20:22; 4:14; 6:56-58a; 14:9-11, 16-20; 7:38-39; 15:5, 16a; 21:15, 17
In this chapter we will consider the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity as the divine life. The Divine Trinity is God Himself in His divine person, the divine life is the life of God, and the divine dispensing is the Triune God’s dispensing of Himself into us as our life.
The Gospel of John is a Gospel of the divine life. It presents the divine life not in an objective way but in a subjective way. It gives us a particular and wonderful picture of how God came to be a man in order to dispense Himself into man so that man may receive Him and enjoy Him as his inner life. According to His divine economy, God’s intention was to be one with man. God’s desire to be one with man is illustrated in the Bible by eating. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament show us that God is our food. After God created man, He put him in front of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 16-17), indicating that God wanted man to eat of Him and take Him as his life, causing man to become one with Him. The food that we eat is digested and assimilated into us, becoming the constituent of our very being. In the same way, God wanted man to take Him as his food so that He might be man’s constituent.
In order to carry out His intention, God first became incarnated. Before the incarnation God was only God, separate from the man created by Him. For God to be incarnated means that He became a man with a human body of blood and flesh (Heb. 2:14). The incarnation of the Divine Trinity dispensed the divine grace and reality to men. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.” According to the teaching of the New Testament, grace is God Himself given to us for our enjoyment. Grace is not something outward, such as a good house, a good car, or a good business. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul indicates that grace is a person, saying, “I labored more abundantly than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.” Grace is God Himself to be received and enjoyed by man.
Reality in John 1:14 is the very God whom we touch, gain, and possess. Nothing is as real as God. Other than God, everything is vanity of vanities (Eccl. 1:2). When we receive God, we have the reality. Both grace and reality are God Himself. God became flesh in order to dispense Himself into us. When He is dispensed into us, He is the grace that we enjoy, and He is the reality that we possess. The purpose of God’s incarnation was for God to dispense Himself to us as grace and reality.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” The giving of God’s only begotten Son to the world dispensed the divine life to men. God gave His Son to us not only that we may be saved through the Son but even more that He could dispense Himself into us. According to the Gospel of John, when the Son comes, He comes with the Father (8:29). Therefore, when the Father gave the Son to us, He gave Himself with the Son. When we receive the Son, we receive the Father. The giving of the Son of God to us is a matter of the divine dispensing.
The death of Christ on the cross was also a part of the divine dispensing. The death of the incarnated Son released the divine life within Him for the divine dispensing (12:24; 19:34). John 12:24 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Within the shell of a grain of wheat is the life of the wheat. For the grain of wheat to die is to release the life within its shell. The life within the shell cannot be released until the shell is broken, and when it is broken, the life within is released to produce many grains. First, it is one grain alone; then it becomes many grains. This is the dispensing of the inner life of the one grain into the many grains. Jesus as the grain of wheat was the divine seed. The divine life was concealed in His “shell.” When Jesus went to the cross and was put to death, He broke through the shell to release His inner life, the divine life, into His many believers, the many grains.
First, God was incarnated to be a man, and God gave Himself in the Son to man that man may receive Him. Then, in order to be man’s life, He went through death to release the divine life within Him. After His crucifixion Christ resurrected from the dead. The resurrection of the crucified Son imparted the divine life into the regenerated believers for the divine dispensing (3:5; 1 Pet. 1:3b). Christ’s death released His divine life from within His human shell, and the resurrection imparted and applied the divine life to us. This application took place at the time we were regenerated. We were all born of the flesh, needing to be reborn of the Spirit. John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In our second birth our spirit was regenerated by the Spirit, who is Christ in resurrection. First Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” According to our view, we were regenerated after we were born. However, according to God’s view, we were regenerated when Christ was resurrected nearly two thousand years ago.
In the incarnation God became a man, but in His resurrection Christ as the last Adam, a man in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). The breathing of the pneumatic Christ in His resurrection into the disciples dispensed the consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God for the divine dispensing (John 20:22). Christ is rich and has many aspects. He was incarnated to be a man, and He was given to us. Then He died on the cross to solve the problem of sin, becoming our Redeemer. Then He resurrected and ascended to heaven to be our Savior. Moreover, He also became a life-giving Spirit to dwell in us. On the cross He was our Redeemer, in the heavens He is our Savior, and within us He is the life-giving Spirit to be our life.
On the evening of the day of His resurrection, He came back to His disciples in a secret and marvelous way. He came into the room where they were, breathed into them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (vv. 19-22). John 20 tells us only how Jesus came to the disciples. It does not tell us how He left again. It is difficult to discover where Jesus went after the evening of His resurrection. The Gospels of Mark and Luke tell us that after His resurrection Jesus ascended to the heavens, but there is no such record in the Gospel of John. After Jesus was resurrected, He simply came back to His disciples and breathed Himself into them as the holy breath. From that time Jesus never left them. He was, still is, and will be forever in all His disciples.
The Gospel of John has two lines concerning the divine dispensing. First, the wonderful Christ was God. Then He was incarnated and was given to us as the Son. Following this He died, resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit to breathe Himself into His disciples. This is the first line. However, the Gospel of John has another line, showing us how Jesus is dispensed into us. In regeneration Christ came into us, and we were born again. However, after a child is born, he needs to breathe, drink, and eat. The pneumatic Christ is for the believers’ breathing, dispensing the divine essence into them. The living water is given by Christ in resurrection, dispensing the divine riches into the believers (4:14). The resurrected Christ is eaten by the believers and indwells them, dispensing the divine elements into them for their satisfaction (6:56-58a). In the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus said that He is the bread of life (vv. 35, 48), the bread out of heaven (v. 32), the bread of God (v. 33), and the living bread (v. 51) so that we may eat Him.
The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit. In this way the processed Triune God is dispensed into the believers as life and the life supply in abundance (14:9-11, 16-20). The Father in the Son is expressed among the believers, and the Son as the Spirit is realized in the believers. God the Father is hidden, God the Son is manifested among men, and God the Spirit enters into man to be his life, his life supply, and his everything. Hence, the Father in the Son and the Son as the Spirit are man’s portion so that man may enjoy God.
John 7:38-39a says, “He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive.” The issue of our breathing, drinking, and eating Christ is first the flowing of rivers of living water as the bountiful supply of the divine riches.
The second issue of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity as the divine life is fruit-bearing (15:5, 16a). We are the branches of Christ, who is the vine. As branches, we should bear fruit. John 15 does not merely speak of the preaching of the gospel to save sinners, because John is a Gospel of life. In John 15 the preaching of the gospel is the bearing of fruit. Fruit-bearing is the flowing out of the inner life. When the inner life flows out, there is an expression. This expression is fruit-bearing.
Everyone who goes out to lead sinners to be saved must be one with Jesus. If we do not breathe, drink, and eat Jesus, we will not have the authority when we preach the gospel. Our gospel will not be powerful. We must be the breathers, drinkers, and eaters of Jesus. We must have Jesus within us, not merely as a king, but as our breath, water, and food. Many of the dear saints love the Lord and the Lord’s recovery very much and are seeking to practice the new way for the church life. However, they are practicing the new way in an old way. When they knock on people’s doors for the gospel, they are fearful. Then when they speak with people, they do not command them but rather converse with them in the old way. Eventually, the people may argue with them, and the time will be wasted. We must not take the old way. To talk to people in this way is not effective.
In Matthew 28:18-19 the Lord said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We must realize that it is Jesus and not we who initiates our going out. Jesus charged us to go with His authority to disciple the nations. When we go to people, we should say, “Hallelujah! Amen, Lord Jesus. I am going, and You are going with me.” Then we can tell people, “The Lord Jesus sent me to you to tell you that He is your Savior and you must believe in Him.” We can command them to pray, and after they pray, we can command them to be baptized into the name of the Triune God. We have mistakenly believed that we must teach people before they can be saved and baptized. Matthew 28:19 first says that we should disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. After this, verse 20 says that we should teach them. A mother cannot teach her child before the child is delivered. After the child is delivered, there will be many years to teach him. Whether or not a new believer understands what has happened, his prayer and baptism are accomplished facts, and what he has done in the name of the Lord Jesus counts in God’s view.
The issue of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity as the divine life is also lamb-feeding (John 21:15, 17). After a new believer is baptized, we should sit down with him to feed him, and we should come back as soon as possible to have a meeting in his own home. Then we can return regularly to feed him. In feeding the new believers, we should not talk too much. Mothers feed their babies in a very simple way. They know what the babies need, and they know how to feed them in just a few minutes. If we converse with new believers in the old way, they will not be helped.
The first need of the new believers is to breathe the Lord. Therefore, we must feed them with calling on the name of the Lord. After their baptism we may spend ten minutes to tell them in a simple way, “Now, Jesus is your Lord. He is the Spirit within you. You need to call on Him: O Lord Jesus!” This will help them very much. We should teach the new ones in this way. Children practice many things that their mothers teach them, even though they may not understand them.
If possible, on the day after their baptism, we should return to feed the new ones with reading and pray-reading the Bible. We may tell them to read two or three verses from the Gospel of John every day. Then we can open to John 1:1 and read it and pray-read it with them. After this, the new believers will know how to pray-read. We should not help the new ones merely in a human way. We should care for them in a divine way by helping them to keep pray-reading. Then spontaneously we may sing a short song. On another occasion a new one may confess a wrongdoing to us. We can then pray with him, and he may spontaneously have the feeling to rectify the wrongdoing. We do not need to teach the new ones too much. They will learn to do what we do. If we kneel down and pray, they will also kneel down and pray with us. This is the new way, and this is the best way to feed them. The old way is too traditional, habitual, and religious. The new way is practical and very effective. We must not take the old way of conversing, teaching, and charging. We should instead go to the new believers and live a proper Christian life in front of them in a very simple way. They will learn by this and follow us. After a month of meetings in this way, the new ones will grow much.
The issue of breathing, drinking, and eating Jesus is the flow of the living water, fruit-bearing, and the feeding of the lambs. The divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity as the divine life also issues in the increase of Christ, which is the Body of Christ and the bride of Christ (3:29-30). John 3:29 says, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom.” The bridegroom is Jesus. As the issue of feeding on Him, drinking of Him, and breathing Him in, we will go to bear fruit and feed the new believers, who are the members of His Body, which is His bride. This is the message of the Gospel of John.
We must not merely learn the techniques of bearing fruit and feeding the new ones. We have to live a daily life of breathing, drinking, and feeding on Christ, taking Christ every day as our very element and essence. We must not only receive Him but also digest Him, assimilate Him, and let Him become the content of our being. Then we will be one with Him. When we go out for the gospel, we will go out in oneness with Him and with His authority. Our going out must also be in the new way, not in the old, traditional, habitual way. We have the living Lord within us. We can always follow Him to know what to do and what not to do. In this way we will baptize sinners and return again and again to feed them. Then we can bring them into our group meetings to be taught and perfected, and they will also spontaneously learn how to prophesy so that the church may be built up.
