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Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 1:2; Heb. 1:8; Acts 5:3-4; John 4:24; Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6; 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 19:7-9; 21:2, 9, 11, 18-21; 22:1-2, 14, 17
In this chapter we come to the consummation of the divine dispensing. The writings of the apostle John are the last books of the divine revelation. His Gospel, his Epistles, and his book of Revelation were written about A.D. 90. If we would get into his writings, we would surely realize that they are on the Triune God. In his Gospel we see the dispensing of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Son came in the name of the Father, and He did everything to work out the Father’s will. He worked in the Father’s name, and He worked with the Father. He also spoke the Father’s word and sought the Father’s glory. From these points it is clear that the Son does nothing by Himself, nor is He for Himself. He lives and works altogether with the Father and for the Father. This indicates that He is the embodiment of the Father.
After the death and resurrection of the Son, the Spirit came in the Son’s name to testify concerning the Son and to glorify the Son. The Spirit is not for Himself; He is altogether for the Son. The Son is for the Father, and the Spirit is for the Son. The three are really one. The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is transfigured into the Spirit. This is for God in His divine economy, the divine household management and administration, to dispense Himself into His redeemed people to make them one with Him. This is clearly revealed in the Gospel of John.
The consummation of the divine dispensing is in John’s last book, the book of Revelation, which is also the last book of the New Testament and even of the entire Bible. In Revelation we can see the consummation, the issue, of the divine dispensing. This consummation is not only the consummation of the divine dispensing but also the consummation of God’s entire plan and economy.
Between the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation are John’s Epistles, which cover the fellowship of the divine life. This fellowship is nothing less than the experience and enjoyment of the Triune God. In the Gospel of John we can see how the Triune God has been dispensed into us. In the Epistles of John we enjoy the Triune God by the fellowship of the divine life, which is the real experience and enjoyment of the Triune God who has been dispensed into us in the Gospel of John.
This dispensing issues in the book of Revelation. The consummation of the divine dispensing in the book of Revelation is mainly in the first three chapters and the last two chapters. In the first three chapters there are the seven churches signified by the seven lampstands. In the last two chapters there is the wife of the Lamb signified by the New Jerusalem. Both the lampstands in this age and the New Jerusalem in eternity are the marvelous issue and consummation of the divine dispensing.
Dear saints, we all need a clear view to see what the Triune God is doing today. He is doing the divine dispensing, dispensing Himself into all of us day and night. We may say that we do not see such a dispensing, but God sees it. To us it may not seem so prevailing, powerful, or evident, but to God and His enemy Satan, it is very evident. This dispensing began when Jesus came to earth, and it has been going on for nearly twenty centuries. We like to see things that are evident on the surface, but God does not care so much for things that are superficially evident. He cares for the reality and its result. Today on this earth, underneath so many currents, there is a real current. What is the current? It is the Triune God dispensing Himself into all of His redeemed ones. How foolish it is if we are busy doing other works and do not care for this current, the Triune God dispensing Himself into us!
You may say that you do not feel much of God’s dispensing or that you have only a little of God’s dispensing. As long as you have a little, that is good. For example, with a large amount of sand, there may be only a few grains of gold. God’s dispensing is like this: a little bit in you and a little bit in me, on and on. To Him there is no time element. With the Lord a thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8). To us this dispensing has been going on over nineteen hundred years, but to Him it is less than two days. Many Christians like to say that the Lord Jesus will come soon. Some in the past even predicted when the Lord would come. But His delay has disappointed those who predicted. Did not the Lord Jesus say that He was coming quickly (Rev. 22:12)? Yes, He did. But to us it is two thousand years; to Him it is just two days. His coming may be delayed for quite a period of time because He wants His dispensing to be fully completed. This dispensing is still going on and on. One day it will have a consummation.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. First Peter 1:2 tells us that the Father is God, Hebrews 1:8 tells us that the Son is God, and Acts 5:3-4 tells us that the Spirit is God. If we read the Bible in a superficial way, we may believe that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three separate persons. But even if we read only the Gospel of John carefully, getting into the depth of the truth, we will see that the Son came in the Father’s name, He worked out the Father’s will, He worked the Father’s work with the Father and in the Father’s name, He spoke the Father’s word, and He sought the Father’s glory. If we touch the depth in the verses that cover these points, we will realize that the Son and the Father are one. We cannot separate Them.
Likewise, the Spirit is not separate from the Son. From these two titles it seems that They are two separate persons. But when you get into the depth of the details in the verses that cover this matter, you see that the Spirit comes in the name of the Son, He comes to testify concerning the Son, and He glorifies the Son. Furthermore, the Son has given everything that He is and has to the Spirit. These points indicate that the Spirit and the Son are one. If the Spirit and the Son were not one, how could the Spirit come in the Son’s name? How could He come to reveal the Son? How could He come to glorify the Son? How could the Son give everything to Him? Eventually, you have to admit that They are one. This realization that the Son and the Father are one and that the Spirit and the Son are also one is according to the clear revelation in the Gospel of John.
All these matters added together show you a crucial point: these three — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — are the one God; They can never be separate. The second comes in the name of the first and with the first, and the third was sent by the first in the name of the second and came with the first and the second. And They all are coinherent, as the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (14:10-11). They are mingled with one another. How could They be separated? The three are one. The third is the transfiguration of the second, and the second is the embodiment of the first. The Son is the embodiment of the Father, and the Spirit is the transfiguration of the Son. Such expressions actually mean that They are one. If the Son were not one with the Father, how could He be the Father’s embodiment? If the Spirit were not one with the Son, how could He be the Son’s transfiguration?
This matter of the Trinity is very mysterious; we cannot explain it thoroughly. It forces us to pick up terminology such as embodiment and transfiguration. We do not like to use the word representation, because we do not believe that there is any kind of representation between the Father and the Son and between the Son and the Spirit. We believe that the Son is the embodiment of the Father, and the Spirit is the transfiguration of the Son. They cannot be separated from one another; neither are They represented by one another.
John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit.” God here surely denotes the entire God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The entire God, not only the Spirit but the Spirit and the Father and the Son, is Spirit. Hence, we cannot say that only the Spirit is Spirit and that the Father is not Spirit or that the Son is not Spirit. As the three — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — are all Spirit, so They all are one. The Father is Spirit, the Son is Spirit, and the Spirit is Spirit. The entire God is Spirit. As the Spirit, all the divine three are one.
In the Gospel of John it may seem that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three separate persons. But when you come to the book of Revelation, John mixes up the divine three of the Godhead. Revelation 1:4 speaks of the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and 4:5 speaks of the seven Spirits of God. Revelation 5:6 says that the seven Spirits of God are the seven eyes of the Lamb. Of course, the Lamb is the Son, the second of the Godhead. So in Revelation the third of the Godhead is the eyes of the second. Is this one person or two?
Furthermore, Revelation 21:23-24a says that the Lamb is the lamp. God the Son, the second of the Trinity, is the lamp, and God the Father, the first of the Trinity, is the light, the glory, within the lamp. Are the lamp and the light two separate persons? Some teachers say that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three separate persons. But John in his Revelation says that the third is the eyes of the second and that the second is the lamp with the first within as the light. These teachers separate the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as three persons. But the Bible, in the book of Revelation, reveals that the divine three are inseparable and not separate. The third is the eyes of the second, and the second is the lamp to contain the first as the light. Furthermore, this third One is also seven lamps. The second One is the unique lamp to contain the first as the light, and the third One is the seven lamps to express the second. The seven lamps are the seven eyes of the second of the Trinity, who is the unique lamp. This is the way that the last book of the Bible talks about the Trinity.
What does it mean that the third is the seven lamps as the seven eyes of the second, who is the unique lamp to contain the first? It means that the third expresses the second, and the second expresses the first. We express ourselves very much by our eyes. Whether we like someone or not can be seen by the expression in the eyes. So the seven eyes of the second mean the expression of the second. The third is the eyes of the second; the second is the lamp, the expression, of the first; and the third is also the seven lamps, the expression, of the second. The first is contained and expressed in the second, and the second is expressed in the third.
Revelation continues the Gospel of John to show that in the Divine Trinity the third is the eyes of the second, and the second is the lamp to contain the first as the light. Furthermore, the third is the seven lamps to express the second, and the second is the unique lamp to express the first. The first is expressed through the second, and the second is expressed through the third in a sevenfold way. So the three are one, not three separate persons. This is for the consummation of the divine dispensation.
Today both the Catholic Church and some of the Protestant denominations appreciate the Nicene Creed. They say that this is the base of their faith. But at the time the Council of Nicaea was held in A.D. 325, seven books of the New Testament, including Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation, were not recognized as books of the Holy Scriptures. The Nicene Creed says nothing about the seven Spirits of God, so it is not complete. These seven books, including the book of Revelation, were recognized seventy-two years later, in A.D. 397 in the Council of Carthage in North Africa. So we cannot accept the Nicene Creed as a complete revelation of the Divine Trinity.
The Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God reaching His redeemed people and expressed in the lampstands, which signify the churches in this age (Rev. 1:11-12, 20; 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). The lampstand itself is the embodiment of the Divine Trinity dispensed into the members of Christ. What is the church? It is the expression of the Divine Trinity dispensed into God’s children. The definition of the church in Revelation is very high and deep. The church is not just a group of Christians, nor is it simply an organization of Christian believers, but it is the blending of the Divine Trinity who has been dispensed into all the believers.
In the lampstand you can see the Father, you can see the Son, and you can see the Spirit. The substance of the lampstand is gold. Gold in typology signifies the nature of God the Father. With the lampstand there is also a certain form. The lampstand is not just a piece of gold without a proper shape; it is a piece of gold shaped into a certain form. This means that the gold is embodied into a shape, and the shape is God the Son. The substance is the Father, and the form is the Son. Furthermore, the lampstand has seven lamps for expression. The seven lamps are the seven Spirits of God (4:5). So the substance is God the Father, the shape and form is God the Son, and the expression is God the Spirit. Such a lampstand is the church. This is not religion, nor is it any kind of “anity.” This is not a matter of ethics or morality or natural thought or philosophy.
The church is the embodiment of the Triune God dispensed into us and blended within us. It is the Triune God dispensed into humanity and blended in humanity as one single entity (22:17a). There is no separation. This is the Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God reaching His redeemed, and this is the consummation of the divine dispensing in this age.
Eventually, this consummation will come to the ultimate stage, the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is a single entity, which is considered the wife of the Lamb, the bride (v. 17).
The consummation of the divine dispensing will be a universal marriage (19:7-9; 21:2, 9). The Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God dispensed into His redeemed people will be there as the Bridegroom; and God’s redeemed people as the consummation of the redeemed, regenerated, and transformed humanity will be there as the bride. We know this because Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come!” In this verse the Spirit and the bride together as a couple say, “Come!” The Husband is the Spirit, and the wife is the bride.
The New Jerusalem is a composition of the Divine Trinity with God’s redeemed people. First, it is composed of God the Father’s nature, signified by the gold. The city and its street are made of pure gold (21:18, 21b), denoting God the Father in His nature. The twelve gates of the New Jerusalem, which are twelve pearls (v. 21a), signify God the Son’s overcoming death and His life-imparting resurrection. An oyster is a small animal that lives in the death waters. It has a life that overcomes the death waters, and by secreting a life element, it produces pearls. Christ’s overcoming death plus His life-imparting resurrection secretes the “juice” of the divine life to form us into pearls. So in the pearl we can see the Son in His death and resurrection. The pearl signifies God’s redeemed and regenerated people. According to John 3, regeneration is the entry into the kingdom. You cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless you are born of the Spirit (v. 5). Regeneration is the entry, the gate, into the New Jerusalem.
The precious stones signify the transforming work of God the Spirit (Rev. 21:11, 18-20). After regeneration the Spirit continues to transform the regenerated people of God to make every one of them a precious stone. By this you can see that the New Jerusalem is a composition of the Father as the substance, of the Son as the entry, and of the Spirit as the transformation. It is a building of the Trinity with redeemed, regenerated, and transformed humanity.
The entire New Jerusalem is saturated with God the Spirit as the river of living water, which flows out of the throne of God the Father and of the Lamb, God the Son. In the river the tree of life grows (22:1-2). The life water, God the Spirit, quenches thirst, and the life tree, God the Son, nourishes. The entire city, which is a composition of the Trinity with His redeemed people, is watered, nourished, and saturated with the divine life, which is nothing less than the Triune God (vv. 1-2, 14, 17), dispensing Himself to saturate His redeemed people. What a picture this is! This is a blending of the Triune God with His redeemed people. The nature of the Father is the substance. The redemption of the Son, including His death and resurrection, is the entry. And the Spirit’s transformation is the work to make us divine and precious. Such a composition is the New Jerusalem. It is saturated by the eternal life, which is the Triune God Himself. This is the consummation of the divine dispensing.
I look to the Lord that through these messages we may see a vision of God’s economy, God’s goal, and what God is doing to reach His goal. What God is doing is dispensing Himself as the Father, the source, as the Son, the expression, and as the Spirit, the very entering in, into you and me. Day and night He is working on this one thing. He is working toward this one goal — that we all would be a lampstand in this age to express the Triune God and eventually would be that bride in eternity, a composition of redeemed and regenerated humanity saturated with the Triune God as life.
Such a composition of the Triune God with His redeemed people will express God fully for eternity (21:11a). So at the end of the sixty-six books of the Bible, the Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God.
Now we can see why John says that the Son comes in the Father’s name, and the Spirit comes in the Son’s name. In his Gospel John prepares the way to show us that these three — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — are not separate. These three actually are one. The source, the expression, and the entering in become the consummation. The Spirit is not separated from the Son or from the Father. The Spirit is the consummation of the entire Triune God. The Spirit as the Bridegroom is the totality and consummation of the Triune God. He is qualified to be such a Husband to marry the wife, who is the consummation of all the redeemed and regenerated people of God. This is a universal couple with divinity marrying humanity.
Here are two consummations. Divinity has gone through a process — through incarnation, through crucifixion, through resurrection, and through ascension — to become the Spirit, the totality, the consummation, of the Triune God to be the Bridegroom. Humanity also has gone through a process — through redemption, through regeneration, and through transformation — to become the consummation of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people. The consummation of the Triune God and the consummation of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people become one in a universal marriage. The processed man will match the processed God forever for His full expression and satisfaction.
