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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:1-23
The crucial focus of the book of Ephesians is the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into all the believers. In other messages we have pointed out that this book is structured with the Trinity. For example, a meeting hall may be structured mainly with steel, wood, and stone. In like manner, the entire book of Ephesians is structured with the Divine Trinity.
Now let us come to Ephesians 1. As the title of this chapter indicates, the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in Ephesians issues in the church. This means that the divine dispensing produces the church. Without the dispensing, the church cannot be produced. Chapter 1 tells us that the church, the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all, is the issue of God’s dispensing Himself into His believers.
Ephesians 1:2 says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Most Christians, including myself, have simply read this verse and taken for granted that they understand it. Although I had read this verse for many years, I did not realize what grace and peace are. Now I see that grace in the New Testament is nothing less than God dispensed into our being for our enjoyment (John 1:14, 17; Rom. 5:17, 21; 1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9; 13:14; Gal. 6:18; 1 Pet. 4:10; 5:10). Grace is a person, the very God Himself, dispensed into our spirit to be our life and life supply so that we may enjoy Him. If you read the New Testament with this understanding, the word grace will be much more meaningful. Grace denotes God as our enjoyment.
What is peace? Peace surely does not refer simply to a calm situation in our environment. Peace is not something outward but something inward. Peace within us is the result of the enjoyment of grace. When we enjoy God as grace, the result is peace. Peace is the issue, the result, the fruit, of our enjoyment of the very God within us, the One who has been dispensed into us.
According to my experience, such a peace implies five matters. First, it implies rest. If you do not have rest, you cannot have peace. Peace also implies comfort, enjoyment, satisfaction, and joy. When I enjoy God as my inward portion, I have rest, comfort, enjoyment, satisfaction, and joy. This is peace. Outwardly, I may have problems, yet inwardly, I have the enjoyment of God, and I am a happy person. This is peace as the issue of the enjoyment of God as our grace. This enjoyment of the divine grace and peace is to the saints and the faithful in Christ Jesus, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:1-2).
How can we have the enjoyment of God that results in peace? We can have this by the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. If we read chapter 1 of Ephesians again with this kind of understanding, it will be a new chapter to us.
We all need to have our mind renewed when we come to the Bible. This means that we need to drop our understanding from the past. The old understanding that we have picked up in the past has become a thick veil upon our eyes. I hope that all the layers of the veils will be taken away from our eyes. Then we will be able to take the Bible purely as it is and see the pure Word. The pure Word indicates that grace and peace may be to us by the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The first item is the Father’s dispensing. The Father, our God, is wonderful. He is one unique God, yet He is triune. He is one God, yet He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I cannot tell you how this can be, nor can I explain it. Martin Luther said that if we fully understood the Trinity, we must be God. Only God knows this. It is too mysterious. We cannot understand how the one unique God can be triune. Even the more, no one can explain it. Through nearly twenty centuries of Christian history, teachers and theologians have tried to explain the Trinity. But in doing so, they have made mistakes and caused problems. We have learned a lesson from them and received a warning so that we do not like to explain too much. We prefer to speak according to what the pure Word reveals.
For the dispensing of the Divine Trinity the Father first selected us. We were selected not only before we were born but even before the foundation of the world (v. 4). In eternity, before time began, God the Father selected us. Then He predestinated us, determining a destiny for us (v. 5). He determined this destiny beforehand; hence, it is a predestination. Following His selection, God predestinated us unto sonship (v. 5). This means He destined beforehand that we would be His sons.
Sonship is a matter of life dispensing. If a father has many sons, this means that he has dispensed much life. God created only one man, Adam, as the forefather of the human race. But Adam’s descendants number in the billions. This is the result of life dispensing. As human beings, we are here by life dispensing. Likewise, as members of Christ, we are here by God’s life dispensing.
Some may say that the term life dispensing is not found in the Bible. That is correct. The word Trinity also is not in the Bible. Nevertheless, in the Bible there is the fact of the Trinity. In order to speak of the fact, we need terminology. Therefore, the word Trinity was coined to denote the Triune Godhead of the unique God. Likewise, when we read the Bible and see that God has predestined us before the foundation of the world unto sonship, we need a proper definition of sonship. We have seen that sonship involves life dispensing. We have a great Father who is rich in life. His capacity is universally great, and He has much life to dispense. No one can tell how many millions of sons God has begotten. In all this begetting He has dispensed His life into His sons. We have a great Father who has dispensed much life.
Now you can understand why I say that Ephesians 1 has the divine dispensing. It has the dispensing because it has the sonship. Sonship is a great matter. Our destiny is sonship. Praise the Lord that we have been predestined unto sonship! Our predestination unto sonship is through Jesus Christ and according to the good pleasure of His will (v. 5).
Sonship results in “the praise of the glory of His grace” (v. 6). God’s grace has a glory, and glory means expression. For example, when electricity is hidden, there is no light. When the electricity shines, it is expressed, and this shining is the glory of electricity. Likewise, God’s grace has a glory, and this glory is the sonship. Do you realize that the entire globe is full of the divine sonship, with the many sons of God?
Recently, I bought two maps for my living room, and I put pins in every place where there is a church. What a glorious sight! What are the churches? They are the totality, the aggregate, of all the sons of God. This is the sonship, and the sonship is the glory. Therefore, the sonship is to the praise of the glory of God’s grace. This is the glory of the sonship.
At one time we all were sinners and were scattered. But now we have been gathered together through the life dispensing. Our Father has begotten us, dispensing His life into all of us. Now we all have the divine life dispensed into us by our one Father. This dispensed divine life is the factor that unites us. We all are in the sonship, and this is a glory to His grace. This is the dispensing of the Father.
The Father’s selection and predestination are for God’s purpose. Now we come to the Son’s redemption, which is for the accomplishment of the Father’s purpose. According to traditional theology, the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit, as three distinct and separate persons. If this were the case, when the Son came, the Father would have remained in heaven. But by reading the Gospel of John carefully, we can see that when the Son came, He came with the Father (8:29; 16:32). The Son came not in His own name but in the Father’s name (5:43) and in Isaiah 9:6 is even called the eternal Father. The Son did the Father’s work (John 5:17, 19), He did the Father’s will (v. 30; 6:38), He spoke the Father’s word (3:34a; 14:24; 7:16-17; 12:49-50), He sought the Father’s glory (7:18), and He expressed the Father (14:7-9). From these verses we can see that nothing was of the Son; everything was of the Father. This means that when the Son came, the Father came. The Son and the Father are one (10:30; 17:22). The Son was in the Father, and the Father was in Him (14:10-11; 17:21). When the Son spoke, the Father worked. The Son accomplished redemption through His blood and according to the riches of God’s grace (Eph. 1:7-9a).
The Son’s redemption for the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose is “unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ” (vv. 9b-10). What does it mean for all things to be headed up in the Son? We may use the human body as an illustration. As long as we are alive, all our members, including our feet, legs, and hands, are headed up. But if we die, the members will become detached. This indicates that the heading up depends on the uniting of life. The life in our body is the means by which all the members are headed up. When the life goes, there is no longer any heading up.
After God created Adam, He put him before the tree of life. But Adam partook of the other tree, the tree of death (Gen. 3:6). At that time death came into man. Because man was the representative of the whole creation, his death caused all of creation to lose the heading up and become scattered.
Through the Son’s redemption, the divine life has been dispensed into His believers. This life that has been dispensed into them unites all of them. Christ as the Head with this uniting life thus heads up all the believers. This heading up is the church life. However, because many believers still live in the old creation, they are detached. They have no oneness, no uniting, which means that they have no heading up. We must learn how to live by the divine life. As long as we live by this divine life, we are united. This uniting life is used by Christ the Head to head us up into one church life. This heading up of the church will spread until the time of the new heaven and the new earth. At that time there will be the New Jerusalem, which will be the center of God’s ultimate heading up. Then there will be the dispensation of the fullness of the times. Dispensation here means “arrangement” or “management.” In eternity all things in heaven and on earth will be headed up in Christ through the church.
Many Christians today are not headed up because they are short of the dispensing of the divine life. This is why our burden today in the Lord’s recovery is not to teach mere doctrines but to dispense the divine life. Through this life dispensing, saints from many countries around the globe become one. What has brought about this oneness? It is the life dispensing. Life dispensing heads us up. This is the result of Christ’s redemption. Christ’s redemption takes away our sin so that death may be swallowed, and all the members may be headed up through the life dispensing.
In Christ we also were designated an inheritance (Eph. 1:11). Furthermore, the Son’s redemption for the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose is to the praise of God’s glory (v. 12). After speaking of the Father’s dispensing, in verse 6 Paul says, “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” Then after speaking of the Son’s dispensing, Paul says, “To the praise of His glory” (v. 12).
The Spirit’s dispensing is His sealing “unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory” (vv. 13-14). The seal of the Holy Spirit is living, and it works within us to permeate and transform us with God’s element until we are matured in God’s life and eventually fully redeemed even in our body.
God seals us with the Spirit. We may illustrate this sealing with a rubber stamp and a piece of blank paper. By stamping the blank piece of paper, we dispense the ink onto the paper. If we stamp the paper again and again, eventually it will be saturated and soaked with the ink.
Not only is sonship a matter of life dispensing, but the sealing of the Spirit also involves life dispensing. Day after day the Spirit is sealing us. When you were a sinner, you were like an unclean sheet of paper. But one day you repented to God and called on the Lord’s name. His blood washed you, cleansed you, and made you like a piece of clean blank paper. At that time the Spirit sealed you.
We need to know who the Spirit is who sealed us. When the Son came, He came with the Father, and when the Spirit came, He came with the Son and the Father. Therefore, the Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God. The Spirit is actually the application of the Son and the Father to us. The rubber stamp is the application of the ink to the paper. When we put the stamp on the paper, the ink is added to the paper. The Spirit is the consummation and the reaching of the Triune God to us. When He seals us, the entire Triune God reaches us. The Spirit not only reaches us; He is also attached to us (2 Cor. 1:21). The reaching is His attaching, and the attaching is also His dispensing. The Triune God has been dispensed into us. He has reached us, and He has been attached to us. The divine sealing, the life dispensing of the Triune God, is taking place within us all the time.
The sealing of the Spirit is unto the redemption of the acquired possession (Eph. 1:13b, 14b). Some versions say “until,” but unto is more meaningful because it means “resulting in.” We were acquired by God as His possession. From the day He acquired us, He began the sealing in order to saturate us with the Triune God. It is too objective simply to say that we have God’s seal upon us as a mark. We not only have a seal but also have a sealing to saturate our entire being with God’s element. Our body has not yet been redeemed; it still is a natural being. But we have a sealing, the saturating of the Holy Spirit, within us, and this sealing will continue until the day that our body is fully saturated. That will be the redemption of our body, the redemption of God’s acquired possession. Now, as God’s acquired possession, we are still under the sealing.
The Spirit is also a pledge, a foretaste, of our divine inheritance, guaranteeing the full taste of God as our eternal inheritance (v. 14a). This word pledge is very meaningful. It means “earnest,” “security,” “guarantee,” and also “foretaste.” According to an ancient practice, when someone bought a piece of land, the seller would give him a bag of soil as a sample for a pledge. That soil was a guarantee that the purchaser would get the land with the same soil. This is an illustration of the fact that the sealing Spirit, after sealing us, remains within us to be our foretaste of God as our inheritance.
When we believed in the Lord Jesus, two things happened. First, we became God’s inheritance, God’s possession, with His seal upon us. God sealed us with the Spirit as a sign that we belong to Him as His possession. At the same time God became our possession. He became our portion and enjoyment. The sealing Spirit is a sign that we are His possession, and the sealing Spirit also becomes a pledge, a foretaste, of the very God who is our inheritance. This foretaste is a guarantee, security, that one day we will enjoy the full taste.
Both the sealing and the pledging are life dispensing. Every day the Spirit is sealing us and pledging Himself into our being as our foretaste. This foretaste of the pledging is a guarantee of the full taste. The Triune God is sealing us and pledging Himself into our being. This is the dispensing of the Spirit.
At the end of verse 14 we have once again the phrase to the praise of His glory. This phrase is used three times: first, for the Father’s dispensing in verse 6; second, for the Son’s dispensing in verse 12; and third, for the Spirit’s dispensing in verse 14. This threefold mentioning of the praise of God’s glory signifies the threefold dispensing of the Triune God.
The issue of the threefold dispensing of the Triune God is through our spirit of revelation (v. 17) and by the surpassing greatness of His power toward us (v. 19). This great power is according to the operation of the might of His strength, which He caused to operate in Christ in raising Him from the dead (v. 20), that is, in resurrection; in seating Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all (vv. 20b-21), that is, in ascension; in subjecting all things under His feet (v. 22a), that is, making Him above everything; and in giving Him to be Head over all things to the church (v. 22b). Such a power has been applied to us, and the application of this power is the life dispensing. It is by the life dispensing of the Triune God that such a power, even a power of surpassing greatness, has been applied to all of us.
The result, or issue, of this dispensing is the church, the Body of Christ. How can sinners become the Body of Christ? This is only by the divine life dispensing. When the Triune God dispenses Himself into us, this life dispensing saturates our entire being and causes us to become regenerated, transformed, and even transparent members of Christ. Therefore, we are now the Body of Christ, which is an organism, not an organization. We may say that a chair is organized of many pieces of wood. In contrast, a man is an organism because he is organic. When the Triune God dispenses Himself into our being, this life dispensing makes us organic. Together all of us are an organism, and this organism is the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not a social organization. It is something organic, an entity saturated by the life dispensing of the Triune God. The so-called churches are for the most part organizations instead of an organism. The church must be an organism that is fully organic. The church must be full of life dispensing, saturated with the Triune God in every part. This is the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is the fullness of the universal Christ. The fullness of a person is his body. If a person had only a head and no body, he would not have any fullness. But with a body there is the fullness. The Body of Christ, which is the church, is the fullness of this great, universal Christ who fills all in all (v. 23). How can this be? It can be only by the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. Thus, Ephesians 1 reveals the church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
The Body comes into being not by organizing but only by life dispensing. It comes into being only by the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — dispensing Himself as life and life supply into all His believers, saturating them and thereby making them the Body of Christ.
