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Scripture Reading: Eph. 2:1-22; 3:1-12, 14-19
In this chapter we will see the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the producing, the building up, and the existence of the church. We will also see the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in Christ’s making His home in the believers’ hearts that they would be filled unto all the fullness of God.
First, I would like to call your attention to a few terms that are used in Ephesians to describe the church. The church is the Body of Christ (1:22-23). It is also the new man (2:15) and the dwelling place, or habitation, of God (v. 22). The church has at least these three functions: to be the Body of Christ, to be the new man, and to be the dwelling place of God.
The church is not merely a gathering of the called ones. It is not just a congregation. The church is something organic. It is the organic Body of Christ. Every person needs a body. Christ is a great person; thus, He needs a great Body. Christ is so great that He fills all in all. He fills the whole universe, including all the galaxies. He is great to such an extent that He becomes the dimensions of the universe. The breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the universe are just Christ (3:18). Such an unlimited and immeasurable Christ needs a Body, and this Body is the church. Today this Body is everywhere. There are parts of this Body in England, in Brazil, in Iceland, in China, in Mongolia, in India, in Tibet, and in all other parts of the earth. We all are the organic members of this vast Body of Christ.
On the one hand, the church is the Body. This is its function in relation to Christ. On the other hand, the church is the new man. This is its function in relation to God. In this whole universe God is moving. He is working for the accomplishing of His great economy. The word economy means “a household administration or plan.” God has a great household plan, and God’s household, which is the Body of Christ, is unlimitedly great. In God’s household plan, the entire universe is a large room in which God’s household lives. In order to carry out His eternal plan, which is the economy of the ages, God needs a man. He does not need more than one man; He needs only one man. This one man is the new man.
In the eyes of God, we the believers are considered to be one new man. As the Body of Christ, our function is to express Christ, and as the new man, our function is to move, work, act, and do things to accomplish God’s great plan. This new man is a corporate and vast man, comprising all of God’s chosen people. We should not consider ourselves as individuals. We must consider ourselves as part of this new man, which is the church.
In addition to being the Body and the new man, the church is the habitation of Christ and of God. A habitation is a dwelling place. It is like a person’s house. God has only one house — the church. In this house God dwells together with us.
The church is a Body to Christ, a new man to God, and a dwelling place to the Spirit, who is the consummation and the aggregate of the Triune God. This means that the church is the dwelling place of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — who is now consummated as the Spirit.
The way to produce this church, which is the Body of Christ, the new man to accomplish God’s eternal economy, and the dwelling place of the Triune God, is by the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. For the church to become the organic Body to Christ, a living man to God, and a marvelous, living, and organic dwelling place to the Triune God, there is no way other than the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into all the believers. This divine dispensing dispenses nothing else but God Himself as the Divine Trinity.
The way God dispenses Himself into us is by the Divine Trinity as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father dispenses Himself through the many works that He has done. The Son dispensed Himself first through incarnation. Through incarnation He came down from heaven to reach man by being born of a virgin. However, in His incarnation He could only be near His believers, such as Peter and John; He could not enter into them. Therefore, He took a further step by passing through the process of crucifixion. Through His all-inclusive death He was released from the shell of His humanity, and whatever was in that shell flowed out. Blood came out for redemption, and water also came out for life imparting (John 19:34). In the Old Testament type, the living water flowed out of the smitten rock to quench the thirst of the people of Israel (Exo. 17:6). In the same way, through His death Christ released Himself for the dispensing of His life into His people. In the third step of His process, Christ was resurrected. In His mysterious resurrection He, as the last Adam, a genuine man, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). As a man, Christ accomplished redemption for us; now, as the life-giving Spirit, He is giving, or dispensing, Himself as the divine life to all His believers. When we hear the gospel and call on Him, His life is dispensed into us.
In preaching the gospel we must not speak according to the old way. The old way is to sit down and talk with people about God for a long time with no authority, power, or presence of Christ. Every time we go out to preach the gospel, we should pray to be filled with Christ. We must go by being one with Christ and with the realization that Christ has sent us and is one with us. In this way our going will be with the power and the authority of Christ. Instead of talking in a vain way, we will be able to give others the command to believe and be baptized. Actually, most of us did not know very much when we were baptized. What we need to do is to baptize people with the authority of Christ. After they are baptized, we can go back to feed them at a later time. When they are fed, they will grow and will begin to understand the spiritual and divine things concerning God and Christ. Through this way of preaching, the Divine Trinity is dispensed to others, and the church is produced.
A preacher of the gospel is actually a branch of the vine (John 15:5). His work is to bear fruit through the dispensing of life. Fruit-bearing is a dispensing; it is not a matter of preaching or teaching. When the life of Christ grows within a person, this life will issue in a blossoming, and the blossoming will issue in fruit-bearing. If we want to bear fruit, we must learn to be continually filled with the divine life. When we are filled, the life within us will grow and will flow out and issue in the producing of fruit. This is the way to produce the believers and the way to build them up into the Body of Christ. It is altogether a matter of the divine dispensing of life.
Through the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, the church is produced as God’s masterpiece. In Greek the word for masterpiece is poema, which means “a poem.” It is used in reference to a piece of work that expresses one’s wisdom and skill to the uttermost. In this sense, even a woodcarving can be considered a poem. In God’s eyes the church is His marvelous masterpiece. Before we were saved, we all were “naughty” ones. No one could change us. But one day someone came to us and charged us to believe in the Lord Jesus. At that time we did not understand very well who the Lord Jesus is, but we believed in the Lord, called on His name, and were baptized. Through such an experience we all were changed. This is a mystery; no one can explain it. All we can say is that we became God’s masterpiece, a new man in the new creation.
The church is a new man in the new creation. Nothing other than the divine dispensing of the divine life can make us new. The dispensing of the divine life in the preaching of the gospel is like the giving of an injection to a patient. A nurse does not need to explain very much to a patient; she only needs to inject the medicine into the patient’s arm. In the same way, the divine life is not dispensed to others through their understanding of Bible teachings but through the injection of the divine life in our speaking. By such a dispensing, something is infused into others.
The church is produced by the enlivening of sinners through this divine dispensing (Eph. 2:1-6a). Whenever a person is baptized, he is put into Christ, and at that moment Christ comes into such a one to enliven him. Although he may not understand very much, he is enlivened by this living Christ. Through the preaching of the gospel, Christ is infused into his being, and he is made alive together with Christ. This is altogether a mystery.
In Ephesians 2 we are told that the believers are first enlivened and then seated with Christ in the heavenlies (v. 6b). After a person is enlivened by Christ in His resurrection, he may have the realization that he is in the heavens with Christ. In Christ’s resurrection we are lifted up to the heavenlies. This is the real experience of Christ’s resurrection with His ascension. All of these are the results of the dispensing of His enlivening life.
It is through the dispensing of the divine grace, which is the Triune God as a gift given to us, that we become the living members of the Body of Christ and are made the organic constituents of the church as the divine and heavenly poem (vv. 7-10). Such a change in the believers does not come about through the old way of preaching but through the divine dispensing of the living Christ into them.
After the church is produced, it needs to be built up (vv. 11-22). The church as a man needs only to be born. But this man has a body, and the body needs to be built up. A mother needs only to give birth to a baby. The baby as a person does not need any building up. But this baby has a body, and the body needs building up because when the baby is born, his body is too small. According to the Bible, the growth of the Body is its building up (4:16). The way to build up a baby’s body is by feeding it through drinking. After we baptize a person, we need to go back to that person to build him up by feeding him with spiritual milk (1 Thes. 2:7; 1 Cor. 3:2a; 1 Pet. 2:2).
All mothers know that the feeding of a child cannot be done too quickly. If we feed a baby too much at one time, we will harm him. We should feed him gradually, little by little. A child needs to be fed under his mother’s care for many years before he can grow up fully. The mother’s feeding is her dispensing. Every day she dispenses milk, beef, apples, eggs, chicken, and many other kinds of food into her child. In this way the child’s body is built up.
From the day we were saved, the Lord has been feeding us. Every time we come to a meeting, we are fed. When we have our morning watch, we contact Him by reading and pray-reading His Word. This also is a feeding. This feeding is the Lord’s dispensing. The Christian life is a life of dispensing day by day. Whether or not we realize it, this dispensing is going on all the time in a mysterious way. We may say that we do not know what is going on, but all the time much dispensing and spiritual feeding is taking place within us. Every day and every hour, our Christian life is a life under God’s divine dispensing. We may have no sensation regarding this, but we should not trust in our feelings; we should trust in our dispensing God.
God has begotten us and has become our very life. Any kind of life is a matter of dispensing. With the vegetable life, the animal life, and even the human life, dispensing produces growth. A little tree grows by the dispensing of its life. As long as it has life within, there will be a dispensing, and this dispensing is the growth.
The church is both the new man and the Body of Christ. As a man, it does not need to be built up. The Bible does not say that the new man needs to be built up, but it tells us repeatedly that the Body of Christ needs to be built up (Eph. 4:12, 16). All the saints need to be perfected and to learn to build up the Body of Christ. The way to be built up is by the dispensing of life through feeding.
First, the church must be produced, and second, the church must be built up. Third, the church must exist. For the church to exist and to stand properly in a living way, there is the need for the apostle’s stewardship (3:1-12). The apostle’s ministry first ministers Christ into sinners to produce the believers. Then it builds up the church by feeding the believers. At the same time, through the ministering of the rich word, it distributes the untraceable and immeasurable riches of Christ to the church. This distribution is the dispensing that enables the church to have a proper existence.
For the church to exist properly and to stand for the Lord’s testimony adequately, there is the need of the rich ministry to convey the riches of Christ to the saints as their timely supply. The more the saints receive the riches of Christ embodied in the word, the more they will enjoy the riches of this Christ, and the more they will be able to stand properly for the Lord’s testimony in an adequate way.
Many times there is the need for the churches to come together for conferences. These conferences are times for the riches of the ministry to be dispensed to the saints. Even when there is no one who can come to be the speaker, the saints can still dispense the riches of the ministry by mutually speaking one to another. Recently, in Columbia, South Carolina, and in London, England, the churches came together to have conferences in mutuality. They took the outlines and the verses of the messages given at the end of the 1990 summer training (see A Brief Presentation of the Lord’s Recovery) and spoke to one another in a living way. The result was very enjoyable; many of the attendants shared, and everyone was fed. Since we all have the rich “groceries” prepared in the written publications, it would be easy for us to come together and serve each other with these riches. This kind of speaking will stir us up and will dispense something new, fresh, and refreshing into all the saints.
In the church there is also the need for Christ to make His home in the believers’ hearts (vv. 14-19). Christ is now in us, but He is not yet settled in us. There may be some “rooms” within us for Christ, but He may still not be able to make His home in us. In my traveling I am often received into peoples’ homes, but I can never settle down in these homes. My desire is always to go back to my own home. While I am staying in others’ homes, I do not have the liberty to touch many things. But when I am in my own home, I am free to touch everything.
Christ earnestly desires to make His home in us. Paul prayed purposely for this. He bowed his knees to the Father, who is the source of all the families in this universe, and offered a very proper and complete prayer. He prayed that the Father would strengthen us with power through the Spirit according to the riches of His glory, that Christ may make His home in our hearts. Christ is in our spirit already, but He must spread from our spirit into our heart.
Our spirit is in the center of our being. This is where Christ is today (2 Tim. 4:22). This spirit is surrounded by our heart, which is composed of our mind, emotion, and will, plus our conscience. Many times Christ tries to spread from our spirit to our mind, but we will not allow Him to do it. Eventually, He is confined to our spirit; our spirit becomes His guest house. He is not yet able to make His home in our heart.
Sometimes the Lord may try to stretch out and take a part of our emotion, but we will not give Him permission. As a result, He cannot get through in us. In the meeting or during morning watch, we may be excited. But immediately after the meeting or morning watch, Christ is forced to shrink back. We allow Him to stay in our mind only for a while. Eventually, He is forced back to His guest house, which is our spirit.
Because we are weak, Paul prayed that we would be strengthened. We need to be strengthened into our spirit. This means that all our inward parts, including our mind, emotion, will, and conscience, must be gathered together into our spirit and come under the control of our spirit. In this way Christ will have the freedom to spread into all the parts of our heart. He will fill and take over every part and will settle down in our inner man, making our inner man His home. The result of this is that we will be filled unto all the fullness of the Triune God. We will then have the capacity to apprehend with all the saints the dimensions of Christ, which are His breadth, His length, His height, and His depth. We will also be able to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ. This means that we will be saturated with Christ. The riches of Christ will be dispensed into every part of our entire being. The result of this total dispensing of Christ is His settling down in our entire being, making our entire being His home. This kind of divine dispensing will make the church the actual, real, and full habitation of the Triune God.
