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In the four Gospels the ministry of the New Testament began with John the Baptist. That was only a beginning, and the beginning of such a ministry was the termination of all the old things. That initial part of the ministry brought in the main section of the New Testament ministry — the ministry of Christ Himself.
We have seen that Christ was One who was born of God and born with God to be a God-man. Even with Him there was a part that needed to be baptized, to be buried, to be terminated. That part was His humanity, and it was terminated and then resurrected. Therefore, He was a God-man with a humanity that had been terminated and resurrected. After His baptism He was qualified and equipped to carry out the ministry of the New Testament; nevertheless, He needed the Spirit to come to descend upon Him. He was proper in every way, and He was properly anointed. Then He began the ministry.
As we have seen in the four Gospels, His part of the ministry was to bring people into the gospel, into the truth, into the liberation, into the healing, and into the cleansing. In addition, that part of the ministry healed people’s deafness, dumbness, and blindness. Eventually, that part of the ministry brought all the saved ones into the terminating death of Christ and brought them into His germinating resurrection.
After all His accomplishments in His earthly ministry, the Lord Himself went to the cross to carry out the terminating death so that He could enter into the germinating resurrection. Here in this germinating resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God in His relationship with us. All of us need to see this crucial point. The Triune God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Until Christ entered into His resurrection and came back to the disciples in that germinating resurrection, there was no clear word in the Scriptures to reveal such a completed divine title — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Such a divine title is not found in the Old Testament. There are some hints in the Old Testament that indicate the trinity of the Godhead with types, with figures, and with plain words, but it is not until Matthew 28:19 that the completed title — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — is used for the first time.
We need to consider why it was that such a divine title was never revealed before the resurrection of Christ. The Trinity was not completely revealed, because the Son with the Father had not completed the long process from incarnation, passing through His human life and His all-inclusive death, into the germinating resurrection. This long and very meaningful process needs much definition, according to a number of messages that we have already given. Until the Lord Jesus had passed through death into resurrection, this long process was not completed.
We need to be deeply impressed that the Son never did anything apart from the Father (John 5:19). Therefore, when He became something, He did that with the Father. This is a crucial point, and it is an intrinsic part of the meaning of triune. The Son came in the Father’s name (v. 43), the Son came with the Father (6:46 and footnote 1, Recovery Version), and the Son said that the Father never left Him alone (8:29; 16:32). All the time the Father was with the Son, even in the Son’s earthly life. The Son even said that while He was on this earth, He was in the Father, and the Father was in Him (10:38; 14:11; 17:21). This is the basis of what is called coinherence. To coinhere means to live together in one another. You cannot separate the Son from the Father at all, and you should not try to make such a separation. The Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, not three Gods. Even to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three persons is not quite correct. Griffith Thomas said that the word person may be borrowed because of the inadequacy of human language, but it should not be pressed too far, because it will lead to tritheism, the belief in three Gods.
We should be on guard concerning the inaccurate teaching of the so-called Trinity that stresses the matter of three separate persons. It is permissible to use the word distinct in reference to the three of the Trinity, but it is altogether inaccurate to use the word separate. The inaccurate teaching concerning three separate persons of the Trinity has affected many Christians. This teaching is a part of the leaven in the prophecy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 13:33. A woman took leaven and put it into the fine flour until the whole was leavened. According to the principles of chemistry, once leaven has been put into fine flour and mingled with it, the fine flour cannot be purified. This inaccurate teaching concerning the Trinity was the major part of the leaven that the Catholic Church put into the fine flour concerning Christ’s person. The truth of the Trinity has been leavened, but according to God Himself, one can never destroy or damage the truth. Nevertheless, according to our mentality, something has been damaged in relation to this truth. For over twenty-two years in this country, I have been speaking again and again on this matter of the Trinity, and I am still very much burdened on this point. I fully realize that this thought concerning three persons remains in all of you and even in me, unconsciously and subconsciously. A number of times I could not get through in certain passages of Scripture concerning the Trinity simply because these concepts still remain in me and work within me unconsciously and subconsciously. All of us were leavened in this matter of the Trinity.
According to the basic principle, we all need to understand that the Son never did anything apart from the Father (John 5:19). Therefore, when the Son as the last Adam was going through the process of becoming the life-giving Spirit, He did not leave the Father on the throne and go through that process by Himself without the Father. Such a concept would be heretical. It is a basic principle that the three have never been separated. From eternity past through time into eternity future, the three always coexist and coinhere. They have never been separated in any situation. In this principle, when the Bible says that the Son as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, it was the Son with the Father who became such a Spirit. Furthermore, this means that the Father within the Son became such a Spirit when the Son became the life-giving Spirit. These words may sound very new to you. This is the first time that I have ever used these sentences, and I say these things with much consideration. To make such a statement is not a small thing, and I have been quite cautious in the past. However, after more than fifty years of study, after at least thirty years of consideration concerning how much I should release, I have the boldness at this point to say that when the Son as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit, He did so in humanity with the Father. Therefore, the life-giving Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God in His relationship with us.
We need to see that the divine title — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — is revealed in a way that is for our experience, not for doctrine. Therefore, it is in His relationship with us that the life-giving Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Such a divine title is revealed in the Lord’s word concerning the way to baptize people into the Trinity: “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). This divine title is revealed in a way that is for our experience, not in a way of doctrine for us to study. We are not learning the Triune God but experiencing Him. I would make a strong declaration that we cannot understand the Triune God, but we thank the Lord that we are all qualified to experience Him.
You may think it sounds quite strange to say that we cannot understand the Triune God, but we can experience Him. However, no one would claim to understand the food we eat every day, not even the doctors or the dietitians. Who understands an egg, a glass of milk, or a slice of bread? Even the experts in nutrition have a certain understanding at one time and a very different concept at another time as a result of further studies. If we cannot understand the food we eat to nourish our bodies, how can we expect to understand the Triune God who is life to us, the One who is the bread of life to us (John 6:35), and the One who said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (v. 57)? We may not know, and we cannot understand, but we can eat, and we can enjoy. I enjoy the Triune God every day. I do not say that I understand Him, but I certainly enjoy Him.
There are two mysteries in the Triune Godhead that no one can explain. The distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is one mystery that no one can define or explain. The oneness among the three is the second mystery; otherwise, there could not be one God. The three are one; three denotes distinction, and one denotes the oneness. No matter how much you study this matter or how much you get into the research of the theological writings, the issue of your study of this matter will consummate in these two mysteries — the mystery of the distinction of the three and the mystery of the oneness of the Godhead among the three. It is impossible for any human mentality to understand these two mysteries or to explain them. I have tried over and over, but there is no way. I have been doing this work for more than thirty years, but all I can tell you is that there are these two points, these two mysteries — the distinction and the oneness.
While we say that the Lord is the Father and that He is also the Spirit, we cannot annul the distinction between Them. To do so would be heretical. From the black and white in the pages of the Bible, you can tell that there is a distinction between the three. Even the way of expression denotes some distinction. The Lord Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” (14:10). It seems that They are one, but there is a distinction. If there were no distinction, the Lord Jesus would not have made such a statement, nor would He have used the divine title the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in Matthew 28:19. No one can explain the fact that there are three expressions and that these expressions denote a distinction. Nevertheless, the best Bible teachers all agree that these three are only one name. In Matthew 28:19 the Lord Jesus used name in the singular: “Baptizing them into the name.” This name indicates the oneness.
We cannot explain the fact that there is a distinction and there is the oneness, but we can experience the Trinity day by day. When we enjoy the Lord, we enjoy the Father, and we enjoy the Spirit. When we say, “O Lord,” the Spirit is here, and the Father is here also. By this you can see in principle that when the Lord Jesus as the Son in His humanity, the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit, He did so with the Father. Therefore, when the Son passed through His human death and entered into resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit, He did it with the Father. It was not the case that the Son alone became the life-giving Spirit without the Father; rather, it was the Son with the Father who passed through the process to become the life-giving Spirit. In resurrection the Son with the Father became the life-giving Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Now, when you touch the life-giving Spirit, you touch also the Son and the Father.
It was when the apostle John touched the matter of the anointing that he said that “he who denies that Jesus is the Christ...denies the Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:20, 22-23). If we spend time in these verses and get into the depths of the truth here, we can realize that Jesus, Christ, the Son, and the Father are all the ingredients of the all-inclusive anointing in 1 John 2.
We may use an all-inclusive health drink as an illustration of the anointing in 1 John 2. In one drink there may be milk, fruit, protein, and perhaps some vitamins and other ingredients. When you take one sip of this drink, you have all the ingredients that are in it. In a similar way, when you touch the all-inclusive anointing in 1 John 2, you touch Jesus, you touch Christ, you touch the Son, you touch the Father, and you even touch the eternal life (v. 25). These five elements of the divine anointing are clearly mentioned in this chapter — Jesus, Christ, the Son, the Father, and the eternal life. They can be compared to five spices or five ingredients for the compounding of such an all-inclusive anointing. By the anointing of the all-inclusive compound Spirit, who is the composition of the Divine Trinity, we know and enjoy the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as our life and life supply.
