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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:9-10; 2, 3:9-11; Col. 1:25-27
The entire revelation of the entire Bible shows God’s dispensing. The Bible shows that God wants to dispense Himself into His chosen people. No other point is so crucial or so central as this one. God chose us, predestinated us, redeemed us, saved us, and regenerated us for the purpose of dispensing and working Himself into us. God’s intention is shown in the Old Testament, but it is not fully revealed there. The full development of the revelation concerning God’s intention to dispense Himself into us is in the New Testament. In the New Testament this matter is the main subject and the focus of God’s economy.
God’s economy is God’s plan, and this plan is a kind of arrangement. This arrangement is His administrative dispensation. God has a plan, a divine arrangement, an administration, to distribute Himself into His chosen people. Ephesians 1:9-10 and 3:9-11 fully reveal this matter. The word economy in these verses refers to God’s plan, God’s arrangement, God’s administrative dispensation. This arrangement, this plan, this dispensation, is for God to dispense Himself as the processed Triune God into His chosen people. The Divine Trinity is for the divine dispensing. The matter of dispensing is revealed in Ephesians 3:2 and Colossians 1:25-27. In these verses the word stewardship means “dispensing.” A stewardship is a dispensing. A waiter in a restaurant has a stewardship to serve food to others. To serve food, to dispense food to people, is the stewardship of the waiter. Paul tells us that God gave him a stewardship. His stewardship was his dispensing duty to dispense Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God into God’s chosen people. Today our preaching the gospel and ministering the word must be a dispensing of the Triune God into people.
We must realize that the entire New Testament is a dispensing book. It opens the veil to show God’s desire to dispense Himself into His people. Many Christians would say that the Bible is a book of salvation. The Bible, however, is something more than this — it is a book that reveals the dispensing of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, embodied in Christ, consummated in the Spirit, and intensified in the seven Spirits, into His chosen and redeemed people.
There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament. When I was young, I was taught that the New Testament could be divided into three sections. The first section was the five books from Matthew through Acts, the historical books. The second section was the Epistles, the letters written by the apostles from Romans through Jude. The last section was the book of Revelation, a book of prophecy. I would not say that this interpretation is wrong, but it is superficial.
The New Testament unveils to us a wonderful person. This wonderful person was first the Son of God unveiled in the four Gospels. Then this person became the life-giving Spirit, unveiled in a full and detailed way in the twenty-two books from Acts through Jude. Then in Revelation this life-giving Spirit is intensified to be the seven Spirits. By this we can see that the New Testament shows a person as the Son of God, as the Spirit, and eventually as the seven Spirits.
I have been studying the Bible nearly every day since 1925. The chart in this chapter is the consummation, final reaping, and extract of my fifty-nine years of studying the New Testament. This chart shows that the content of God’s New Testament economy is a person. To say that this person is Jesus Christ is right but not absolutely, perfectly, and completely right. The content of the New Testament economy of God is a person, and this person is the Triune God. God’s oikonomia, God’s household administration, is to distribute Himself as the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — into all His chosen people. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament are a full revelation of one great person — the Triune God. No one is greater than the Triune God. His greatness reaches to an extent that is far beyond our apprehension.
In the first section, the four Gospels, this wonderful person is revealed as the Son of God coming with the Father by the Spirit to be the embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ as God’s tabernacle and God’s temple, living the life of God to develop into the kingdom of God. This is in the Gospels as the initiation.
The Triune God is first revealed in the New Testament as the Son of God in His humanity — Jesus Christ. We must realize, however, that when the Son came, He did not come alone and leave the Father on the throne. This is a wrong thought in the teaching of tritheism. The ones who have this concept use Matthew 3:16-17 as a basis for their belief. In these verses the Son went up from the water, the Spirit descended upon the Son, and the Father spoke concerning the Son. These verses do prove that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit exist simultaneously. The tritheists, however, press the side of the three in the Godhead too far, and they consider the Father as a God, the Son as another God, and the Spirit as a third God. Many of us have held or even now hold this concept, unconsciously or subconsciously, that there are three Gods.
The New Testament reveals that when the Son of God came, He came with the Father (John 8:29; 16:32). The Son said that He was never alone on this earth, because the Father was with Him all the time. The Son was with the Father and by the Spirit. Matthew 1:18 and 20 tell us that Mary “was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit,” and “that which has been begotten [generated] in her is of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit was the very divine essence that constituted Jesus’ conception. The One who was born of the virgin Mary and named Jesus had the divine essence in His being; this was the reason that He was born not merely as a man but as the God-man. He was the complete God and the perfect man because the divine essence was His very constitution. Therefore, the Son came in the flesh with the Father and by the Spirit.
Also, the Son with the Father by the Spirit came to be the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9). This One is the Triune God embodied. Do not consider that the Son could be alone, separated from the Father or from the Spirit. According to the entire revelation of the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are coexisting and coinhering from eternity past to eternity future. Coexisting means “to exist together at the same time,” but coinhering means “to exist within one another, to abide in each other.” When the Lord Jesus told Philip that He was in the Father and that the Father was in Him, this is coinhering. It is easy to demonstrate the coexistence of three items. It is more than difficult, however, to demonstrate the coinherence of three items. How marvelous it is that the three of the Godhead coexist and coinhere from eternity to eternity!
When Jesus was walking on this earth, He was not separate from the Father, leaving the Father in heaven, and He was not separate from the Spirit, leaving the Spirit as a dove soaring in the sky. He was the Son living in His humanity with the Father and by the Spirit. The Son with the Father and by the Spirit is the embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ. This is fully confirmed by Colossians 2:9, which says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” The Godhead is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. All the fullness of the Triune Godhead dwelt in this man Jesus Christ bodily, so this man was the embodiment of the Triune God as the Son with the Father and by the Spirit.
This embodiment of the Triune God is God’s tabernacle and also God’s temple. In the Old Testament both the tabernacle and the temple are types of Jesus Christ. John 1:14 tells us that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. This indicates that the humanity of Jesus was a tabernacle to embody God. Furthermore, in John 2:19 and 21 the Lord told us that His body was God’s temple. This embodiment of the Triune God also lived the life of God. He did not live the life of anything else. He did not live the life of an angel or of a good man. He lived the life of God because He was the embodiment of God. He could not live any other life, and He should not have lived any other life. He had to live the unique life of God for the expression of God to develop into the kingdom of God. The four Gospels reveal the person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and they also reveal that the life lived by this person was the life of God. The four Gospels also refer frequently to the kingdom of God. Many of us do not realize thoroughly what the kingdom is. The kingdom of God is a person (Luke 17:21) and the development of this wonderful person (Mark 4:3, 26).
All of this is in the four Gospels as the initiation. The word initiation means to have a start that will usher the entire situation into a new realm. In the four Gospels there is a new start, a new age, and a new dispensation. The Gospels are an initiation to usher the entire situation into a new realm. The Gospels talk about the Son with the Father by the Spirit to be the embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ as God’s tabernacle and God’s temple, living the life of God to develop into the kingdom of God.
The second section is from Acts through Jude. What is revealed here is the Spirit. The Son, who became flesh, died and resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In these twenty-two books this life-giving Spirit is the Spirit as the Son with the Father. In the four Gospels the Trinity is the Son with the Father by the Spirit, but in these twenty-two books the Trinity is the Spirit as the Son with the Father. This is the consummation of the Triune God in the church as the Body of Christ, the temple of God, the kingdom of God, and the house of God, living Christ unto the fullness of God. The fullness of God means the expression of God in full. After His death and resurrection the Lord Jesus became the Spirit as the Son with the Father to be the consummation of the Triune God, not only in one person, Jesus Christ, but in the church as the Body of Christ, the temple of God, the kingdom of God, and the house of God. This is a corporate person, and this corporate person lives Christ unto the fullness of God, the expression of God in full. This is the development in the twenty-two books from Acts to Jude of the initiation in the Gospels. Today we are in this development.
The second section of the New Testament still speaks of the same person but in a further stage. In the four Gospels we can see how God, the Triune, became incarnated, manifested in the flesh. The complete God, the God of the Trinity, became flesh and lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. He died on the cross for our sins to accomplish a full redemption for us, and He was resurrected. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us clearly that the last Adam, Jesus Christ, became a life-giving Spirit through death and resurrection. On the day of His resurrection He came back to His disciples as the Spirit, the “pneumatic Christ.”
The Lord came with a resurrected body (Luke 24:37-40; 1 Cor. 15:44) into the room where the disciples were with the door shut. He was there with a resurrected body because He showed them His hands and His side. He was there in a pneumatic way. Then He breathed into His disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma, which can be translated into either “spirit,” “breath,” or “wind.” Actually, the Holy Spirit in this verse should be translated as “the Holy Breath, the Holy Pneuma.” The Holy Spirit is not a separate person from the Son, Jesus Christ. How could your breath be breathed out of your being to become a second person? This is not logical. The breath is the very release of the intrinsic essence of someone’s being. Breath is the intrinsic essence of the breather. The pneumatic Christ, the very Christ who is pneuma, came back on the day of resurrection to His disciples and breathed out the intrinsic essence of His being into them. On that day the pneumatic Christ entered into His disciples.
From that day onward He was not only among His disciples but also within them in order to train them to get accustomed to His invisible presence. For the three and a half years of His earthly ministry, Peter, John, James, and the other disciples were used to His visible presence, but then His presence became invisible. The disciples were not used to this invisible presence, so the Lord trained them for forty days. In these forty days He appeared to them unexpectedly without their realization (21:4; Luke 24:15-16). When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus realized that it was Jesus who was with them, He disappeared from them (v. 31). Many times we may not have much realization that Jesus the Lord is with us. However, many saints have experienced the Lord’s appearing to them when they were going somewhere or doing something against His wishes. For example, in John 21 we see that Peter returned to his old occupation, backsliding from the Lord’s call (Matt. 4:19-20; Luke 5:3-11), due to the trial of the need of his living. It was then that the Lord appeared to the disciples on the shore. Many times He appears to us in order to restrict us and enlighten us to keep us on the way that leads to life.
Since His resurrection the Lord’s presence is invisible in the Spirit. His manifestations, or appearings, after His resurrection were to train the disciples to realize, to enjoy, and to practice His invisible presence, which is more available, prevailing, precious, rich, and real than His visible presence. This dear presence of His was just “the Spirit” in His resurrection, whom He had breathed into them and who would be with them all the time.
In the twenty-two books of the Bible from Acts to Jude, we see the Spirit as the Son. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us that the last Adam, Jesus Christ, became a life-giving Spirit, and 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us, “the Lord is the Spirit.” In these twenty-two books the main figure is the Spirit — the Spirit as the Son with the Father. John 14:23 says, “Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” This means that when the Son comes, He always comes with the Father. The Epistles tell us clearly that the Spirit is the Son; He is also with the Father because the Father is always with the Son. The Spirit as the Son with the Father is the consummation of the Triune God in the church.
The embodiment of the Triune God was in Jesus Christ, and the consummation of the Triune God is in the church as the Body of Christ and the temple of God. The Body of Christ is the kingdom of God, and the temple of God is the house of God living Christ. The church today is living Christ. We all are living Christ every day unto the fullness of God, which is the very expression of God, the Triune God. This is in the twenty-two books of the Bible from Acts to Jude as the development. Christ was the initiation to develop into His enlargement, which is the church, the fullness of the Triune God.
In the third section, Revelation, we see the seven Spirits out from the eternal One, the One who is and who was and who is coming. The seven Spirits are out from the eternal One of the Redeemer (1:4-5) to be the intensification of the Triune God in the overcoming church, consummating in the golden lampstands and in the New Jerusalem. This is the finalization in the book of Revelation. The intensification of the Triune God in the overcoming church consummates in the golden lampstands in this age and in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth in eternity.
The eternal One, the One who is and who was and who is coming, is Jehovah in the Old Testament. Jehovah in the Old Testament is revealed in Exodus 3 as the Triune God — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (vv. 14-15). In Revelation 1:4-5 Him who is and who was and who is coming is God the eternal Father. The seven Spirits who are before God’s throne are the operating Spirit of God, God the Spirit. Jesus Christ, to God the faithful Witness, to the church the Firstborn of the dead, and to the world the Ruler of the kings of the earth (v. 5), is God the Son. This is the Triune God. However, this record of the Trinity is totally different from the record revealed in Matthew 28:19 — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Only the word Spirit is used in Revelation 1:4-5, and it is used in plural — the seven Spirits. Also, the first of the Trinity is not the Father but the eternal One, the One who is and who was and who is coming. Furthermore, the Spirit is not the third of the Trinity but the second of the Trinity. God the Son is revealed as the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.
The book of Revelation reveals that there is not only one divine Spirit but seven. Both the Catholic and Protestant churches highly regard the Nicene Creed. They often recite this creed in their Sunday service. The Nicene Creed, however, does not include this point of the seven Spirits, because when the Nicene Creed was made (A.D. 325), the book of Revelation was not yet formally recognized. (Revelation was formally recognized at the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397).
The seven Spirits are unveiled in the book of Revelation as the seven eyes of the Lamb (5:6). The Lamb is our Savior, Christ, and the seven Spirits are the Spirit of God. Thus, the seven Spirits are the seven eyes of Christ. Can you say that your eyes are one person and that you are another person? This shows that the Spirit cannot be separated from Christ. Revelation reveals to us an observing Christ who has seven eyes watching over all the churches. The seven eyes, the seven Spirits of God, are Christ Himself watching over all the churches on this earth and observing their real situation. For the church to overcome today’s dark age and the decline in today’s Christendom, we need the sevenfold intensified Spirit of God.
The seven Spirits are not only out from the eternal One, but They also belong to the Redeemer because the seven Spirits come out of the throne of the eternal One, and the seven Spirits are the seven eyes of the Lamb. In Revelation the Trinity is the seven Spirits out from the eternal One and of the Redeemer. This is the intensification of the Triune God. Now we have three words to describe the Triune God in the New Testament — embodiment, consummation, and intensification. In the four Gospels the Triune God is embodied in Jesus Christ; in Acts through Jude the Triune God is consummated in the church; finally, in Revelation the Triune God is intensified in the overcoming church consummating in the golden lampstands in this age and in the New Jerusalem in eternity. This is the book of Revelation, and this is the finalization of God’s economy.
The New Testament unveils to us how the Triune God became flesh in the Son with the Father by the Spirit to be a man. As this man, He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, yet He did not live a human life; He lived in the human life. He lived a divine life, the life of God, in the human life. Then He died on the cross as seven items to terminate all the negative things in the universe and to release all the positive things: as the Lamb of God, He died to deal with our sin and sins (John 1:29; 1 Cor. 15:3); as a man in the flesh (John 1:14), He died in the form of fallen man, in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), to deal with the fallen flesh; as a man in the old creation, He died to crucify our old man (6:6); He also died as the bronze serpent (John 3:14) to bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15) and to destroy him (Heb. 2:14) along with his satanic world (John 12:31), that all His believers may have eternal life (3:15-16); as the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), He died on the cross as part of the old creation to terminate the entire old creation; He also died as the Peacemaker (Eph. 2:14-15) to abolish all the ordinances and differences in living, customs, and habits between all kinds of people; on the positive side He died as a grain of wheat to release the divine life (John 12:24). He died such an all-inclusive death on the cross, through which He cleared up the entire universe and released the divine life for us to receive. Then He was buried, and He was resurrected. He entered into a new realm, a new universe, a new sphere. In this sphere He was no longer in the flesh, but He became pneumatic. He became the life-giving Spirit. At the end of the four Gospels such a One in His resurrection breathed Himself as the pneumatic One into His disciples. Thus, He became the very intrinsic life and essence of His disciples. This is the very depths of what is revealed in the four Gospels.
In Acts through Jude this pneumatic One is always with His church. He is the Spirit as the Son with the Father — the very consummation of the Triune God. Before His resurrection the title the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in Matthew 28:19 had never been revealed or used. Such a title indicates that the Triune God has been completed and consummated, and this consummation is the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving, indwelling Spirit. The Spirit as the Son with the Father is within us to make the church the Body of Christ as God’s kingdom and the temple of God as the house of God.
Finally, due to the degradation of the church, this Spirit has been intensified sevenfold. Therefore, in Revelation this One becomes the seven Spirits out from the eternal One and of the Redeemer to be the intensification of the Triune God in the overcoming church consummating in the golden lampstands in this age and in the New Jerusalem in the coming eternity for God’s finalization of His economy so that He may have a corporate expression for eternity. These are the depths of the revelation of the New Testament. We all should dive into these depths; otherwise, we will remain superficial in our understanding of the central revelation of the New Testament.
