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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:3-6, 7-12, 13-14, 18-23
I. The issue of God the Father’s impartation:
А. Of His holy nature into His chosen people that they may be separated from the world and sanctified wholly unto Him — Eph. 1:4.
B. Of His divine life into His predestinated people that they may become His many sons for His expression — v. 5.
C. To the praise of the glory (expression) of His grace — v. 6.
II. The issue of God the Son’s impartation of the divine element into God the Father’s chosen and predestinated people:
А. In the redemption through His blood — v. 7.
B. To bring them into Christ as their sphere and element, that they may be made God’s inheritance, with the divine element in Christ, as a treasure to God — vv. 8-11.
C. To the praise of God the Father’s glory (expression) in the believers who have first hoped in Christ — v. 12.
III. The issue of God the Spirit’s impartation of the divine essence into God the Father’s inheritance redeemed by God the Son:
А. By sealing it (God’s inheritance) that it may be saturated with the divine essence as the impress to be a mark and the image of God to be His expression — v. 13.
B. By being a pledge of God, as His redeemed people’s inheritance for their foretaste of Him, guaranteeing their full taste of Him, unto the redemption of His acquired possession (redeemed inheritance) — v. 14a.
C. To the praise of God’s glory (expression) — v. 14b.
IV. The issue of the transmission of God in His Divine Trinity into His chosen and redeemed people:
А. As the great power toward the believers, which God caused to operate in Christ:
1. In raising Him from the dead.
2. In seating Him at the Father’s right hand in the heavenlies, far above all.
3. In subjecting all things under His feet.
4. In giving Him to be the Head over all things.
B. As the transmission to the church, which is the Body of Christ, the One who fills all in all — vv. 19-23.
Prayer: Lord, we worship You that You are still moving on this earth. How we thank You that Your moving is going on among us in Your recovery. We remind You that whenever we come together into Your name, there is an oracle ready for You to speak to us. Lord, we are here opening to You. Come, Lord Jesus. Speak to us. We want to hear, and we want to listen to Your word. Lord Jesus, we have no trust in ourselves. We put our trust in You, in Your mercy, in Your blessing, in Your presence, in Your anointing, and in Your reaching each one of us. We consecrate and offer this conference to You. Even tonight we present this meeting to You as a burnt offering. Lord, visit each one of us. We want to be touched by You that we may touch You. Sanctify these four days of this conference. Sanctify all of us wholly unto You. We are here not for our interest but for Your interest, especially in these last days as You are moving on this earth to cut short Your word, to accomplish Your prophecy and Your promises. Lord Jesus, we want to be fully for You. Gain us, possess us, occupy us, and use us. Lord Jesus, we thank You for Yourself. We thank You for what You are. Defeat the enemy. We accuse him in front of You. We are touching Your throne of authority. O Lord Jesus, put Your enemy to the corner. Do something further and further and further until You arrive at Your goal. Thank You, Lord Jesus, in Your mighty name.
The burden of these messages concerning the Body of Christ can be expressed in the following four statements:
1) The Body of Christ is the fullness of the One who fills all in all — Eph. 1:23.
2) Christ created the two, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself into one new man as the poem of God, that God might display the surpassing riches of His grace toward us in Christ — 2:15, 10, 7.
3) To be strengthened into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our hearts, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God — 3:16-17, 19.
4) One Body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God, an indivisible mingling of the Triune God with the believers in Christ — 4:4-6, 12-16.
Our burden for this conference is on the Body of Christ. The book of Ephesians is not merely concerning the church; it is a book on the church as the Body of Christ. No other book of the New Testament refers to the Body of Christ as much as Ephesians does. Ephesians 1 says that the church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23). Chapter 2 says that Christ created the two, the Jewish and Gentile believers, into one new man that He might reconcile both in one Body to God (vv. 15-16). What a mystery and what a gospel this is! Even our reconciliation to God is not an individual matter. It is corporate. All the believers have been reconciled to God in one Body. Chapter 3 tells us that in Christ Jesus the saved Gentiles and the saved Jews are fellow members of the Body (v. 6) and that this Body is the fullness of God (v. 19) for the ultimate corporate expression of the consummated Triune God. Chapter 4 speaks of one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father (vv. 4-6) and of all the saints needing to be perfected that they may be able to do the work of the New Testament ministry to build up the Body of Christ (vv. 11-12). This chapter also says that out from the Head, Christ, all the Body grows by the members growing so that the Body can be built up by itself through all the functioning members in love (v. 16). This is the Body of Christ in Ephesians.
In order to see the revelation of the Body of Christ, it is helpful to consider our physical body. My body is not a lifeless organization but a living organism. When I speak, my entire body participates in my speaking in a living and organic way. The Body of Christ is an organism. An organism is something of life. If there is no life, there is no organism. Christ’s Body is organic. It is a matter of life.
Now we need to consider the life with which the Body of Christ is constituted. According to Genesis 1 and 2, in the whole universe created by God there are lives on four levels. First, there is the plant life, the lowest level of life (1:11-12). The next level of life is the animal life (vv. 20-25). Then Genesis shows us the third level of life, which is the human life (vv. 26-27). This is a life that is not God’s life but a life that can be like God. As the created people, we did not have God’s life. God did not put His life into man when He created him, but God did create us with a life that resembles Him. This is similar to a photo of a person. It does not have the person’s life, but it does bear his image. In a sense, the photo of a person is that person, but in an actual sense, it is not that person. We have to realize that in Genesis 1 God created man in His image as a photo of Himself. Genesis also shows us a life higher than the human life. This is the fourth level of life, the highest level of life, the life of the tree of life (2:9). This life is the life of God, the divine life. Thus, Genesis 1 and 2 reveal the plant life, the animal life, the human life, and the divine life.
The Body of Christ is altogether organic. It is a matter of life, but of what life? Surely the Body of Christ is not of the plant life or of the animal life. Then is it of the human life or of the divine life? Actually, the life of the Body of Christ is a mingled life, a life that is a mingling of God’s life and man’s life. The model of such a mingled life can be seen in the four Gospels. The four Gospels are four biographies of one person — Jesus Christ. The four Gospels show us a person who was both God and man. He was God, but He was also a little child in a manger. How could God in the heavens, who is so majestic, great, marvelous, and glorious, come to be in a manger? Who was that little child lying in a manger by the name of Jesus? He was a God-child. He had bones, flesh, and blood. He was a real boy, but He was also God.
When He grew up to be thirty years of age, He went out to minister. When people saw the things that He did, they wondered who He was. Some said, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3). Who was this One? This One was not merely a man. He was God plus man. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This Word, who was God, became flesh (v. 14).
Four thousand years after Adam was created and about two thousand years ago, God became flesh. According to God’s reckoning, this was just two days ago, since to Him a thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8). Thus, we can say that He became flesh the day before yesterday. The very God in eternity became a lowly man in time. He is the complete God plus the perfect man by the name of Jesus. Jesus means “Jehovah the Savior.” Who is Jesus? He is Jehovah the Savior; the very infinite God in eternity became our Savior. In order for Him to become the Savior of us sinners, He needed to become a man. He needed a human body and blood to shed for our sins.
Now there is such a unique One in the universe who is both God and man. He is God plus man. He lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He went voluntarily to the cross and died there for us. Hebrews 9:14 indicates that when He went to the cross to offer Himself to God, He was not alone, because the Holy Spirit was with Him to strengthen Him. His offering of Himself to God as a sacrifice was strengthened by the third of the Divine Trinity. When He was hanging on the cross, the Father, the first of the Divine Trinity, was also with Him. His death was not merely the death of a man. His death was the death of God plus man.
The Lord was crucified from the third hour, 9:00 A.M. (Mark 15:25), to the ninth hour, 3:00 P.M. He suffered on the cross for six hours. At 12:00 noon, the sixth hour, darkness fell over all the land until the ninth hour (Matt. 27:45). For the first three hours, from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 noon, He was persecuted by men for doing God’s will; in the last three hours He was judged by God to accomplish our redemption. It was during this time that God counted Him as our Substitute who suffered for our sin (Isa. 53:10). Darkness fell over all the land because our sin and sins and all negative things were being dealt with there; and because of our sin, God forsook Him (Matt. 27:46). God put all the sin of the world upon Him (Isa. 53:6), making Him sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). He died on the cross under God’s judgment. He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). God forsook Him for our sake and for the sake of our sins. God forsook Christ on the cross because He took the place of sinners (1 Pet. 3:18). He bore our sins (2:24; Isa. 53:6) and was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). In the three hours from 12:00 noon to 3:00 P.M., He was condemned by God, judged by God, and cut off by God from the land of the living for our sake.
Then He was buried, and after three days He rose up out of death. When He rose from among the dead, He did not drop His humanity. To say that Christ is no longer human after His resurrection is absolutely wrong and heretical. On the day of His resurrection, in the evening, He came back to His disciples. Although the doors were shut where the disciples were, He appeared in their midst and said to them, “Peace to you” (Luke 24:36). His disciples became frightened and thought they beheld a ghost (v. 37 and footnote, Recovery Version). Then He said, “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you behold Me having” (v. 39). Although He was resurrected, He was a man with a physical body that could be touched.
When He appeared in the midst of His disciples, He did not speak much to them. Instead, He breathed into them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Holy Spirit is the holy pneuma, the holy breath. The Lord breathed Himself into them as the holy breath. A person’s breath is actually himself. The Spirit breathed into the disciples is Christ. First Corinthians 15:45b says that the last Adam, Christ, became a life-giving Spirit. This Spirit, who is the Spirit of Jesus, is a Spirit with humanity. No one can fully comprehend this divine mystery.
There is a brother among us who is a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley. I recently asked him whether the very Christ who was standing in the midst of the disciples on the day of resurrection was physical or spiritual. He said that he did not know. This is a mystery that no one can understand. Today the very Christ in resurrection still has the human nature. Even in His resurrection and in His ascension, He is both divine and human. Is this not wonderful? The life-giving Spirit of Christ is not merely the Spirit of God. Now He is the compounded Spirit. He is compounded with divinity plus humanity plus the wonderful all-inclusive death of Christ and the powerful resurrection of Christ. This is the consummated Spirit who is the very consummation of the Triune God.
Today when someone believes in the Lord Jesus, he receives the consummated Spirit of life as the eternal life. The eternal life is a mingled life — a life of divinity mingled with humanity. The Lord Jesus said that He is the eternal life (John 14:6a), and by believing into Him, we received Him as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. In Him we have the complete God and the perfect man. In Him we can also participate in His all-inclusive death. His death is a dear death. We all have to love this death, to “kiss” this death. His death is different from the death of Adam. The death of Adam is terrible, but the death of Christ is wonderful. In Him we also have the powerful resurrection. Thus, in Him we have the complete God, the perfect man, the all-inclusive death, and the powerful resurrection compounded together as one. This is the life that we received when we believed in the Lord Jesus. This is clearly revealed in the New Testament, but not many realize that the eternal life they have received is such a mingled life. The Body of Christ is of such a life. We may talk much about the Body of Christ, but I am concerned that we may not realize that this Body is of such a wonderful life. We all have to see this.
Now we may ask how such a life could get into us. This is why we have to read Ephesians. Ephesians 1 is a particular, skillfully written chapter telling us how this wonderful life has gotten into us. We may have read Ephesians 1 many times without seeing this. This is why, in chapter 1 of Ephesians, Paul prayed that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation (v. 17). Paul prayed that God would open up our eyes, giving us the ability to know the wonderful, mysterious things recorded in Ephesians. We may read Ephesians 1 without a spirit of wisdom and revelation, without the opening of our inner eyes. Thus, we do not have the ability to apprehend the divine things. I have been praying much for all of us since the day we decided to have this conference. I desired that the Lord would grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation to see Ephesians 1. This chapter is a deep mine. I want to open up this mine and show us the treasures in this mine.
The title of this first chapter says that the Body of Christ is the issue of God’s impartation and transmission. If you are going to know the Body of Christ, you have to know God’s impartation and God’s transmission. The issue, the coming out, of God’s impartation and transmission is the Body of Christ. This divine impartation and divine transmission is in His Divine Trinity. God was imparted to us and transmitted to us in His Divine Trinity. When I came up to the platform to speak this evening, I did not jump up. I took three steps to get to the platform. God is imparted and transmitted to us in His Divine Trinity in three steps, or stages.
John 3:16 is a familiar verse to us. It says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Sometimes I asked why this verse did not say that He sent His only begotten Son to us. But it says that He gave His only begotten Son to us. How did God give His Son? He could not give His Son in a simple way. He gave His Son in His Divine Trinity. God imparted Himself into us and transmitted all that He is into us in His Divine Trinity — in the Father, in the Son, and in the Spirit.
He imparts and transmits Himself into His chosen people. We are not merely people created by God. We have also been chosen by Him. We may not feel that we have been chosen by God, but Ephesians 1:4 says that before the foundation of the world, God chose us, selected us. He chose us to impart and transmit Himself into us. We are His divine chosen people as the church, and the church is the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23).
Actually, ten messages are needed to convey the burden embodied in the title of this first chapter — “The Issue of God’s Impartation and Transmission in His Divine Trinity into His Chosen People, as the Church, the Fullness of the One Who Fills All in All.” We need many messages for a full definition of this subject. We trust, however, that the Lord’s burden can be released in our short word here. We need to keep in mind that God imparted Himself into us in His trinity — first in the Father, second in the Son, and third in the Spirit.
The church is the issue of God the Father’s impartation of His holy nature into His chosen people that they may be separated from the world and sanctified wholly unto Him. Ephesians 1:4 says that before the foundation of the world, God chose us to be holy. God’s choosing has a goal — to make us holy. The Chinese have their notion about what it is to be holy. They say that Confucius was holy. This, however, is not the biblical notion of what it means to be holy. The Bible reveals that in the whole universe, only One is holy; that One is God Himself. Besides God everything is common, unholy. Then how could we common people be made holy? How could a common American be made holy, since in the whole universe only One is holy — God? Let us use gold as an illustration. Gold signifies God in His divine nature. Only gold is golden. No other metal is golden. We are like black iron. How can black iron become golden? God can make us holy by only one way. He must impart Himself, especially His holy nature, into our being. We are a piece of iron, but gold has been added and inserted into our being. Thus, we are “golden iron.”
If I were to ask you whether you are holy, you probably would not have the boldness to say so because of your poor condition. We need to see what it means to be holy. Only God is holy, so to be holy means to have God in you. Do you have God in you? A brother has God in him, but why does he still quarrel with his wife? This is because he has too much “iron.” He forgot that he has at least a small amount of gold. We often forget that we have gold in us.
How can God make us holy? He makes us holy by imparting His holy nature into us. Before we were born, before the foundation of the world, God chose us to be holy. Before the foundation of the world, He imparted Himself into us as the holy nature. We may not be able to see how God could have imparted His holy nature into us before the foundation of the world. To help us see this, I would like to ask when we were regenerated. First Peter 1:3 tells us that God regenerated us through the resurrection of Christ. When Christ was resurrected, we were regenerated. This is God’s way to reckon time. We all were made holy before the foundation of the world. It was then that God imparted Himself as the holy nature into our being.
God the Father also predestinated us that we may become His sons (Eph. 1:5). How could we become His sons? There is no other way but by God’s imparting Himself as life into us. The church is the issue of God the Father’s impartation of His divine life into His predestinated people that they may become His many sons for His expression. God imparted His divine life into us, so we were born as sons of God. By His choosing He imparted His holy nature into us, and by His predestinating He imparted His divine life into us. His holy nature makes us holy, and His divine life makes us sons of God. God’s predestinating us unto sonship is for the praise of the glory of His grace, that is, for the praise of His expression in grace (v. 6).
Are we holy? We have to be bold to say yes. Are we sons of God? We have to say Amen. This is because we have the holy nature of God in us and the divine life in us. The realization that we have God’s holy nature and divine life should cause us to rejoice. We are holy, and we are the sons of God. This is because of the impartation of God the Father.
The church is also the issue of God the Son’s impartation of the divine element into God the Father’s chosen and predestinated people (vv. 7-12). God the Son redeemed us through His blood (v. 7). If we had not been lost, we would not have needed to be redeemed. Before we were saved, we were in Adam, in the world, in sin, and in death. But Christ came, and He redeemed us out of Adam into Himself, out of the world into Himself, out of sin into Himself, and out of death into Himself. We are now in Him. In the New Testament there is such a big phrase — in Him. We all need to say, “Hallelujah for in Him.” We need to realize where we are right now. We are in Christ, the second of the Divine Trinity, the Son of God who is the very embodiment of the Father. We have been redeemed by Him into Him.
How marvelous it is that we are in Christ! Christ has become our sphere, our realm, and our element. The Father’s nature and life are the substance, and the Son’s element is the content of the divine nature and life. In the human nature and in the human life, there is the human element. Now since we have the divine nature and the divine life, we have the divine element. In this element and with this element, God made us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). This new creation is a precious treasure to God.
We have been brought into Christ as our sphere and element that we may be made God’s inheritance with the divine element in Christ, as a treasure to God (Eph. 1:8-11). This treasure becomes God’s inheritance. If we were still in Adam, in the world, in sin, and in death, God would not take us as His inheritance. How could we be sinners yet become God’s inheritance? We have become His inheritance by being put into Christ. In Christ and with Christ, we all have been created as a new creation, and this new creation is God’s possession. God’s possession is God’s inheritance.
God treasures us. In God’s eyes we are no longer sinners. We are like a diamond to Him. God treasures us as His possession, His inheritance, in Christ. In Christ God can have all created things headed up into one (v. 10). Today we all have Christ, and we all are in Christ. Hallelujah, we are one! In the world there is no oneness. In the church all the races are represented. We have people among us who are white, black, yellow, brown, and red, but all of us are one in Christ. We all are headed up into one in Christ. Since Christ has redeemed us into Himself as the element, He has imparted His element, the divine element, into our being. We have not only the divine nature and life but also the element of this nature and life. This is the impartation of God the Son in the second person of the Divine Trinity.
The church as the Body of Christ is the issue of God the Spirit’s impartation of the divine essence into God the Father’s inheritance redeemed by God the Son. Following the redemption of the Son, the Spirit of God comes to seal us (v. 13). When someone buys a book, he may put his seal upon it to indicate that the book is his. The seal has the sealing ink. When you put the seal upon a piece of paper, the sealing ink saturates and permeates the paper. To saturate is something vertical, and to permeate is something horizontal. Because we have been redeemed into Christ, Christ is the element in which we have been made God’s treasure, God’s inheritance, God’s possession. Since we are God’s inheritance, He put His Holy Spirit into us as a seal to mark us out, indicating that we belong to Him. God put a mark on us, and this mark, this seal, is the inking, saturating, and permeating Spirit.
While the word is being ministered in the meetings, the sealing Spirit is saturating us vertically and permeating us horizontally to make us full of the imparting God. When a brother returns home after attending a weekend conference, his relatives may say that he is different. He is different because in the conference he was permeated, saturated, and sealed thoroughly with the Spirit for the entire weekend. This sealing produces a mark to indicate ownership. The seal also impresses its image on the object being sealed. The sealing of the Spirit causes us to bear the image of God.
The sealing of the Spirit, the saturating and permeating of the Spirit, takes place continually in us. This sealing will go on until the redemption of our body, the transfiguration of our body (v. 14; 4:30). Today the sealing within us is going on vertically and horizontally to transform and transfigure us. As God’s inheritance, we are sealed that we may be saturated with the divine essence as the impress to be a mark and the image of God to be His expression.
While this sealing Spirit is saturating us, He remains with us as a pledge (1:14). This pledge is a guarantee that God will be our inheritance. The Spirit as the pledge of our inheritance is a foretaste of what we will inherit of God, affording us a taste beforehand of the full inheritance. The Lord within us can be tasted, and His taste is sweet, pleasant, and good (1 Pet. 2:3; Psa. 34:8), but this is just a foretaste. The full taste is coming. When we are enjoying the foretaste, we realize this foretaste guarantees that God is coming to be our full taste. The Spirit as the pledge of God, as His redeemed people’s inheritance for their foretaste of Him, guarantees their full taste of Him, unto the redemption of His acquired possession, His redeemed inheritance. This is to the praise of God’s glory, God’s expression (Eph. 1:14).
Thus far, we have seen that the Father’s nature is imparted into us, the Father’s life is imparted into us, the Son’s element is imparted into us, and the Spirit’s essence is also imparted into us. The essence is finer and more intrinsic than the element. In the substance there is the element, and in the element there is the essence. Now the Triune God, as the substance, as the element, and as the essence, is altogether imparted into us, and this imparting is still going on. This imparting is the dispensing.
Many in Christianity think that the Bible merely teaches people what to do and what not to do. This, however, is similar to the teachings of Confucius. Christ’s salvation is not mainly to teach us but mainly to dispense Himself into us. This is why we need to call on the name of the Lord early in the morning, saying, “O Lord Jesus.” If some of you have never done this, I would encourage you to try it from today. In the morning the first thing you should do is call on the name of the Lord three to eight times. In order to not bother others early in the morning, you can call “O Lord Jesus” softly. By practicing this, you will be a different person. By calling on the Lord, you receive the fresh dispensing.
We can also receive the divine dispensing by praying over two or three verses from the holy Word each morning. Perhaps we would open to John 1:1 and pray, “In the beginning was the Word. Lord Jesus, You are in the beginning. You are the Word.” We can pray-read this verse and another verse for about ten minutes. Then we will be refreshed because we have received the fresh dispensing.
During the day, whenever we become tired, we should call, “O Lord Jesus.” Much of the time my work is mainly to write and compose at my desk. Quite often I become tired out. Then when I say “O Lord Jesus” for a few minutes, I am refreshed. This is the way to receive the Triune God, to receive His dispensing, to receive His divine impartation and transmission.
The church is the issue of the divine impartation and the divine transmission of God the Father’s nature and life, of God the Son’s element, and of God the Spirit’s essence. Nothing can exceed this threefold impartation. This impartation is more than mere teaching. Some people may say that I am a Bible teacher. That is not bad, but I am not satisfied with this. I want to be a person who always gives others a divine “shot,” a divine injection. When I minister the word, I want to give people an injection of the Triune God, which is His impartation and transmission.
The final section of Ephesians 1 reveals that the church as the Body of Christ is the issue of the transmission of God in His Divine Trinity into His chosen and redeemed people (vv. 19-23). Paul prayed that we would see the transmission of the great power of God toward the believers. This great power operated in Christ in raising Him from the dead, in seating Him at the Father’s right hand far above all, and in subjecting all things under His feet. This power also gave this resurrected, uplifted Christ to be Head over all things. God’s great power is now operating within us and upon us. This power was wrought in Christ, making Christ the Head over all things for the transmission of this power to the church, the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
We need to realize that God’s nature, God’s life, Christ’s element, and the Spirit’s essence have been imparted into us. Furthermore, there is a power toward us. God’s power toward us is surpassingly great (v. 19). This power is a divine transmission that raised Christ from the dead, uplifted Him to the heavens, subjected everything under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things. This transmission may be likened to a current of electricity. That current is a transmission of electric power from the power plant.
In addition to the divine impartation, the divine dispensing, there is such a divine transmission. The dispensing of God the Father’s nature and life, of God the Son’s element, and of God the Spirit’s essence is intrinsic and is within us to touch our being. The transmission of the divine power is both within us and outwardly upon us to empower us. We have the threefold dispensing within us, intrinsically strengthening us within. We also have the divine power “electrifying” us to empower us. The Body of Christ is the issue of the inward imparting of the Triune God into our being and also the issue of the inward and outward empowering of the divine transmission of God. We are those enjoying the threefold dispensing and the onefold transmission. The church is the issue of the dispensing of the Triune God and of the transmission of the empowering God.
