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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:3-6 Hymns: #501, #841
I. All the dispensings of the processed Triune God are the spiritual blessings — Eph. 1:3:
А. In the heavenlies.
B. In Christ.
C. With which God the Father has blessed the believers, who have been chosen and predestinated by Him.
II. God the Father’s dispensing — vv. 4-6:
А. In choosing the believers — v. 4:
1. In Christ.
2. Before the foundation of the world.
3. To make the believers holy:
а. That they may be holy as God is:
1) In His life and in His nature according to God’s kind.
2) By regenerating the believers, making them His sons.
3) The unique way to make the believers, common men, holy like God.
4) Toward the goal of sonship in His predestination to make men His sons so that men may become God.
5) God’s salvation is to bring many sons into His glory, to sanctify men, making them holy like God, that they may become God in His nature, life, and expression — Heb. 2:10-11.
b. Without blemish, without mixture, without foreign particles:
1) The fallen, natural human element.
2) The flesh.
3) The worldly things.
c. Before Him:
1) To be holy in the eyes of God according to His divine standard.
2) To be qualified to remain in and enjoy God’s presence.
d. In love:
1) In the divine love with which God loves us.
2) In the love that motivates us to love God.
B. In predestinating the believers — Eph. 1:5:
1. Unto sonship.
2. Through Christ.
3. To Himself.
4. According to the good pleasure of His will.
C. To the praise of the glory of His grace — v. 6:
1. To the praise is the issue of the sonship — Rom. 8:19.
2. Of the glory — of God expressed.
3. Of His grace — of the enjoyment of God to express God in His glory.
4. With which He graced the believers:
а. Putting them into the position to be the object of God’s grace.
b. That they may enjoy all that God is to them.
5. In the Beloved:
а. In His beloved Son, who is His delight.
b. To make the believers His delight in His enjoyable grace.
Prayer: Lord, we treasure Your blessing, we treasure Your presence, and we treasure Your Spirit, Your blood, and Your word. How we thank You for the divine provision, which is so rich, so prevailing, so refreshing, and so touching. Lord, we look unto You for Your anointing on the whole congregation with every attendant, for Your anointing on every activity, and especially for Your anointing on the speaking and the hearing. Be one with us, Lord. We are here looking unto You. We like to be one with You in Your speaking. Lord, speak Your word in our speaking forth of You. Cover us. We can never forget Your enemy. Defeat him and shame him. Now is the time for the enemy to be shamed, for You to be blessed, and for all of us to be taken care of. Lord, we thank You again. Amen.
The burden of this series of messages may be expressed in the following four statements:
(1) The Father’s dispensing in His choosing and predestinating issues in His many sons as His house in sanctification — Eph. 1:3-6.
(2) The Son’s dispensing in His redeeming and saving issues in the believers as God’s inheritance in transformation — vv. 7-12.
(3) The Spirit’s dispensing in His sealing and pledging issues in God as the believers’ inheritance unto their perfection — vv. 13-14.
(4) The transcending Christ’s transmitting in His rising and ascending issues in His Body as His expression unto the believers’ consummation — vv. 19-23.
After I wrote the footnotes on the book of Ephesians in the Recovery Version, the Lord kept working within me to show me the depths of Ephesians 1. For centuries His people have neglected and even missed the real mark in this chapter of the Bible.
The title of this book is The Issue of the Dispensing of the Processed Trinity and the Transmitting of the Transcending Christ. The issue here is the church, the Body of Christ, and this issue is of the dispensing of the processed Trinity and of the transmitting of the transcending Christ. The Trinity has been processed for His dispensing. Also, Christ today is in the highest place in the universe as the transcending One to transmit Himself to the church, His Body. There is a kind of heavenly, spiritual transmission going on all the time from and by the transcending Christ.
The title of this first chapter is “The Issue of God the Father’s Dispensing Speaking Forth God’s Eternal Purpose.” The church as the Body of Christ is the issue of God’s threefold dispensing. There are not three kinds of dispensing, but there is one dispensing, which is threefold. This dispensing is of the Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father’s dispensing speaks forth God’s eternal purpose.
We need to know the eternal purpose of God. Our great God surely has a purpose, and His purpose is the intention of His desire. In eternity past our God had a heart’s desire, and this desire became His intention. In this intention there is a purpose. The purpose of God in His intention according to His heart’s desire is to have many sons. God desires to have many sons to be His expression in a corporate way.
For this reason He created the universe, and the center of His universal creation is man. For man to live, God prepared the earth, and the earth has to be under the blessing of the heavens. From the heavens the earth receives the sunshine, rain, and fresh air. Then on this earth God created man as the center. Zechariah 12:1 says that God stretched forth the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him. The heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man has a spirit for God so that God can produce many sons.
How could we, the created human beings, become the sons of God? We do not become His sons by adoption but by His begetting. God begot us. In order for a person to beget a child, his life needs to be imparted into that child. This impartation is what we call dispensing. We must stress the word dispensing when we speak about the intrinsic significance of Ephesians 1. In Ephesians 1 there is not such a word, but there is such a strong fact.
We need the proper terminology to describe the divine facts in the Bible. In the entire Bible there is not the word Trinity or the title the Triune God, but there is such a fact in the Bible. This is why the early church fathers came up with these expressions. We have discovered something extraordinary in Ephesians 1. We have seen that the Triune God, for the fulfillment of His intention so that He can be satisfied in His desire, did something wonderful. He dispensed Himself, imparted Himself, into His chosen people, making them all His sons.
John 1 says that Christ gives the believing ones, those who receive Him, the right, the authority, to be the children of God. These children of God are born not of man nor of man’s will, but they are born of God directly (vv. 12-13). These children born of God are surely God’s sons. This is God’s desire, of which God made an intention, and this intention became His purpose, His economy. What the New Testament teaches is this economy (1 Tim. 1:3-4).
God is triune to carry out His economy in His threefold dispensing. He carries out His economy in a threefold way. In Luke 15 the Lord Jesus gave us three parables to show how a sinner gets saved. First, there is the parable of a shepherd seeking for a lost sheep; then there is the parable of a woman seeking for a lost coin; and finally there is the parable of a loving father receiving his returned prodigal son. These parables depict the threefold grace of the Triune God for a sinner to be received back into the Father’s house. In the New Testament there are many portions showing us the threefold doing of our Triune God. In 2 Corinthians 13:14 Paul speaks of the grace of Christ the Son, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of God the Spirit being with us all. Thus, God’s presence is with His believers in a threefold way — in the way of love, in the way of grace, and in the way of fellowship by His Divine Trinity.
Ephesians 1 shows that God has blessed the believers with a threefold dispensing — first by the Father, second by the Son, and third by the Spirit. Eventually, this dispensing will be carried out by the transmitting of the transcending Christ. The Father’s dispensing in His choosing and predestinating issues in many sons to form God’s household in sanctification. The Son’s dispensing in His redeeming and His saving issues in a heritage to God, a treasure to God, as God’s private possession. That means all the many sons who issued from the Father’s dispensing will become a treasure to God as His heritage. God gains us as His possession, His treasure. Then the Spirit’s dispensing in His sealing and pledging issues in God as the believers’ inheritance unto their perfection. The issue of God’s triune dispensing is the many sons, God’s possession, and our inheritance. But there is no church until the transcending Christ comes in to transmit the totality of God’s dispensing. The many sons, God’s heritage, our inheritance, and the transmitting of the transcending Christ culminate in the church, the Body of Christ.
In Ephesians 1 the dispensing is crucial. Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” The blessings we enjoy are spiritual blessings. No doubt, these blessings are carried out by the Spirit. Otherwise, they would not be called spiritual blessings. These spiritual blessings are in the heavenlies and in Christ.
The first item of the spiritual blessings is the Father’s choosing. We may think that God’s choosing is one thing, and God’s predestinating is another thing, but this is wrong. We need to look at the grammar of Ephesians 1:4-5. These verses say, “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” These verses do not say that He chose us and predestinated us. Instead, they say that He chose us, predestinating us. Predestinating in verse 5 modifies the predicate chose in verse 4, so these are not two things. These are one thing. God chose us. How did He choose us? God chose us by predestinating us, by marking us out. To predestinate is to mark out. God chose us to be holy for the sonship. The choosing of God’s people for them to be holy is for the purpose of their being made sons of God, participating in the divine sonship.
For a person to have sons, he has to beget them by imparting his life into them. This imparting is dispensing. Without the dispensing of life, no children can be produced. Without God’s dispensing, how could God have sons? For God to have sons means that there has been the dispensing of His life. This is fully unveiled in John 1. Christ came to be received. Whoever receives Him, He will give that one the right, the authority, to become a child of God. The right, the authority, to be a child of God is the very divine life dispensed into us. We receive the life of God, and this life is our authority to be the sons of God. We are sons of God because His life has been dispensed into us.
God dispenses Himself in a sanctifying way. God’s chosen ones are made His sons by His sanctifying Spirit. God sanctified us to become His sons. He chose us to be holy for sonship. John Wesley said that sinless perfection is holiness, but the Brethren showed that this was wrong. They taught that holiness, sanctification, is not sinless perfection but is a transfer of our position. In Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus said that the gold is made holy, sanctified, by the temple (v. 17) and that the gift is made holy, sanctified, by the altar (v. 19). When the gold was in the market, it was common and worldly. But when the gold was separated unto God through the temple, it was sanctified because its position changed. Likewise, when the gift’s location changed from a common place to a holy place, it was sanctified. The teaching of the Brethren concerning positional sanctification is scriptural, but this is not the entire truth concerning sanctification.
Sanctification is to separate God’s people unto God for God to work on them and to work in them to make them His sons. God had an intention and made an economy to get many sons. Then the Spirit came to separate the chosen ones unto God so that God could beget them. First, they were sanctified unto God; then through this sanctification they became the object of God’s begetting. God came to beget them, making them His sons, and this was through the sanctification of the Spirit. Verse 4 of Ephesians 1 says that God chose us to be holy. Then verse 5 says that He did this by predestinating us unto sonship. Thus, sanctification is unto sonship, for sonship. First, the Spirit comes to sanctify God’s chosen people. Then they are ready to be begotten by God into His sonship.
For us to be holy and for us to be sons both require God’s dispensing. Without God dispensing His holy nature into our being, how could we be holy? God is the only One who is holy. For us to be holy we need a holy element dispensed into us. When the Holy Spirit comes into us, He brings God’s holy nature into us, and that holy nature becomes the holy element with which the Holy Spirit sanctifies us. Stanza 1 of Hymns, #841 says, “By Thy holy nature / I am sanctified, / By Thy resurrection, / Vict’ry is supplied.” His holy nature makes us holy, and His resurrection power makes us victorious. We have God’s holy nature imparted into our being, and this holy nature becomes the holy element with which we are made holy. Our being made holy is for us to be sons. The imparting of God’s holy nature into us and His begetting us are His dispensing.
We may wonder what sanctification has to do with our daily life. This is my burden. We have to realize that sanctification for sonship is still going on. It is not a once-for-all matter. Every day we have to remember that God the Spirit is sanctifying us for God to impart more of His holy nature and holy life into our being to cause us to grow. We all have to grow in the divine life.
Now we need to consider how we can grow. In order for us to grow physically, we need the life within plus the nourishment. A young child has inherited a life from his parents. In other words, his parents have imparted their human life into this child. Then the mother feeds him every day, and he grows with the nourishment in the human life. In principle it is the same in the Christian life. We were born of God. God has imparted Himself into us as life. Now we need to grow by being nourished in the life of God. Our birth is a beginning, not a graduation. After our birth we need to grow in the life of Christ, in the divine life, in the eternal life, with the proper nourishment in the Spirit.
Both sanctification and the sonship are always carried out by the Spirit. This is why Ephesians 1:3 calls this a spiritual blessing, a blessing by the Spirit. Today we must learn to live by the Spirit, to act according to the Spirit, to have our being altogether by the Spirit, with the Spirit, and according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4). As long as we have our being by the Spirit and act according to the Spirit, we are ready to grow in the divine life. Then we need some nourishment. We can be nourished in these three ways: by reading the holy Word, by listening to the spiritual speaking, and by coming to the meetings. This nourishment causes us to grow.
I am concerned that many dear ones among us are seeking after the Lord, but they still are not on the way of the growth in life. If we are driving a car for a long distance, we need to find the freeway and get on it. Once we get on the freeway, we have to be careful about the direction we take. If we get on the right freeway with the right direction, then our driving is okay. We need to get on the way of the growth in the divine life in the right direction. We still need some revelation to see the right way to grow in the divine life according to the New Testament teaching.
In order to grow, we must deal with the Spirit. We must get ourselves right with the Spirit. We must have our entire being in the Spirit, and walk, behave, and act according to the Spirit all day long. When the parents are with their children, they have to behave themselves according to the Spirit in order to be kept in the divine life. Many times the parents are too free and unrestricted in what they say to their children. They may be afraid of making mistakes when they talk to others, but they do not have any care when they speak to their children. This is wrong. We should not say anything according to our taste. Instead, we have to be regulated, corrected, and adjusted by saying everything and doing everything according to the Spirit.
It is the Spirit who sanctifies us unto sonship. It is the Spirit who begets us that we may be born of God (John 3:6). God chose us to be sanctified unto sonship. To be sanctified unto sonship is altogether a matter by the Spirit, in the Spirit, and with the Spirit. I am concerned when I see a number of dear saints who have been in the recovery for many years with no growth. Although they may meet, read the Bible, and listen to the messages, they do not care for the Spirit. Instead of taking care of the Spirit when they speak, they freely gossip and criticize others. Although they say that they love the Lord, love the recovery, and love the church life, they do not care a bit for the Spirit. This is wrong. We have to take care of the Spirit. Today this Spirit, who is wrapped up with sanctification and with God’s sonship, is in our spirit (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17). If we desire to take care of the Spirit, we should first take care of our spirit.
The Bible says that we should not provoke our children to anger (Eph. 6:4). When we are angry with our children, we often provoke them. In dealing with our children, we have to take care of our spirit. We need to check, “Does our spirit agree with us, or are we acting according to our emotion?” We should deny our emotion and turn to our spirit. Then in our spirit, the Spirit will speak to us. When we are becoming angry with our children, the Spirit may say, “Go into your room and pray. Don’t talk to your children at this time.” That is a kind of sanctification. When we pray, the speaking Spirit will continue to speak. He may lead us to read a portion of the Word. Then we are nourished, and we grow in the divine life with the spiritual nourishment. If we do not care for our spirit in our family life, we surely cannot have a pleasant household, and God cannot sanctify us for His sonship and His household.
We need to take care of our spirit in everything. When a brother buys a necktie, he should not buy it according to his taste. If he buys it according to his taste, this is wrong. Even in buying a tie, he should take care of his spirit. What would our spirit say to us when we go shopping? If we would listen to our spirit, the Holy Spirit will speak more in us.
Today we are promoting the prophesying of all the saints. We want to see the saints speak for the Lord. Some saints, however, have determined not to speak in the meetings. They come to the church meetings, but they sit at the back in silence. The leading ones who are taking care of the saints may be afraid to say anything to these ones about speaking, because they are afraid they will stop coming to the meetings. Thus, they may come to the meetings for years without speaking anything for the Lord. They have been regenerated, and they love the Lord, love the recovery, and love the church, but they just would not speak. Be assured that if this is your case, you will not grow at all in the Lord.
You must take care of your spirit. Get down on your knees in your bedroom to pray, and see what your spirit would say to you. Your spirit will tell you that you are stubborn and that you should go along with the church to speak for the Lord. If you take care of your spirit, the divine Spirit will take the opportunity to speak many more things to you. Then you will come to the meeting by taking care of your spirit. You may even confess to the saints, “Dear saints, I regret that I have not spoken for the Lord in the meetings.” The whole church will be happy. Then as you continue to speak, the Holy Spirit will speak to you so that you have even more to speak. Then you will see that the speed of your growth in life will fly like an airplane. Within half a year, you will grow much in Christ and be much more sanctified unto much more sonship. By your growth in life, you will become not just a son but an heir of God to inherit the riches of God (Rom. 8:17). Then you will be so useful in the church life. You will become a supplier to supply, to minister, the bountiful supply of the Spirit to all the congregation.
Dear saints, this is my burden. We should not think that Ephesians 1:4 and 5 transpired once for all. Sanctification for sonship is still going on. Day by day, however, we do not live in our sonship, because we do not care for the sanctifying Spirit speaking and working in our spirit. We must turn to our spirit, realizing that we have been sanctified and regenerated by the Spirit. This sanctifying and regenerating Spirit has much to say to us. He still wants to sanctify us more and more so that we may participate in the sonship more and more. Then we will grow, and the Father will have a pleasant household. If we care for our spirit and let the Spirit speak to us, we will grow as sons to become heirs, grown-up persons, to inherit all the riches of God. Then we can be a part of His pleasant household. The blessings in Ephesians 1 start from God’s choosing for us to be sanctified that we might be more and more in the sonship of God. This should be a daily matter.
(1) Without dispensing His holy element into our being, how could God make us holy? Especially for God’s sonship, there is the need for God to dispense His life and nature into our being.
(2) The Father’s dispensing in His choosing and predestinating of the believers issues in His sonship through His sanctifying of His chosen people, making them holy as He is in His life and in His nature, to make them like God in the divine life and nature but without His unique Godhead. This is the divine sanctification unto (for) the divine sonship. This is the center of the divine economy and the central thought of the revelation in the New Testament. Such a divine sanctification is carried out by the sanctifying Spirit (Rom. 15:16). The divine sonship is accomplished by the regenerating Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Son of God (Gal. 4:6).
I hope that these concluding notes will be a reminder to us that sanctification is still going on for our development in the sonship of God that we may grow. We will have a stronger and richer church life as we continue to take care of the divine sanctification for the sonship by the Spirit.
