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Scripture Reading: Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Jude 20-21; Rev. 1:4-5; John 17:22-23; Rev. 21:22-23; 22:1-5
Our fellowship in this chapter may be considered as covering the concluding section of the entire revelation concerning the Divine Trinity in both the New Testament and the Old Testament.
At the conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew, the gospel of the kingdom, the Lord revealed that we have been baptized into the name [the person] of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (28:19). M. R. Vincent says that the word into in Matthew 28:19 indicates that baptism brings us into a spiritual and mystical union with the Triune God. The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this verse is the sum total of the Divine Being, equivalent to His person. To baptize people into the name of the Triune God is to bring them into the person of the Triune God that they may have an organic union with this divine person. Our organic union with the Triune God brings us into a deep enjoyment and a rich experience of the Triune God. We were baptized into the Triune God so that we could experience Him and enjoy Him.
At the end of the New Testament in Revelation 22, a marvelous picture is presented, revealing the Triune God for our enjoyment. A river is flowing out of the throne, and a tree is growing along the two sides of the river (vv. 1-2). This tree is the tree of life yielding its fruit every month. In Revelation 2:7 the Lord Jesus said that He would give those who overcome to eat of the tree of life. The tree of life is first mentioned in Genesis 2. God’s desire in Genesis 2 was for man to eat the tree of life, but man fell by eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Sin entered into man, and man became flesh. Because of man’s fall Genesis 3 records that God closed the tree of life to man, keeping man away by His righteousness, holiness, and glory (v. 24). Over four thousand years later Jesus came and accomplished redemption to fulfill God’s requirements. Then the Lord declared in Revelation 2 that if we would overcome according to His will, He would give us to eat of the tree of life. The way to the tree of life has been opened again for all the redeemed ones who are willing to overcome according to the Lord’s demand.
At the end of the Bible this tree of life is growing along the two sides of the river of water of life, which proceeds out of the throne of God. The tree of life signifies Christ as the very embodiment of the Triune God to be our food, our life supply. John 7:38 and 39 show clearly that the Spirit will be rivers of living water flowing out of our innermost being. Thus, the river of water of life is a symbol of the Spirit. I hope that we can see that the Trinity revealed in the Bible is not for doctrinal debate or for us to understand or study in a merely theological way. The very Trinity revealed in the Bible is altogether for our eating and drinking — for our enjoyment. We have been baptized into the Triune God who is to be our enjoyment, our food and our drink, that we may live by Him. Thus, we can say that Matthew 28:19 reveals to us the divine enjoyment, and our divine enjoyment is to feed on the Triune God and drink the Triune God. He is our tree of life and our river of water of life.
To enjoy the Divine Trinity in full is to participate in the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Second Corinthians 13:14 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Again, this verse shows that the Divine Trinity is not for the doctrinal study of theology but for our experience and enjoyment. The love of God the Father is the source, and the grace of Christ, God the Son, is the course of the love of God. When love comes out, it becomes grace. Then the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the transmission, the communication, of the grace of Christ with the love of God the Father. Love is God the Father, grace as the outflow of love is Christ the Son, and the fellowship is the transmission of the Holy Spirit to transmit what the Son is as grace and what the Father is as love. The Holy Spirit transmits the divine riches into our being, and this transmission is the fellowship. Today we have the Divine Trinity operating in us in such a wonderful way.
In the previous chapter we saw the revelation of God operating in us. This operating of God is very quiet but very vigorous and efficient. Although electricity flows quietly, it is very vigorous and efficient. The current of electricity is the operating of the electricity. The love, grace, and fellowship moving within us form a kind of current within us. This current is the circulation of the Divine Trinity.
With the Divine Trinity are the source, the course, and the flow. The source, the fountain, of this circulation is the love of the Father. The course, the outflow, of this circulation is the very grace expressed and conveyed to us by Christ. The grace of Christ comes out of the source of the love of the Father. The flow is the Holy Spirit as the fellowship, the communication, the transmission, the circulation, of the grace of Christ with the love of the Father.
We have two circulations within us. One circulation is the circulation of blood within our physical body, and the other circulation is the circulation of the Divine Trinity in our spirit. Without either of these circulations we would die either physically or spiritually. Second Corinthians 13:14 gives us a detailed description of this inner, spiritual circulation. This circulation is the supply in our Christian life and church life. This is similar to saying that the current of electricity is the supply of power to an entire city. All the big cities on the earth today depend upon electricity. A number of years ago the current of electricity to the city of New York was cut off for a period of time. When that happened, the entire life of the city stopped. This is a very good illustration. We must see that the entire church life depends upon 2 Corinthians 13:14. It depends upon the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit to flow as a current within our spirit.
Many times while I am speaking in the ministry of the word, I have the inner sensation that the divine current is going on. If the current within me stops, I have nothing to speak. If we miss the Spirit in our speaking, our speaking is empty. Furthermore, if the current within us is cut off while we are listening to the ministry of the word, our listening is empty. We need to speak in the flow and listen in the flow. The flow is the transmission of the Holy Spirit, and this transmission is the fellowship that conveys the grace of Christ the Son as the outflow of the love of the Triune God. The current of the Divine Trinity within us as revealed in 2 Corinthians 13:14 is our spiritual pulse.
In Jude’s concluding word of his Epistle, he charges us to pray in the Holy Spirit and keep ourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life (vv. 20-21). Jude is not teaching us theology, but he is charging us to enjoy the Divine Trinity. To enjoy the Divine Trinity, we need to pray. To pray is to get into the current of the Divine Trinity, to get into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Through this fellowship we reach the source of the love of God. Then in the love of God we await and look for the mercy of our Lord so that we may not only enjoy eternal life in this age but also inherit it for eternity (Matt. 19:29). In the opening of his Epistle, Jude mentions mercy (v. 2). Mercy is mentioned instead of grace due to the church’s degradation and apostasy. We all need the Lord’s mercy. This mercy is a bridge to the grace of Christ. We need to pray in the Holy Spirit that we may touch the source, the love of God, in which we await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the enjoyment of the Triune God.
Our enjoyment of the Divine Trinity in full is consummated with grace and peace by the Father, who is, who was, and who is coming; by the seven Spirits; and by Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev. 1:4-5). Grace is the Triune God as our enjoyment, and peace is the issue, the result, of our enjoyment of grace. The more we enjoy the Triune God as our grace, the more we have peace within. In Revelation 1 the Father is referred to as the One who is, who was, and who is coming. As God the eternal Father, He was in the past, He is in the present, and He is coming in the future. This shows that even the Father Himself is triune. He is triune as the One who is, who was, and who is coming. The seven Spirits are the sevenfold intensified Spirit. The one Spirit has been intensified sevenfold. The sevenfold Spirit may be likened to a seven-way lamp. Such a seven-way lamp gives us the strongest light, the intensification of light. The Spirit today is intensified sevenfold because of the dark age.
According to Revelation 5:6, the seven Spirits of God are the seven eyes of Christ, the Lamb of God. Some theologians teach that the Son is separate from the Spirit, but in Revelation we see that the Spirit, the third of the Trinity, is the eyes of the Son, the second of the Trinity. A person’s eyes are not separate from him. It is wrong to say that the second, the Son, is separate from the third, the Spirit. The Bible shows us that the third is the eyes of the second. Our eyes cannot be another person that is separate from us. This shows us the outwardness of the traditional teaching concerning the Trinity. Some have accused us of mixing up the three persons of the Godhead. Actually, it is the Bible that tells us that Christ is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17; 1 Cor. 15:45b). Furthermore, according to Revelation, the Spirit is the eyes of Jesus, the Son. The Divine Trinity is a wonderful mystery. Martin Luther said that anyone who could explain the Divine Trinity must be the teacher of God. The Son and the Spirit are two, yet They are one. How do we know that They are one? The strongest proof is that the third is the eyes of the second.
We may not be able to understand the Divine Trinity, but we can enjoy Him. Every day we eat and enjoy food that we do not know how to define. We do not understand the food, but we can enjoy the food. I do not know what is in an orange, but I can enjoy the orange by eating it. We may not understand what is in a glass of orange juice, but we can enjoy it as our refreshment. A person may take many vitamins without being clear what the vitamins do and what they are for. However, because he takes these vitamins into him, he receives the benefit of each vitamin. This is why I say that we need to learn to enjoy the Father, enjoy the Son, and enjoy the Spirit. When we pray, call on the name of the Lord, and get into the Word, we enjoy the Triune God as our divine vitamins. The Father may be likened to vitamin A, the Son to vitamin B, and the Spirit to vitamin C. We may not understand what these “vitamins” do for us, but we must learn to enjoy them. We may not fully understand the Triune God, but we must learn to enjoy Him, to receive the full benefit of all His riches. Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Jude 20-21, and Revelation 1:4-5 reveal to us the enjoyment of the Triune God. We need to be those who enjoy the Divine Trinity in full.
The issue of our enjoyment of the Divine Trinity is the oneness. In the previous chapters we have seen something of the excellent oneness among the three of the Godhead. As we look at the Divine Trinity, we see the revelation of the excellent oneness of the Godhead. The three always work together and act as one. Not one of the three ever acts independently. When one is there, the others are there also. The three of the Godhead are one. We can see the oneness of the Godhead in the Lord’s prayer in John 17. No one can explain, define, or expound this prayer to the uttermost. How profound this prayer is! This prayer reveals that the issue of our enjoyment of the Divine Trinity is that we are brought into the divine oneness, and we become the copy, the reproduction, of the oneness among the three of the Trinity.
The oneness revealed in the Lord’s prayer in John 17 is threefold. First, there is the oneness in the Father’s name by the eternal life (vv. 6-13). Second, there is the oneness in the Triune God through sanctification by the holy word (vv. 14-21). Third, there is the oneness in the divine glory for the expression of the Triune God (vv. 22-24). The oneness by the glory, the expressed Divine Trinity, is the oneness among the three of the Divine Trinity. The glory that has been given to us is the very Triune God expressed. By this expression we are one, and our oneness is a reproduction of the oneness of the Triune God. This is why the Lord prayed, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one” (v. 22). Then the Son prayed that we would be perfected into one by having the Divine Trinity in us — by living with the Divine Trinity (v. 23). To be perfected into one is the unique result, the unique issue, of our enjoyment of the Triune God.
The most difficult thing among Christians is to keep the oneness. Even among us believers in the Lord’s recovery, it is not so easy to keep the real oneness. How can we reproduce the divine oneness as the copy of the oneness among the three of the Godhead? There is no other way except by enjoying the Triune God. We need to enjoy Him to the extent that the three of the divine Godhead can be expressed. Then the oneness is among us. This reproduced oneness is the issue of our enjoyment of the Triune God. We enjoy the Triune God until He is expressed in us, and this expression is the very oneness that is a copy of the oneness among the three of the Divine Trinity. The enjoyment of the Triune God will have a result, an issue. This will issue in the divine oneness that is the very reproduction of the divine oneness among the three of the Divine Trinity.
Things that are outside the Trinity are the dividing and separating factors. In order to keep the oneness, we need to reject, renounce, and deny anything that we have that is outside of the Triune God. We should deny, renounce, and reject anything that is not the Triune God Himself. Anything other than the Triune God Himself can become a dividing factor. We are perfected into one by having the Divine Trinity in us. To have the Divine Trinity in us is to live with the Divine Trinity. The way to have the oneness, which is the Divine Trinity expressed, is to live with the Divine Trinity.
Eventually, we will enjoy the Divine Trinity to the fullest in eternity (Rev. 22:1-5). Regardless of how much we are enjoying the Divine Trinity today, we are still not enjoying Him to the fullest extent. The fullest enjoyment of our wonderful Triune God will be in eternity in the new heaven and new earth.
In this enjoyment we will have God and the Lamb [the redeeming God in His trinity] as the temple for our dwelling (21:22-23). The temple is the dwelling place and the serving place of the priests of God. In eternity we all will be God’s eternal priests, and God Himself will be our dwelling in whom we live and serve. The temple in Revelation 21 is not a material temple. The temple is a person. Verse 22 tells us that the temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb, the redeeming God. Verse 23 tells us that the lamp of the city is the Lamb, the person of Christ. Because of this revelation, we have the boldness to say that the holy city, the New Jerusalem, is not a material city but a person.
The holy city is a corporate person, and this corporate person is a couple — the processed Triune God married to the transformed tripartite man. This is the Spirit and the bride becoming one (22:17a). Divinity and humanity are married together, mingled together, to be one entity. The holy city is a corporate person — a great corporate God-man. The holy city as the tabernacle of God is for God to dwell in (21:2-3), and God and the Lamb as the temple are for us to dwell in. God is our temple, and we are His tabernacle. In the new heaven and new earth the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for both God and man for eternity.
The throne of God [the Triune God] and of the Lamb [the redeeming Son] is the center of the holy city for the divine administration and the source of the divine enjoyment to us (22:1, 3). The throne of God and of the Lamb is for the divine administration. It is also the source of our divine, eternal enjoyment because the river with the tree of life comes out of the throne. We will drink the river of water of life [the Spirit] proceeding out of the throne (v. 1). We will also eat the tree of life [the life-giving Son] growing on the two sides of the river, yielding fruit each month (v. 2). The life-giving Son yields fruit each month for our life supply. Thus, we have the redeeming God as our dwelling place, the throne as the source of our enjoyment, the Spirit as our drink, and the life-giving Son as our food.
We will also have the Lord God [the Triune God] illumining us (v. 5a). This means that our God will be our lamp. We will have the name of the Triune God on our forehead (v. 4b). The fact that we bear His name declares that we are one with Him. In a training we may wear a badge to tell people who we are. In eternity we will have a “badge” on our forehead. That badge declares that we belong to the Triune God and that we are one with the Triune God. Praise the Lord that we will bear such a “badge” for eternity! For eternity we will be labeled with the Triune God.
We will also see the face of the Triune God (v. 4a). In eternity future, in the new heaven and new earth and in the New Jerusalem, we will see the face of our God. To see the face of the Triune God and to have His name on our forehead will be blessings to us in eternity. Furthermore, we will serve the Triune God as His priests (20:6; 22:3b) and reign to the ages of the ages as the kings of the Triune God (v. 5b). In eternity future all the preserved nations around the New Jerusalem will be the citizens (21:24-27), the people of God’s eternal kingdom, but we will be the kings who reign forever and ever.
Through our study of the revelation concerning living in and with the Divine Trinity, we can see that the entire New Testament is composed with the Triune God as its structure. The last picture of the divine revelation in Revelation 21 and 22 shows that the Triune God is not for our mental understanding but for our enjoyment. He is our dwelling place, our drink, our food, and our light. To maintain life, we need a dwelling place, drink, food, and light. As long as we have these four necessities, we can have a proper living. We have a place in which to dwell, water to drink, food to eat, and light to enjoy. All of these are the Triune God. The Triune God is our dwelling place, the Son is our food, the Spirit is our drink, and the redeeming God is our light. This describes the coming life in eternity, which we will enjoy to the fullest.
