Search
Scripture Reading: Matt. 12:28; Heb. 9:14; Matt. 28:19; Heb. 2:3-4; Luke 15:3-32; Eph. 2:18; Titus 3:4-6; 1 John 4:13-14; Gal. 4:4-6; Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 12:4-6
In this chapter we want to see more portions in the New Testament revealing the Divine Trinity in the divine move and in our experience. By looking at these portions in the New Testament, we can see that within the Divine Trinity there are many divine excellencies, divine virtues, and divine attributes, such as oneness, humility, beauty, and harmony. In these portions of the Scriptures we need to see the beauties, the excellencies, the virtues, and the attributes of the Godhead in the Divine Trinity.
In Matthew 12:28 the Lord said, “If I [the Son], by the Spirit of God [the Triune God including the Father], cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God [the Triune God] has come upon you.” Matthew 12:28 seemingly is a simple word, but we need to look into this verse to see its deeper meaning and revelation. We need to ask, “Couldn’t the Lord Jesus have cast out these demons by Himself? Couldn’t the Lord have said that He cast out demons by Himself in order that His own kingdom might come upon the people? What would have been wrong with this?” If the Son would have done this, He would have acted individualistically. At that time He was among the Pharisees, who were proud, selfish, and individualistic. They would not work with anyone else. There was no humility among them, and they were full of self-seeking, selfishness. Now there was One, condemned by them and standing in front of them, telling them that He did something in a different way. The way He cast out demons showed them that He was humble. He was not individualistic. He was not doing something by Himself and for Himself. He was doing something by the Spirit of God and for the kingdom of God. He never did anything by Himself or for Himself. Is this not beautiful? This shows us the excellency in the Divine Trinity.
This is surely a good pattern for our coordination. The Lord has produced a Body constituted with many members, so all the members should learn of Him. He was working by the Spirit of God for God the Father. He never did anything by Himself or for Himself. Is this not a pattern for us to be coordinated in His Body? We should behave ourselves just like our Head. He behaved Himself in a way of neither doing anything by Himself nor doing anything for Himself. Today in the church life the Body of Christ has not been built up adequately because of the shortage of the proper coordination. If we want to be coordinated with all the members in the Body, we have to learn of Christ our Head, taking Him as our pattern. We should not do anything by ourselves or for ourselves. I may do something according to the will of God, but what I do should not be by myself but by some others. Furthermore, what I do should not be for myself but for the interest, the right, of God on the earth. This is a beauty, and this beauty is a real excellency, a real divine attribute, and an excellent virtue that we need to copy.
I questioned Matthew 12:28 quite often. I wondered why the Lord did not say that He cast out demons by Himself for His own kingdom. Instead, He said that He cast out demons by another One and for another One. His spirit was so humble, so selfless. He did nothing by Himself or for Himself. With Him there was no self, no element of selfishness. This is a beauty.
Hebrews 9:14 also reveals the Divine Trinity in His divine move. In this verse there is the blood of Christ [the Son]. There is also Christ, the Son, through the eternal Spirit offering Himself without blemish to God [God the Father]. Finally, this verse says that the blood of Christ purifies our conscience from dead works to serve the living God [the Triune God]. The blood of Christ is the blood of the Son. Also, 1 John 1:7 refers to the blood of Jesus, the Son of God.
Christ offered Himself as one sacrifice to be the reality of all the various offerings to God in the Old Testament. He is the reality of the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the wave offering, the heave offering, the freewill offering, and the drink offering. He is the aggregate reality of all the offerings in the Old Testament as the unique offering to God in the New Testament.
Christ offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit. In Matthew 12 the Lord cast out demons by the Spirit of God. Hebrews 9:14 says He offered Himself through the eternal Spirit. Again, we need to ask why the Lord did not offer Himself to God by Himself. Was He not qualified to do it? He was qualified, and He could if He would, but He would not. He offered Himself through a channel, through a means, that is, through the eternal Spirit.
Now we need to ask whether the Spirit through whom the Lord offered Himself was the essential Spirit or the economical Spirit. Whether the eternal Spirit here is essential or economical depends upon our definition of what the Lord is doing here. He offered Himself. Was this a work? If this was a work, surely the Spirit through whom Christ offered Himself was economical. Christ did this work through the eternal Spirit for God’s economy. The economical Spirit is related to His doing, not His being. On the other hand, His offering of Himself as the unique offering may refer to His being. In relation to His being, the eternal Spirit is the essential Spirit. When the Lord cast out demons, the Spirit by whom He did this was economical. This Spirit was the power, the means, by which the Lord Jesus cast out demons.
In Hebrews 9:14 we need to see that the Offerer is also the offering. We cannot separate the offering from the Offerer. Both are one. He Himself as the Offerer offered Himself as the offering, not through Himself but through the eternal Spirit. The Spirit was the channel through whom Christ performed this excellent thing. The Spirit here is related to both His being and His doing. The act of offering is a doing, but the sacrifice itself is related to His being. The Spirit being eternal means that He is perfect, complete, short of nothing. Eternal implies everything. The eternal Spirit in Hebrews 9:14 includes both the essential and economical aspects of the Spirit.
Even in accomplishing redemption by offering Himself on the cross, the Lord Jesus did not act by Himself. He did it through the eternal Spirit, offering Himself without blemish to God the Father. Furthermore, He did not offer anything to Himself. Whatever He offered was to God, and whatever He did was to God. The issue of His offering is that His blood purifies our conscience from dead works so that we may serve the living God, the Triune God. The Lord did nothing by Himself, nothing to Himself, and nothing for Himself. Whatever He did was to God and for God.
Here again we can see the humility and the selflessness of the Son. We can also see the harmony in the Divine Trinity. The Son is the center of the Divine Trinity. We should not forget that the very central point of the Divine Trinity behaved Himself in such a way. He did not trust in Himself but in another One. Whatever He did was not for Himself but for the Father, and whatever issued out of Him went to the Father. He was altogether not by Himself, for Himself, or to Himself.
This is a good pattern that our Head has set up for His Body, of which we all are members. As members of Him, we should behave, act, and live according to what He did and was. When we do things, we should learn to do them not by ourselves. We are the doers, but we should not be the channel. We need someone else to be our channel through which we do things. Furthermore, we should not be the beneficiary of what we do. Someone else should be our beneficiary to receive the very benefit of our doing and of our being.
The move of the Divine Trinity as seen in Hebrews 9:14 and Matthew 12:28 is an excellent and beautiful example for us to follow. In saving us, He did not act individualistically. He did not do things to Himself and for Himself, nor did He trust in Himself. The New Testament record shows us such excellencies, beauties, and virtues in the Divine Trinity. There are so many beautiful items in this dear One. He humbled Himself to become a lowly man, even a slave. While He was on the earth as a slave, He acted in a way of not trusting Himself and not doing anything by Himself, to Himself, or for Himself. Eventually, God the Father highly exalted Him.
In Matthew 28:19 the Lord charged His disciples to baptize people into the name of the Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At this point in Matthew the Triune God had been completed and consummated. For the Divine Trinity to be completed, to be consummated, He needed to go through a process to pick up humanity. If He had merely divinity, He would not be the consummated Triune God. To be the consummated Triune God, the completed Triune God, He needed humanity as well as divinity.
He also needed to pass through a beautiful, all-inclusive death. Death in Adam is ugly, terrible, and terrifying, but death in Christ is beautiful. We all have to be conformed to His dear death. The death of Christ is lovable and dear, and the Triune God needed it for His completion, for His consummation. The Divine Trinity is undoubtedly omnipotent, but if He were short of this beautiful death, He would not be able to solve our problems. In Him and with Him there is an all-inclusive death that can kill all the “germs” related to us. The Triune God is an all-inclusive dose within us with the killing element of the death of Christ. Within this all-inclusive dose there are many elements that can supply us in a positive way, and there is also the element of His death that can eliminate the negative things. The death of Christ on the cross took away all the “negative germs” in the universe. Such a death has been brought into the Divine Trinity. Praise the Lord for such an accomplished death!
After He had passed through the process of crucifixion, He entered into the realm of resurrection and became a life-giving Spirit. He then came back to His disciples in the atmosphere and reality of His resurrection to charge them to make the nations the kingdom people by baptizing them into the name, the person, the reality, of the Divine Trinity. Now that the Divine Trinity has been completed, consummated, people can be baptized into Him. The completed Triune God, the consummated Divine Trinity, is perfect, complete, and short of nothing. When we baptize people, we are placing them into the completed, consummated Triune God.
The name of the Triune God is a three-one name. This name is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit is the name of the Divine Trinity into whom we baptize people. The Lord revealed this divine title in the context of His desire to put the people who have received our preaching into the Triune God. The Triune God in His divine trinity is the very place where we should put those who have received Him.
We go to disciple the nations, baptizing them. The word disciple is a strong word. A number of messages would be needed to explain this word thoroughly. The disciples were to disciple the unbelieving nations by baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This means that discipling includes baptizing. We have to disciple people by baptizing them, putting them into a person, the Triune God. When they get into this person, they are discipled. We should not preach the gospel to people without baptizing them. That is not scriptural. We should baptize people immediately after they have believed in the Lord. To disciple them by baptizing them is to make them the very citizens of the kingdom of the heavens. If we do not put them into the Triune God, we cannot bring them into the kingdom of God. We must put them into God Himself. Then we place them into the kingdom of God.
Hebrews 2:3 and 4 also show us the Divine Trinity in His divine move. First, there is so great a salvation being spoken by the Lord [the Son]. Then God [God the Father] bears witness to the great salvation by signs and wonders and by various works of power and by distributions of the Holy Spirit. God’s full salvation, so great a salvation, is wrapped up with the three of the Godhead. We may wonder why there are three in the Godhead and not one. If there were only one in the divine Godhead, there would be no beauty and no excellency. All the beauty, the excellency, the attributes, and the virtues found in the Godhead depend upon the divine Godhead being three yet one. Three yet one — here is the beauty; here is the excellency.
Likewise, in the corporate constitution of the Body of Christ, composed of millions of members, there is much beauty, excellency, and virtue. Millions of members have been composed together and constituted together to become members one of another. In this corporate constitution are many beauties, excellencies, virtues, and attributes. Eventually, all of these millions of members will be the constituents of the New Jerusalem, which will be the ultimate, corporate expression of the Triune God, full of beauty.
Suppose that in the church life there is a group of sisters and brothers who are serving and living in the reality of the Body of Christ. In their serving they are one and very harmonious. They are all humble. There is not one of them who is for himself, by himself, or to himself. In such a service in the Body, beauty and excellency are displayed. If there were thousands of saints on the earth living and serving in such a way, what beauty and excellency there would be! In the church life, in the Body life, in the new man, it is marvelous to see saints from every race and background meeting together in oneness. To have harmony in the church life requires humility and selflessness. The harmony in the church life is beautiful. This kind of beauty was first displayed in the Divine Trinity. The Divine Trinity took the lead to exhibit this kind of beauty in the universe. Among the three, the Son took the lead to be so selfless, so humble, and so considerate of the others.
In Luke 15 there are three parables: the parable of a good shepherd finding a lost sheep, the parable of a fine woman seeking her lost coin, and the parable of a loving father receiving back his prodigal son (vv. 3-32). These three parables in Luke 15 give us a full picture of the Divine Trinity in saving lost sinners. First, there is the Son’s finding (vv. 4-7) as the good Shepherd. The Son came to find us by accomplishing His all-inclusive redemption. Then there is the Spirit’s seeking (vv. 8-10). The Spirit comes as the fine woman to do her seeking work. The Spirit enters into our heart to enlighten us, to search us, and to sweep away all the “dirt” in order to find us, to gain us. After being caught by the Spirit, we repent and come to ourselves (v. 17). Then we make up our mind to come back to the Father, typified by the prodigal son coming back to his father (vv. 18-24). The father, who was waiting for the prodigal son’s return, saw his son and ran to him. He clothed him with the best robe, which typifies our Father clothing us with Christ as our righteousness. Then the father gave the command to kill the fattened calf for their enjoyment. This signifies the rich Christ (Eph. 3:8) killed on the cross for the believers’ enjoyment. Luke 15 presents a full picture of the Divine Trinity in saving sinners by His divine love. Again we can see a marvelous coordination among the three of the Divine Trinity. These three — typified by a shepherd, a woman, and a father — cooperate together as one person in saving sinners.
Ephesians 2:18 speaks of our access through Christ [the Son] in one Spirit unto the Father. Why can we not come to the Father directly? Why do we have to approach the Father through Christ in the Spirit? We should not forget that the very God whom we are approaching is triune. As we have seen, none of the three in the Divine Trinity would be individualistic. If we would come to the Father without the Son and the Spirit, the Father would not be happy. The Father desires that we come to Him through the Son and in the Spirit. Through God the Son who is the Accomplisher, the means, and in God the Spirit who is the Executor, the application, we have access unto God the Father who is the Originator, the source of our enjoyment.
Again, we need to realize that the three of the Godhead are one. When They act, They act in oneness with one another. If we want to enjoy the Holy Spirit, we must love the Lord Jesus, the Son. When we say, “Lord Jesus, I love You,’’ we enjoy the Spirit. Furthermore, when we tell the Lord that we love Him, the Lord would secretly impress us within to obey the Spirit and honor the Father. He would lead us to worship the Father. The Father is seeking those who will worship Him in the Son and through the Spirit. The Father always likes to exalt the Son, the Son always likes to honor the Father, and the Spirit always likes to testify for the Son with the Father.
Ephesians 2:18 tells us that if we come to approach God our Father, our access must be through the redeeming Son and in the guiding Spirit. Then we reach the loving Father. When we have the Father, we have the Son. When we have the Son with the Father, we have the Spirit. Therefore, we have the three of the Divine Trinity. We can never separate Them. The divine revelation of the divine economy shows us the Divine Trinity in all His excellencies, beauties, and virtues. These excellencies, beauties, and virtues are seen in the divine coordination in the Godhead.
Titus 3:4-6 also reveals the Divine Trinity in the divine move and in our experience. These verses speak of the kindness and the love to man of our Savior God [God the Father] having appeared — God the Father having saved us. He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, poured out upon us richly. This was through Jesus Christ [the Son] our Savior. This portion of the Word speaks of our Savior God and of Jesus Christ our Savior. These are not two Saviors but one Savior in two aspects. Our Savior God is Jesus Christ our Savior. Our salvation was carried out by God the Father, by God the Son, and by God the Spirit. With God the Father there was kindness and love to man. Furthermore, He poured out the Spirit upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, God the Son. Then with the Spirit there is the washing of regeneration and the renewing. The salvation of the Triune God is a complete, entire, whole salvation. It includes the forgiveness of sins, redemption, justification, reconciliation, regeneration, and renewing. This renewing includes dispositional sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification. Our glorification will be the ultimate renewing. This is all carried out by the Divine Trinity in His divine move.
First John 4:13 and 14 show that we are abiding in God [the Father] and He in us, that God the Father has given to us of His Spirit, and that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. Verse 13 says that God the Father has given to us “of” His Spirit. This means He has given us something of the Spirit, which indicates that all the riches of Christ are now the very content of the Spirit. Eventually, what God has given us is the complete, consummated, all-inclusive, compound, life-giving, indwelling processed Spirit. Our God, the Father, has given us of this all-inclusive Spirit, who is the bountiful supply of Jesus Christ, the Son.
In Galatians 4:4-6 we see [the Triune] God sending forth His Son to redeem us under law that we might receive the sonship. We also see God [the Father] sending forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father! The Father sent the Son to accomplish redemption for us so that we might have the sonship. This indicates that the Father’s goal is to gain us for His sonship, and the Son’s redemption is also for this. The Father also sent forth the Spirit of His Son. In the Triune God’s salvation, the Son accomplished redemption for us on the cross. Now the Spirit of the Son is within us to bring us into the realization of the sonship. His redemption obtained the sonship, and now His indwelling Spirit is bringing us into the reality of the sonship. This is why we need two “sending forths’’ by the Father — the sending forth of the Son and the sending forth of the Spirit of the Son. God the Father sent forth God the Son to redeem us under law that we might receive the sonship. He also sent forth God the Spirit to impart His life into us that we might become His sons in reality. The Triune God is producing many sons for the fulfilling of His eternal purpose.
The Father as the source is the Sender. First, He sent forth the Son, and second, He sent forth the Spirit of the Son. We can see that the three in the Godhead are moving. The first One is the active One, sending forth. The second One is the sent One. The sent One has a third One as His Spirit. The three of the Godhead are not only omnipotent but also omnipresent. Therefore, the first One can send the second One and still be one with the second One. Furthermore, the first One can send the third One, and the third One is still one with the second One and the first One. This is the divine oneness in the Godhead. There is also a distinction among the three. All the beauties and all the excellencies exhibited by the Divine Trinity come from this distinction. There is a distinction among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, yet the three are one.
Romans 8:9 speaks of the Spirit of God [the Father] dwelling in us and also speaks of the Spirit of Christ [the Son]. The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are not two Spirits. They are one Spirit in two aspects. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. This indicates that God and Christ are one. God and Christ being one is shown by the fact that the Spirit is the Spirit of both God and Christ. God the Father, Christ the Son, and God the Spirit are in us. They are indwelling us, making Their home in us. We have a wonderful Occupant inside of us, a triune Occupant. Romans 8:9 shows us the beauty of the three of the Divine Trinity working together for our benefit.
First Corinthians 12:4-6 speaks of the gifts of the same Spirit, the ministries of the same Lord [the Son], and the operations of the same God [God the Father], who is operating all things in all. The gifts are by the Spirit; the ministries, the services, are for the Lord; and the operations are of God. Ministries here simply mean services, the serving works. Here the Triune God is involved in these three things — gifts, ministries, and operations. The gifts by the Spirit are to carry out the ministries, the services, for the Lord, and the ministries for the Lord are to accomplish the operations, the works, of God. This is the Triune God moving in the believers for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose to build up the church, the Body of Christ, for the expression of God.
The gifts come from the Spirit, and they issue in the ministries, the services, of the Son. Furthermore, the ministries, the services, of the Son accomplish the operations, the works, of God the Father. This is the three-one God, operating, moving, and distributing His gifts among all of us. Here again we see the beauty, the harmony, and the excellency in the three working together. The Father operates, the Son ministers, and the Spirit gives the gifts. Furthermore, we are the beneficiaries, receiving all the benefits of the operating One, the ministering One, and the gift-giving One.
