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Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 1:2; Acts 13:39; Rom. 3:24; John 1:12-13; 3:6b, 15; Eph. 1:13; John 15:5; 1 John 2:6, 24, 2:27; 3:24
In this chapter and in the following chapters, we want to see the practical experience of living in and with the Divine Trinity. The Lord Jesus told us in John 15 that He is the vine and that we are the branches of the vine. As the branches of the vine, we should abide in Him. Then He will abide in us. To abide in Christ is to live in Christ, and to live in Christ is to live in the Divine Trinity. To have Christ abide in us is to have the Triune God living in us. This is to live with the Divine Trinity. Therefore, to abide in Christ is to live in the Divine Trinity, and to have Christ abiding in us is to live with the Divine Trinity. The book of John is a book on living in and with the Divine Trinity. The truth concerning living in and with the Divine Trinity is greatly expounded in the Epistles, especially in those written by Paul. In the Epistles we can see all the practicalities and details of living in and with the Divine Trinity. We need to be brought into the experiences of living in the Divine Trinity and with the Divine Trinity. When we abide in Him, we live in Him. When we have Him abide in us, we live with Him.
To see our living in and with the Divine Trinity, we have to know, to realize, and to apprehend our initial experience of the Divine Trinity. Anything that is in the initial stage is a foundation.
We have a foundation as a strong base for us to have a life of living in the Divine Trinity and with the Divine Trinity. The sanctification by the Spirit is the very start of our initial experience of the Triune God (1 Pet. 1:2). This corresponds with our experience. We were chosen before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). Our being chosen transpired in eternity past. Then in time God called us. God’s calling is implied in our being sanctified by the Spirit.
Before we were saved, we were wandering without any meaning or purpose. Somehow we were able to hear the preaching of the gospel. Actually, this preaching was a sounding of God’s call. When we go out to visit people to preach the gospel to them, this can be considered as a kind of calling to them. However, merely our preaching alone cannot constitute God’s calling. God’s calling includes our preaching plus the sanctification of the Spirit.
When we go out to preach the gospel, we are sounding the trumpet of God’s call. Furthermore, the sanctifying, the separating, and the seeking Spirit cooperates with us. We are preaching, and He is seeking. We are preaching, and He is separating. We are preaching, and He is sanctifying. Then our candidates repent, and their repentance is an answer to the sounding of God’s call. Their repentance comes out of the Spirit’s separation. The work of the Spirit is a seeking work, a separating work, and a sanctifying work. Our preaching plus the Spirit’s separating is the call, and the people’s repentance is the answer to the call.
This is fully portrayed in Luke 15. In Luke 15 there is a parable of a fine woman seeking a lost coin. She did a fine work by enlightening the room and searching everywhere. Due to the enlightening and searching of the Spirit depicted by this fine woman, the prodigal son in the following parable came to himself. Verses 17 and 18a say, “When he came to himself, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants abound in bread, but I am perishing here in famine! I will rise up and go to my father.’’ His being awakened was the issue of the Spirit’s fine seeking and the Spirit’s finding. Due to the Spirit’s fine seeking, the prodigal son woke up and made up his mind to return to his father. The Spirit’s enlightening, searching, and seeking brought him to repentance. Although this happened to him, I do not think that the prodigal son knew that this was due to the Spirit’s sanctifying work. It was the same with us in our experience. We did not realize that our repentance was the issue of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work. Unconsciously, we experienced the sanctifying Spirit of the Divine Trinity.
I was born into Christianity and was raised in it for at least nineteen years. During that time I had not received the Lord Jesus. One day out of curiosity I went to listen to a young lady preaching the gospel. In that meeting I was caught by the Lord. No doubt, the Holy Spirit was working on me, seeking me out, separating me, and sanctifying me. The message that I heard was concerning the type of the children of Israel enjoying Christ as their passover and passing through the Red Sea into the wilderness to escape the usurping hand of Pharaoh, who typifies Satan. As a result of this word, I declared that I wanted to go out of the world and not be under the usurping hand of the evil one, Satan, any longer. All of us who are regenerated Christians have experienced the Spirit’s sanctifying work in this way. This is the first step, our initial experience of the Triune God.
Following this sanctifying work, we were justified through the redemption of Christ (Acts 13:39; Rom. 3:24). After repenting, we did not know much about Christ, but we began to treasure Him, to appreciate Him. We began to have a good feeling about Him, even though no one had said much about Him to us. We had such an inner feeling. Spontaneously, some of us might have said, “I love Jesus. Jesus is very good.’’ This is a sign that we have believed in Him and that He has redeemed us. God the Father justified us, and this justification implies reconciliation. It also implies God’s willing acceptance. We have been brought into peace with our God. Our sins have been forgiven, and all our sinfulness has been washed away. We have been forgiven, washed, reconciled, justified, and accepted through Christ’s redemption.
We were also born of God through the regeneration of the Spirit with the divine life (John 1:12-13; 3:6b, 15). Following God’s forgiveness, God’s washing, God’s reconciliation, God’s justification, and God’s willing acceptance of us through Jesus’ redemption, the Holy Spirit enlivened our dead spirit. Then we were born of God.
Furthermore, we were sealed with the Spirit (Eph. 1:13). The Spirit was put upon us as a living seal. This was our initial experience of the Triune God. We can even say that this was our enrollment into the experience of the Triune God.
Now we want to see what it means to live in the Divine Trinity. Outside of the divine revelation of the Bible, there is no religion or philosophy that says that we can live in another person. But the Bible reveals that we can live in the Triune God. What a wonder and an honor it is to be those who can live in the Triune God! To live in the Triune God is miraculous. In the entire universe there is such a miracle that we can live in the Triune God.
To live in the Divine Trinity is to abide in Christ as the true vine (John 15:5). Christ likened Himself to a vine tree. The illustration of a vine tree gives us the proper understanding of what it means to be in Him. The branches are abiding in the vine tree. This means that the branches are living in the tree. To live in the Triune God is just like the branches abiding in a vine tree. It is wonderful that Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is a vine tree. Jesus is not a pine tree but a vine tree spreading and growing over the entire earth. His fruit is so available to us because He is the vine tree.
This vine tree has many branches. All the branches are the completion of the tree. Without its branches a vine tree would not be a complete tree. This tree with all its branches is an organism to express its inner life and to fulfill its purpose. God with His divine life needs some expression, and He has a purpose. Because of this He needs an organism to express His life and to fulfill His purpose. Christ is this organism, the vine tree, and now we are abiding in Him.
The Greek word for abide means not only to remain or to stay but also to have our home, or to make our home. In John 14 the same word is used as a noun. The Lord told us that in His Father’s house there are many abodes (v. 2) and that He would come to make an abode with His lovers (v. 23). An abode is a dwelling place. Therefore, to abide is to dwell in a home. To live in Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God means that we take Christ as our dwelling place for our daily life. As long as the branches abide in the tree, they have their daily life in the tree because they are living there. Now we should understand the real denotation of living in the Triune God. To live in the Triune God is to have Him as our dwelling place, as our home, for our daily life. The vine tree with its branches is the very organism of the Triune God. Thus, to live in the Triune God is to abide in Christ as God’s organism.
We need to be those abiding in the Lord (1 John 2:6). To abide in the Triune God is to abide in the Lord. The Lord is the One who possesses all things, who rules over all things, who exercises His sovereignty over all things and over all people. We are living in the One who is the Lord of this universe. If we are not obedient to Him or do not subject ourselves to Him, that will annul our abiding in Him. To abide in Christ is to abide in the Lord.
To abide in the vine tree implies a daily life. We need to consider the branches of the vine tree. They are having their “daily life’’ in the vine tree. We need to have our daily life in the Lord. This means that we have to obey Him and that we have to walk in the same way that He walked. As a man, He walked under God’s authority. We also need to walk under His authority, submitting ourselves to Him.
We also need to be those abiding in the Son (v. 24b). In the New Testament the Son is the One who possesses the Father’s life with the Father’s nature to express the Father. The sons have the full right to enjoy all the privileges and rights ascribed to the sonship. When we are abiding in the Son, we enjoy our Father’s life, our Father’s nature, and the privilege, the right, to express Him and to enjoy all His possessions. To abide in the Lord concerns the lordship of Christ. To abide in the Son concerns the sonship of Christ.
Also, we need to be those who are abiding in the Father (v. 24c). How good it is to have a Father! Our Father is all capable. Our Father is always living. Our Father never gets old. He takes care of us in every way and in everything. If a person loses his father, he becomes an orphan. Thank the Lord that God is our Father and that we are not orphans but sons. We are not only abiding in Christ as the organism of the Triune God, in the Lord with His lordship, and in the Son with His sonship, but we are also abiding in the Father with all His care. When we are living in the Triune God, we are living as sons, not orphans. We have a Father. We live in the One who takes care of us.
Our abiding in the Son and in the Father are both mentioned in 1 John 2:24. When we have the Son, we have the Father, because the Son and the Father are one. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father (John 14:10). When we abide in the Son, we abide in the Father. Our experiences confirm this fact. While we are abiding in the Son, we have the sensation that the Father is with us. We have the Lord, and we have the Father. We have the Son with the Father. When we abide in the Son, we enjoy the fatherhood because the Father is there.
We also need to be those who are abiding in God (1 John 3:24a). All these different titles — the Lord, the Son, the Father, and God — bear some significance. In order to understand what it means to abide in God, we need to read 1 John 3:22-24: “Whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, even as He gave a commandment to us. And he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And in this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave to us.’’ God is the One who gave the commandments. These commandments are that we have to believe in His Son and that we have to love one another. We need to have the faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and we need to have the love to love all the brothers. This is what it means to abide in God. This is a living that includes the main things of our Christian life. Our Christian life is a life that believes in Christ and loves the brothers. As long as we believe in Christ and love all other Christians as our brothers, we are complete. This means that we are abiding in God. We abide in God because we are keeping His commandments, which charge us to believe in His Son and to love all the brothers of His Son. This is to have faith and love.
In 1 John we see that we need to abide in the Lord, in the Son, in the Father, and in God. This presents a full portrait of living in the Triune God. To live in the Triune God is to have a daily life in Christ as the organism of the Triune God, in the Lord with His headship, with His lordship, in the Son with His sonship, in the Father with His fatherhood, and in God with His commandments of believing in His Son and of loving all His other sons. This is what it means to experience the Divine Trinity in our daily life.
We abide in God by the Spirit of God (v. 24b). Without the Spirit of God there is nothing between us and God. The linking, the connection, between us and God, the Father, the Son, the Lord, and Christ is the Spirit. This “linking Spirit” is in our spirit. If we are going to enjoy a life of abiding in God, we must exercise our spirit, turn to our spirit, touch our spirit, and use our spirit. Then we will touch the linking Spirit.
We abide in the Triune God by the person of the linking Spirit and according to the teaching of the anointing of the Triune God (2:27). By studying the context of 1 John 2:27, we can see that the anointing is of the Triune God. The pronouns Him and His refer both to the Son and the Father who were previously mentioned (v. 24). They may also refer to the eternal life (v. 25). The anointing is the anointing of the Father, the Son, and the eternal life.
The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit, the compound ointment. This ointment is similar to paint, which is composed of certain elements. This ointment is divine ointment, divine paint. In this divine paint are the element of the Father, the element of the Son, and the element of the eternal life. This divine ointment, this divine paint, is typified in Exodus 30 by the anointing oil, the compound ointment (vv. 23-25). The move of this ointment is the anointing. We have such an anointing within us, and this anointing teaches us. We have to learn to abide in this wonderful One, who is Christ, the Lord, the Son, the Father, and God. We have to abide in such a wonderful One, not only by the linking Spirit but also according to the teaching of the move of this ointment.
When we are in the meetings of the church or of the ministry, we have a deep and clear sensation that something is moving within us. This is the Spirit as the ointment moving within us. There is a divine paint moving within us. By this moving of the ointment, this anointing, we are made clear concerning what we should be, what we should say, whom we should contact, where we should go, and what we should do. If we are abiding in Christ, the Lord, the Son, the Father, and God, we will live according to the teaching of the anointing in all the affairs of our daily life. Sometimes the inner anointing tells us not to laugh that much, so we have to be one with Him. The anointing teaches us. This is the anointing of the divine paint, which is a composition of the Father and the Son with His eternal life. These elements are marvelous. The sonship, the fatherhood, and the eternal life are compounded into the compound ointment that moves in us, and that moving is the anointing. This anointing teaches us at all times so that we can know His will, His heart’s desire, His very nature, and His being. By His teaching, we know what kind of person the inner anointing wants us to be. To live according to the teaching of the anointing of the Triune God is to live in the Divine Trinity.
