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In this lesson we will continue to see some finer points concerning the believers' experience and enjoyment of God as the Father in the love of the Triune God.
Second Corinthians 13:4b says that "we will live together with Him [Christ] by the power of God." To accomplish God's redemption, Christ our Savior was willing to be weak in His body that He might be crucified. However, after being resurrected, He lives now by the power of God (v. 4a). We follow the pattern of Christ and are willing also to be weak in the organic union with Him that we may live with Him a crucified life. Thus we can live together with Christ by the power of God.
It is not by ourselves but by the power of God that we can live together with Christ. The Father's desire from the beginning to the end is to glorify the Son and to magnify the Son. Hence, He comes with the Son to us, the believers, makes an abode with us, and abides in us. Furthermore, He dispenses to us the great power that He operated in Christ, and He also operates in us that we may live together with Christ by His power.
While we were living in our sins, God forgave us of our sins and reconciled us to Himself through Christ's death. This is the reconciliation spoken of in 2 Corinthians 5:19: "God..was reconciling the world to Himself, not accounting their offenses to them." This is the first step of our being reconciled to God. Now God desires that we, the believers who have already been reconciled to Him from sin, be reconciled further to Him; that is, that we, the believers who are still living in the natural life, be reconciled to God from the flesh. This is the reconciliation spoken of in verse 20: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God." For this purpose Christ died for us—the persons—that we might live to Him in the resurrection life (vv. 14-15).
These two steps of reconciliation are clearly portrayed by the two veils of the tabernacle. The first veil is called the screen (Exo. 26:37, lit.). A sinner who was brought to God through the reconciliation of the propitiating blood entered into the Holy Place by passing this screen. This typifies the first step of reconciliation. However, the second veil still separated him from God, who was in the Holy of Holies. This veil needed to be rent that the sinner might be brought to God in the Holy of Holies. This is the second step of reconciliation. We believers were reconciled to God, having passed through the first veil and having entered into the Holy Place. Yet we still live in the flesh, walking and having our being by the natural way. We need to pass the second veil, which has been rent already and is a type of our flesh (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 10:20), to enter into the Holy of Holies to live with God in our spirit. This is a part of the fine work that God the Father is doing in us. He exposes our natural life and unveils our true condition, so that we condemn what we naturally are and apply the cross subjectively to terminate our natural being and become persons in the spirit living before God.
Second Corinthians 5:21 says, "Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." This word clearly indicates that those who have been brought back to God in the Holy of Holies will experience and enjoy God in the dispensing of the Trinity to the extent that they even become the righteousness of God in Christ. Sin, which came out of the evil one, entered into man through man's fall (Rom. 5:12) and made man not only a sinner but sin itself as an enemy of God under God's judgment. By becoming one with us through being incarnated in the flesh, Christ was made sin on our behalf to be judged by God. Through His death Christ was condemned in the flesh as sin for us by God that we might be one with Him in His resurrection and have an organic union with Him. Thus, we not only have Christ as our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30) and are made righteous before God, but we are also made the righteousness of God in Him, being reconciled to the righteous God, and are made a new creation living to God for His eternal purpose.
In the progressing stage of God's full salvation, the believers also experience and enjoy God the Father as the One who sanctifies them. To be sanctified is to be made holy. In the universe, only God is holy; only He is distinct and different from all other things. He is not common and therefore is undefiled. Such holiness is God's nature; it is an intrinsic characteristic of God's attributes. God the Father sanctifies us not only in our outward position but also in our inward disposition.
In John 17:17 the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father for the believers, saying, "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth." By this we see that the Father sanctifies us by His word. The Father's word carries the reality of the Father with it. When God's word says, "God is light," it carries God as light in it. Hence, God's word is reality, the truth. God's living word works in us, the believers, to separate us from the world and its usurpation unto God and His purpose. This is to be sanctified in God's word, and it changes us not only positionally but also dispositionally in what we are within.
First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." God not only sanctifies us wholly but also preserves our spirit, soul, and body complete. Wholly is quantitative; complete is qualitative. Quantitatively, God sanctifies us wholly; qualitatively, God preserves us complete, that is, He keeps our spirit, soul, and body perfect. Through the fall our body was ruined, our soul was contaminated, and our spirit was deadened. In God's full salvation our entire being is saved and made complete and perfect. For this, God is preserving our spirit from any deadening element (Heb. 9:14), our soul from remaining natural and old (Matt. 16:24-26), and our body from the ruin of sin (1 Thes. 4:4; Rom. 6:6). God desires to sanctify us, and He Himself will do it; as long as we are willing to pursue Him as holiness (Heb. 12:14a) and cooperate with Him in this matter, we can be holy as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16).
By thus sanctifying us, God transforms us in the essence of our spirit, soul, and body, making us wholly like Him in nature. In this way He preserves our spirit, soul, and body wholly complete. God's preserving and His thorough sanctifying will sustain us to have a holy living until we reach maturity. Such a sanctified living is necessary for us to have a church life that is pleasing to God and that expresses Him.
Romans 8:11 says, "If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you." Here we see that God the Father gives life to our mortal body through the indwelling Spirit. First, through regeneration this life of God is dispensed into our spirit to make our spirit life (v. 10). Then, through our setting the mind on the spirit, this life saturates our mind for the transformation of our soul, to which our mind belongs, and becomes the life in our soul (v. 6). Eventually, through His Spirit who indwells us, God the Father will give life to our mortal, dying body, causing this life to be the life in our body. This indicates that the life dispensing of God the Father not only takes place in the center of our being but also reaches the circumference, that is, our entire being. The ultimate issue is the transfiguration of our body (Phil. 3:21), the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23).
If we grow in the life of the Lord and give heed to the inner working of the Father of love, spontaneously our weak, mortal body will be enlivened by the divine life dispensed into us by the Father through His indwelling Spirit. This is not outward, miraculous healing; it is the issue of our allowing the Spirit of God to make His home in us, thus enabling Him to saturate our whole being with God's life and swallow the element of death in our body. Such a dispensing by God the Father will not merely heal our mortal, dying body but also cause it to be enlivened to carry out God's will.
While the Father is operating in the believers, sanctifying them and dispensing life to them, He reveals His deep things to them through the Spirit. Concerning God's wisdom in a mystery, the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, "But as it is written, `Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man's heart; things which God has prepared for those who love Him.' But to us God has revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." This shows us that to realize and participate in the deep and hidden things God has ordained and prepared for us requires us not only to believe in Him but also to love Him. To love God means to set our entire being—spirit, soul, and body, with the heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30)—absolutely on Him, that is, to let our entire being be occupied by Him and lost in Him, so that He becomes everything to us and we are one with Him practically in our daily life. In this way we have the closest and most intimate fellowship with God, and we are able to enter into His heart and apprehend all its secrets (Psa. 73:25; 25:14). Thus, we not only realize but also experience, enjoy, and fully participate in the deep and hidden things of God.
The deep and hidden things of God are Christ in many aspects as our eternal portion, foreordained, prepared, and given to us freely by God. Christ, the all-inclusive and all- extensive One, is the center of God's economy, the portion given by God to us for our enjoyment. This matter is altogether a mystery to us and surpasses our understanding. But the Spirit of God explores the depths of God concerning Christ and shows them to us in our spirit for our realization and participation. When our entire being becomes one with God through loving Him in intimate fellowship, He shows us, in our spirit through His Spirit, all the secrets of Christ as our portion.
When we experience and enjoy God the Father in the love of the Triune God, He causes us to grow in life. In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 the apostle Paul said, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth." Here, Paul regarded all the believers in Christ as living plants which need growth. Through regeneration the believers have received the eternal life of God, and this life needs to be cultivated and grow in them. This is accomplished through the planting and watering by the ministers of Christ.
Planting, watering, and making to grow are all related to the matter of life. The ministers of Christ can only plant and water. Only God can cause the growth. God is dispensed into us through planting, and God's element is added into us through watering. Although planting and watering are necessary, the One who causes the growth is God. Growth does not come from man; it comes altogether from God. As far as the growth in life is concerned, all the ministers of Christ, whether planters or waterers, are nothing; but God is everything. After the planting and the watering, we continuously receive the supply of God's life, and spontaneously God causes us to grow in life.
In Ephesians 3:16-17 the apostle Paul prayed to God the Father for the church, saying, "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith." First, God the Father's strengthening us into our inner man is according to the riches of His glory. The riches of God's glory are the expressions of God's divine attributes and virtues in many aspects and in different degrees. God the Father strengthens us according to these expressions. Next, He strengthens us through His Spirit. From the time of our regeneration, the Father's Spirit has been in us and with us. The Father strengthens us from within through His indwelling Spirit. Then, He strengthens us with power, the power that raised Christ from among the dead, seated Him at God's right hand in the heavenlies, subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, as spoken of in Ephesians 1:19-22. Now this power is operating in us (3:20), and by this power God is strengthening us for the church. Therefore, it is according to the riches of His glory, through His Spirit, and with power that the Father strengthens us into our inner man.
The inner man is our spirit, which has been regenerated by God's Spirit (John 3:6), is indwelt by God's Spirit (Rom. 8:11), and is mingled with God's Spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). The Father strengthens our whole being into our regenerated spirit that Christ may make His home and settle down in our hearts. As a result, we are filled with Christ unto all the fullness of God. This is a finer work carried out by the Father in us, and it is our deeper experience in the Triune God.
The fine and deep work that God the Father is carrying out within us is also to make us, the believers, His poem. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus." The Greek word for masterpiece means something that has been made, a handiwork, or something that has been written or composed as a poem. Not only a poetic writing may be considered a poem, but also any work of art that expresses the maker's wisdom and design is a poem. We, the church, the masterpiece of God's work, are the loftiest poem expressing God's infinite wisdom and divine design.
The heavens, the earth, and even man, created by God, are not God's masterpiece; but the church, which is the Body of Christ, His fullness (Eph. 1:23), and the universal, corporate new man (2:15), is a masterpiece, a poem. This poem of God is an absolutely new item in the universe, something newly invented by God, because it is the mingling of God and man, and it is produced by the working of God Himself into man and the constituting of man into oneness with Himself.
According to Ephesians 3:10, the multifarious wisdom of God is made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies through the church. In the coming ages, that is, in the millennium and in eternity, there will be a unique poem, the church, which will express God's wisdom and design. When we are in the New Jerusalem of the new heaven and new earth, we will praise God for the beauty, wisdom, and design displayed in this most wonderful piece of work. The New Jerusalem will become the unique and transcendent poem of God in eternity. If we, the believers, daily experience and enjoy God the Father in the love of God through the dispensing of the Trinity, He will make us such a poem.
When we experience and enjoy God as the Father in the love of the Triune God, He enables us to live together with the crucified and resurrected Christ by the power of God. He also reconciles us to Himself. We are not only reconciled to Him from sin, but we are further reconciled to Him to live before Him in spirit. Moreover, He makes us the righteousness of God in Christ; hence, we are not only righteous, but we have become the righteousness of God. Also, He sanctifies us by His word, which is the truth, and He sanctifies us not only in our outward position but also in our inward disposition, so that our entire being—spirit, soul, and body—may be preserved and made wholly like Him. Furthermore, He gives life to our mortal body that our weak and mortal body may be healed and enlivened by the divine life dispensed into us by the Father's indwelling Spirit. He also reveals to us the depths of God; the Spirit of God explores the depths of God concerning Christ and reveals them to us in our spirit for our realization and participation. He also causes us to grow in life; His life is continuously dispensed into us through the planting and watering by the ministers of Christ, thereby enabling us to grow in God's life. He also strengthens us into our inner man; this is the issue of God the Father's work in us according to the riches of His glory with power through His Spirit. He will also make us His poem. We, the church, the masterpiece of God's work, are the loftiest poem expressing God's infinite wisdom and divine design. This will be completed and consummated in the New Jerusalem in eternity.
