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We have seen in volume 4 of Level 3 that in the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of transformation, the believers experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity corporately by entering into the kingdom of God, by living in the church, and by living in the Body of Christ. The believers experience this dispensing also by putting on the new man and by wrestling against the devil and his spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. In this volume we will consider the believers’ experience of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in other aspects and the issue of the experience and enjoyment of the Divine Trinity. This lesson covers the believers’ experience of the dispensing of the processed Triune God in serving and worshipping God.
We need to experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in other aspects, including serving and worshipping God, working and laboring for the Lord, not loving the world, overcoming Satan, fighting the good fight, running the course of the race, being profited by all things in our circumstances and environment, having the best attitude toward others, having the highest standard of morality and virtues, and watching and praying. Very few Christians realize that for all these matters we need the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. Furthermore, we need to see that in order to carry out these matters, we need God’s divine supply, which is given to us through His divine dispensing.
For all the requirements revealed in the New Testament that are related to the believers, we need to receive the divine supply through the divine dispensing of the processed Triune God. Without this dispensing we cannot receive the supply, and without this supply we cannot fulfill the requirements in the New Testament. Some may think that it is easy and natural to worship God. Actually, we cannot truly worship God, that is, render the worship that satisfies God, that is accepted by Him as a real pleasure to Him, without God being dispensed into us. Through this divine dispensing we can worship God in a way that satisfies Him.
In like manner, apart from the divine dispensing of the processed Triune God, we cannot be humble or meek. The meekness required in the New Testament is much higher than that required by human teachings concerning morality, ethics, and human virtues. In society there are many teachings concerning such matters as humility, meekness, gentleness, and love. But it is impossible to meet the requirements of humility, meekness, gentleness, and love as revealed in the New Testament by our natural being. We need another being—the being of the processed Triune God dispensed into our being and even constituted into our being. Therefore, it is altogether necessary for us to contact the processed Triune God so that we may receive His supply through His dispensing of Himself into our being.
In the New Testament serving God is actually the same as worshipping God. We cannot serve God without worshipping Him. Neither can we worship Him without serving Him. According to Matthew 4, to worship actually means to serve (vv. 9-10). Hence, to worship God is to serve God. First Thessalonians 1:9 says that we serve a living and true God. In this verse serve means “to serve as a slave.” Hence, our service to God includes everything that we do in our daily living. Furthermore, the fact that we are serving a living God proves that we are in God the Father (v. 1). If we were not in the Father, we would not be able to serve a living God.
To serve the living God is to say that God is living to us and in us; He is living in our speech, in our behavior, and in every aspect of our daily life. Our present living is a testimony that the God whom we serve is living. He is living in us, and He controls us, directs us, and deals with us. In certain matters, even in such small things as our thoughts and motives, He will not let us go; rather, He corrects and adjusts us. This is a proof that He is living. It is also a proof that we are worshipping and serving the living God. We, as proper believers in Christ, must live a life that bears the testimony that the God whom we worship and serve is living in the details of our life. Our reason for not doing or saying certain things should be that God is living in us. The God whom we worship and serve is living not only in the heavens but also in us. No doubt, when God is living to us in our experience, He is also true.
The conscience is the leading part of the believers’ spirit. When they come to serve and worship God, they need to have a pure conscience, a conscience purified from dead works or from any kind of offense. To worship in dead religion, in our mind, or to serve any dead thing rather than God does not require our conscience to be purified. However, the God whom we desire to serve is righteous, holy, and living. He comes to our spirit (John 4:24) always by touching our conscience. Thus, our defiled conscience needs to be purified by the blood of Christ so that we may depart from dead works to serve and worship the living God in a living way.
In the eyes of God we were dead (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13); thus, whatever we did, bad or good, was dead works in the sight of the living God (Heb. 9:14). Now, in order to touch this living God, we need to exercise our spirit and to have a blood-purified conscience. The blood of Christ was shed for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28). On the cross Christ offered Himself to God in a human body through the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14). Therefore, His blood has an eternal efficacy. Moreover, this blood has accomplished an eternal redemption for us (v. 12; Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:18-19), washed us from all our sins (1 John 1:7), and purified our conscience so that we may serve and worship the living God.
The believers serve and worship God in their spirit in the gospel of His Son (Rom. 1:9). The word serve in this verse means to “serve in worship” of God, as used in Matthew 4:10, 2 Timothy 1:3, Philippians 3:3, and Luke 2:37. Thus, if we would serve God and worship Him, we must do so in our spirit for the preaching of the gospel of God’s Son. New Testament service and worship are carried out in the preaching of the gospel. Therefore, our preaching of the gospel is not merely a work; it is our worship and service to God.
In the New Testament the gospel is the all-inclusive Christ Himself (Acts 5:42). The gospel in the first four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—concerns Christ in the flesh as He lived among His disciples before His death and resurrection, that is, the Christ outside of us. The gospel in Romans concerns Christ as the Spirit, that is, the Christ within us. Now the Spirit of life who indwells us is simply Christ Himself, who is in us (8:2). This Christ is deeper and more subjective than the Christ in the four Gospels. He is the subjective Savior in His believers.
The gospel includes forgiveness and salvation, but these are not the central point. The central point of the gospel is Christ, the Son of God. The gospel is not a doctrine or a teaching or a religion. The gospel is a wonderful person—Jesus Christ, the Son of God with His divinity and His humanity. God desires to transform sinners in the flesh into sons of God in the spirit by dispensing Himself through Christ into them. If we would serve God in the gospel, we should make this same matter our goal. We preach the gospel not simply that people may be saved or be forgiven of their sins or become spiritual but so that they may become sons of God.
If we would serve God in the proper way, we need to serve Him in the gospel. Therefore, in addition to knowing the central point of the gospel, we need to learn to serve in our spirit. Only in Romans did Paul say that he served God in his spirit, because in Romans he is arguing with religious people who invariably serve in something other than the spirit—in letters, forms, or doctrines. Whatever we do toward God must be done in our spirit; whatever we are and have must also be in our spirit. Preaching the gospel is absolutely a matter of using our spirit. Paul repeatedly refers to being in spirit. He says that the genuine people of God must be in spirit and that true circumcision is in the spirit (2:29), that we should serve God in newness of spirit (7:6), and that we must be burning in spirit, serving the Lord (12:11).
To serve and worship God in spirit is to learn how to minister the gospel to others, that is, how to function as priests in ministering the gospel of God (15:16). Whenever we contact anyone, whether a believer or an unbeliever, we need to know his need as far as the gospel is concerned so that we can help him to be clear concerning salvation and even joyful in God’s salvation. In this way we can serve others properly with the gospel. The crucial point in serving God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son is that we minister Christ to others in the gospel. For this, we need to learn the elements and details of the gospel, we need to experience the full content of the gospel, and we need to exercise our spirit.
The believers serve God not only in their spirit; they serve Him also by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3). All the New Testament believers are priests to God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Hence, our ministry to the Lord, in whatever aspect, is a priestly ministry. As priests, we must serve God and worship Him in our spirit and by His Spirit. Whenever we get into our spirit, we also get into the Spirit of God. Likewise, when we worship God by the Spirit of God, we also worship Him in our spirit.
The only acceptable service and worship that we can render to God is not by the flesh but by the Spirit of God. The Spirit is the means for the believers to serve and worship God. Judaic worship and service involve the flesh and the various regulations related to it, such as dietary laws, keeping the Sabbath, and circumcision, all of which cannot be acceptable to God. Whereas the Judaizers serve by ordinances of the law related to the flesh, we as New Testament believers serve and worship God in our spirit by the Spirit of God.
Also, the believers serve and worship God in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:23-24). According to typology the worship of God should be in the place chosen by God to set His habitation (Deut. 12:5, 11, 13-14, 18) and with the offerings (Lev. 1—6). The place chosen by God for His habitation typifies the human spirit, where God’s habitation is today (Eph. 2:22). The offerings typify Christ. Christ is the fulfillment and reality of all the offerings with which God’s people in the Old Testament worshipped Him.
Therefore, a crucial matter we need to see is that genuine worship, the worship God the Father is seeking, is not in a certain place but in the human spirit. In the Old Testament Mount Zion, the place of God’s habitation and the place of His name, is a type of the human spirit. According to the New Testament, God’s habitation is not on any mountain nor in the heavens; God’s habitation is in our spirit. If we go anywhere else to worship God, it indicates that we have given up God’s name. There is only one place where we can be preserved in God’s name—our spirit. When we come to our spirit, we keep God’s name, and we are preserved in His name.
The genuine worship of God the Father is also in truthfulness, reality. In the Old Testament the children of Israel were required to worship God on Mount Zion with the offerings. The offerings typify Christ as reality. Christ is the fulfillment and the reality of all the offerings with which God’s people worshipped Him. Christ is the genuine sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, and peace offering. Today we worship God in our spirit with Christ as the reality of all the offerings. This is the genuine worship of the Father as well as the worship that He desires.
Finally, in serving and worshipping God, the believers should have no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3). We may think that to trust in the flesh simply means to trust in the fallen human nature. But the flesh actually comprises all that we are and have in our natural being. When Paul was a Judaizer, he trusted in his natural birth and qualifications, such as being circumcised on the eighth day, being of the race of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, and being a Hebrew born of Hebrews. According to law, he was a Pharisee; according to zeal, he persecuted the church; and according to the righteousness in the law, he was blameless (vv. 4-6). All these things were aspects of Paul’s flesh. Hence, we should not trust in such things. Everything that Paul did according to the law and according to zeal was the flesh and was of the flesh; even his righteousness according to the law was flesh. This is because such things are natural and are neither of Christ nor of the Spirit of God. This indicates that the flesh includes not only evil things but also the honorable, lovable, and superior aspects of our natural being.
The Judaizers trusted in their flesh, trusting in what they were by their natural birth. But Paul says strongly that we who believe in Christ serve by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. In order to render genuine service and worship to God, everything that we do must be by the Spirit of God, in Christ, and with no trust in the flesh. Although we are not Judaizers, in principle we may actually be the same as the Judaizers. Even though we have been regenerated, we may continue to live in our fallen nature, boast in what we do in the flesh, and have confidence in our natural qualifications. Therefore, we need the Lord’s light to shine on us concerning our nature, our deeds, and our confidence in the flesh. If we are enlightened by the Lord, we will see that we still live too much in the flesh, we will confess how unclean our nature is, and we will condemn everything that we do by our fallen nature. Then we will no longer trust in our natural qualifications, ability, or intelligence. After we are enlightened in this way, we will truly serve and worship God in our spirit and by the Spirit.
In the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the believers experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity not only by entering into the kingdom of God, by living in the church—the Body of Christ, by putting on the new man, and by wrestling against the devil and his spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. The believers experience this dispensing also in their service and worship of God.
We cannot truly worship God, that is, render worship that satisfies God, that is accepted by Him as a real pleasure to Him, without God dispensing His divine essence into us. Through this divine dispensing we can worship God in a way that satisfies Him. We need to be reminded repeatedly that we serve and worship God through the dispensing of the processed Triune God. Serving God is actually the same as worshipping God. The God whom we serve and worship is the living and true God. Therefore, God must be living to us and in us in every aspect of our daily life. When God is living to us in our experience, He is also true.
When we come to serve God or worship God, we need to have a pure conscience, a conscience purified from dead works or from any kind of offense. The living God, whom we desire to serve, comes to our spirit always by touching our conscience. The blood of the Lord cleanses our sins and purifies our conscience so that we may serve and worship God. We serve and worship God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son. New Testament service and worship are carried out in the preaching of the gospel by our being in our spirit. This gospel is the all-inclusive Christ, the Son of God. Therefore, the crucial point in serving God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son is that we minister Christ to others in the gospel by exercising our spirit. We serve God not only in our spirit but also by the Spirit of God. The only acceptable service and worship that we can render to God is not by the flesh but by the Spirit of God. We serve and worship God in spirit and truth. The worship that God the Father is seeking is not in a certain place but in the human spirit. Christ is the genuine sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, and peace offering. Today we worship God in our spirit with Christ as the reality of all the offerings. Finally, in serving and worshipping God we should have no confidence in our flesh. As believers in Christ, we should not trust in anything that we have by our natural birth, for everything of our natural birth is part of the flesh. In order to render genuine service and worship to God, everything we do must be by the Spirit of God, in Christ, and with no confidence in the flesh.
