Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:2, 6, 10, 11; John 3:36
Before we consider the life of the Triune God dispensed into the tripartite man, we need to say a further word about the dispensation of the Triune God according to His righteousness, through His holiness, and unto His glory. We have seen that righteousness is God’s procedure, holiness is God’s nature, and glory is God’s expression. God’s dispensation, therefore, is according to His righteous way, through His holy nature, and unto the expression of Himself. God’s expression is mainly in the church. Thus, the goal of the dispensation of the Triune God is that God may be expressed in the church.
In the foregoing message we pointed out that God’s righteousness is related to the death of Christ, which terminated all negative things. Because of the fall of man, everything in creation has become unrighteous. For example, it is unrighteous for mosquitoes to pester us. Furthermore, there is unrighteousness in every aspect of society. Adam was the head of the old creation. When he fell, everything under his headship became unrighteous in the eyes of God. The death of Christ terminated these unrighteous things and fulfilled the requirements of the righteousness of God. Hence, the death of Christ is the highest righteousness.
When Christ died on the cross, we died also, for we died in Him. We were identified with Christ in His death. This means that not only the death of Christ Himself is righteous, but also our death in Christ is righteous in God’s eyes.
However, the death of Christ was not the end, for it ushered in the resurrection, in which we are germinated and generated. Moreover, with the resurrection of Christ there is the function of sanctifying, which includes transforming and conforming. Eventually, we by this process of sanctification shall be conformed to the image of the Son of God. This is the subjective experience of sanctification. Sanctification is the subjective activity of holiness; it is holiness in action. Sanctification is actually the resurrected Christ working God’s holy nature into our being. This is vastly different from the concept of holiness found among so-called holiness people.
The issue of sanctification is glorification, the expression of God. Thus, the dispensation of the Triune God is unto His glory. The result of sanctification is glorification.
Glorification began on the day of Pentecost. The church was born not at Pentecost, but on the day of Christ’s resurrection. First Peter 1:3 says that we were regenerated when Christ was resurrected. When He was resurrected, the one grain of wheat became the many grains to form the loaf, the church (John 12:24; 1 Cor. 10:17). Hence, the church was brought forth on the day of resurrection. But what was it that happened on the day of Pentecost? On that day the church was glorified. If we had been present at the meeting of the church on the day of Pentecost, we would have exclaimed, “What glory!” We would not have spoken about righteousness or sanctification, for we would have had an overwhelming sense of glory.
The Lord Jesus began His prayer in John 17 with the words, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You” (v. 1). How does the Son glorify the Father? He glorifies the Father in oneness. The oneness in John 17 is the church. The oneness of the saints is the proper church life. When the oneness is realized in a thorough way, the Son glorifies the Father in the church. This indicates that wherever there is the proper church life, there is the glorification of the Father, for the church life expresses the Father. Therefore, if we gather together as the church in a normal way, we should have the sense that there is glory in our meetings. The church life is altogether a matter of glorification. The church is God’s goal; it is not God’s procedure or His way. God’s intention is to be glorified in the church.
The glorification of the church that began at Pentecost has not yet reached its consummation. On the contrary, the process of glorification is still taking place. According to the condition of the church, there may be more glory at certain times than at others. How much glory is manifested in the church depends upon our degree of sanctification. The spectators at the basketball game may be very enthusiastic. However, with them there is no glory; there is only excitement, because there is no sanctification. The more we are sanctified through Christ’s saturating our being with His holy nature, the more we shall express God when we come together as the church.
Sanctification is primarily an individual matter, whereas glorification is mainly a corporate matter. Suppose I lose my temper with my wife during the day. This damages my personal sanctification. Although I confess to the Lord and receive His cleansing, I may have no sense of the glory in the meeting that night, even though everyone else is conscious of it. Because I am short of sanctification, I cannot sense the glory which others can sense. I do not have the sanctification in my personal life to give me a sense of glory in the meeting. However, suppose I stay in fellowship with the Lord all day, even when my wife gives me a difficult time. Everything that happens during the day only helps the process of sanctification. Therefore, in the meetings, I will be able to sense the glory. This illustrates the fact that the more sanctification we experience, the more we shall participate in the glorification.
Glory, the expression of God in the church, is God’s goal in His dispensation. However, sanctification is the process, and righteousness is the supporting ground. Therefore, the dispensation of the Triune God is according to His righteousness, through His holiness, and unto the goal of His glory.
Now we come to the very precious matter of the life of the Triune God dispensed into the tripartite man. How marvelous that God is triune and that we are tripartite!
Romans 8:2 speaks of the life of the Triune God. Verse 10 reveals that this life has been dispensed into our spirit and has caused our spirit to become life. Furthermore, according to verse 6, this life can be dispensed into our mind and can cause our mind to be life also. Ultimately, as verse 11 discloses, the divine life can even be imparted into our mortal bodies. In these verses we see the three parts of man: the spirit, the soul (represented by the mind), and the body. The spirit is the center, the body is the circumference, and the mind is in between. From the center through the middle to the circumference, the life of the Triune God is being dispensed into our entire being.
The life that is to be dispensed into the three parts of man is the life of the Triune God. In 8:2 Paul speaks of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. In this phrase the Triune God is implied. The Spirit and Christ, the Son, are mentioned explicitly, whereas God the Father is implied by the fact that the Spirit is the Spirit of God. Hence, here we have God, Christ, and the Spirit. However, the main point is not the Triune God, but life. To speak of the Spirit of life is actually to say that the Spirit is life. The life here is the very life of the Triune God.
When we were regenerated, we received another life, a life in addition to our natural life. There are various kinds of life: plant life, animal life, human life, and divine life. As humans, we all have a physical life and a psychological life. The physical life and the psychological life are indicated by the Greek words bios and psuche respectively. When Paul speaks of life in Romans 8, however, he uses still another Greek word, the word zoe. In the Bible zoe denotes God’s life, the divine, infinite, uncreated, eternal life. This is the life we receive by believing in the Lord Jesus. As John 3:36 says, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life.” In verses 2, 6, 10, and 11 of Romans 8, Paul uses this Greek word for life to indicate that the dispensation of God is to dispense zoe into our being. In other words, God desires to dispense Himself as zoe into all three parts of man’s being.
The dispensation of the divine zoe into us began when we were regenerated. According to 8:2, this life is the Spirit and it is in Christ Jesus. But now, through God’s dispensation, it also has something to do with us. Without this life, we are doomed to perish. Praise the Lord that when we were regenerated, zoe was dispensed into our spirit!
In order for the divine life to be dispensed into us, this life first had to pass through a long process involving incarnation, human living, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and descension. The life dispensed into us is actually the processed Triune God. In Genesis 1:1 this life could not be dispensed into man, for as yet it had not passed through the necessary stages. But now it is fully possible for such a wonderful life to be dispensed into us. This life is present and available, and we can receive it simply by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus.
Romans 8:10 says, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness.” That the spirit in this verse is not the Holy Spirit is proved by the fact that here Paul contrasts the body with the spirit. Paul says that the body is dead but that the spirit is life. We would expect him to say that the spirit is living. Instead, he says that the spirit is life, or zoe. When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, this zoe gets into our spirit and causes our spirit to become zoe. Now not only the Triune God is life, but our spirit is also life.
If we see this, we shall have the boldness to declare to the whole universe and especially to Satan that our spirit is life. We shall proclaim that at least one part of our being, our spirit, is zoe. Oh, how we all need this revelation! May we see not only that we are saved and regenerated, but also that the innermost part of our being has become life.
Knowing that our spirit is zoe will be a great help to us in our daily living. When you are tempted to lose your temper, do not suppress your anger. Instead, simply declare, “My spirit is zoe!” Likewise, if your wife or husband gives you a difficult time, do not argue, but tell the one troubling you that your spirit is zoe. Saying this enables us to resist Satan’s temptations. Praise the Lord, our spirit is zoe!
The reason that I am so lively and energetic is that my spirit is zoe. However, I spent years in organized Christianity and no one told me that my spirit is zoe. I was instructed in various religious practices, but I was not told that my spirit is life. But now I know that the divine zoe has been dispensed into my spirit, into the center of my being. Now I know that my spirit has become zoe!
Confucius was a great ethical philosopher who taught his disciples to develop what he called the inner bright virtue. What he called the bright virtue is actually the conscience. The disciples of Confucius may have a bright virtue, but we have the divine life. In fact, the very divine Being Himself has come into us to be our life. There is no comparison between the bright virtue and the Triune God as the divine life.
Because we realized that our spirit was life, we were able to convince a number of philosophical teachers in China to believe in the Lord Jesus. They boasted that they knew how to develop the bright virtue within. After listening to them for a while, we would tell them that what they had was nothing in comparison to what we had. Some of them were very surprised and inquired honestly about this. We explained that as Christians we have the Triune God in us as our life. We told them that what they have may be a bright virtue, something created by God, but what we have is the very Creator of this bright virtue. We helped them see that this Creator has passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. Now He is both in ascension and available to come into anyone who calls on His name. As a result of such a testimony, many of those philosophical teachers opened to the Lord, called on His name, and received Him into them to be their life. Then they themselves testified about the difference between the bright virtue and the divine life. By preaching the gospel on a high level in this way, we brought a good number of professors, doctors, nurses, and lawyers to the Lord.
We have emphasized the fact that our spirit has become life because Christ dwells within us. But what about our soul and body? Consider verse 6: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” Here we see that our mind can also be zoe.When we set our mind on the spirit, our mind, which represents our soul, becomes zoe. We do not need to follow the way of Confucius to cultivate the bright virtue. Instead, we simply set our mind on the spirit and our mind becomes zoe. This is the dispensation of the divine life into our soul.
In our daily living, we need to practice turning our mind to the spirit. Are you about to gossip? Turn your mind to the spirit. Are you tempted to lose your temper? Turn your mind to the spirit. Drop the ethical and religious teachings and come back to God’s living Word, which reveals that the life of the Triune God is dispensed into our spirit to make our spirit life and also reveals that the mind set on the spirit is life. We have something higher than bright virtue, ethics, and morality — we have the Triune God dispensed into us. What can compare with this? This is not philosophy or religious teaching. It is the zoe life dispensed into our spirit and into our mind.
Verse 11 reveals even more of God’s dispensation. Here Paul says, “But if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from among the dead dwells in you, He Who raised Christ Jesus from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who indwells you.” I marvel at the indirectness of this verse. This verse reveals that zoe can be imparted through the Spirit into our mortal bodies. Therefore, not only are both our spirit and our mind zoe, but even our body can be full of zoe.
We all need to see the vision of the dispensing of the life of the Triune God into the three parts of our being. If we see this divine vision, our natural concept of ethics and morality will be shattered. We need to say to the Lord, “Lord, I thank You. Since You came into me, my spirit has become life. Now if I set my mind on my spirit, my mind also will be life. O Lord, how I praise You! Through Your indwelling Spirit, Your zoe life can be dispensed even into my mortal body. Lord, I worship You for this, I enjoy this, and I am one with You in this dispensation.” This is the dispensation of the life of the Triune God into the tripartite man. Through such a dispensing the Triune God becomes one with the tripartite man, and the tripartite man becomes one with the Triune God. It is through this dispensation of the divine life that we become sons of God. Furthermore, it is by this dispensation that we are transformed and conformed to the image of Christ. This is the Christian life and the church life.
Let us turn from religious, ethical, and philosophical teachings and come back to the simple yet profound revelation in the holy Word concerning God’s economy. Our God is the Triune God who has passed through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Now He is the all-inclusive Spirit to be the divine zoe for our participation, experience, and enjoyment. Firstly He dispenses Himself into our spirit, the center of our being. From the center, He spreads into our mind and saturates it with zoe. Then He expands into our mortal body and thereby makes our whole being zoe. In this way, we become men of zoe. Hallelujah, we are not men of religion, morality, or ethics — we are men of life!
