THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians
Message One—The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity
Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:3-14; 2:18; 3:16-19; 4:4-6; 5:19-20; 6:10-11, 17
I. The revelation concerning the Triune God in the holy Word is not for doctrinal understanding but for the dispensing of God in His Divine Trinity into His chosen and redeemed people for their experience and enjoyment—2 Cor. 13:14, Eph. 3:16-19:
A. It is impossible for us to know the Triune God merely by doctrine; however, we can know Him by experiencing and enjoying Him—1 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 1:4-5.
B. The Bible reveals that the Triune God is not merely the object of our faith; He is subjective to us, dwelling in us to be our life and life supply—Rom. 8:11.
C. If we would understand the Divine Trinity, we must be in the process of the growth in life, in the line of life pursuing the growth in life—1 John 2:12-14.
D. The Bible was written according to the governing principle of the Triune God working Himself into His chosen and redeemed people as their life and life supply—Psa. 36:8-9.
II. The Trinity is the framework of the entire Bible; the whole Bible, especially the book of Ephesians, is constructed with the Trinity—Eph. 1:3-14; 2:18; 3:16-19; 4:4-6; 5:19-20; 6:10-11,17:
A. Ephesians is the only book in the Bible in which every chapter is structured with the Divine Trinity as its basic element.
B. If we do not know the Triune God, we cannot comprehend the profoundness of Ephesians, because every chapter of this book has the Divine Trinity as its framework—Eph. 1:3-14; 2:18; 3:16-17a; 4:4-6; 5:19-20; 6:10-11, 17.
III. The revelation in Ephesians concerning the producing, existing, growing, building up, and fighting of the church as the Body of Christ is composed of the divine economy, the dispensing of the Triune God into the members of the Body of Christ; thus, the crucial focus of Ephesians is the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into the believers:—Eph. 1:3-14, 18-23; 2:18; 3:16-19; 4:4-6; 5:19-20; 6:10-11,17:
A. Chapter one unveils how God the Father chose and predestinated the members in eternity, God the Son redeemed them, and God the Spirit sealed them as a pledge, thus imparting Himself into His believers for the formation of the church, which is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all—Eph. 3-14, 18-23:
1. A fundamental truth in the Lord’s recovery is that the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—has wrought Himself into us through the Father’s predestination, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s sealing and pledging.
2. The Body of Christ comes into being by the dispensing of the Triune God as life and life supply into the believers.
3. The threefold mentioning of the praise of God’s glory signifies the threefold dispensing of the Triune God—Eph. 1:6, 12, 14.
B. Chapter two shows us that in the Divine Trinity all the believers, both Jewish and Gentile, have access unto God the Father through God the Son, in God the Spirit—Eph. 2:18:
1. Through God the Son, who is the Accomplisher, the means, and in God the Spirit, who is the Executor, and application, we have access unto God the Father, who is the Originator, the source of our enjoyment.
2. The Father’s dispensing to produce the masterpiece, the Son’s dispensing to produce the new man, and the Spirit’s bringing us to the Father in one Body result in the building up of the church and the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy—Eph. 2:10, 15-16, 21-22.
C. In chapter three the apostle prays that God the Father will grant the believers to be strengthened through God the Spirit into their inner man so that Christ, God the Son, may make His home in their hearts, that they might be filled unto all the fullness of God—Eph. 3:16-19:
1. The Father is the source, the Spirit is the means, the Son is the object, and the fullness of the Triune God is the issue.
2. Each of the three does not act for Himself but for the fullness of the Triune God; this is a beautiful picture of the Divine Trinity.
D. Chapter four portrays how the processed God as the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father is mingled with the Body of Christ so that all the members of the Body may experience the Divine Trinity—Eph. 4:4-6:
1. The divine dispensing of God the Father in His being over all, of the Son in His being through all, and of the Spirit in His being in all enables all the members of the Body of Christ to experience and enjoy the Triune God.
2. These verses reveal four persons—the one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God the Father—mingled together as one entity to be the organic Body of Christ; thus, the Triune God and the Body are four-in-one.
E. Chapter five exhorts the believers to praise the Lord, God the Son, with the songs of God the Spirit, and give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, to God the Father—Eph. 5:19-20:
1. This is to praise and thank the processed God in His Divine Trinity for our enjoyment of Him as the Triune God.
2. Through the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, we are constituted as children of God, walking in God as love and light—Eph. 5: 2, 8.
F. Chapter six instructs us to fight the spiritual warfare by being empowered in the Lord, God the Son, putting on the whole armor of God the Father, and wielding the sword of the Spirit—Eph. 6:10-11, 17:
1. God the Son is the power within us, God realized in the Son is the armor upon us, and God the Spirit is the sword, who is the word of God.
2. This is the believers’ experience and enjoyment of the Triune God even in the spiritual warfare.
Ministry Excerpts:
THE STEPS OF GOD’S ECONOMY
We have seen God’s purpose and what is dispensed by God; now we must realize how God is dispensed through His economy. In other words, Spirit is what God dispenses into man, but now we need to see the means by which He does this. It is by the Trinity. The Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is the very economy of the Godhead. Christianity during the past centuries has had many teachings about the Trinity, but the Trinity can never be adequately understood unless it is related to the divine economy. Why are all three persons of the Godhead required for the development of His economy? We know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three different Gods but one God, who is expressed in three persons. Yet what is the purpose of there being three persons of the Godhead? Why are there God the Father, God the Son, and also God the Holy Spirit? It is because only through the Trinity can the essential means be provided whereby His Spirit is dispensed into us.
Second Corinthians 13:14 shows the steps of God’s economy by the Trinity. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Here we have the grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. What are these? Are these three different Gods? Are love, grace, and fellowship three different items? No. Love, grace, and fellowship are one element in three stages: love is the source, grace is the expression of love, and fellowship is the transmission of this love in grace. Likewise, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are one God expressed in three persons: God is the source, Christ is the expression of God, and the Holy Spirit is the transmission bringing God in Christ into man. Thus, the three persons of the Trinity become the three successive steps in the process of God’s economy. Without these three steps, God’s essence could never be dispensed into man. The economy of God is developed from the Father, in the Son, and through the Spirit.
FROM THE FATHER
God the Father is the universal source of all things. He is invisible and unapproachable. How can God the Father, who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16), be within us? How can we see the invisible Father? If God is only a Father, He would be inaccessible and could not be dispensed into man. But through the divine arrangement of His economy, He put Himself into His Son, the second person of the Trinity, in order to make Himself available to man. All the fullness of the Father dwells in the Son (Col. 1:19; 2:9) and is expressed through the Son (John 1:18). The Father, as the inexhaustible source of everything, is embodied in the Son. The incomprehensible God is now expressed in Christ, the Word of God (v. 1); the invisible God is revealed in Christ, the image of God (Col. 1:15). So, the Son and the Father are one (John 10:30), and the Son is even called the Father (Isa. 9:6).
IN THE SON
The second step of bringing God into man is through the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God. In order to understand the second stage of the economy of God, we need to know what Christ is. What are the elements that make up Christ? What are the ingredients combined together that constitute Christ? There are seven basic elements that make up this wonderful person, six of which were added through His history. First, Christ is the divine embodiment of God. This first element in Christ is God’s divine essence and nature.
The second element, His incarnation, is the mingling of His divine nature with the human nature. Through His incarnation He brought God into man and mingled the divine essence of God with humanity. In Christ there is not only God but also man.
The third element which was added to His divine and human natures was His human living. This glorious God-man lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years and experienced all the common and ordinary things that make up the daily human life. The Gospel of John, which emphasizes that He is the Son of God, also tells us that He was tired, hungry, thirsty, and that He wept (4:6-8, 31; 11:35). His human sufferings were also part of His daily life, which included many earthly troubles, problems, trials, and persecutions.
His experience of death is the fourth element. He went down into death. But He not only stepped into death; He passed through death. This produced a very effective death. The death of Adam is terrible and chaotic, but the death of Christ is wonderful and effective. The death of Adam enslaved us to death, whereas the death of Christ released us from death. Although the fall of Adam brought many evil elements into us, the effective death of Christ is the killing power within us to slay all the elements of Adam’s nature.
The fifth element is His resurrection. After His resurrection Christ did not put off His manhood to become solely God again. Christ is still a man (1 Tim. 2:5). And as man, He has the additional element of resurrection life mingled with His humanity.
The sixth element in Christ is His ascension. By His ascension to the heavens He transcended over all enemies, principalities, powers, dominions, and authorities. All are under His feet (Eph. 1:20-22a). Mingled with Him, therefore, is the transcendent power of His ascension. Finally, the seventh element in Christ is His enthronement. Christ, the man with the divine nature, is enthroned in the third heaven as the exalted Head of the whole universe (22b). He is in the heavenlies as the Lord of lords and the King of kings (Rev. 17:14; 19:16).
We need to remember, then, the seven wonderful elements that are in Him: the divine nature, the human nature, the daily human life with its earthly sufferings, the effectiveness of His death, the resurrection power, the transcendent power of His ascension, and the enthronement. All these elements are mingled in this one marvelous Christ.
THROUGH THE SPIRIT
God, however, cannot come into us through the Son. According to the first stages of His economy, the Father placed Himself in the Son, and the Son has the seven elements mingled within Himself. But we still need another stage, a third and final step, for God to dispense Himself into man. The first step was that the Father embodied Himself in the Son; the second step was that the Son became incarnate in humanity to have all the seven wonderful elements mingled within Him; the third step is that both the Father and the Son are now in the Spirit. All that is in the Father is in the Son, and both the Father and the Son, containing all the elements in Christ, are brought into the Spirit (John 16:14-15). (The Economy of God, ch. 1)
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MINGLED SPIRIT
IN THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS
Before we speak further concerning the Body of Christ, I want to point out something crucial in the book of Ephesians. In each of the six chapters of Ephesians, the human spirit is mentioned. Our human spirit has been regenerated and indwelt by the compound, all-inclusive, consummated Spirit to make this spirit a mingled spirit.
In 1:17 the apostle Paul prayed that the Father would give us such a mingled spirit of wisdom to understand and of revelation to see. We need the revelation and the enlightenment to see the mystery of God’s economy. We also need to understand, to apprehend, what we see by the divine wisdom. The economy of God is a real mystery, yet it has been revealed to us. We can see His economy and it is made known to us so that we can receive it, understand it, apprehend it, and participate in it.
Ephesians 2:22 says that all the believers are being built together to be God’s habitation in spirit. God needs a dwelling place, not just in the heavens but on the earth, and this dwelling place must be organic in our spirit. This spirit is not the dweller; rather, it is the dwelling place. God mingled Himself with our spirit, and our spirit is His dwelling place. God is here dwelling in us. He is in our spirit, which is His resting place.
Ephesians 3:5 tells us that the economy of God, which is so mysterious, has been unveiled to the apostles and the prophets in their spirit. This revelation was given not in their mind but in their spirit. If we are going to understand, to realize, the reality of God’s mysterious economy, we must learn to discern our spirit from our soul (Heb. 4:12). We should not be bothered by our soul. We should not be troubled, complicated, and perplexed by our mind. Instead, we should always turn to our spirit where we can meet the divine Spirit. In our mingled spirit, we have the capacity to see the mystery of God’s economy, to understand it, to apprehend it, and to receive it and retain it as our portion.
Ephesians 4:23 says that we have to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. Our spirit can become the spirit of our mind. Actually, the fallen mind is a bad thing. There are a number of bad things within us, and the leading one is our mind…… But we have the best thing in us, that is, our spirit. This thing, our spirit, can even go into our mind. Our spirit can come into our mind, subdue it, take it over, and occupy it. It can then become the spirit of our mind. Then we have a wonderful mind, a mind that has the spirit within it. It is by this spirit of the mind that we are renewed every day into the image of our Creator (Col. 3:10). Day by day we are being renewed by the spirit who is taking over our mind. It is in this way that we are transformed and conformed to the image of our Creator.
Ephesians 5:18 tells us not to be drunk with wine, that is, not to be filled in our physical body with wine. Instead, we should be filled in our spirit. Our spirit needs to be filled with the processed Triune God, with the transcending Christ, with the consummated Spirit. Then we will be full of praise, singing and speaking one to another (vv. 19-20)…… As we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, as we are praising God, we will spontaneously be submissive to one another (v. 21). The wives will be submissive to the husbands, and the husbands will love the wives (vv. 22, 25). Then we will have the proper church life, full of submission and full of praising to the Triune God, with no quarreling, no murmuring, and no complaining.
WE MUST PRAY BY OUR SPIRIT AND IN OUR SPIRIT
Ephesians 6 tells us something further. On the one hand, the church life is a praising life and a submitting life; at the same time it is also a fighting life. While we are praising and submitting to one another, the enemy is here fighting, so we have to fight against him by prayer. Verse 18 says that whenever we pray, we should pray in our spirit, not in our mind. If we are going to walk, we need to use our feet. No one can walk by his nose. Even for someone to walk on his hands is awkward. To walk by our feet is the right way. In the same way, we should not pray merely by our mind. We must pray by our spirit and in our spirit.
Our spirit mingled with the Spirit has been mentioned six times in the book of Ephesians. This indicates that to know God’s economy, to receive His dispensing, and to participate in Christ’s transmission, we must know, we must use, and we must exercise our spirit. We should not be persons in our mind but persons in our spirit. If we have any problem concerning the church, we must exercise our spirit to pray. Then we will have the vision to see and the wisdom to understand. Then we will understand why there is the need of the onefold transmission to follow the threefold dispensing of the Divine Trinity. We will see that this transmission is by the One who transcended from Hades through the earth, through the air, and through the third heaven to become higher than the heavens. (Issue of the Dispensing of the Processed Trinity & Transmitting of the Transcending Christ, ch. 6)