THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
The Believers
Message Three—Believers’ Present Enjoyment of
the Dispensing of the Divine Trinity
Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 13:14; 1:12; 3:18; Eph. 1:18b; 3:7-10; Heb. 4:16; Rom. 8:28-29
I. In experiencing and enjoying the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing, the believers experience and enjoy God as the Father in His love—2 Cor. 13:14; Rom. 5:5; Eph. 4:6: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
A. Whatever the Father does in His dispensing and moving in us is in love and is based on love; love is the source of the Father’s dispensing—4:16: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
1. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit; this pouring out of the love of God in our hearts is a matter of the essence of God, for love is the nature of God’s essence—Rom. 5:5; 1 John 4:8. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
2. The Father’s dispensing is through His overshadowing us, His passing through us, and His dwelling in us—Eph. 4:6. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
B. God the Father strengthens the believers, according to the riches of His glory, with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in their hearts through faith—Eph. 3:16-17: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
1. This is the Father’s finer work in us, and this is a much deeper experience in the Triune God. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
2. The goal of the Father’s strengthening us into the inner man is that Christ may make His home in our hearts, occupying every part of our inner being and possessing all these parts and saturating them with Himself; as a result we are filled with Christ unto all the fullness of God, His expression—vv. 17a, 19b. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 30)
C. God the Father gives grace to the believers, according to the operation of His power, to announce the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel and to bring to light the economy of the mystery—Eph. 3:7-10: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
1. God’s giving grace to us is a matter of His dispensing Himself into us; dispensing this grace into others is our ministry according to God’s economy—vv. 2, 7. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
2. We announce the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel for the producing of the church as the Body of Christ—vv. 8, 10. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
3. God the Father makes the believers competent to bear the ministry of the new covenant; the ministry of the new covenant is for God’s New Testament economy, which is to dispense Christ into God’s chosen people for the building up of the Body of Christ—2 Cor. 3:5-6; Eph. 3:16-17; 4:16. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
D. Through His dispensing, God the Father is making the believers His inheritance of glory—Eph. 1:18b: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
1. The Father desires to inherit what He has dispensed into us of Himself; therefore, whatever God has dispensed into us of Himself becomes His inheritance—3:16-17a. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
2. It is by having the Triune God dispensed into us and wrought into us that we become precious to Him and become His inheritance in reality—2 Cor. 13:14. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
E. God the Father is leading the believers as His many sons into His glory—Heb. 2:10: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
1. Through regeneration the seed of glory was dispensed into us; this seed, the life of glory, is Christ in us, the hope of glory—Col. 1:27. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
2. The divine dispensing will cause the seed of glory within us to grow until it blossoms; the blossoming of the seed of glory will be our glorification—Rom. 8:30. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
3. The Father’s leading His many sons into glory will be the consummation of the divine dispensing—Eph. 3:21; Rev. 21:10-11. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 31)
II. Grace is Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God transmitted into our being as the Spirit for our experience and enjoyment—John 1:16-17; Heb. 4:16; 2 Cor. 1:12; 13:14; Rom. 5:17, 21; 1 Cor. 15:10; cf. Gal. 2:20: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 32)
A. Eating the tree of life, that is, enjoying Christ as our life supply, should be the primary matter in the church life; the more we enjoy Him, the richer the content of the church life will be for the pure testimony of Jesus—Rev. 2:7. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 32)
B. The goal of our Christian life is the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ; “the one thing” in Philippians is the pursuing of Christ to gain Him, lay hold of Him, possess Him, and enjoy Him—1:20-21; 2:2, 5; 3:7-14; 4:13. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 32)
C. The grace given to the local churches in the dark age of the church’s degradation is for the believers who seek to answer the Lord’s calling to be His overcomers—Rev. 1:4. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 32)
D. The grace of the Lord Jesus, dispensed to His believers throughout the New Testament age, consummates in the New Jerusalem as the con-summation of God’s good pleasure, in joining and mingling Himself with man for His enlargement and eternal expression—22:21. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 32)
III. We the believers’ experiencing and enjoying the Spirit as the consummation of the divine Trinity in His fellowship—2 Cor. 13:14: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
A. We need a vision of the consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God—John 7:39; Gal. 3:14; Phil. 1:19. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
B. The consummated Spirit is the Triune God after He has passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection—John 7:39. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
C. The consummated Spirit is the Spirit—Gal. 3:2, 5, 14: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
1. The Spirit is the processed, compound, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, sevenfold intensified Triune God to be the eternal portion of His chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite people as their life, life supply, and everything—Rev. 22:17. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
2. God’s economy is to give Himself to us as the Spirit; the Christian life is the living of the processed and consummated Triune God as the consummated Spirit in the believers—Gal. 3:2, 5, 14; 5:16, 18, 25; 6:8. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
D. The Spirit is the river of water of life—John 4:14; 7:37-39; Rev. 22:1: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
1. The Triune God is flowing to dispense Himself with His divine life as the life element and Christ (the tree of life) as the life supply to meet our need and to be our pleasures and satisfaction—vv. 1-2; Psa. 36:8-9. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
2. The Triune God is flowing into us in the Father as the fountain, in the Son as the spring, and in the Spirit as the river—John 4:14. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 33)
IV. The believers are enjoying the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:28-29; Phil. 3:10: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 37)
A. To be transformed is to have Christ added into our being to replace what we are so that Christ may increase in us and our natural life may decrease; it is a divine, spiritual metabolism by the addition of the new element of Christ as the life-giving Spirit to discharge the old element of our natural being and to make us a new creation—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; Gal. 6:15; John 3:30; Col. 2:19: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 37)
1. Our Christian life and church life are “from glory to glory”; the glory is the resurrected Christ Himself, the “blossoming” Christ as the life-giving Spirit—2 Cor. 3:18—4:1, 16-18; John 12:23-24; 17:1; Luke 24:26. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 37)
2. As a result of being transformed by the renewing of the mind, the believers become precious materials—gold, silver, and precious stones—for the building up of the church—1 Cor. 3:9-12; Psa. 68:11-13, 19-20. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 37)
B. Transformation issues in conformation to the image of God’s Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers; conformation to Christ is our destiny and our destination—Rom. 8:28-29; cf. Jer. 48:11: (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 37)
1. We enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation by entering into the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus to follow Jesus—vv. 19-20; 1 Pet. 2:21. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 37)
2. We enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by living to Christ—2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 14:7-9. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 38)
3. We enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by walking (living, moving, and having our being) according to the spirit—our spirit mingled with the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ—Rom. 8:4, 2, 9, 16. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 38)
4. We enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by living in the organism of the Divine Trinity and participating in the dispensing of the Divine Trinity—John 16:13-15. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 38)
5. We enjoy the dispensing of the Divine Trinity by being filled in our spirit with the processed Triune God and by letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly—Eph. 5:18; Col. 3:16. (FTTA-2007 to 2008 Spring, msg. 38)