The building of God is a divine mingling of God Himself with man. From the entire Scriptures we can realize that after God’s creation, God’s intention is to work Himself into humanity and to work humanity into divinity. After God’s creation, what God has always been doing is to build Himself with man and to build man with Himself.
If we pay our full attention to the record of the Gospel of John, we will realize that this Gospel is a matter not only of life but also of building. Life is for the building, and the building is of the divine life. Therefore, in this Gospel the divine issue is that we abide in the Lord and the Lord abides in us; we become the abode of the Lord, and the Lord becomes an abode for us. The Lord and we, we and the Lord, become the mutual abode of God and man. In the Scriptures we have such a sentence: “Abide in Me and I in you” (15:4). This is a short sentence, a small word, yet its meaning is very profound. Such a word could never be spoken in the Old Testament. This word could be spoken only after the Lord was incarnated as a man, crucified on the cross, resurrected, and transfigured into the Spirit. By His incarnation Christ brought God into man, and by His death and resurrection He brought man into God. In other words, by His incarnation He worked God into man, and by his death and resurrection he worked man into God.
In John 14:20 the Lord said, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” That day was the day of resurrection. After that day, the disciples could abide in the Lord, and He could abide in them. Christ could come to them with the Father to make an abode with them. This is the eventual issue of Christ being life to us. The issue, the result, of the Lord coming to be life to us is that we become the abode of the Lord, and the Lord becomes the abode for us. This means that the Lord and we, we and the Lord, are built together as a divine building to be the mutual abode of God and man. We and God, God and we, mutually abide in one another. This is the building of God. It is something mysterious, yet very real and wonderful.
The central thought of all the Epistles is the divine building, the building of God with man. What the apostle Paul did was simply a work of building. Paul uses the word building many times. Regrettably, certain English translations use the words edify or edification instead of build or building, so many people understand this word improperly. What the apostle Paul did was simply to build people with gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12).
Gold, silver, and precious stones are not two items or four but three, because they correspond to the three of the Triune God. Gold signifies the divine nature; this is related to God the Father as the source and nature. Silver, the second item of the precious materials, is related to the work and person of the second of the Triune God. It signifies the redeeming work of God the Son. Because we were fallen people, we needed the redemption of Christ. The third item, the precious stones, signifies the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, the third of the Triune God. By the redemption of the Son of God we have received the nature of God. From this time on we are in the process of transformation by the Holy Spirit through all our environment and circumstances to be transformed from pieces of clay into precious stones. This is the work of the transforming Holy Spirit.
Here, therefore, we have God the Father as the source, the nature, signified by gold; we have God the Son with His work and person as silver; and we have God the Spirit, doing the work of transforming us from clay into precious stones. These are the three aspects of the work of the three persons of the Triune God.
With a building there is always the need of material. With what kind of material do we build up the believers? It is with none other than God the Father as the gold, God the Son as the silver, and God the Spirit as the precious stones. In other words, we build up the believers with the Triune God.
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