In previous messages we covered the initial stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of regeneration. This stage begins with God’s calling; it includes the believers’ being sanctified, their repenting and believing, and their being baptized, joined to the processed Triune God, redeemed, made a new creation, and saved; and it ends with the clearing of the past. Now we are ready to go on to the second stage of God’s full salvation, the progressing stage.
The second stage of God’s full salvation, the progressing stage, is the stage of transformation. This stage is composed of freedom from sin, sanctification, growth in life, transformation, building up, and maturity. The sanctification in this stage is mainly dispositional, although there is still an amount of positional sanctification. In this stage of transformation God is freeing us from the dominion of indwelling sin-the law of sin and death-by the law of the Spirit of life through the effectiveness of the death of Christ working subjectively in us (Rom. 6:6-7; 7:16-20; 8:2). In the second stage God is also sanctifying us by His Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:16), with His holy nature, through His discipline (Heb. 12:10) and His judgment in His own house. The element, the substance, God uses to sanctify us is His holy nature.
In the progressing stage of salvation God is also causing us to grow in His life (1 Cor. 3:6-7). He is transforming us by renewing the inward parts of our soul by the life-giving Spirit (2 Cor. 3:6, 17-18; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23) through the working of all things (Rom. 8:28). He is building us together into a spiritual house for His dwelling (1 Pet. 2:5; Eph. 2:22), and He is maturing us in His life (Rev. 14:15) for the completion of His full salvation.
In the first stage of God’s full salvation we are delivered from God’s condemnation and from eternal perdition. In the second stage we are being delivered from the power of sin, the world, the flesh, the self, the soul (the natural life), and individualism. Therefore, in this stage we are in the process of being delivered from many negative things. The goal of this deliverance is that we would have maturity in the divine life for the fulfilling of God’s eternal purpose.
The first matter in the progressing stage of God’s full salvation is experiencing and enjoying the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing. By the end of the first stage we have been saved and have cleared the past, and we are ready to go on in our Christian life. However, this going on is not in the way of doing things but in the way of experiencing and enjoying what we have already received. In the initial stage of God’s salvation, we received the Triune God-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-and now we are ready to go on by experiencing and enjoying the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing. Ever since we were saved the Triune God has been dispensing His being with all His divine elements into us for our experience and enjoyment.
Second Corinthians 13:14 speaks clearly concerning the experience and enjoyment of the Triune God: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This verse indicates that we experience and enjoy God the Father in His love, Christ the Son in His grace, and the Spirit in His fellowship. The grace of the Lord is the Lord Himself as life to us for our enjoyment (John 1:17; 1 Cor. 15:10), the love of God is God Himself (1 John 4:8, 16) as the source of the grace of the Lord, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the Spirit Himself as the transmission of the grace of the Lord with the love of God for our experience and enjoyment. The love of God, that is, the love of the Father, is the source; the grace of Christ, that is, the grace of the Son, is the flowing out of the love of the Father; and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the flowing into us of the grace of the Son together with the love of the Father for us to experience and enjoy.
The fellowship of the Holy Spirit within us is the transmitting of the grace of the Son into us, and the grace of the Son within us is simply the practical tasting and enjoying of the love of the Father. The love of the Father is the source, the grace of the Son is the manifestation, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the transmission, transmitting the grace of the Son with the love of the Father into us. The result is that we experience and enjoy the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are not three separate matters but three aspects of one thing, just as the Lord, God, and the Holy Spirit are not three separate Gods but three “hypostases...of the one same undivided and indivisible” God (Philip Schaff). The love of God is the source, since God is the origin; the grace of the Lord is the course of the love of God, since the Lord is the expression of God; and the fellowship of the Spirit is the impartation of the grace of the Lord with the love of God, since the Spirit is the transmission of the Lord with God for our experience and enjoyment of the Triune God. The Triune God with His grace, love, and fellowship is experienced and enjoyed by the believers through the divine dispensing of the divine Trinity. Second Corinthians 13:14, therefore, is a strong proof that the trinity of the Godhead is not for the doctrinal understanding of systematic theology but for the dispensing of God Himself in His trinity into His chosen and redeemed people.
In this divine dispensing we simultaneously experience and enjoy grace, love, and fellowship. While we enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit, we also have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. The more we live in the fellowship of the Spirit, the more we shall have the grace of Christ, and the more we have the grace of Christ, the more we shall enjoy the love of God. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit brings in the grace of Christ, and in the grace of Christ we have the love of God. Therefore, the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are experienced and enjoyed by the believers simultaneously in the divine dispensing.
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