We have seen that in the progressing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of transformation, the believers experience and enjoy the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing. The believers experience and enjoy God as the Father in His love. In this message we shall begin to consider the believers’ experiencing and enjoying Christ as the Son in His grace.
According to the New Testament, grace is what Christ is to us for our enjoyment (John 1:16-17). Grace is actually Christ the Son dispensed into our being for our enjoyment in our experience. Thus, grace is not mainly the work the Lord Jesus does for us; grace is the Triune God in the Son dispensed into us and experienced as our enjoyment. In brief, grace is Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9) experienced and enjoyed by us through the divine dispensing.
John 1:17 says that grace came through Jesus Christ. In our experience we realize that this grace is Christ Himself. When Christ is enjoyed by us in the divine dispensing, that is grace.
Second Corinthians 13:14 speaks of the grace of Christ: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The love of God the Father is the source, the fount, and the grace of Christ is the flow, the expression, of the love of God. Therefore, the love of God is the source, the grace of Christ is the flow, and the fellowship of the Spirit is the transmission of the flow with the source. Grace is actually the Triune God embodied in Christ and transmitted into our being through the Spirit for our experience and enjoyment. This grace issues out from the Father’s love and is transmitted into us by the Spirit.
Second Corinthians 13:14 is our basis for saying that the believers may experience and enjoy Christ as the Son in His grace. The dispensing of the Father is in love, and the dispensing of the Son is in grace. Grace issues from, comes out of, the divine love. The divine love as the source is with the Father. When this love comes with the Son, it becomes grace. This is the reason John 1:17 tells us clearly that grace came with Jesus Christ. Grace, however, is not separate from love. Actually, love and grace are one reality in two stages, or in two aspects. With the Father we experience and enjoy the divine love, and with the Son we experience and enjoy the divine grace. As we experience and enjoy the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing, we experience and enjoy Christ as the Son in His grace.
As the believers experience and enjoy Christ as the Son in His grace, they enjoy Him as their portion. In Colossians 1:12 Paul speaks of Christ as “the portion of the saints.” The Greek word rendered “portion” here may also be translated “lot.” Paul used this term with the Old Testament record of the allotting of the good land to the children of Israel as the background. Each of the twelve tribes received an allotment of the good land, which is an all-inclusive type of Christ. Today the believers have Christ as their portion. As our portion, our lot, Christ is everything to us for our experience and enjoyment.
In 1 Corinthians 1:2 is the expression “our Lord Jesus Christ...theirs and ours.” Christ as the all-inclusive One belongs to all the believers, for He is the portion given to us by God. We have been called by the faithful God into the fellowship of this Christ who is ours (1 Cor. 1:9). The fact that Christ is ours means that He is our portion. All the believers have Christ as their unique portion. We have been called into the fellowship, that is, into the participation and enjoyment, of this portion.
As the believers’ portion, Christ has many aspects. He is God (Titus 1:3; 3:4), the Redeemer (Rom. 3:24), the Passover (1 Cor. 5:7), the Savior (Titus 1:4), wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30), righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), life (Col. 3:4), the Sanctifier (Heb. 2:11; 13:12a), sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30), the redemption of our body (1 Cor. 1:30), the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), the freeing and transforming Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17-18), the door to leave the fold (John 10:9a), the pasture (John 10:9b), the Shepherd (John 10:11), the vine (John 15:1), the abiding place (John 15:4a), the all-inclusive One with the unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8), spiritual food (1 Cor. 10:3; John 6:48, 57b), the rock flowing with the spiritual drink (1 Cor. 10:4), light (John 1:4; Eph. 5:14), the way (John 14:6), the reality (John 14:6), the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), peace (Eph. 2:14; John 14:27; 16:33), joy (John 15:11; 17:13; Phil. 3:1; 4:4), rest (Matt. 11:28-29), the feast (Col. 2:16-17), the new moon (Col. 2:16-17), the Sabbath (Col. 2:16-17), the armor (Eph. 6:11, 13-17), the One living within the believers that they may live Him (Gal. 2:20; John 6:57b; Phil. 1:21), the One being formed within them (Gal. 4:19), the One making His home in their hearts (Eph. 3:17), the One magnified in them (Phil. 1:20), the One empowering them (Phil. 4:13), the treasure of excellent power (2 Cor. 4:7), the depths of God (1 Cor. 2:10), a model (1 Pet. 2:21), the Author and Perfecter of faith (Heb. 12:2), the Captain of salvation (Heb. 2:10), the Forerunner (Heb. 6:20), the Apostle (Heb. 3:1), the High Priest (Heb. 4:14; 7:26), the Husband (2 Cor. 11:2), the Bridegroom (John 3:29), the Head (1 Cor. 11:3), the Lord (Rom. 14:8; Eph. 1:17), the Master (Lord-Eph. 6:9), Master (Sovereign Lord-2 Pet. 2:1; Jude 4), the Friend (John 15:15), the Brother (Rom. 8:29; John 20:17; Heb. 2:11), the Partner (Heb. 1:9; 3:14), the Physician (Matt. 9:12), the Helper (Heb. 13:6), and the Overseer (1 Pet. 2:25). These are the many aspects of Christ (covered in The Conclusion of the New Testament, Messages Fifty through Fifty-seven) as the believers’ all-inclusive portion.
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