In this message we shall begin to consider the believers’ enjoying the dispensing of the divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation by living in the organism of the divine Trinity and participating in the dispensing of the divine Trinity.
The Lord’s word in John 14-16 is profound and mysterious. In these chapters, the crucial center of the Gospel of John, it is not the Lord’s intention to give a superficial sermon to His followers. On the contrary, here the Lord is seeking to bring the disciples into the depths of the inexhaustible, divine mysteries. These mysteries include the Father’s house with its many abodes, the vine, and the newborn child.
Chapters fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen of the Gospel of John reveal that the believers in Christ live in the organism of the divine Trinity and participate in the dispensing of the divine Trinity. The divine Trinity has an organism that is constituted of Christ and all His members. Christ is organic, and His members also are organic. Christ and His members have been brought together into a divine constitution to form an organic entity, the organism of the divine Trinity. The believers live in this organism and thus participate in the dispensing of the divine Trinity. This is for our transformation, which results in conformation to the image of the firstborn Son of God.
As those living in the organism of the divine Trinity, the believers have been convicted by the Spirit of reality (John 16:8-11). The Spirit of reality (John 16:13) is commonly called the Spirit of truth. In the writings of John, truth denotes not doctrines but divine realities. Hence, the Spirit of reality or truth is the Spirit of the divine realities. We have been convicted by such a Spirit concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
John 16:8-11 says of the Spirit, “Having come, He will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” First, the Spirit convicts concerning sin, which entered through Adam (Rom. 5:12). We were born of sin in Adam. The only way to be freed from sin is to believe in Christ, the Son of God. If we believe in Him, He will be righteousness to us, and we shall be justified in Him (Rom. 3:24; 4:25). If we do not repent of the sin in Adam and believe in Christ the Son of God, we shall remain in sin and share the judgment of Satan for eternity.
In John 16:9 the Lord Jesus said that the Spirit of reality will convict the world concerning sin “because they do not believe in Me.” Here we see that the unique sin for perishing is to not believe in the Son. Hence, sin in 16:9 is the unwillingness to be transferred from Adam into Christ. There is no need for a person to commit sin in order to perish. Simply by refusing to believe in the Lord Jesus he will be qualified for perishing. The unique way to escape our sinful situation is to believe in the Lord, and the unique sin that qualifies us for perishing is not to believe in Him. For this reason, according to the New Testament, God will judge the unbelievers in this age not according to the Ten Commandments but according to one unique commandment-the commandment to repent and believe in the Son of God. The unique commandment God gives to the world today is to believe in the Son of God. Therefore, when the Lord judges the unbelievers, He will inquire if they have believed in the Son of God. The Spirit of the divine realities has come to convict us concerning the sin of unbelief. Anyone who does not believe in the Son of God will remain a sinner in Adam until the time comes for him to be judged.
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