In this message we shall cover the remaining aspects of the believers’ experiencing the dispensing of the divine Trinity corporately by living in the church.
As we live in the church, we love all the brothers; that is, we love one another. The reason for this is that, as Romans 12:9-21 indicates, in the church the believers live a life of the highest virtues of the divine life and love. In verse 9a Paul says, “Let love be without hypocrisy,” and in 10a he continues, “Love one another warmly in brotherly love.” This corresponds to Peter’s word about loving “one another from the heart fervently” (1 Pet. 1:22).
In John 13:34 and 35 the Lord Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men shall know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” This commandment is the message which we “heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11). We should not try in a natural way to fulfill this word. We may realize that God is love (1 John 4:8) and that we are commanded to love one another. Then in a natural, religious, and ethical way we may try to love others, imitating God’s love. In our nature as human beings there is the tendency to love in this way. This kind of love is ethical, natural, and even cultural. However, real love is the issue of enjoying the processed Triune God in the divine dispensing. When we are in the fellowship of the divine life, that is, in the enjoyment of the Triune God, this enjoyment will have a certain issue or outcome. The outcome of the enjoyment of the Triune God is the divine love. When we enjoy the Triune God, this enjoyment issues in the divine love. With this love we spontaneously love others. In particular, we love all those who are organically related to our begetting Father (1 John 5:1). We have been begotten of the Father, and many others also have been begotten of Him. If we enjoy Him, the result will be that we love all His children. Therefore, loving the brothers is the issue of enjoying the Triune God.
Instead of trying to imitate the Lord’s love, we need to be constituted of the Triune God who is love. This One abides in us and wants to impart Himself into our being and saturate us with Himself so that we may enjoy Him inwardly as love. This love should saturate us until it becomes the love with which we love the brothers.
The revelation concerning love in the New Testament is different from our natural concept of love. The very God who is love abides in us, and we abide in Him. According to 1 John 3:24, “We know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave to us.” This Spirit keeps us in an organic union with the Triune God who is love, causing this God to become our life and even our being. Furthermore, this Spirit is saturating us with the substance of the God who is love. Eventually, the fibers of our being will be constituted of the loving essence of God. This means that the divine love becomes us. Then spontaneously we love others. However, we do not love them by our own love; we love them by God as our love. What a great difference there is between this kind of love and the love that is simply a human attempt to imitate the love of God!
According to the New Testament, the love the believers have for one another is actually a triangular love, a love that involves three parties. As a child of God born of Him, we surely love our Father, the One who has begotten us. Since we love the begetting Father, we shall also love those who have been begotten of Him. Here we have a triangular love, a love involving God, ourselves, and all those born of God. This triangular love is in the organic union with the Triune God who is love.
How is it possible for believers to love God and to love one another? This is possible only because we have had the divine birth (John 1:12-13; 1 John 5:1; 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:4, 18). We have been born of God, begotten of Him, and because of this birth we are able to love one another. Therefore, the triangular love is related to the divine birth. Now we love not only the One who has begotten us, our begetting Father, but also the ones begotten of Him. This is the love with which the believers love one another in the church life.
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