Message Four

The Triune God—
the Three-one God for His Divine Dispensing
to Carry Out His Eternal Economy

1. There are two basic divine titles for God in the Old Testament:
   1. Elohim (Gen. 1:1) is used in relation to God's creation, and its plurality implies the Divine Trinity, thus denoting the unique yet triune God.
   2. Jehovah (Gen. 2:4) is used in God's relationship with man, and it literally means "He that is who He is; therefore, the eternal I Am," thus denoting the Triune God as the One who is not only eternally existing but also eternally being.
2. God is triune, three-one:
   1. God is only one—Psa. 86:10; Isa. 45:5; 1 Cor. 8:4.
   2. God has the aspect of three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—Matt. 28:19.
3. The three of the Divine Trinity are eternally coexistent:
   1. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all God:
      1. The Father is God—1 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:17.
      2. The Son is God—Heb. 1:8; John 1:1; Rom. 9:5.
      3. The Spirit is God—Acts 5:3-4.
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all eternal:
      1. The Father is eternal—Isa. 9:6.
      2. The Son is eternal—Heb. 1:12; 7:3.
      3. The Spirit is eternal—Heb. 9:14.
   3. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit coexist simultaneously from eternity to eternity—John 14:16-17; Eph. 3:14-17; 2 Cor. 13:14.
4. The three of the Divine Trinity are eternally coinherent:
   1. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit mutually indwell one another—John 14:10-11, 26; 15:26.
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit coexist in Their coinherence, and are thus distinct but not separate—John 5:19, 43; 8:29; 16:32; Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 4:1, 18a; Matt. 12:28.
5. The essential Trinity refers to the essence of the Triune God for His existence:
   1. The Son is the embodiment of the Father (Col. 2:9), and the Spirit is the reality of the Son (John 14:16-18).
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are essentially one, as evidenced by the following:
      1. A Son is given to us, yet His name is called the eternal Father—Isa 9:6.
      2. The Son as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b.
      3. The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) and the Lord Spirit (v. 18).
6. The economical Trinity refers to the plan of the Triune God for His move:
   1. The Father as the Originator makes the divine economy (Eph. 1:9-10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4b); the Son accomplishes the divine economy made by the Father (John 5:19; 8:28); and the Spirit applies to God's elect what the Son has accomplished (16:13).
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are economically three. Yet They are still one in harmony in the economical Trinity (John 10:30; 17:21, 23), as evidenced by the following:
      1. The Father spoke in heaven concerning the Son, the Son stood in the water on the earth, and the Spirit soared as the dove in the air—Matt. 3:16-17.
      2. The Father chose the believers before the foundation of the world, the Son redeemed them in time, and the Spirit sealed them after they believed in the Son—Eph. 1:4, 6-7, 13.
7. The Divine Trinity is for the dispensing of God into His chosen people:
   1. The Triune God's eternal economy according to His heart's desire is to make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in His Godhead, and thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression.
   2. This is accomplished by creating man in His image and after His likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), becoming a man in His incarnation to partake of the human nature (Heb. 2:14a), living a human life to express His attributes through man's virtues, dying an all-inclusive death, resurrecting to become the firstborn Son of God and the life-giving Spirit (Rom. 8:29; Acts 13:33; 1 Cor. 15:45), dispensing Himself into His chosen people to regenerate them with Himself as their life for producing many sons (1 Pet. 1:3), forming the churches with His many sons, and building up the Body of Christ with His brothers as the members to be the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God to consummate the New Jerusalem as His eternal enlargement and expression.
   3. To carry out His dispensing, God needs to be triune:
      1. The Father as the origin is the fountain—Jer. 2:13.
      2. The Son as the expression is the spring—John 4:14.
      3. The Spirit as the transmission is the flow—the river (Rev. 22:1)—the reaching and the application of the Triune God.
   4. Second Corinthians 13:14 says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all," showing that the Divine Trinity is not for the doctrinal understanding of systematic theology but for the dispensing of God Himself into His chosen people to accomplish His economy.
8. God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation and He passed through all the processes to be incorporated with man to be an enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation, consummating the New Jerusalem:
   1. God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation—John 14:10-11:
      1. By coinhering mutually.
      2. By working together as one.
   2. The Triune God in eternity past held a council (Acts 2:23) to make a decision that the second among Them had to become a man and pass through the processes of human living, death, and resurrection so that all the redeemed and regenerated believers of God would be incorporated into God's incorporation to be an enlarged incorporation.
   3. The processed and consummated Triune God and the redeemed and regenerated believers became an enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation in the resurrection of Christ (John 14:20), consummating the New Jerusalem as the corporate God—the enlargement, expansion, and expression of God.