Message Six

Not Nullifying the Grace of God
but Receiving and Enjoying
the Grace of God in Our Spirit

Scripture Reading: Gal. 2:20-21; 5:4; 3:2, 5; 6:17-18

1. God’s eternal economy is for His people to enjoy Him as the Triune God who has been processed to become the life-giving Spirit through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension so that they might be constituted with Him for His corporate expression today in the church life and in the next age and for eternity in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 3:8-11; cf. Rev. 1:11-12; 21:2.
2. Grace is Christ Himself, the embodiment of the Triune God, as the life-giving Spirit for our enjoyment; to nullify the grace of God means that in our experience we deny Christ the opportunity to live in us and do not live by the Spirit—John 1:1, 14, 16-17; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 15:10, 45b; Gal. 2:21; 4:19; 5:25; cf. Col. 2:19:
   1. To go back to the law is to reject this grace, to nullify this grace, to fall from grace—Gal. 2:21; 5:4:
      1. To fall from grace is to be brought to nought, reduced to nothing, separated from Christ, deprived of all profit from Christ—cf. John 15:4-5.
      2. The present evil, religious age keeps people away from the real enjoyment of Christ; the Lord’s recovery is to recover Christ as everything to us for our enjoyment—Gal. 1:4; 2 Cor. 11:2-3; 1 Cor. 1:9.
      3. If we go to anything other than Christ, such as the law or character improvement, and do not cleave to Christ that we may enjoy Him all the time, our enjoyment of Christ will be confiscated—cf. Col. 2:18.
   2. We need to stand fast in the grace into which we have entered—Rom. 5:1-2:
      1. If we would be those who do not nullify the grace of God, we need to abide in Christ, which is to remain in the processed Triune God—John 15:4-5.
      2. Furthermore, we need to enjoy Christ, especially by eating Him (6:57b).
      3. Then we should go on to be one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), to walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25), to deny the natural “I” (2:20), and to abandon the flesh (5:24).
   3. Galatians begins with our being rescued from the present evil age, and it ends with the grace of the Lord with our spirit; we need to be rescued out of the present evil age of religion, which is mostly in our mind, to the wonderful enjoyment of Christ in our spirit—1:4; 6:18; John 4:24.
3. We need to be those who are receiving and enjoying the grace of the Lord in our spirit; the receiving of Christ as the Spirit of grace is a lifelong, continuous matter—John 1:16; Heb. 10:29b:
   1. Day by day a marvelous divine transmission should be taking place: God is supplying the Spirit of grace bountifully, and we should be receiving the Spirit of grace continually—Gal. 3:2-5; John 3:34:
      1. The way to open ourselves to the heavenly transmission to receive the supply of the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit of grace is to exercise our spirit to pray and call on the Lord—1 Thes. 5:16-18; Rom. 10:12-13.
      2. As we receive the Triune God as our grace and enjoy Him as grace, we shall gradually become one with Him organically; He will become our constituent, and we shall become His expression—2 Cor. 1:12; 12:9.
   2. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of God, is the bountiful supply of the Triune God (who is embodied in the Son and realized as the life-giving Spirit) enjoyed by us through the exercise of our human spirit; grace is in our spirit for our remaining in God’s eternal economy—Gal. 6:18:
      1. Grace is the moving, acting, and anointing of the Spirit within us, and our spirit is the only place where we can experience grace—v. 18; Heb. 10:29b.
      2. The way to receive and enjoy grace is to turn to the spirit, exercise the spirit, and enthrone the Lord:
         1. The throne of grace is in our spirit, and we need to receive the abundance of grace into our inward parts so that grace may reign within us for us to reign in life over Satan, sin, and death—Heb. 4:16; Rom. 5:17, 21; cf. Rev. 4:2.
         2. Whenever we come to the throne of grace by turning to our spirit and calling on the name of the Lord, we should enthrone the Lord, giving Him the headship, the kingship, and the lordship within us—Col 1:18b; Rev. 2:4.
         3. God’s throne is the source of the flowing grace; whenever we fail to enthrone the Lord, dethroning Him, the flow of grace stops—22:1.
         4. If we enthrone the Lord Jesus within us, the Spirit as the river of water of life will flow out from the throne of grace to supply us; in this way we shall receive grace and enjoy grace—v. 1; Hymns, #770.
4. As we bear the brands of Jesus, we enjoy the grace of Christ—Gal. 6:17-18:
   1. The word brands in verse 17 refers to the marks branded on slaves to indicate their owners; with Paul, a slave of Christ (Rom. 1:1), the brands were physically the scars of his wounds received in his faithful service to his Master (2 Cor. 11:23-27).
   2. Spiritually, the brands of Jesus signify the characteristics of the life that he lived, a life like the one the Lord Jesus lived on this earth; such a life is continually crucified (John 12:24), does the will of God (6:38), does not seek its own glory but the glory of God (7:18), and is submissive and obedient to God, even unto the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8).
   3. If we bear the brands of Jesus and live a crucified life, we shall enjoy the grace of Christ as the supply of the life-giving Spirit in our spirit for us to minister Christ as God’s grace to God’s household—3:10; 2 Cor. 4:10-11; Eph. 3:2.
5. The grace of the Lord Jesus dispensed to His believers throughout the New Testament age consummates in the New Jerusalem as the consummation of God’s good pleasure in uniting, mingling, and incorporating Himself with man for His glorious enlargement and expression—Rev. 22:21; Eph. 2:10.