Prayer: Lord, we praise and thank You that You are here with us. We believe that You will speak to us in Your Spirit. Lord, may You speak more. Speak within us, and speak through our speaking. May there be word upon word and Spirit upon Spirit so that every one of us would meet You and be touched by You. May You gain the glory. May Satan be shamed, and may the saints be blessed. Amen!
These messages are on Romans 8. Romans 8 can be considered as the most profound chapter in the Bible. It is profound in two aspects: first, our God is the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; second, this Triune God is working Himself into our tripartite being. According to the revelation of the Bible, God is triune. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This means that the One whom we serve, worship, believe in, receive, and live by is the Triune God. This Triune God has a very profound distinction: He is the unique God, yet He is of three persons. That is why He is called the Triune God.
The word triune does not seem to be an accurate mathematical number. This word comes from Latin and is formed from two words: tri, which means three, and une, which means one. Therefore, the word triune means three-one.
According to the record of the Bible, before the Lord Jesus became flesh, and even before His resurrection, He had never revealed to man the Divine Trinity. It was not until He passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, death, and resurrection that He revealed this matter to man. When He entered into resurrection, He immediately became the life-giving Spirit. This is a tremendous thing. Let me say this again: Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God who has passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit is the Spirit of life described in Romans 8. Before His ascension, He appeared to His disciples and charged them: “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:18-19). The name in which people are to be baptized is the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three, yet the name is one. There are three persons with only one name. This name is the aggregate title of the Divine Being. It represents the Triune God Himself.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From this, we can see that the Word can never be separated from God. The two are one. The Word is the definition, explanation, and expression of God. This Word not only speaks forth God, but speaks God into man, because this Word is the defined, explained, and expressed God. One day this Word became flesh (John 1:14). The One who became flesh was the Word, who was God, the complete Triune God. For the Word to become flesh is for the Triune God to become a man of flesh. In this way, He became a sinless God-man, being the complete God as well as the perfect man, having divinity as well as humanity. This is Jesus. This is also the Triune God.
This God-man Jesus remained on earth with the disciples for three and a half years. One day, His disciple Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father and it suffices us” (John 14:8). After the Lord Jesus heard this, He answered, “Am I so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father....The words which I speak to you, I do not speak from Myself; but the Father who abides in Me, He does His works” (John 14:9-10). The Lord was rebuking Philip and seemed to be saying, “Why do you ask Me? Don’t you know that I am just the Father?” This shows us that the Second of the Triune God, the Son, is the First of the Triune God, the Father. The Son is the Father.
After this, the Lord Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever; even the Spirit of reality...He abides with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you” (John 14:16-18). This Spirit of reality is just the Lord Himself. This shows that the Christ in the flesh has passed through death and resurrection to become the Spirit of life. This Spirit of life is the pneumatic Christ. This Spirit is the reality of Christ (1 John 5:6, 20), making Christ real in the believers. Hence, the Third of the Triune God, the Spirit, is also the reality of the Second, the Son. Furthermore, the Lord Jesus told the disciples, “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). That day refers to the day of the Lord’s resurrection. On the day of His resurrection, the Third of the Triune God, the Spirit, who is the other Comforter, came into the disciples with all the reality of the Triune God to abide in them. At that time, the disciples knew that the Son was in the Father, the disciples were in the Son, and the Son was in the disciples. Because the Son is in the Father, when the Son comes into us, the Father also comes into us. The Triune God-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-are joined as one with us, the believers.
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