We have seen that the divine dispensing through the Father's choosing and predestinating, through the Son's redeeming, and through the Spirit's sealing causes us to have the Father's holy nature and divine life. Through the Father's holy nature and divine life with the Son's divine element, we are constituted into a treasure which the Father can inherit. We become the Father's inheritance through the Son's redeeming us into His divine element. Ultimately, we also receive the Spirit's sealing through the divine dispensing. The Holy Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God is the sealing ink which continually seals us throughout our entire Christian life until the day of the redemption of our body (Eph. 1:14). The holy nature, the divine life, the divine inheritance as the issue of Christ's divine element, and the sealing ink issue in the organic Body of Christ.
The Gospel of John is a book concerning the divine dispensing. The first point of God's dispensing introduced in the Gospel of John is incarnation. The most crucial verse in chapter one is verse 14, which says, "And the Word became flesh..." From my youth, I was told that the subject of the Gospel of John is Christ as the divine person, and that this book presents Christ as the very God. This is because the gospel is a matter of receiving the divine life, which is Christ Himself. Christ became the embodiment of the divine life (John 1:4) through incarnation. Though I had received this teaching sixty years ago, I did not have the deep impression that the incarnation was the first step of God's dispensing. Now I realize that incarnation was for God to dispense Himself into man. Man was created by God in His image with the definite purpose of being one with God.
The oneness that God desires with man is illustrated by what takes place when we eat, digest, and assimilate food. When you eat a sandwich, your stomach works to digest and assimilate the contents of that sandwich. Another word for this process is dispensing. Digestion and assimilation are dispensing. After a few hours, the sandwich disappears within you to become one with you. Eventually, the sandwich is mingled with you. This is the kind of oneness God desires to have with man. To obtain this oneness God has made Himself edible. He is the bread of life (John 6:35, 57). The first stanza and chorus of hymn #1145 in Hymns say:
God gave His Son to man to be
The tree of life so rich and free,
That every man may taste and see
That God is good for food.
Yes, God is good for food!
Yes, God is good for food!
We've tasted and we testify
That God is good for food!
Our God is good for food. He is not only good for salvation and redemption; He is also good for food. In John 6:51 Jesus said, "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever." In the wilderness the children of Israel ate manna every day (Exo. 16:14-15, 21). They lived on that supply of manna for forty years. In the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus revealed Himself as the real manna. He should not be eaten only once a year but every day. Jesus is our daily manna. We must eat Him every day.
We need to eat Him every day, and we need to be revived by Him each day. In the ancient time, the Israelites had to collect the manna before the rising of the sun, because when the sun became hot, the manna melted (Exo. 16:21). It is the same with our practice of morning revival. We must rise up early. If you are lazy and like to sleep late in the morning, you will miss the manna. You need to rise earlier, before the rising of the sun, in order to pick up Christ as your daily manna. You must eat Christ. This is the divine thought in the divine Word.