In this chapter we shall consider the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity as the divine life. The Divine Trinity is God Himself in His divine person, the divine life is the life of God, and the divine dispensing is the Triune God's dispensing of Himself into us as our life.
The Gospel of John is a Gospel of the divine life. It presents the divine life not in an objective way but in a subjective way. It gives us a particular and wonderful picture of how God came to be a man in order to dispense Himself into man that man may receive Him and enjoy Him as his inner life. According to His divine economy, God's intention was to be one with man. God's desire to be one with man is illustrated in the Bible by eating. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament show us that God is our food. After God created man, He put him in front of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 16-17), indicating that God wanted man to eat of Him and take Him as his life, causing man to become one with Him. The food that we eat is digested and assimilated into us, becoming the constituent of our very being. In the same way, God wanted man to take Him as his food that He might be man's constituent.
In order to carry out His intention, God first became incarnated. Before the incarnation, God was only God, separate from the man created by Him. For God to be incarnated means that He became a man with a human body of blood and flesh (Heb. 2:14). The incarnation of the Divine Trinity dispensed the divine grace and reality to men. John 1:14 says, "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of an only begotten from a father), full of grace and reality." According to the teaching of the New Testament, grace is God Himself given to us for our enjoyment. Grace is not something outward, such as a good house, a good car, or a good business. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul indicated that grace is a person, saying, "I labored more abundantly than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Grace is God Himself to be received and enjoyed by man.
Reality in John 1:14 is the very God whom we touch, gain, and possess. Nothing is as real as God. Other than God, everything is vanity of vanities (Eccl. 1:2). When we receive God, we have the reality. Both grace and reality are God Himself. God became flesh in order to dispense Himself into us. When He is dispensed into us, He is the grace we enjoy, and He is the reality we possess. The purpose of God's incarnation was for God to dispense Himself to us as grace and reality.