The Father sent the Son, and He came with the Son (John 17:8 and note 2). We do not have the ability to explain this. As a rule when I send you, and you go for me, I stay home. But when the Father sent the Son, it was not like this. When He sent the Son, He came with the Son. The Greek preposition para means not only “from” but “from with.” In his note on John 6:46, J. N. Darby says that para means from with. This indicates that when the Son came, He came with the Father. The Father sent the Son, and He came with the Son. In John 16:32 the Lord said, “Behold, an hour is coming and has come, when you shall be scattered each to his own, and shall leave Me alone; and I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” Here the Lord told us clearly that He was not alone, but the Father who sent Him was with Him. The Lord had previously spoken the same kind of word in 8:29: “And He Who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
The Father not only comes with the Son, but after the Son comes to live and work on the earth, the Father lives with Him and works with Him. When He lives, the Father lives. When He works, the Father works. The Gospel of John tells us clearly that while the Son speaks, the Father works (14:10-11).
Before the Lord Jesus went to the cross to die, He spoke to His disciples in this way: “All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He receives of Mine and shall disclose it to you” (John 16:15). This verse indicates that whatever the Father has is the Son’s. The Son does not come in His own name; He comes in the Father’s name (John 5:43). The Son does not seek His own will, but seeks the Father’s will (John 5:30). He does not speak His own word; He speaks the Father’s word (John 14:24), and He does the Father’s work (John 4:34), not His own work. Who is He? He is the Son with the Father. The Father was with the Son, and the Father gave everything to the Son. Thus, the Father was embodied in the Son (Col. 2:9).
After the Father gave all that He had to the Son and was thus embodied in the Son, He gave the Son to us (John 3:16). We have been given not only the Son, but the Son with the Father. The Father is with the Son, and the Father has given Himself to the Son. So when the Father gives the Son to us, we have both.
The consummation of the dispensing of the Father is that the Father abides in us with the Son by the Spirit (John 14:23; 1 John 3:24; 4:13). The Father can never abide in us just by Himself. He abides in us with the Son and by the Spirit. When One comes, we have all Three. This is the Father in the Son by the Spirit. We all need a vision to see this! God’s economy is to reveal Himself as the Father with the Son by the Spirit as a living Person. This divine Person has become a gift to you. This divine gift can never be exhausted. He is in you, He is abiding in you, He is dwelling in you to be your life, your life supply, and your everything.
You do not need any religious teaching. Life does not need any teaching. There is no need to educate a peach tree so that it will not bring forth bananas. As the peach tree grows it will bring forth peaches, not bananas. The Gospel of John does not teach us how to behave ourselves. In this Gospel we are charged first to believe in Him, and then to love Him. The Lord Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (John 14:23). This is to dwell in us to be our life.
Regardless of how many life-messages you have studied and how many conferences you have attended, I am afraid that, unconsciously, you have a natural religious thought still remaining in you. You still want to improve yourself, to do better, to adjust yourself, to correct yourself. This is the leaven we have inherited from our background. My burden is to unload you from all this leaven. May the Lord enlighten your inner man that you may see. He does not want to correct you. He wants to regenerate you. He wants to transform you. He wants to live in you as your life, as your life supply, and as your everything.
First, the Father comes with the Son, and then He abides in you with the Son by the Spirit. When He abides in you, the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—abide in you to be your life, your life supply, and your everything. You don’t need to adjust yourself. You don’t need to improve yourself. You need the Father abiding in you with the Son by the Spirit. Hallelujah! We have the Father, and we have the Son and the Spirit. We have the Triune God abiding in us! May we all see such a vision. This is the Father’s dispensing.
All the points covered in this message—the source, the sending, the coming with the Son, the living and working in the Son, the giving of all that the Father has to the Son, the giving the Son to us, and the dwelling in us with the Son by the Spirit—are for the dispensing of the Father Himself into our being. Hallelujah! We have such a dispensing within us. The Father abides in us with the Son by the Spirit.