The Father is the source, and the Son is the expression, the accomplisher (John 1:18; Heb. 1:3). The source and the expression are not two things, but one thing with two aspects. It has the aspect of the source and the aspect of the expression. The Father as the source is the initiator. He initiated all things, including the planning. The Son, as the expression, is the accomplisher. Whatever the Father planned, the Son accomplished. So the Son is the accomplisher.
The Son was sent by the Father, and He came in the Father’s name (John 5:43). By reading the Gospel of John you could see that the Lord Jesus never did anything in His own name. He always did everything in the Father’s name. This point is marvelous! But it is not easy to understand. Let me illustrate it in this way: as a husband, you like to be a good husband. Surely you have made up your mind to be a good husband. But let me ask: When you made up your mind to be a good husband, did you do it in the name of Christ? In whose name did you make up your mind? Probably you would have to say in your own name. Although we have been redeemed, and regenerated, and even though we may love the Lord very much, yet we do nearly everything in our own name. We do very few things in the Lord’s name. Sometimes at the end of our prayer we may say, “In the name of Jesus.” Some have said that we are not qualified to pray, so we should not sign our name at the end of our prayer. They say this is like putting your signature on a check, but having no deposit in the bank under this name. So the check can never be honored. You had better put the signature of Jesus. When the heavenly bank sees this check, it will honor it right away. So at the end of every prayer, we should say, “In the name of Jesus.” No, it doesn’t mean that. What does it mean? Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This means Paul lived in the name of Christ. This is like Christ not coming in His own name, but in the Father’s name. He was the Son, yet He came not in the Son’s name, but in the Father’s name.
The name Christian was given by outsiders in ancient times as a kind of nickname because the early saints lived, not in their own name, but in the name of Christ. In other words, they did not live themselves. They lived Christ. So in the eyes of the outsiders, they were Christ. They were Christ-men. Christian simply means a Christ-man, a man who lives Christ.
When the Son came He did not simply represent the Father. When He came, the Father came (John 6:46). He came in the Father’s name; He lived the Father. This is just for the Father’s dispensing in the Son and through the Son. When you have the Son, you have the Father, because the Father came in the Son’s coming. When the Son brought the Father to His believers, it was for the divine dispensing.
This wonderful One came to tabernacle among men (John 1:14; 16:4b). The tabernacle, of course, is a figure of speech, and to understand it, you have to study the tabernacle in Exodus. In Exodus there was a tabernacle which typified God incarnated in humanity. The building elements in the tabernacle—acacia wood overlaid with gold—show humanity and divinity. Wood signifies humanity, and gold signifies divinity. In the tabernacle divinity is joined to humanity, and humanity is overlaid with divinity. The tabernacle signifies God in humanity.
This very God as the tabernacle is enterable. When God remains in His divinity, He is not approachable. In His divinity, He dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). But He became incarnated in the flesh, and this incarnate God in the flesh becomes the enterable tabernacle. In the ancient days, the priests could enter into the tabernacle, which was a type of God incarnated. So the incarnated God, the very divinity in humanity, now becomes enterable. His redeemed people, His priests, His serving ones, can enter into Him and dwell in Him and enjoy Him. The Son of God came not just to dwell among us, but to tabernacle. If He had come only to dwell among us, we could never enter into Him to dwell in Him. But He came to tabernacle among us. He becomes our dwelling place. We can enter into Him.
What, or who, is the tabernacle? Chapter one of John says that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (vv. 1, 14). Here is one entity, the tabernacle, that signifies the Word, the Triune God, and the Triune God in the flesh. How wonderful! This One is full of grace and reality. This is the dispensing of the Trinity, first in the Father, and then in the Son. The tabernacle signifies not only the Son, but also the very Triune God in the flesh.
In the Gospel of John, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are distinct, but they are not separate. Why are they not separate? It is because the Son, when He was sent by the Father, came with the Father (John 6:46). He not only came with the Father, but He also said that He was in the Father, and the Father was in Him (John 14:10-11). The Father sent the Son, and the Son came with the Father. Otherwise, the Son could never have been the tabernacle. The Son had to be all-inclusive so that He could be the tabernacle, the enterable God. I know that this kind of expression, the enterable God, is new to you. You have heard of the almighty God and the omnipresent God, but you probably have never heard of the enterable God. Just to know that He is almighty and omnipresent does not mean so much, but to know that He is enterable means a lot. By tabernacling among us, our God became enterable.