The crucial focus of the book of Ephesians is the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into all the believers. In other messages we have pointed out that this book is structured with the Trinity. For example, a meeting hall may be structured mainly with steel, wood, and stone. In like manner, the entire book of Ephesians is structured with the Divine Trinity.
Now let us come to Ephesians chapter one. As the title of this message indicates, the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in Ephesians issues in the church. This means that the divine dispensing produces the church. Without the dispensing the church cannot be produced. Chapter one tells us that the church, the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all, is the issue of God’s dispensing Himself into His believers.
Ephesians 1:2 says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Most Christians, including myself, have simply read this verse and taken for granted that they understand it. Although I had read this verse for many years, I did not realize what grace and peace are. Now I see that grace in the New Testament is nothing less than God dispensed into our being for our enjoyment (John 1:14, 17; Rom. 5:17, 21; 1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9; 13:14; Gal. 6:18; 1 Pet. 4:10; 5:10). Grace is a Person, the very God Himself, dispensed into our spirit to be our life and life supply so that we may enjoy Him. If you read the New Testament with this understanding, the word grace will be much more meaningful. Grace denotes God as our enjoyment.
What is peace? Peace surely does not refer simply to a calm situation in our environment. Peace is not something outward, but something inward. Peace within us is the result of the enjoyment of grace. When we enjoy God as grace, the result is peace. Peace is the issue, the result, the fruit, of our enjoyment of the very God within us, the One who has been dispensed into us.
According to my experience, such a peace implies five matters. First, it implies rest. If you do not have rest, you cannot have peace. Peace also implies comfort, enjoyment, satisfaction, and joy. When I enjoy God as my inward portion, I have rest, comfort, enjoyment, satisfaction, and joy. This is peace. Outwardly I may have problems, yet inwardly I have the enjoyment of God, and I am a happy person. This is peace as the issue of the enjoyment of God as our grace. This enjoyment of the divine grace and peace is to the saints and the faithful in Christ Jesus, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (vv. 1-2).
How can we have the enjoyment of God that results in peace? We can have this by the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. If you read chapter one of Ephesians again with this kind of understanding, it will be a new chapter to you.
We all need to have our mind renewed when we come to the Bible. This means we need to drop our understanding from the past. The old understanding which we have picked up in the past has become a thick veil upon our eyes. I hope that all the layers of the veils will be taken away from our eyes. Then we shall be able to take the Bible purely as it is and see the pure Word. The pure Word indicates that grace and peace may be to us by the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The first item is the Father’s dispensing. The Father, our God, is wonderful. He is one unique God, yet He is triune. He is one God, yet He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I cannot tell you how this can be, nor can I explain it. Martin Luther said that if we fully understood the Trinity, we must be God. Only God knows this. It is too mysterious. We cannot understand how the one unique God can be triune. Even the more, no one can explain it. Through nearly twenty centuries of Christian history, teachers and theologians have tried to explain the Trinity. But in doing so they have made mistakes and caused problems. We have learned a lesson from them and received a warning, so that we do not like to explain too much. We prefer to speak according to what the pure Word reveals.