The Amplified Bible renders Psalm 68:18 as, “You have ascended on high. You have led away captive a train of vanquished foes.” We may also render the last phrase, “a host of vanquished foes.” It was on the cross and by His resurrection that the Lord vanquished the foes, defeated them, and disarmed them. Then when He ascended to the heavens, He led a train, a parade, of defeated foes. In the ancient times, when a general went to war, gained the victory, and captured his foes, he returned victoriously with a train of defeated foes in a parade to show his victory. This is the thought in Psalm 68:18. Christ was the General who went to the battlefield and won the victory. He defeated the foes, disarmed them, and captured them. Then they became a parading train, a host, a defeated army, to show people what kind of victory the General had won. When Christ ascended on high to the heavens, He led away such a parade of defeated foes to show His victory and declare that all the negative things in the universe had been dealt with.
By this time we have gained more understanding concerning Christ’s ascending on high. In the Triune God, the Father is the source, the Son is the course, and the Spirit is the flow within the course. This is the water of life. The Father is the source, the fountain, of living water. This source flows out through the Son, who is the course. In this course there is the flow of the river of life. This is the Triune God flowing out and flowing into us as life. This is not a human thought; this is the true revelation of the Word. Throughout the past twenty centuries, only a few Christian teachers here and there have touched this matter a little. Generally speaking, nearly all of Christianity has lost this concept and revelation. In these last days we have the inner sense of the moving Spirit that the Lord will recover this once more. Again and again the ministering Spirit has been striving to this end.
At the beginning of the Bible there was a flow beside the tree of life (Gen. 2:9-10). Then this flow is found throughout the entire Bible. In the Old Testament there is the smitten rock that flowed out the living water (Exo. 17:6), and there is the flow in Psalm 46:4, Ezekiel 47:1-12, and Zechariah 14:8. In the New Testament there is the flow of living water in John 4 and 7 and in 1 Corinthians 10 and 12. Verse 13 of chapter twelve says that we “were all given to drink one Spirit.” This means that the Spirit is water to us. Eventually we come to Revelation 21 and 22, where we again see the flow. This flow is the water of life, which is God Himself.
In the Bible there are several portions that tell us that God is the fountain. Psalm 36:8 and 9 say, “They are saturated with the fatness of Your house, / And You cause them to drink of the river of Your pleasures. / For with You is the fountain of life.” This verse speaks of both the river and the fountain. God is the living water to us; this is the divine concept, the divine thought.
The Father is the source, the Son is the course, and the Spirit is the flow within the course. I do want you to be impressed by this concept. Hymns, #12 says, “O God, Thou art the source of life.” This source of life flows out in the Son and as the Spirit. Eventually this flow of living water—the Triune God in three persons—flows into us, the man of spirit, soul, and body. In Genesis 2:10 the river in the garden divided and became four branches. Four here represents man, meaning that this one river flows to this man and into man. From Himself as the source, God flows out and flows into man. This flowing out and flowing in eventually issues in a universal mingling of God with man. It is by this flow that God is brought into man, and it is also by this flow that man is brought into God. Therefore, the Lord said, “Abide in Me and I in you” (John 15:4). Who is this “Me?” It is God. To abide in Me means to abide in God. Who then is this “I?” It is also God. John 14:20 says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” This is the mingling of God with man by the flow. I wish to make this very clear to you. This is something very basic concerning the inner life and the church life.