In the first section, the four Gospels, this wonderful Person was revealed as the Son of God coming with the Father by the Spirit to be the embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ as God’s tabernacle and God’s temple, living the life of God to develop into the kingdom of God. This is in the Gospels as the initiation.
The Triune God is first revealed in the New Testament as the Son of God in His humanity—Jesus Christ. We must realize, however, that when the Son came, He did not come alone and leave the Father on the throne. This is a wrong thought in the teaching of tritheism. The ones who have this concept use Matthew 3:16-17 as a basis for their belief. In these verses, the Son went up from the water, the Spirit descended upon the Son, and the Father spoke concerning the Son. These verses do prove that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit exist simultaneously. The tritheists, however, press the side of the three in the Godhead too far, and they consider the Father as a God, the Son as another God, and the Spirit as a third God. Many of us have held or even now hold this concept, unconsciously or subconsciously, that there are three Gods.
The New Testament reveals that when the Son of God came, He came with the Father (John 8:29; 16:32). The Son said that He was never alone on this earth because the Father was with Him all the time. The Son was with the Father and by the Spirit. Matthew 1:18 and 20 tells us that Mary “was found having in womb out of the Holy Spirit” (lit.) and “the thing begotten [generated] in her is out of the Holy Spirit” (lit.). The Holy Spirit was the very divine essence that constituted Jesus’ conception. The One who was born of the virgin Mary and named Jesus had the divine essence in His being; this was the reason that He was born not merely as a man but as the God-man. He was the complete God and the perfect Man because the divine essence was His very constitution. Therefore, the Son came in the flesh with the Father and by the Spirit.
Also, the Son with the Father by the Spirit came to be the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9). This One is the Triune God embodied. Do not consider that the Son could be alone, separated from the Father or from the Spirit. According to the entire revelation of the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are coexisting and coinhering from eternity past to eternity future. Coexisting means to exist together at the same time, but coinhering means to exist within one another, to abide in each other. When the Lord Jesus told Philip that He was in the Father and that the Father was in Him, this is coinhering. It is easy to demonstrate the coexistence of three items. It is more than difficult, however, to demonstrate the coinherence of three items. How marvelous it is that the three of the Godhead coexist and coinhere from eternity to eternity!
When Jesus was walking on this earth, He was not separate from the Father, leaving the Father in heaven, and He was not separate from the Spirit, leaving the Spirit as a dove soaring in the sky. He was the Son living in His humanity with the Father and by the Spirit. The Son with the Father and by the Spirit is the embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ. This is fully confirmed by Colossians 2:9 which says, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” The Godhead is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. All of the fullness of the Triune Godhead dwelt in this Man Jesus Christ bodily, so this Man was the embodiment of the Triune God as the Son, with the Father, and by the Spirit.
This embodiment of the Triune God is God’s tabernacle and also God’s temple. In the Old Testament, both the tabernacle and the temple were types of Jesus Christ. John 1:14 tells us that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. This indicates that the humanity of Jesus was a tabernacle to embody God. Furthermore, in John 2:19 and 21 the Lord told us that His body was God’s temple. This embodiment of the Triune God also lived the life of God. He did not live the life of anything else. He did not live the life of an angel or of a good man. He lived the life of God because He was the embodiment of God. He could not live any other life, and He should not have lived any other life. He had to live the unique life of God for the expression of God to develop into the kingdom of God. The four Gospels reveal to us the Person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and they also reveal to us that the life lived by this Person was the life of God. The four Gospels also refer us frequently to the kingdom of God. Many of us do not realize thoroughly what the kingdom is. The kingdom of God is a Person (Luke 17:21), and the development of this wonderful Person (Mark 4:3, 26).
All of this is in the four Gospels as the initiation. The word initiation means to have a start that will usher the entire situation into a new realm. In the four Gospels there is a new start, a new age, and a new dispensation. The Gospels are an initiation to usher the entire situation into a new realm. The Gospels talk about the Son with the Father by the Spirit to be the embodiment of the Triune God in Jesus Christ as God’s tabernacle and God’s temple, living the life of God to develop into the kingdom of God.