Furthermore, we need to abide in the Son that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit may abide in us (John 15:4a; 14:17, 23). Once you get into God, do not get out. You need to abide in Him. To abide implies to enter in further. The depths of God are unfathomable, so we need a further entering into Him. After entering into Him, we have to stay in Him. To stay in Him actually is to enter in further and further. John 15:4a says, “Abide in Me and I in you.” Our abiding becomes a term or condition for His abiding in us.
John 14:17 and 23 indicate that when we abide in the Lord, the Spirit of reality abides in us and the Father comes with the Son to make an abode with us. This indicates that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit abide in you because of your abiding in Him. Your abiding is a term or a condition for His abiding in you, and the fulfilling of this condition furthers your entering into Him. This can be fully proven by your experience. We all need to pray, “Lord, thank You that I am now in You. Lord, thank You that hour after hour I abide in You.” When you abide in Him, you realize He is abiding in you and that His abiding is becoming deeper and deeper in you. This shows us that our entering in is triune and our abiding is also triune. While we are abiding in the Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are abiding in us. This is a kind of triune abiding which brings in a triune entering in further into the Triune God.
Not many Christians are for the proper experience of the Triune God. They know the Trinity in doctrine, and they talk and teach about the Trinity as theology. However, in the Bible the Triune God is revealed to us for our experience. The grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit referred to in 2 Corinthians 13:14 are not for doctrine but for our enjoyment. To be baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is not for doctrine but for bringing us into an organic union with the Triune God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not for us merely to know about, but for us to experience. We need to be born of the Father, joined to the Son, and one with the Spirit. The experience of the Triune God begins with our entering into Him and continues with our abiding in Him. When we abide in Him, He abides in us in His divine Trinity.
Colossians 2:7a indicates that we have been rooted in Christ. This indicates that we believers are like plants and Christ is likened to the soil. We believers, the plants, need to be rooted into the soil, Christ. A tree does not only grow upward but also downward. The root system of a tree grows downward deeply. Quite often, we Christians do not pay attention to our roots or to our being rooted in Christ. We only talk about our growing, but we have to realize that our growing depends upon our rooting. Colossians indicates that we have received Christ as the mystery of God (2:2) and that now we have to be rooted in Him. To be rooted in Christ simply means to enter into Him. When the tree is rooted into the soil, it enters into the soil. When we are rooted in Christ we will enjoy a further entry into the Triune God.
We are rooted in Christ that He may make His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:16-19). In Ephesians 3 the apostle prays that God the Father would grant the believers to be strengthened through God the Spirit into their inner man, that Christ, God the Son, may make His home in their hearts, that is, to occupy their entire being, that they might be filled unto all the fullness of God (vv. 14-19). The phrase “make His home” is only one word in the Greek, katoikeo.This Greek word basically means to settle down in a dwelling, to make a dwelling place. The prefix of this word kata means “down.” This means that Christ is making His home, not upward but downward. In many of today’s cities we see parking lots which are built downward, and in some big cities there is an “underground city” with all types of shops and eating establishments. In the same way, Christ likes to make a home downward or “underground.” Christ is not superficial like many of today’s Christians who “skate on the ice” of the truth contained in the Bible. The Father, according to His wisdom, is exercising His sovereignty to strengthen you through His Spirit into the inner man that Christ may make His home in your heart.
In Ephesians, Paul’s writing is long and redundant. Verses 14 through 19 of chapter three are one long sentence. Verses 3 through 14 of Ephesians 1 are also part of one long sentence. Paul did not care for language, but he only cared for the divine revelation. (For a full explanation of all the details of the apostle’s prayer for the church in Ephesians 3:14-19, it would be profitable to read all the notes on these verses in the Recovery Version.) The reason why Paul writes in such a redundant and seemingly complicated way is because our God is not that simple. He is not merely God, but He is the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The divine mystery of the Trinity is beyond explanation. Martin Luther indicated that if a person can explain the mystery of the Triune God, then that person must be the teacher of God. We do know, however, that our God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, not for us to know doctrinally, but for us to experience. We all need to say, “Thank You, Father! You are the One granting us to be strengthened. You have a plan, You have a purpose, and You are wise. Praise You that You are exercising Your sovereignty to cause us to be strong. Thank You, Father, that You do this through the Spirit. Thank You we are being strengthened into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our heart.”
God the Father is exercising His authority through God the Spirit to strengthen us into the inner man that God the Son may make His home deep down in our hearts. I am sorry to say that some Christians even argue that Christ is not in us. They say that Christ is merely on the throne. They argue that Christ is too great to enter into us small human beings. We all need to declare, however, that the Bible teaches that Christ is not only in us (Col. 1:27) but that He is also making His home downward in our heart. He is housing Himself in our heart.
We all have entered into the Triune God, and we are now abiding in Him. Our abiding in Him affords Him a way to abide in us triunely. The Triune God is now abiding in us, so we have been rooted into Him. While we are rooted into Him, the Father works to strengthen us through God the Spirit that God the Son, Christ, may make His home deep down in our heart which is composed of our mind (Heb. 4:12), will (Acts 11:23), emotion (John 16:6, 22), and conscience (Heb. 10:22). Before He began to make His home in our heart, our mind, emotion, will, and conscience were devoid of Him. However, since we began to pray that God the Father would strengthen us into the inner man, Christ gradually began to occupy our mind, take over our emotion and will, and possess our entire conscience.
Our heart is like a house that has four rooms and these rooms are the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience. Christ has the desire to occupy every room of our heart and every corner of every room. As He makes His home downward in our heart we become strong to apprehend with all the saints the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ (Eph. 3:18). These are the dimensions of the universe. No one knows how wide the breadth is, how long the length is, how high the height is, or how deep the depth is. All these dimensions describe the immeasurable Christ, whose dimensions are the dimensions of the universe. He is the breadth, length, height, and depth. We can only apprehend His universal dimensions with all the saints. Eventually, we know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19). When we are filled unto all the fullness of God, this is the complete entering into this wonderful, marvelous, all-inclusive Triune God. When we enter into the Triune God completely, we have entered into the entire constitution of the New Jerusalem. This is the triune entry.
We have seen that our baptism into the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is triune, that we abide in the Son that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit may abide in us, and that the Father grants us through His Spirit to be strengthened into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our heart. We enjoy a triune entering in, a triune abiding, and a triune making home in our hearts. This is not the teaching of ethics, morality, or character improvement, but the pure teaching according to the pure, divine revelation. We are being filled with the Triune God unto or resulting in the fullness of God, which is the expression of the Triune God as the New Jerusalem. This is our enjoyment and experience in today’s church life.
Today many Christians do not like to talk about the church, but in Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus promised that He would build His church. In order for this to be realized, the church has to enter into a state where so many saints will have Christ making His home deep down in their heart that their entire being would be saturated within with Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, possessing and occupying every corner and every avenue of their entire being. This is the subjective experience of the Triune God and is the very mingling of the Triune God with His chosen and redeemed people. This is divinity mingled with humanity, the composition of the divine God with His redeemed people which is termed the New Jerusalem in this great allegory. We have entered into the Triune God and we are still entering. We are entering, and He is making His home deep down in our heart. The more we enter, the more He deepens. Eventually, He gets into our inward being to such an extent that He has housed Himself in every corner and avenue of our entire being.