We have seen something in Matthew, and now we must see something in John. Matthew is the start, and John is the end. We know that in the universe there is such a universal principle. There are always two ends. It is really difficult for anything to exist with only one end. There is the front, and there is the rear. There is the right and the left. There is the inside and the outside. There are males and females. There is heaven and earth. There is day and night. And there is the beginning and the ending.
The four Gospels begin with Matthew and end with John. If we only have Matthew without John, we have the beginning without the ending. And if we have John without Matthew, we have only the ending without the beginning. We have seen that Matthew is not a story book or a book of doctrine. It is a book of Emmanuel, who is the Triune God, into whom we have been baptized. Our God firstly became Emmanuel, God with us. Then eventually He was made the life-giving Spirit, embodying the Triune God, into whom we have been baptized. So today we are one Body enjoying the Triune God. This is Matthew. A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son. His name shall be called Emmanuel. Then at the last of the book we are to go and disciple the nations, baptizing them into the Triune God, who is with us until the completion of the age. This is really wonderful!
However, this is just the start. We have been put into Him, but what about Him being put into us? In Matthew we do not have this. Surely the beginning could not have the ending. With our head, there are no feet. The head is the head, and the feet are the feet. So we must go on to see the ending in the Gospel of John. John does not tell us so much that we are in Him, but that He is in us.
First Corinthians 12:13 shows us these two aspects in one verse. “For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” To be baptized is to be put into something. But to drink is to get something into us. When we are baptized in water, that means we have been put into the water. But when we drink the water, that means that the water gets into us. In Matthew we all have been baptized into the Triune God. We were all baptized into one Spirit. Now in John, we all have been made to drink of the one Spirit.
In Matthew 28, we are baptized into the Triune God. In John fourteen, the Triune God is also clearly revealed. First of all, the Lord Jesus told the disciples that He and the Father were one. “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:9-10). This corresponds with Isaiah 9:6, which tells us that the son who is given to us is called the everlasting Father. By these verses we clearly see that the Father and the Son are one.
Then, from verse 17 of John chapter fourteen, the Lord begins to reveal to us that He will become the Spirit of Reality: “And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I am coming to you” (John 14:16-18). When the Spirit of reality comes, He will not only be with us, but also in us. This is simply Jesus in us. The Spirit of reality is Jesus. The pronoun “he” in verse 17 becomes “I” in verse 18. “He” is “I”, and “I” is “he.” He said that He was going to die, but that He was not departing. His going was His coming. After a little while, which was only three days, He came back in the form of the life-giving Spirit. It is just like the flower seed being sown into the earth and growing up as a flower.
We see that John fourteen speaks of the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—just as Matthew twenty-eight. The reason for this is that both of these books tell us that God is going to dispense Himself into us. The so-called Trinity is not a doctrine, it is for dispensing. The purpose of the Trinity is to dispense the Triune God into us. To do this, there was the need of a process. God the Father was in the Son, and the Son became the life-giving Spirit. This is a process in order that God could be dispensed into us.
In both Matthew and John, the principle is the same. Matthew started with a little child being born of a virgin. John started from the beginning. Of course, the beginning in John was a beginning without any beginning. That was eternity past. “In the beginning was the Word...” (John 1:1). John started with the eternal God. Matthew started with a child born of a virgin. But both of these books tell us that He was the Triune God, whether He was God in eternity past, or a child born of a virgin. The very God in eternity past was the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Even that little child born of a virgin was also the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It is really wonderful! Both are for the purpose of dispensing God into us. In Matthew we are put into Him, and in John He comes into us. We were put into Him, and we were made to drink of Him. So Matthew speaks of the baptism, but John speaks of the drinking.