In the foregoing message we pointed out that God’s purpose is to obtain the church by dispensing Himself into man and making Himself one with man. In order to dispense Himself into man, God must be triune, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Furthermore, man must be in God’s image and have a spirit to receive God and assimilate Him. One day, the Son of God, the embodiment of the Father, became a man. Passing through human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit. As the Spirit, He comes into us and mingles with our spirit. Through this process there is brought into being a hybrid life, an entity composed of the mingling of the divine life with the human life. This is the church.
God is no longer the unprocessed God, but the processed God. He has accomplished everything necessary to come into us as the life-giving Spirit. Now we must believe in Him and call on the name of the Lord Jesus. When we do this, the life-giving Spirit comes into our spirit, and the mingling of the divine life and the human life takes place within us. This mingling produces the church.
The book of Ephesians contains the fullest revelation of the Triune God in the Scriptures. For example, in chapter three Paul speaks of the fullness of God (v. 19), the riches of Christ (v. 8), and the power of the Spirit (v. 16). The fullness implies that the riches of all that God is become His expression. Colossians 2:9 says that the fullness of God dwells in Christ bodily. This means that Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of God, the embodiment of all that God is. When the fullness of God is embodied in Christ, there are the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ are realized through the power of the Spirit. Hence, Christ is the embodiment of God’s fullness, and the Spirit is the realization of Christ’s riches. To have the fullness of God, we must have Christ. Furthermore, to enjoy the riches of Christ, we must have the Spirit.
In the Gospel of John, the Spirit is called the Spirit of reality. The Spirit of reality makes real to the believers all that the Son is and has. Embodied in the Son is all that the Father is and has, and all that the Son is and has is revealed as reality to the believers through the Spirit (John 16:14-15). For example, Christ is life. However, if we do not touch the Spirit, we cannot have this life. But as we touch the Spirit, we experience the reality of Christ as life. In like manner, Christ is light. But if we do not contact the Spirit, we cannot be enlightened by Christ. When we contact the Spirit, we enjoy the reality of Christ as light.
Today our Triune God is the all-inclusive Spirit. Do not regard the Spirit as something other than Christ, nor think of Christ as separate from God the Father. No, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one. This is the reason that we refer to God as triune, as three in one. No one can adequately define the Trinity. God the Father is in God the Son, and God the Son has become the Spirit who gives life. For the sake of the church, the fullness of God is embodied in Christ that the riches of Christ may be made real to us through the Spirit. The more we contact the Spirit, the more we enjoy Christ’s riches. Eventually we shall be filled unto all the fullness of God and be fully mingled with the Triune God.
In 2:18 all Three of the Triune God are mentioned: “For through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.” Through Christ the Son we have access in one Spirit unto the Father. How wonderful! Notice that this verse does not say that we have access unto the Spirit. It speaks of access unto the Father. The Spirit is unto us, whereas we are unto the Father. The Father came to us in the Son, and the Son came into us as the Spirit. Now through the Son the Spirit brings us unto the Father. This is for the dispensing of the Triune God into us so that the church may come into existence. Once again we see that the church is produced by the mingling of the Triune God with humanity.