The focal point of the Bible is not practices, doctrines, or ordinances—it is the living Person of the Son of God. In 1:15 and 16 Paul said that it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. Concerning the Son of God, many are still under the influence of the traditional teachings in Christianity with respect to the Trinity. The New Testament reveals that God the Father loved the world and gave His Son for us (John 3:16). But the problem we face is how to understand this. In what way did the Father send His Son? One day, Philip said to the Lord Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and it suffices us” (John 14:8). Surprised at such a request, the Lord said, “Am I so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How is it that you say, Show us the Father?” (v. 9). Then the Lord went on to say, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?” (v. 10). However, later on in this chapter, in verse 16, the Lord Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever.” If I had been Philip, I would immediately have said, “Lord, since to see You is to see the Father, why do You now say that You will pray to the Father? Your word seems contradictory.” Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus said that He would ask the Father and that the Father would give the disciples another Comforter to be with them forever, even the Spirit of reality (v. 17), who had been abiding with the disciples and who would be in them. But then in verse 18 He says, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” This indicates that the very He who is the Spirit of reality in verse 17 becomes the I who is the Lord Himself in verse 18. This shows that after His resurrection the Lord would become the Spirit of reality.
My purpose in speaking of these matters from John 14 is to point out that if we are adequately enlightened through the record of the New Testament, we shall see that whenever the Son of God is mentioned, the Father is involved also. We cannot separate the Son from the Father or from the Spirit. Many Christians mistakenly separate the Son from the Father and the Spirit from the Son, claiming that They are three separate and distinct Persons. But such a separation is not according to God’s revelation in the New Testament. The Bible reveals that where the Son is, there the Father is, and there the Spirit is also. The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit. This means that the Spirit is the realization of the Son, who is the embodiment of the Father. For this reason, in 2 Corinthians 13:14 Paul says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (Gk.). We cannot have the grace of Christ the Son without the love of God the Father or the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit cannot be separated. Actually, these three things are one. In the same principle, we cannot separate the Spirit from the Son nor the Son from the Father. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit all are one. Otherwise, God would not be triune. The word triune is composed of tri-, meaning three, and -une, meaning one. As the Triune God, God is both three in one and one in three.
It is significant that in Galatians 1:15 and 16 Paul does not say that God revealed Christ in him, but that He revealed His Son in him. Speaking of Christ does not lead to the same kind of involvement as does speaking of the Son. The reason for this difference is that whenever we speak of the Son of God, we are immediately involved with the Father and the Spirit. According to the writings of Paul, to have the Son is to have both the Father and the Spirit. As we have pointed out repeatedly, the Son is the embodiment of the Triune God realized as the Spirit for our enjoyment. Hence, when Paul says that it pleased God to reveal His Son in him, this means that the One revealed in him was the embodiment of the Triune God realized as the processed all-inclusive Spirit. The burden I have received from the Lord is to minister this matter to God’s chosen people. Although I have been ministering on this for many years, I can testify that this burden is heavier today than ever before.
In Paul’s Epistles we see that the Son is the mystery of God, the embodiment of God, and the One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:2, 9). One day, through incarnation, the Son of God became a man called the last Adam, who, through death and resurrection, has become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit.” Putting all these verses together, we see that the Son of God, the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead, became a man and that in resurrection this One is now the life-giving Spirit.
Concerning Christ as the Son of God, there are two “becames.” According to John 1:14, the Word, the Son of God, became flesh; that is, He became a man. Furthermore, according to 1 Corinthians 15:45, this One, called the last Adam, has become the life-giving Spirit. This is the reason that Paul can say explicitly that now the Lord is the Spirit. The Son of God is thus the embodiment of the Triune God realized as the all-inclusive Spirit. This wonderful Person is versus man’s religion.