The clearest writing in the New Testament regarding this, especially in John’s writings, is John 14 through 17. Even after all the messages I have given in Stuttgart and New York concerning the divine dispensing as revealed in these chapters, I still feel the burden has not gone. Probably we need more messages.
In chapter fourteen the Lord begins by saying, “I go to prepare a place for you...that where I am you also may be” (vv. 2-3). Then He goes on to say that He is the only way to the Father (v. 6); in fact, He continues, He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (v. 10). We can express this relationship by saying that He and the Father coexist and coinhere.
Now the question is, for what purpose? The single purpose is that God may dispense Himself into His chosen people. To do this, He must be the Father. He must also be the Son. Eventually He must also be the Spirit. These are not three gods. God must be the Father as the source, the Son as the course (the means), and the Spirit as the reaching (the application, the entering in).
Thus, the Lord firstly told His disciples that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him; when He speaks, the Father does His works (v. 10). After this He said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter...the Spirit of reality...He abides with you and shall be in you” (vv. 16-17). The background to the Lord’s word here is that the disciples were concerned about His leaving them, because He had said He was going to the Father (v. 12). The Lord was telling them they did not need to be concerned about His absence. He would ask the Father to send them another Comforter who would be with them and also in them.
Then He continues, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you” (v. 18). His going was His coming. “Yet a little while and...you behold Me; because I live, you shall live also” (v. 19). What He means here is that because He resurrects, the disciples also will resurrect with Him and in Him. “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (v. 20).
When we put all these verses together, we can see the Father in the Son and the Son coming with the Father as the Spirit to be in us. For what purpose? For dispensing. This is a great thing. It is the real center of the Bible.
The dispensing comes about by the Spirit within and also through the Word without. Because the dispensing is invisible, intangible, and mysterious, we cannot apprehend it without the Word. Along with the Spirit, we need the Word. If we cannot apprehend, then we cannot experience. For our experience we need the apprehension. This apprehension is through the Bible, the Word.
Yes, the Spirit is within us. But if we don’t have the revelation from the Word so that we apprehend this, we cannot experience His indwelling. We, the leading ones, must experience the inner Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, to the uttermost. We are too loose, too indifferent. Every day I find I must confess to the Lord that I have not applied the Spirit enough, that I haven’t walked in the Spirit sufficiently. God as the Spirit is here within us right now, but we don’t experience Him. Then when we minister, we don’t have the riches; the riches are simply the experience of the bountiful Spirit.
We must also get into the Word to the uttermost. Because of our Christian background, we have understood the Bible in an altogether superficial way. We may love the Bible and study it, but we don’t have the habit, the desire, the aspiration to dig into its depths. We must overcome the shallowness in studying the Word. Spend some time to study how the Lord expounded the Bible in the four Gospels. Consider His way: it is always deep. Paul the apostle was the same: his way of expounding Exodus and Leviticus in Hebrews is profound.
Experience the Spirit to the uttermost and get into the depths of the Word to the uttermost. Then you will surely have the riches to minister to the saints, and we shall have, using Paul’s term, the full knowledge of the truth.
We may know the truth, yet when we present it, we lack skill. When a question is raised by either an opposer or a seeking one, we should present the truth to him as it is indicated in the Bible. We are short of the skill to do this properly. With so much truth in the recovery, it should have a significant influence on America. We have seven thousand. Think how much cargo a big corporation could dispense if it had seven thousand salesmen. It seems, however, that we have a lot of cargo sitting in the warehouse! We know this cargo is there, but we don’t know how to make use of it.
We should practice, then, these two things: the inner experience of the Spirit and the outer study of the Word. Exercise to pick up the skill to present the truth to others and to help the saints in our meetings and in our fellowship. We want to emphasize these two matters. Both of them are for the divine dispensation.
Without the divine dispensing, there will be no church. Christianity is not the church; it is only an empty shell. We will be the same if we don’t have the divine dispensing within us daily. In the Lord’s recovery, this dispensing must be the central thing, so that we are being continually filled with Him.