The Triune God is clearly revealed in the Gospels of Matthew and John more than any other books in the Bible. Of course, there are some verses in the Epistles which show us the Trinity. One such verse is Ephesians 2:18. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” It is through the Son that we have access by the one Spirit unto the Father. This clearly reveals the Triune God. But it is not for doctrine; it is for dispensing God into us. The Trinity is for the application of the rich God to us. Through the Son, by the Spirit, we have access unto the Father.
There is another verse in 2 Corinthians 13:14 that shows us the purpose of the Trinity. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen” (Gk.). The grace of Christ is the grace of the Son. The love of God is the love of the Father. And this comes to us through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. There is the Father with love, the Son with grace, and the Spirit with the fellowship. And this is for us all! It is clear that this is not something of doctrine. This is for application! This is for dispensing! Love is of the Father, grace is of the Son, and fellowship is of the Spirit. Love, grace, and fellowship are three in one. Love is the source, grace is the course, and fellowship is the application.
The Gospel of John really speaks of the Father as the source. The Lord says, “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30). This is because He is not the source. The Father is the source. The Father sends the Son, and the Son lives by the Father (John 6:57). Suppose I send a brother over to a certain place. I send him there, but I am here. In no way could he say that he lives by me. In this way the sent one cannot live by the sender, because the two are separate. But it is different with the Son and the Father. The Son is the sent one and the Father is the sender. Yet the sender is always one with the sent one. Hence, the Son can say that the Father sent Him, and He lives by the Father. The Father goes in His sending. He goes in the sent one. The Father is always with the Son (John 8:29; 16:32).
The Father, Son, and Spirit are for dispensing and application. For dispensing Himself into us, the one God needs to be the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The two Gospels of Matthew and John are very much alike in the way of the Trinity, because both these books tell us that the Triune God is with us and going to be in us. Hence, He must be in three persons in order to come into us and be with us for ever.
Most people only believe in the Trinity as a doctrine. But we believe in the Trinity for application and for dispensing. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” This should not be merely a doctrine or a teaching. The Triune God is for the dispensing.
Now we need to see that the dispensing of the Triune God is that Christ may be our life supply for the producing of the Bride. This is for the building up of the church. Christ is our life, our light, our food supply, our water, our air, our everything! He is everything to us for producing the Bride. The church is a collection of believers. But, essentially speaking, the church is not an organization, but an organism. A chair is an organization of pieces of wood, but my body is built up together by the organic life. All the members of my body are together, not by being organized, but by something of life within.
The Body of Christ is not a religious organization, but an organism in life, and the only way such an organism can be produced is by Christ being life to us. He is our life, and He is everything to us. This is why He must be our person. We have our own personality, but if we mean business with the Lord for the church life, we must take Him as our person. The most successful marriage is when the wife takes her husband as her person. In all weddings, whether ancient or modern, Eastern or Western, the bride always puts something on her head. This means that to have a successful marriage, the wife must be covered by her husband; she must take her husband as her person.
There are so many divorces today because there are two heads in one marriage life. The man likes to be the head, and the woman likes to be the head upon the head. Eventually, they divorce. All the married sisters must realize that on their wedding day their head was replaced. This is the principle of the Bible. It is not a kind of ordinance or regulation; it is the only way a marriage can stand.
In the church life, Christ is our real husband. Therefore, we must put aside our person, and take Him as our person. When He was on the earth, although He had a personality, He never lived by Himself; He always lived by the person of the Father. He said that He spoke nothing of Himself. Whatever He spoke, He spoke by the Father. He was not the source; the Father was His source. He had a person, but He did not live by His person. He lived by another person, the Father. He had a will, but He said that it was not His will, but the Father’s will that must be done (Matt. 26:39). His will was always subdued to the Father’s will. He did everything by the will of God.
This must be typified in the marriage life. The wife must not do anything by her own will. She must always act and live by the person of her husband. She must put off her likes and dislikes, and take him as her person. Sometimes we try to pray when we already know what the Lord wants. If we take the Lord as our person, we do not need to pray that much. It is possible to pray many prayers, yet never take the Lord as our person.
In the Gospel of John, we see a man who is the expression of God. Yet this man does not live by Himself, but by another person. In the church life, as individuals, we all must put aside our person and take the very Lord within us as our person. If we all do this, we being many are one body. We are one new man with one unique person. This corporate man does not express anything of the different individuals. Everything is of the one person. In this way the church is the expression of Christ, because the whole church takes Him as her person.