Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul's Epistles - 9

Message Title: the Triune God Dispensing HImself into the Tripartite Man

God wants to dispense Himself gently, little by little into our being, until we are constituded with the processed and consummated Triune God. 

we cannot find the word "dispensing"in the Bible, but there is the thought and the reality of "dispensing". 

I. we need to see a vision of the central matter in the Bible - the divine intention, the divine economy, and the divine dispensing of the Triune God into the believers in Christ for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal corporate expression of the Triune God.

no matter what happened to us in the day, we have the mighty power of the cleansing blood, and we have Christ as the reality of all the offerings. now we have access to the Holy of the Holies to have face to face fellowship with the Lord, and to receive His dispensing. 

II. the Triune God created a tripartite man to be a living vessel to contain Him

many people, even many Christians think that man is not tripartite, but made with only two parts, body and soul, confusing soul and spirit into the same thing. but no, man is created as tripartite, body, and soul, and spirit. we all have a human spirit. we are vessels created in the image of God to receive and contain God as our unique content. because we are created as vessels, there is a feeling within us that we need to contain something. if we are not containing God, we try to find all other things to fill us, struggling to fill our vessels. this has been an on-going situation that we have been seeking for different things to fill us. everything else we tried, other than God, can not fill the empty feeling within the depth of our being, because God created us as vessels to contain Him. 

III. the accomplishment of the divine economy is by the divinedispensing of the Divine Trinity

the divine economy is God's plan and arrangement out of His desire and purpose; the divine dispensing is God's dispensing and distributing according to this plan and arrangement. God's desire is to dispense Himself into us moment by moment, so that we will have more Triune God everyday. 

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.

the Triune God - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit -  has been processed to become the life-giving Spirit so that we may drink of Him as the living water. the Father as the origin is the fountain, the Son as the expression is the spring, and the Spirit as the transmission is the flow. this is a precious inner sense, not a gigantic wave, that the Triune God as the life-giving Spirit within us is now the fountain, the spring and the flow. this is the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. there is the dispensing that we experience as breathing, as drinking, while we call on the name of the Lord. 

IV. the matter of the divine dispensing is revealed in a full and rich way in Romans 8; this chapter unveils to us how the Triune God - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit - dispenses Himself into our tripartite being - spirit, soul, and body -  to make us His sons for the constituting of the Body of Christ. 

Romans chapter 8 is the center of our Christian experience, a chapter of experience. whenever God arranges somoething to happen in our situation, there is always the supply of the all sufficient grace from God. when we receive this supply, we are refreshed and energized. God's dispensing is real and practical. as long as we obey and are willing to remain in the situation arranged by God, His dispensing aways matches what we need. 

Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.

in this verse we have the entire Triune God: "the One who raised Jesus from the dead" is the Father; "Christ" is the Son; and "His Spirit who indwells you" is the Spirit. the One who dwells in us is the Triune God who has been processed through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection; the Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is realised as the Spirit, and the Spirit indwells us. 

Romans 8:10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

through the dispensing of the Triune God as life, our spirit is life, zoe! our spirit has not only been regeneratd and made living; it has become life. when we believe in Christ, He as the divine Spirit of life came into our spirit and mingled Himself with it to become one spirit; now our spirit is not merely living -  it is life. 

Romans 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.

whether our mind is life depends on where the mind is set upon. the more we experience the mind set on the spirit being life, the more our mind is renewed and becomes the base for the transformation of our soul. when our spirit is stregthened, we exercise our spirit more, and learn to set our mind on the spirit; more and more, the Spirit of life is making our mind life. 

Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.

not only are both our spirit and our mind life, zoe, but even our body can be full of zoe. God gives life to our mortal, dying bodies so that we may be enlivened to carry out His will.