John (Program #38) – The Organism of the Triune God in the Divine Dispensation (2)

When He speaks to us, we have to keep it. When His word abides in us, then right away, we are abiding in His love. So, just by saying Amen to His speaking, love will fill us, and we will find the prevailing way to love the Lord Jesus and abide in His love.

The very striking point in John 15 to me is the illustration of the vine and the branches. There’s no other plant that could adequately illustrate the life flow that exists between the Lord and His believers. The Lord said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Could any other illustration make it more clear? Then, what God is producing is an organism, not an organization. The “I am” here is Christ when He said, “I am the vine.” And, the “you are” is that part of the vine known as branches. Christ, the Son, is the very center of God’s economy, and He’s also the embodiment of all the riches of the Father.

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John (Program #37) – The Organism of the Triune God in the Divine Dispensation (1)

God intends to propagate and multiply, not by relying on great gospel campaigns, but rather by flowing His life in Christ into all the branches so that all the branches will bear fruit.

Chapter 14 of John has as its focus, the dispensing of the Triune God into the believers of Christ for the producing of God’s abode. In order to touch the heart of chapter 14, we need to drop the traditional concept that the Father’s house with the many abodes denotes Heaven. Simply put the Father’s house denotes the Father’s house, which is His habitation, His dwelling place, elsewhere called quite distinctly the Church of the living God or the temple of God. So, the emphasis in chapter 14 is how Christ in resurrection as the Spirit of reality comes into the believers, dwells in them, and enables them to dwell in God. And the result of this mutual indwelling is the producing of God’s dwelling place.

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John (Program #36) – The Dispensing of the Triune God for the Producing of His Abode (4)

This is so critical for our experience of Christ to continually say, “Lord Jesus, I love you.” And according to these verses, when you tell the Lord that you love Him, He says “I will love you also, and My Father will love you. I will manifest myself to you. And, not only that, the Father and I will come to you and make an abode with you.”

Thus far, we’ve seen that John 14 is a very mysterious chapter. In verse 2, the Lord says, “In My Father’s house are many abodes”, and this verse has been misinterpreted and misunderstood by many people. What we have seen from the Holy Bible is that the Father’s house is the Church. 1 Timothy 3:15 tells us the Church is the house of the living God. And, in the Church, which is the Father’s house, are many abodes. These many abodes are the many members of the Church as the body of Christ, who are the many dwelling places of Christ. Each believer in Christ, as a member of His body, which is the Church as the Father’s house, is a dwelling place to Christ…

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John (Program #35) – The Dispensing of the Triune God for the Producing of His Abode (3)

People think that the Lord Jesus has gone to prepare a big mansion for us in heaven. As though God had two dwelling places, or two buildings, God only has one building. Not one on heaven and one on earth. He has one building.

This chapter (John 14) is very mysterious I admit, and it’s very misunderstood. But, this chapter is really the last message that the Lord gave to His disciples. And, here He’s talking about going away. Many people misunderstand this. But, He’s just talking here about His going to the cross. And, when He goes to the cross, He is also promising that He will come again. His coming again of course is after His resurrection. He will come back to them. And when He comes back to them, He will be the Spirit because in His resurrection He becomes the life giving Spirit.

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John (Program #34) – The Dispensing of the Triune God for the Producing of His Abode (2)

Most Christians think that the Father’s house is heaven, or a heavenly mansion. But, I hope that those who are listening would come to the Word again to see what the Bible says that the Father’s house is.

In the last message, we saw that there are two major sections to the Gospel of John. The first section is the eternal Word incarnated to bring God into man. And, this is a marvelous section. Especially we saw from Johns 3 through John 11 how when God as the Word becomes flesh to bring God into man. He is the very divine, eternal, uncreated life of God to meet the need of every man’s case.

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John (Program #33) – The Dispensing of the Triune God for the Producing of His Abode (1)

The Lord went through death and resurrection in order to be the way and also to open the way for us in Him to go, not to heaven, but to go into God.

The first section concerns Christ coming to incarnation. The second section is about Jesus going through death and then coming in resurrection as the life giving Spirit. In the first section, Christ as the eternal Word came through incarnation to bring God into man in order to be life to us and our life supply. Then, we see that He came, so that He Himself as life may meet every human need for the building up of God’s dwelling place.

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John (Program #32) -Life’s Washing in Love to Maintain Fellowship (2)

We need to be those who actually experience Christ as life meeting our various needs and the more we experience Him in this way the more we are constituted with Him as the life that washes our brothers and sisters.

Today we have the second message concerning the matter of foot washing.  It’s on the last message that we have to allegorize this section to get the real significance…

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John (Program #31) -Life’s Washing in Love to Maintain Fellowship (1)

So you can say that the Lord washes our feet by the working of the Holy Spirit and also by the enlightening of the Word of God and by the operating of the inner law of life within us.

John chapter 13 is very meaningful.  Not many people really understand this chapter and it had quite a background.  If you go back to all that has been covered in the first 12 chapters of the gospel of John, you will see how the Lord Jesus meets the need of every man.  In every kind of situations, He brings life out of death…

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John (Program #30) – Life’s Issue and Multiplication (2)

We need to praise the Lord for the redeeming aspect of His death.  We need to praise thee Lord for the Satan destroying aspect of His death and we need to praise Him for the life-releasing aspect of His wonderful death on the cross.

We’ve seen thus far from John chapter 3 to John chapter 11 is a long section showing us how Christ as the divine eternal life of God meets the need of every man’s case.  We went through all those cases in a marvelous way.  Then when we come to John chapter 12, we see the issue of life.  What is the issue of Christ as life meeting the need of every man’s case?  The issue of life is a house of feasting.  This house of feasting is a miniature of what our church life should be…

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John (Program #29) – Life’s Issue and Multiplication (1)

In the divine life there is a longing for the kind of church life portrait in chapter 12 of John.  But unfortunately, religious concept inclines us very much in another direction.  It’s striking that the Lord Jesus went to a little house to have His church life.

It surely is a pleasant message on a very pleasant matter; the miniature of the church life portrait in the first part of John 12.  For you have Martha and Lazarus and Mary together with the Lord Jesus enjoying kind of feast together.  Two or three things are very striking about this.  One is the fact that it follows the record of the raising of Lazarus and since everything in this gospel virtually is a sign, the scene in chapter 12 is also a sign of the genuine and proper church life as an issue of resurrection.

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