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WITNESS LEE QUOTES
Chapter Ten
THE TRIUNE GOD AS REVEALED IN THE EPISTLES (2)
EPHESIANS 2:
1 And you, being dead in your offenses and sins,
2 In which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit who now is operating in the sons of disobedience;
3 Among whom also we all behaved ourselves once in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest;
4 But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 And raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,
7 That He might display in the ages which are coming the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works that no one should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near in the blood of Christ.
14 For He Himself is our peace, Who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition, the enmity,
15 Having abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man, making peace,
16 And might reconcile both in one Body to God through the cross, slaying the enmity by it;
17 And coming, He preached the gospel of peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near;
18 For through Him we both have access in bone Spirit unto the Father.
OUR ORIGINAL CONDITION
Chapter two of Ephesians tells us that the chosen ones of God became fallen. Before God began to dispense Himself into His chosen ones, we became fallen not only into sin, but also into death (v. 1). Within the realm of death in offenses and sins we walked first according to the age of this world, that is, according to the current, the tide, of the world (v. 2). It is not difficult to understand what is the current, the tide, of the age. The age of the world simply means the modern style of the world. As fallen people in the sphere of death we walked according to the trend of this age. Second, we walked according to the spirit who operates in the sons of disobedience (v. 2). This is not just one demon, nor one fallen angel, but an aggregate of the evil spiritual power. This is the spirit in the air who operates within unbelievers. Such an aggregate of the evil spiritual power is both above them and within them. Therefore, unbelievers walk in death according to the age of the world and according to the spiritual power in the air and within them.
Furthermore, fallen people have the lusts of the flesh, which cooperate with the world and with the spirit in the air (2:3a). This is the condition of fallen mankind.
Before God began to infuse Himself into man, man became fallen and became the flesh, walking according to the age of the world and according to Satan, the power in the air and the evil one operating in fallen mankind by the lusts of the flesh.
Because we were dead in offenses and sins, because we walked according to the age of this world and according to the ruler of the authority of the air, and because we behaved ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, we were by nature the children of wrath (2:3b).
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 157-158)
Because the descendants of Adam had become fallen, God came in to call out Abraham with all his descendants to form the commonwealth of Israel (Gen. 12). In God’s creation mankind had certain rights, but these were lost by man’s fall. Therefore, God called out a people, Israel, and gave them rights as a commonwealth. A commonwealth denotes a people with certain civil rights. When God called out Israel, He recovered the lost rights and made Israel a commonwealth with the proper rights to enjoy God’s blessing. For that commonwealth God gave them certain promises: that God would rule over them, that God would bless them, and that God would be their enjoyment. These promises were put into a legal form and became a covenant to the people of Israel. Thus, the entire Old Testament was a covenant with promises that had been put into a legal form. Such a commonwealth excluded the Gentiles.
When God called Israel to be His commonwealth to receive all the promises and to enjoy all the rights, He told them to circumcise themselves (Gen. 17:10-14). Because the people God called out were part of the fallen human race, walking in the flesh according to the age of the world, according to the spiritual evil power in the air and within them, and walking by the lusts of their flesh, they had to cut off their flesh. This cutting off of the flesh was signified by circumcision. Circumcision then became an ordinance that separated the Jews from the Gentiles. The Jews were called the circumcision, and the Gentiles were called the uncircumcision. The circumcision, or the circumcised people, were accepted by God to enjoy the rights of the commonwealth of God’s people and to receive all the blessings. But the uncircumcised Gentiles were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant. Hence, they were without God in the world and had no hope (Eph. 2:12).
Up to this point Christ was altogether related to the commonwealth of Israel. God was the God of the commonwealth of Israel, and all the blessings were within God’s covenant. As long as you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, you were alienated from God’s commonwealth, from Christ, from God’s covenant, from God’s blessing, from any hope, and even from God Himself. You were in the world, not in the commonwealth of Israel. This is the condition of fallen mankind, and this was our condition before we were saved.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 158-159)
THE DISPENSING OF THE DIVINE TRINITY
(1) The Father’s Rich Mercy and Great Love
Because God loved His chosen people with a noble, high, and great love, He would not give them up. Within His love there are the riches of His mercy. Love may maintain a high standard, but there is no need of any standard for mercy. Mercy can reach you in any situation. Love does not reach as far as mercy does. You do not love a pitiful person; you love a person who matches you. But within your love there may be mercy that reaches farther to people’s pitiful condition to bring love to them.
God, in His great love, came to make us alive (2:5). Have you noticed that Ephesians 2 is different from the first section of Romans? In the first section of Romans it was sin and sins which were taken care of in order that we could be justified. But death is taken care of in Ephesians 2. According to Ephesians 2 we were not merely sinners we were dead people. Dead people need more than justification; they need to be enlivened. Therefore, in His great love, God first enlivened us. When He resurrected Christ from the dead, He enlivened us. He did not enliven you at one time and me at another time. He enlivened us all at the same time in the resurrection of Christ.
In the Greek language the predicate used in 2:5 for enlivened or made alive has the prefix sun. This prefix means together, with, or co. God enlivened us together. This includes the apostles and all of us, even the last one to be saved in this age. All of us were enlivened together. Just as the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea together, so God enlivened all of us together. God also raised us up from among the dead (v. 6). Furthermore, He exalted us and seated us in the heavenlies (v. 6). This is the salvation revealed in Ephesians 2.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 159-160)
This salvation is not a salvation merely of forgiveness of sins or hope of going to heaven. We do not need to wait for a future day to go to heaven. We have already been seated in the heavenlies. This is neither a salvation merely of justification or reconciliation. This is a salvation of being enlivened, being raised up from the dead, and being seated in the heavens. This is to be saved by grace.
What a wonderful threefold salvation we have! In our salvation God has made us alive, He has raised us up together, and He has seated us with Christ in the heavenlies. This is the salvation revealed in Ephesians, salvation by life-dispensing.
A dead person can be made alive only by the dispensing of life into him. Forgiveness alone cannot make a dead person alive. Neither can washing cause a dead person to be enlivened. A person who is dead needs life-dispensing. Once life is dispensed into a dead person, he can jump up. He may still be dirty, but he can stand and walk. It is life-dispensing that enlivens him and raises him from among the dead.
To be saved by grace is much higher than to receive forgiveness of sins or justification or reconciliation. It is salvation that imparts life to us to make us alive, that raises us up from the dead, and that exalts us to the heavens and seats us there.
It is no wonder that Ephesians 2:10 indicates that such a salvation produces God’s masterpiece. Verse 10 says that we are God’s workmanship. The Greek word for workmanship may also be translated masterpiece. The Greek word here is poiema, a word that has been anglicized into the English word poem. We are God’s poem. A poem often displays the wisdom of the writer. It expresses his skill, art, and design. We are poems written by the threefold life-dispensing of the Father as the source, the Son as the course, and the Spirit as the flow. This threefold life-dispensing makes us a poem. We are the masterpiece of our Triune God by His threefold life-dispensing.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 160-161)
(2) The Son’s Accomplishment
We were fallen into sin and into death and even were walking in the realm of sin and death, but God came to enliven us, to raise us up from the dead, and to exalt us and seat us in the heavens. But God did not do this directly. Have you noticed that thus far in Ephesians 2 the Father is not mentioned? The verses only mention God. God made us alive together with Christ. Without Christ there is no way for God to enliven us. He raised us up with Christ, and He seated us in the heavens with Christ. Christ is the means, the element, the sphere, for God to enliven us, to raise us up, and to seat us in the heavens. Outside of Christ God has no way to work out these three matters. God did it, but He did it through a channel, through Christ.
As God’s channel, Christ did many things, but all He did can be summed up in the matter of His blood (2:13). 'The blood is the sign of Christ’s marvelous death. The redemption through His blood has made us near to God and to all His blessings (v. 13). At one time we were far off from God, from God’s commonwealth, Israel, from God’s covenant, from Christ, from all the blessings. We were kept far off by our fall into sin and death. We could be made near only through Christ’s blood that signifies Christ’s all-inclusive death. By His death on the cross He took away our sin and our sins.
Furthermore, through His death Christ made peace by breaking down the middle wall of partition, abolishing the law of the commandments in ordinances, and creating the two in Himself into one new man (vv. 14-15). To say that He abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances does not mean that He abolished the Ten Commandments. Here the law of commandments refers to the law of the ritual commandments, not to the laws of morality, such as those dealing with the honoring of parents, or forbidding murder and adultery. These laws have never been abolished. Likewise, the laws prohibiting idolatry have not been abolished. The ethical, moral laws have never been abolished. But the ritual ordinances such as those related to food, holy days, and circumcision have been abolished. The rituals and commandments in ordinances eventually became a high wall separating the Jews and the Gentiles.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 161-162)
Not many Christians realize that when Christ died on the cross, He nailed all these ordinances to the cross. By His death on the cross Christ not only crucified our old man, our flesh, and destroyed Satan, the power of death; He also crucified all the ordinances, including circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, and ordinances concerning eating. He abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances, the middle wall that separated the Jews from the Gentiles.
Furthermore, Christ’s death on the cross released His divine life that was confined within Him, even as the life of a seed is confined within its shell. His crucifixion on the cross broke the shell and released the life confined within Him to produce the church.
By His all-inclusive and wonderful death, Christ created both the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers into one new man (2:15). This one new man is not an organization, but is an organism full of life. Today we have a number of Jewish saints in the churches. But because Christ has abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances, and because we all have the dispensing of the divine life, we are one. We all have had the divine life dispensed into us. The dispensing of life not only changes us—it transforms us. The church is the issue of the divine dispensing of life. We are being transformed by God’s dispensing. We all must be transformed persons, not reeducated persons. We must be transformed by the divine dispensing of the divine life of the divine Trinity.
On the cross Christ did a marvelous job. His death was all-inclusive. Through the cross He took away sin and sins, He destroyed Satan, He judged the world, and He abolished all the ritual laws contained in the ordinances. Finally, He released His divine life into God’s chosen people and created them into one new man as an organism constituted of the divine element by the dispensing of the divine life. Now both Jews and Gentiles are reconciled in one Body to God through the cross (v. 16).
After Christ accomplished all this by His all-inclusive death, He came to preach the gospel (2:17). How could He preach the gospel to us after He was crucified and buried? The answer is that He was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit to indwell us (1 Cor. 15:45b). We need to realize that when we preach the gospel to others, Jesus also is preaching. After He died and resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit, He came back to be within us to preach the highest gospel, the gospel of the new man, the gospel of life-dispensing to make peace.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 162-163)
(3) The Spirit’s Access
When Christ preaches such a gospel by Himself as the life-giving Spirit, and when we hear and accept such a gospel, what do we receive? The main thing we receive is the life-giving Spirit. Most Christians do not realize this. Do not think when we receive the gospel we mainly receive forgiveness of sins or justification. The main thing we receive by accepting such a gospel is the Spirit. Suppose an unbeliever says, “Lord Jesus, thank You. You are my Savior, and I accept You. Lord, come into my heart.” Immediately, Christ the Preacher, as the Spirit, will enter into that one, and he will receive the Spirit. Therefore, verse 18 speaks concerning the Spirit: “For through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.” Now we have the Spirit and are in the Spirit, and the Spirit brings us to the Father, the source.
Chapter two of Ephesians tells us that God loved us, enlivened us, raised us up, and seated us in the heavenlies to make us His poem, His masterpiece. The God who did this is the Father as the source, acting through a channel, Christ the Son. In the foregoing message we pointed out that when the Son came; He came in the Father’s name (John 5:43); He came with the Father (John 8:29; 16:32); the Son was even called the Father (Isa. 9:6). The Father is the source who planned all things, and the Son is the means, the course, who accomplished the Father’s purpose. Christ became the channel in which and the means by which God enlivened us, raised us up, and seated us in the heavenlies.
Ephesians 2 reveals God as the Father and Christ as the Son. After His death and resurrection, Christ the Son came as the Spirit to preach the gospel. When the Spirit came, He came with the Father (John 15:26 and note 261) in the Son’s name (John 14:26). That means when the Spirit came, the Son came. Therefore, when the Son comes to preach the gospel to us, the Spirit also comes. When we receive the Son in His preaching, we receive the Spirit. The Spirit then brings us back to the Father through the Son. This is marvelous! The Father came to us through the Son in the Spirit, and now the Spirit brings us back to the Father through the Son. Through this wonderful two-way traffic we enjoy the threefold dispensing of life by the Triune God.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 163-164)
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EPHESIANS 3:
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father,
16 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man,
17 That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, having been rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 And to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled 2unto all the fullness of 3God.
192 When Christ makes His home in our heart, and when we are strong to apprehend with all the saints the dimensions of Christ and to know by experience His knowledge-surpassing love, we shall be filled unto all the fullness of God. All this fullness dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Through His indwelling, Christ imparts the fullness of God into our being; we can be filled with it to such a measure and standard, even unto all the fullness of God. This makes us the expression of God, which the church should be.
The fullness of God implies that the riches of what God is become His expression. When the riches are in God Himself, they are His riches. When the riches of God are expressed, they become His fullness (John 1:16).
193 The Father (v. 14) answers and fulfills the apostle’s prayer through the Spirit (v. 16), that Christ (the Son - v. 17) may make His home in our heart. Thus, we are filled with the fullness of (the Triune) God. This is the dispensing of the Triune God into our entire being
(Witness Lee, Footnotes, 934)
THE DISPENSING OF THE DIVINE TRINITY
(1) The Father Strengthening with Power According to the Riches of His Glory
Paul, the leading steward, prayed for the divine dispensing of the divine Trinity. First, he said that he bowed his knees to the Father (v. 14). This means that he appealed to the source. He bowed his knees to the Father that He would strengthen the believers with power according to the riches of His glory through the Spirit into their inner man (v. 16). Our inner man is our spirit regenerated by and mingled with the Spirit.
(2) Through the Spirit
The Spirit through whom the Father strengthens us is in our spirit. Not only is He dwelling in our spirit; He is even mingled with our spirit. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God.” The word “witnesses” is very significant. The Spirit is with our spirit. This indicates mingling. Our inner man is a wonderful mingled spirit. This corresponds to 1 Corinthians 6:17: “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” How can we be one spirit with the Lord? It is
only by the Lord as the Spirit mingling Himself with our spirit. The divine Spirit has mingled with our human spirit to become one spirit. This is wonderful! The Father strengthens us through the Spirit into our inner man.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 170-171)
(3) Into Our Inner Man—Our Regenerated and Mingled Spirit
What does it mean to be strengthened through the Spirit with power according to the riches of God’s glory into our inner man? Let us consider our experience. Many times we Christians became bothered, puzzled, or even disappointed. The more we look at the environment and the more we consider our situation, the more we feel that we are poor and that we cannot go on. We may feel that we would not go to a meeting until something great happens to revive us. The more we think this way, the more we are weakened. The more we think this way, the more we remain in our subtle, deceiving, and even deceived mentality.
Suppose, when you come home from work on Friday evening, you are depressed and disappointed. It has been a poor day; nothing has gone well. When you come home, you are unhappy with your wife and children. Even your room does not seem pleasant to you. The more you consider your situation, the worse it seems. At such a time you need to remember Paul’s word: “I bow my knees unto the Father…that He would grant you…to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.” Then you should declare, “Satan, get away from me! I will enter into my inner man.” If you turn to your inner man, you will be stirred up and strengthened. If you go on to pray for a few minutes, you will be strengthened even more. This strengthening even swallows up your physical weakness and tiredness.
I encourage you to practice in this way. Never say that you are weak, or that you are tired, no matter how you feel. Sisters, when your husband comes home from work saying that he is tired, you should charge him not to say that he is tired, but to bow his knees to the Father that he would be strengthened with power into his inner man. When you say you are tired, you are in your old man, your outer man, your mentality. You need to be strengthened into the inner man. Do not remain in the outer man. You may be tired, but He is not tired. He who lives within you is much stronger than you. He is never tired. He would strengthen you into the inner man.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 171-172)
In the phrase “into the inner man,” the word “into” is very significant. To say that we need to be strengthened into the inner man indicates that we are not in the inner man, that we live mostly in the outer man. When a brother tells his wife that he is tired, he is in the outer man, in the mind, living according to his physical tiredness. Therefore, he seeks pity from his wife. Sisters, do not sympathize with your husband. When he says that he is tired, encourage him to bow his knees to the Father that the Father would strengthen him with power through the Spirit into his inner man.
When you say that you are tired, you are outside of the inner man. You have an inner man. Why not stay there? Why stay in your tiredness? You need to practice bowing your knees to the Father that He would strengthen you into your inner man from your tiredness. Even when we are sick, we need to pray that the Father would strengthen us from our sickness into our inner man.
We may also use married life as an illustration. Many times married life is not sweet; instead, it may be somewhat bitter. Our married life can be sweet and happy only when we are strengthened into the inner man. Sometimes after her husband has gone to work, a sister may begin to consider how he has been treating her. Perhaps last night he was unhappy with her, and this morning he said she was wrong in certain things. Then she may begin to consider whether she is wrong or right. The more she thinks about these things, the more darkness she will have within her. This indicates that she is in the outer man, in her mentality. The only thing that can help in this kind of situation is to be strengthened into the inner man. She should not stay in her mentality, her mind, her thinking. If we are in such a situation, we need to be strengthened from our thinking into our inner man and turn to our spirit and pray. If we practice this in every situation, we shall be strong Christians. Through this practice the divine dispensing has a way to infuse us with all the riches of the divine Trinity.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 172-173)
(4) Christ the Son Making His Home
When we are strengthened into our inner man, Christ can make His home in our heart (vv. 16-17). For Christ to make His home in our heart is a great matter. This is to have Himself fully settled in our inner being. Our heart is composed of four parts: the emotion, the will, the mind, and the conscience. For Christ to make His home in our heart means that He must settle Himself in our emotion, will, mind, and conscience. This means that Christ needs to occupy every part of our being.
We may compare our heart to an apartment with many rooms. One room is the mind and other rooms are the will, the emotion, and the conscience. We have believed in the Lord, and we have Him within us, but he still needs to make His home in our heart. Paul prayed for the Ephesians that Christ would have a way to make His home in their hearts. We have Christ in us in a general way, but we may not have Christ in us in a particular way, saturating our mind, emotion, will, and conscience.
I travel frequently, and many times I am placed in a room as a guest. Often the host will encourage me to feel at home. But as a guest receiving hospitality I never have the feeling that I am at home. I am just staying there temporarily. I cannot be settled in that place because it is not my home.
Christ desires to make His home in our heart, to occupy every part of our heart. He wants to occupy every part of our inner being. Our inner being must be saturated, possessed, occupied, and filled with Christ. If Christ has made His home in our heart, if He has occupied every room of our heart, we shall not be weak. On the contrary, we shall be those with a holy and even spiritual living. Too many times, however, we do not feel that we are strong in our spiritual life. The reason is that we have Christ in us in a very general way. Perhaps you have received Christ only into a corner of your “living room.” You have not given Him the liberty to move into another part. The result is that you are weak. You have Christ, but you are still weak because you are not saturated with Christ. You are short of the life-dispensing into your mind, emotion, will, and conscience to saturate your entire being. But if you have been thoroughly saturated by Christ through the life-dispensing in every part of your inward being—in your mind, emotion, will, and conscience—you will be strong. You will truly be one with the Lord. This was Paul’s goal as a leading steward and distributor of God’s grace. He desired that all the saints under his ministry would be saturated with the divine dispensing of life so they would be fully occupied by Christ in their inward parts. For this reason he bowed his knees to the Father that they would be strengthened with power according to the riches of His glory through the Spirit, that Christ may make His home in their hearts.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 173-174)
THE ISSUE OF THE DIVINE DISPENSING
To Be Filled unto All the Fullness of God
When Christ makes His home in our heart, we shall be filled not with all the fullness of God, but unto all the fullness of God (3:19). If we let Christ make His home in our heart, we shall be filled with the Godhead, the Trinity, to such an extent that we shall become His full expression.
The fullness here does not mean the riches; it denotes the expression, the manifestation, of the riches. For example, when you fill a cup with water, it is not until the water fills the cup to the brim and overflows that you can see the fullness of the water. The overflow is the fullness of the water. That overflow as the fullness of the water is the expression of the water. But if only a small amount of water is contained in the cup, no one can see the water. In a similar way, we must be strengthened through the Spirit so that Christ may make His home in our heart to fill us to the brim and even overflow from our inner being. When we are filled up to such an extent that Christ overflows from within our being, we become the fullness of God, the expression of God. Then others will be able to see that God is overflowing from within us. This overflowing is God’s full expression. This thought is higher, deeper, richer, and more profound than what is mentioned in chapter one. Chapter one speaks of the fullness of Christ (v. 23), but chapter three speaks of the fullness of God, which is wider and richer.
(Witness Lee, Divine Trinity, 174-175)
FILLED UNTO THE EXPRESSION OF THE TRIUNE GOD
In these verses in chapter three of Ephesians concerning the economy of God resulting in the fullness of God, we see the Triune God. The Father (v. 14) answers and fulfills the apostle’s prayer through the Spirit (v. 16) so that Christ, the Son (v. 17), may make His home in our hearts. Thus, we are filled unto the fullness of the Triune God. This is the dispensing of the Triune God into our entire being that we may become His expression.
According to Ephesians 3, the Triune God is not to be the object of doctrinal debate; He is for the dispensing of Himself into the believers so that they may be filled unto the fullness, not only of the Father, nor only of the Son, nor only of the Spirit, but of God. Paul prayed that the Father would strengthen us through His Spirit so that Christ might make His home in our hearts and thereby fully occupy our inward being with the result that we might be filled unto the expression of the Triune God. How glorious and how marvelous! This is God’s economy, God’s dispensation. This is also God’s New Testament revelation, our ministry, and the Lord’s recovery.
(Witness Lee, LS of Ephesians, p. 297)
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