Our burden in the Lord’s recovery is to minister the Triune God as life and everything to us so that we may enjoy all that He is. Concerning this, we stand on the shoulders of the great teachers of the Bible who have gone before us. We have learned much from the experiences of others. We have studied church history, biographies, and the most important writings of the great teachers from the early centuries until the present. All this has been very helpful to us. Of course, we have also studied the Bible for ourselves. Therefore, we surely know where we are, and we have the assurance regarding the accuracy of whatever the Lord has led us to say in the ministry.
As the result of many years’ experience and study, we have come to see that, according to the entire revelation in the Bible, God’s intention is to work Himself into us so that He may be our life and that we may live by Him to be His expression. This is God’s intention. In order for God to accomplish this intention, it is necessary for Him to be triune. Apart from being triune, that is, without being the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, God would not have a way to work Himself into us. In order to work Himself into us, God must first impart Himself to us, dispense Himself into us. If He could not do this, He could not work Himself into us to be our life. It would be impossible for the Triune God to be our life if He remained merely as the One outside of us in whom we believe, whom we worship, and for whom we work. In order for God to be our life, He must dispense Himself into us, and in order for this dispensing to be carried out, God must be the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
God created man in His own image for the purpose of dispensing Himself into man so that man may become His expression. God’s purpose in creating man was that man would be His container enjoying Him as life in order to express Him. Man, however, became fallen. After man fell, God Himself became a man. It was God the Son, not God the Father or God the Spirit, who became a man. Nevertheless, the Son came in the name of the Father and with the Father. Many Christians emphasize only that the Son came and neglect the fact that the Son came in the name of the Father and with the Father. Some theologians have even said that when the Son of God came, the Father was left in the heavens. In contrast to this natural, human concept, the New Testament reveals that when the Son came, He never left the Father. The Lord Jesus said clearly that He was not alone, for the Father was with Him. In John 8:29 He said, “He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone.” In John 16:32 the Lord said, “Behold, an hour is coming and has come, when you shall be scattered each to his own, and shall leave Me alone; and I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” During His life on earth, the Father was with Him. Hence, when the Son came to be a man, He lived as a man in the name of the Father and with the Father.
The Lord Jesus even said that, while He was on earth as a man, He was in the Father and the Father was in Him. In John 10:38 He said, “Though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.” Then in John 14:10 and 11 He said, in response to Philip’s request that He show them the Father, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words which I speak to you, I do not speak from Myself; but the Father who abides in Me, He does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me.” This is a matter not only of the coexistence of the Father and the Son, but also of the coinherence of the Father and the Son. This means that the Father and the Son exist in each other. Therefore, the Father and the Son coexist in the way of coinherence. Because the Son came with the Father and in the name of the Father and because He coexists in the way of co-inherence with the Father, He is called the eternal Father (Isa. 9:6). We cannot analyze this or systematize it. Instead of trying to analyze or systematize the Triune God, we should simply accept the facts as revealed in the Bible.
Have you ever heard that when the Son came, He came in the name of the Father and with the Father? As we have said already, some Christians have the impression that when the Son of God came, He came by Himself, leaving the Father on the throne. These Christians have not been taught according to the Scriptures that when the Son of God came as a man, He came with the Father. The Father was in Him, and He was in the Father. This was the reason He could say that He was never alone, for the Father was with Him, even at the time of His persecution. As we have pointed out from the Gospel of John, the Father was with the Son in the way of coinherence.
Those under the influence of traditional theology may still think that when the Son of God came, He left the Father on the throne. According to this concept, while the Son was living in Nazareth and while He was carrying out His ministry, the Father was on the throne in the heavens watching Him. What is revealed concerning the Father and the Son in the Gospel of John is very different. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” By this we see not only that Christ, the Word, was with God, but that He is God. According to John 1:14, the Word became flesh; that is, Christ became a man, God incarnate. In His teaching and preaching the Lord affirmed that He came in the name of the Father and with the Father. He also told both the Jewish religionists and His disciples that He was not alone, for the Father was always with Him. Furthermore, He revealed to His disciples that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Therefore, it is altogether inaccurate to say that when the Son came, He left the Father on the throne.
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