Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 John 1:2-7, 9; Rev. 22:1
Ⅰ
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14)—this is the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us for our enjoyment and the accomplishing of His economy:
A
The Holy Spirit as the circulation, the transmission, of the grace of Christ with the love of the Father is the supply in our Christian life and church life.
B
The entire church life depends upon 2 Corinthians 13:14, which is a description of the divine and spiritual circulation within us.
C
The current of the Divine Trinity as the inner circulation of the Divine Trinity revealed in 2 Corinthians 13:14 is our spiritual pulse.
D
God’s intention in His economy is to dispense Himself in His Divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—into His chosen people; God’s only goal in time is to dispense Himself into us day by day—Psa. 36:8-9.
Ⅱ
In order to enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us, we need to enter into and keep ourselves in the eternal love of God—Jer. 31:3:
A
“We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19); God first loved us in that He infused us with His love and generated within us the love with which we love Him and the brothers (vv. 20-21).
B
Deuteronomy 30:19 and 20 say, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life that you and your seed may live, in loving Jehovah your God by listening to His voice and holding fast to Him; for He is your life and the length of your days”:
１
These verses reveal that the way to choose life is to love the Lord, and the way to love the Lord is to listen to His voice and hold fast to Him—vv. 19-20; Rev. 2:4, 7; S. S. 3:4; 8:13-14.
２
Acts 11:23 reveals how we can hold fast to Him; when Barnabas went to Antioch, he “encouraged them all to remain with the Lord with purpose of heart”:
ａ
To hold fast to the Lord is to remain with the Lord with purpose of heart.
ｂ
This is to be persistently faithful to the Lord, cleave to Him, and live in close fellowship with Him.
C
As we love the Lord Jesus, we become the same as He is in His divinely enriched humanity; the bountiful God in His rich attributes is expressed through our aromatic “Jesusly” human virtues—2 Cor. 2:15.
D
These “Jesusly” human virtues include extraordinary love, boundless forbearance, unparalleled faithfulness, absolute humility, utmost purity, supreme holiness and righteousness, and brightness and uprightness; these virtues describe the actual life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels, which is now our indwelling life for us to experience, enjoy, and express—Eph. 4:20-21.
E
Christ as our indwelling life enables us to live a life that is absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction—our living becomes a reproduction of the human living of Jesus typified by the burnt offering—Lev. 1:4, 13.
F
We all need to spend an adequate amount of personal time with the Lord to have affectionate, private, and spiritual fellowship with Him in our spirit so that we can be filled with His loving essence for Him to shepherd others through us and so that we can be filled with His shining element for others to see Him in us—S. S. 1:1-4; John 4:24; Luke 15:20; Matt. 5:15-16.
G
The humanity of one who serves the Lord is safeguarded through his loving the Lord; our loving the Lord keeps us in the realm and sphere of Jesus’ humanity; if we do not love the Lord, we lose the restraint that comes from His attraction, and we are liable to do anything and everything—2 Tim. 4:10, 14; Eph. 4:17-21.
Ⅲ
In order to enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us, we need to enter into and keep ourselves standing in the grace of Christ, which is the Triune God as our enjoyment—Rom. 5:2:
A
Day by day we need the Lord to open our ears and cause us to hear the words of grace proceeding out of His mouth so that we can experience the Father’s gracing us with His grace in the Beloved and can give grace to those who hear us—Eph. 1:6; Isa. 50:4-5; S. S. 8:13; Luke 4:22; Acts 20:32; Eph. 4:29.
B
We need to enjoy the descending dew of the grace of life in the church life to keep ourselves in the genuine oneness for the gradual building up of the Body of Christ in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity—Psa. 133.
Ⅳ
In order to enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us, we need to enter into and keep ourselves in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the inner flow of the divine life—2 Cor. 13:14; Num. 6:22-27:
A
The fellowship is the flow of the eternal life within all the believers, who have received and possess the divine life; it is illustrated by the flow of the river of water of life in the New Jerusalem—Rev. 22:1.
B
First John 1:2-3 and 6-7 reveal that the fellowship of the divine life has both a vertical aspect and a horizontal aspect:
１
First John 1:2-3 says, “(And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us); that which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ”:
ａ
The vertical aspect of fellowship refers to our fellowship with the Triune God; the horizontal aspect of fellowship refers to our fellowship with one another.
ｂ
The initial experience of the apostles was vertical, but when the apostles reported the eternal life to others, they experienced the horizontal aspect of the divine fellowship.
２
Verse 6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth”; this is the vertical aspect of fellowship.
３
Verse 7 says, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another”; this is the horizontal aspect of fellowship.
４
The fellowship of life, the inner flow of life, results in joy and in the inner shining, the inner ruling, of the light of life—vv. 4-5; John 1:4; 8:12; cf. 2 Cor. 5:13.
C
We need to see the relationship between the vertical and horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship:
１
If we do not have the proper fellowship with the Lord, it is difficult to have fellowship with our fellow believers; in the same way, if we do not have the proper fellowship with our fellow believers, it is difficult to have fellowship with the Lord; the reason for this is that the divine fellowship is one fellowship—Acts 2:42.
２
When we are not in this fellowship in a practical way, we are out of the Spirit, out of the Triune God, and out of the divine life—cf. 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 1:9; Phil. 2:1.
３
We should try to have fellowship with our fellow believers as much as possible; this divine fellowship not only corrects us, but it also molds us and even reconstitutes us; this fellowship brings the divine constituent into our spiritual being, causing a change in our being.
D
The horizontal fellowship is interwoven with the vertical fellowship; this interwoven fellowship is the real fellowship:
１
When we fellowship with one another in a genuine way by exercising our spirit, we are eager to pray and contact the Lord; this shows how close the relationship is between the vertical and horizontal aspects of fellowship.
２
Our horizontal fellowship with the saints brings us into vertical fellowship with the Lord; then our vertical fellowship with the Lord brings us into horizontal fellowship with the saints.
Ⅴ
The divine fellowship is everything in the Christian life; we must realize that when fellowship disappears, God also disappears; God comes as the fellowship:
A
Just as the current of electricity is the electricity itself, the fellowship of the divine life, the flow of the divine life, is the divine life itself.
B
Our Christian life is a life in the fellowship of life; eventually, in this divine fellowship God is interwoven with us; this interweaving is the mingling of God with man.
C
The divine fellowship is the dispensing of the Triune God into us, the tripartite men, making us and God one; the Greek word for fellowship means “joint participation,” and this joint participation issues in oneness.
D
Actually, fellowship is just oneness; when God is fellowshipping with us and when we are fellowshipping with God, that makes God and us one; in the whole universe there is a big oneness, and this big oneness is the divine fellowship.
E
The Lord desires to make us all one as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one; in John 17 the Lord prayed, “That they may be one, even as We are one” (v. 22b); the oneness of the Body of Christ is the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity (v. 21).
F
The divine fellowship is the reality of living in the Body of Christ:
１
The reason that the Lord has not yet come back (Rev. 22:20) is that the believers are individualistic, independent, opinionated, and divided.
２
By being restricted in the divine fellowship, the Body of Christ is kept in oneness, and the work of the ministry continues to go on; the thing that makes everything alive is fellowship—Eph. 4:11-12; cf. Ezek. 47:9.
G
Fellowship also indicates a putting away of private interests and a joining with others for a certain common purpose; hence, to live in the divine fellowship is to put aside our private interests and join with the apostles and the Triune God for the carrying out of God’s purpose—Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3; 1 Cor. 1:9; 3:6, 12.
H
Eventually, the church and the Divine Trinity are one in fellowship—John 14:21, 23.
Ⅵ
As we are enjoying Christ in the divine fellowship, we continually experience a cycle in our spiritual life of four crucial things—the eternal life, the fellowship of the eternal life, the divine light, and the blood of Jesus the Son of God; such a cycle brings us onward in the growth of the divine life until we reach the maturity of life to corporately arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—1 John 1:1-9; Heb. 6:1; Eph. 4:13.