2009秋季长老
总题:在神圣三一的神圣分赐中生活并事奉
总题:在神圣三一的神圣分赐中生活并事奉
Message Nine The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the Believers' Living for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ
Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:17-32
I. In Ephesians 4:17-32 there are three verses that reveal the divine dis-pensing of the Divine Trinity in the believers' corporate God-man living as the reality of the Body of Christ for the building up of the church; these verses speak of the Father's life (v. 18), the Son's living (v. 21), and the Spirit's sealing (v. 30):
A. Verse 18 speaks of the life of God for supplying His children with His divine riches in His divine dispensing.
B. Verse 21 speaks of learning Christ as "the reality is in Jesus" for infusing His believers with His God-man living in His divine dispensing:
1. Jesus lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God; God was in His living, and He was one with God—this is what is meant by "the reality is in Jesus" in verse 21.
2. The reality that is in Jesus is the practicality of the life of God, that is, the practicing of the life of God, which took place in Jesus while He lived on earth.
3. In the daily life of Jesus there was something very real, and that reality was God's divine life realized and practiced as the truth in Jesus' humanity.
C. Verse 30 speaks of the sealing of the Holy Spirit for saturating the members of Christ with the divine element in His divine dispensing:
1. The sealing Spirit is also the sealing ink which seals us—1:13; 2 Cor. 3:3.
2. The contents, the element, and the essence of the sealing ink are the divine life plus Jesus' practical humanity.
3. This sealing can never become dry but remains wet forever; because it is wet, it saturates, permeates, and soaks us with the Triune God.
D. The life of God, the reality that is in Jesus, and the sealing of the Holy Spirit are the three sources of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity for the building up of the Body of Christ:
1. The Father's life must become the reality in our daily living, the reality that is in Jesus; this reality, as the practicality of the life of the Father, becomes the sealing ink, which is the Holy Spirit.
2. While the sealing ink seals us, it saturates, permeates, and soaks us with the divine life in the practicality of Jesus' daily life, making us a "Xerox" copy of Jesus' life, which is the practicality of the Father's life; this results in the glorious expression of the Triune God in and through the church.
II. Ephesians 4:17-24 reveals the basic principles of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the believers' corporate God-man living as the real-ity of the Body of Christ:
A. We must not walk as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind—v. 17.
B. We must not be alienated from the life of God—v. 18.
C. We must not cease from caring for the feeling of our conscience—v. 19; Acts 24:16.
D. We must learn Christ in the divine dispensing as the truth (reality versus vanity) that is in Jesus; the reality of the Body of Christ is the reality that is in Jesus, the actual condition of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels, duplicated in His many members as the corporate living of the perfected God-men—Eph. 4:20-21; cf. vv. 15, 24-25; Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:19-21a:
1. As those who toil and are burdened, we need to come to our dear Lord so that He can give us rest, and we can take His yoke upon us and learn from Him; this is to learn Christ as the reality that is in Jesus—Matt. 11:28-30.
2. In thechurch lifeweare beingdiscipled by theLordtobeGod-men, living the divine life by denying our natural life and disposition according to the model of Christ as the first God-man—v. 29a; Gal. 2:20.
3. In His human living, Jesus expressed the divine virtues in His humanity by the mysterious attributes of the Triune God; we need to learn from Him by eating Him and staying intimately connected with Him so that we can live because of Him with the divine attributes expressed in our human vir-tues—Luke 7:13-14; John 6:57; Col. 2:2-3, 19.
4. He took the Father as His source, "looking up to heaven"; we need to expect the Lord's blessing, just as He expected the Father's blessing and looked to the Father as the source of blessing—Matt. 14:19-23.
5. Just as the Son came to do the will of God by sacrificing Himself on the altar of the cross, and just as He was the tent of God, the tabernacle and temple of God, living as a sojourner on earth, having no place to lay His head, we need to live a life of the altar (the crucified Christ as our life) and the tent (the church—the corporate Christ as our living)—Psa. 40:6-8; Heb. 10:5-10; Ezek. 40:47; John 1:14; 2:19-22; 18:33-38; Matt. 3:16-17; 8:20; Gen. 12:7-8; 13:3-4, 18; Psa. 43:4a; 1 Cor. 2:2; Lev. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 3:16; 14:23-31.
6. The living of the Body of Christ as the new man must be exactly the same as the living of Jesus; the way Jesus lived on earth is the way the Body of Christ as the new man must live today—Eph. 4:20-24.
E. We must put off, as regards the former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the deceit (the personification of Satan), and, being renewed in the spirit of the mind, put on, in the divine dis-pensing, the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality—vv. 22-24:
1. To putoff theold manistoput offour oldhabits; toput on thenew manis to live according to the present, up-to-date divine dispensing.
2. We put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind; this means that our mind is filled with, saturated by, and under the control and direction of our mingled spirit—cf. Rom. 8:6.
III. Ephesians 4:25-32 reveals the organic details of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in the believers' corporate God-man living as the real-ity of the Body of Christ:
A. As members of the Body, members one of another, we must speak truth one with another—v. 25.
B. We must not give place to the devil by letting the sun go down on our indigna-tion; we must not continue in anger but relinquish it before the sun sets, being angry but not sinning—vv. 26-27.
C. We must not steal, but labor, working with our own hands in that which is respectable, that we may have something to share with ones who have need— v. 28.
D. We must not let any corrupt word proceed out of our mouth but only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace, in the dispensing of the divine life, to the hearers—v. 29.
E. We must not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom we were sealed, for the dispensing of the Divine Trinity unto (or, for) the day of the redemption of our body—v. 30.
F. We must abstain, in the divine dispensing, from all bitterness, anger, wrath, clamor, and evil speaking, with all malice—v. 31.
G. We must be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave us—v. 32:
1. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, so we must always bless one another, being of the same mind, sympathetic, loving the brothers, tenderhearted, humble-minded—1:3; 1 Pet. 3:8-9.
2. We have been called to bless others, so we, as a blessed people, must always bless others so that we may inherit blessing; what we bless others with, we will inherit ourselves—Matt. 10:13.