Table of Contents
HWMR – LIVING IN AND WITH THE DIVINE TRINITY (Week 3)
Living in the Divine Trinity (2) – Living in the Divine Trinity by Enjoying Christ as Our Life Supply, by Living Christ for His Magnification, and by the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in Our Spirit
Ga 6:18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.
If we would receive grace and enjoy grace, we need to realize that our spirit is the only place we can experience grace. Just as electricity can be applied only by turning on the switch, so we can contact the moving, anointing Spirit only in our spirit. If you wish to receive grace and enjoy grace, do not exercise your mind, emotion, or will. Instead, turn to your spirit and exercise it….We need to turn from our mind and emotion back to the spirit, where we shall meet the Lord.
The throne of grace is not only in heaven; it is also in our spirit. If it were not in our spirit as well as in heaven, how could we come forward to it? Some may argue that our spirit is not large enough to contain the throne of grace….The fact that we can come forward to the throne of grace indicates that, experientially, it is in our spirit. From my experience I know that when I turn to my spirit and call, “Lord Jesus,” I immediately have the sense that the throne of grace is in my spirit.
Whenever we approach the throne of grace by turning to our spirit and calling on the name of the Lord, we should enthrone the Lord. We must give Him the headship, kingship, and lordship in us….Sometimes as we are praying we sense that the Lord is within us, but we are not willing to give Him the throne. Instead of recognizing His kingship, we exalt ourselves above Him and put ourselves on the throne. In a very practical way, we dethrone the Lord. Whenever we fail to enthrone the Lord, the flow of grace stops. At the very time we are praying, we need to allow the Lord to be on the throne within us, honoring Him as the Head, the Lord, and the King. Then grace will flow within us as a river.
In Revelation 22:1 and 2 we see that the river of water of life proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. God’s throne is thus the source of the flowing grace. To dethrone Him, to take the throne away from Him, is to disregard the source of grace. This causes the flow of grace to cease….Many of us can testify that whenever we fail to enthrone the Lord, we do not receive much grace in our times of prayer.
The best way to practice turning to the spirit and staying in the spirit is to have fixed times for prayer. Suppose you set aside ten minutes in the morning to contact the Lord in prayer. During this time, the only thing you should do is exercise yourself to turn to the spirit and stay in the spirit. Do not be concerned about all the things you must do that day. Reject your natural mind, emotion, and will and exercise your spirit to contact the Lord.
As we receive the Triune God as our grace and enjoy Him as grace, we shall be constituted of Him. Little by little, we shall become one with Him organically. He will become our constituent, and we shall become His expression. (Life-study of Galatians, pp. 326-330)
Life-study of Galatians (Message 19)
Faith Replacing Law
Ga 3:9 So then they who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
Just as the law was the basic principle according to which God dealt with His people in the Old Testament, faith is the basic principle according to which He deals with people in the New Testament. All those who refuse to believe in Christ will perish, whereas those who believe in Him will be forgiven of their sins and receive eternal life. In John 16:9 we are told that the Spirit will convict the world concerning sin because of not believing in the Son of God. This indicates that the unique sin which causes people to perish is unbelief. God’s commandment to sinners is to believe in the Son of God.
In the New Testament the term faith is all-inclusive. It has both a divine aspect and a human aspect, for it implies something on God’s side and something on our side. On God’s side, the term “the faith” implies that God sent His Son to earth, that Christ died on the cross to accomplish redemption, that He was buried and was resurrected, that in resurrection He released the divine life and has become the life-giving Spirit—all that He might enter into all those who believe in Him to be grace, life, power, sanctification, and everything to them. On our side, faith is related to hearing, appreciating, calling, receiving, accepting, joining, partaking, and enjoying. Furthermore, faith involves rejoicing, thanking, praising, and overflowing. Faith hears and appreciates. Faith calls, receives, and accepts. Faith also joins, partakes, enjoys, rejoices, gives thanks, and praises. Therefore, faith results in the overflow of life from within us.
If we do not have faith, all that has been accomplished on God’s side will remain objective and not be personally related to us. We need our faith to function as a camera to photograph the scenery of grace. For faith to operate in this way implies that we apprehend the divine scenery by hearing, appreciating, calling, receiving, accepting, joining, partaking, enjoying, rejoicing, thanking, praising, and overflowing.
Faith is actually the all-inclusive Triune God infused into our being. This infusion takes place as we are under the preaching of grace and hear the word of grace. When the processed Triune God is infused into us, He becomes our faith. This faith is the reflection of grace. Therefore, grace and faith, faith and grace, are two ends of one thing. Neither grace nor faith has anything to do with the law. Today God deals with people not according to law, but according to faith. We need to keep this faith, turn to it, obey it, and contend for it.
Faith replaces law (Gal. 3:23, 25). Since faith has come, we should not stay with the law any longer. The law kept us and brought us to Christ, but now in our experience it should be replaced by faith. We have pointed out that 3:9 says that “they who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” Faith brings us into the blessing God promised to Abraham, that is, to the all-inclusive land which typifies the all-inclusive Spirit. Hence, faith in Christ brings us the promise of the Spirit (3:14).
In 3:7 and 9 Paul speaks of those “who are of faith.” According to both Darby’s New Translation and the Chinese version, this expression denotes the principle of faith. These versions adopt the rendering “on the principle of faith.” To be of faith means to be on the principle of faith. We are those who take faith as our principle. Everything we do should be in keeping with this principle. By this principle we come to Christ, receive Him, and become one with Him.
Galatians 3:23 and 25 say that faith has come. This is another strong expression. Once we were guarded under law, but now faith has come. This means that the processed Triune God as grace has come. The coming of faith also includes the coming of appreciation, receiving, and rejoicing. This is the faith which replaces law!
Life-study of Galatians (message 20)
The Seed of Abraham and the Sons of Abraham
Ga 3:16 But to Abraham were the promises spoken and to his seed. He does not say, And to the seeds, as concerning many, but as concerning one: “And to your seed,” who is Christ.
In Galatians 3 Paul speaks of the seed of Abraham (vv. 16, 19, 29) and the sons of Abraham (v. 7). The seed is singular, whereas the sons are plural. It is rather difficult for many readers of Galatians to understand the significance of this.
Concerning God’s promise to Abraham, there is the aspect of fulfillment and the aspect of enjoyment. To fulfill the promise is one thing, but to enjoy the blessing of the promise is another. Concerning promises made by one person to another, the one who fulfills the promise is seldom the one who enjoys the blessing of the promise. Usually the person who makes the promise is the one to fulfill the promise, and the one to whom the promise is made is the one who enjoys its blessing. In the case of God’s promise to Abraham, God, strictly speaking, is not the one to fulfill the promise. Instead, the promise is fulfilled by the seed, Christ (v. 16). Christ has fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham. Thus, the fulfillment of this promise does not depend on the many sons of Abraham, but on the unique seed of Abraham. However, with respect to the enjoyment of the blessing of this promise, the many sons are involved. Whereas the unique seed is the fulfiller, the many sons are the enjoyers. If we understand this matter, we shall be able to understand what Paul is talking about in Galatians 3.
Paul wrote the third chapter of Galatians as if he were an attorney writing a legal document. His wording is specific and precise. Consider verse 16: “But to Abraham were the promises spoken and to his seed. He does not say, And to the seeds, as concerning many, but as concerning one, And to your seed, Who is Christ.” In verses 19 and 29 Paul also refers to the seed. But in verse 26 he speaks of the sons of God. The sons of Abraham in verse 7 are the sons of God in verse 26. Now we must ask how the many sons of Abraham can be the many sons of God. The answer to this question involves the seed. On the one hand, the seed is the heir who inherits the promise. However, as the seed of Abraham, Christ also fulfills the promise.
The children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, inherited the good land of Canaan. In typology, the good land signifies Christ. Christ is both the seed and the land. He is not only the seed inheriting the promise; He is also the good land. Both the seed and the good land are types of Christ. As the unique seed in Galatians 3, Christ not only inherits the promise, but He also fulfills the promise. The promise God made to Abraham was fulfilled by Christ as Abraham’s seed.
In the matter of fulfilling the promise, we have no part. Only Christ, the unique seed, is qualified to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham. In this sense, the seed is uniquely one. But in the aspect of enjoying the fulfilled promise, the seed becomes many, the many sons of Abraham.
We know from 3:16 that Christ is Abraham’s unique seed. Christ is the seed, and the seed is the heir who inherits the promises. Here, Christ is the unique seed inheriting the promises. Hence, in order to inherit the promised blessing, we must be one with Christ. Outside of Him, we cannot inherit the promises given by God to Abraham. In God’s eyes Abraham has only one seed, Christ. We must be in Him that we may participate in the promise given to Abraham. He is not only the seed inheriting the promise, but also the blessing of the promise for inheritance. For the Galatian believers to turn back from Christ to the law meant that they would forfeit both the Heir and the inheritance of the promises.
If Christ had not come, there would have been no way for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham. As we have pointed out, the One who fulfilled this promise is not the One who made the promise, but the promised One, the seed. God had promised to give Abraham both a seed and the good land. This promise was fulfilled by the unique, promised seed.