GOD’S ECONOMY IN HIS DIVINE TRINITY BEING TO WORK HIMSELF INTO US AS LIFE
God’s economy, God’s eternal purpose, and God’s intention are to work Himself into us by being life to us. This is a basic word, the foundation, which we should not forget. God can work Himself into us only by being life to us. If He could not be life to us, He can never be worked into us. The only possibility for God to work Himself into us and be mingled with us is to be life within us. Even with physical things, the only way for something to be worked into us is that we take it as our life supply. How can a big cow be worked into us? The only way is for the cow to become our life supply. Through a kind of death and resurrection, the cow must be taken, eaten, swallowed, and digested by us. Then the cow becomes us. By being life to us, the cow mingles itself with us and becomes us.
In order to know the Scriptures, we must know the central thought of God’s economy. Without comprehending this central thought, we can never understand the Bible; we will not know what this book is talking about. The entire Scripture reveals to us this one thing, that God is always working Himself into us as our life. And what is life? Life is nothing less than God Himself in three Persons. We must always remember the economy of the three Persons of the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I am not asking you to learn the doctrine and theology of the Trinity. I would ask you to forget mere doctrine and theology. Rather, I am speaking of the economy of the Persons of the Godhead: the Father as the source, the Son as the course, and the Spirit as the flow. This Triune God comes into us; that is, the Father is in the Son, the Son is the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Son and the Father comes into us as life. Never consider that the Holy Spirit is someone other than God Himself. That is wrong. If you have the Spirit, you have the Son, and if you have the Son, you have the Father. I long that I could have the adequate time to speak this very thing to the Lord’s children.
The Triune God comes into us as our life. If we apprehend and grasp this in our understanding, the entire Bible will be new and gloriously open to us, and we will understand it in a heavenly way; we will know what it is talking about. We have this wonderful life, which is nothing less than the Triune God in the Spirit dwelling in our spirit.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF LIFE, THE SENSE OF LIFE, AND THE LAW OF LIFE
There are three main things we must know concerning this life. First is the fellowship of life, second is the sense of life, and third is the law of life. Why must we know these particular three aspects of the divine life in us? It is because they match the three functions of our spirit. The spirit is the organ for us to fellowship with God; this is the first function of the spirit. There is also a deeper function, which is the intuition, the direct sense within our spirit, for us to sense something of God. Third, in our spirit there is the conscience. The fellowship of life is related to the fellowship in our spirit; the sense of life, the consciousness of life, the inner feeling, is related to the intuition; and the law of life is related to our conscience. In order to know the inner life, that is, God as life to us, we must know all these things. This is the spiritual “medical science,” and we are learning to be the spiritual “medical doctors.” Without knowing the science of eating, we do not know our physical body. In the same way, if we do not know the above matters in detail, we simply do not know the way to experience the inner life; we do not have the spiritual science of the inner life.
The fellowship of life comes from life. When life comes into us, there is the flow, the current, of life, which is the fellowship. By this flowing, the fellowship of life, we constantly have the inner sense, the inner feeling, the inner consciousness, which is the sense of life. Then this sense helps us to realize the law of life regulating within us all the time. If the fellowship is broken, that is, the inner current is stopped and frustrated, then the sense of life is gone, and the regulating of the inner law seems to no longer work. In this case we become dull, we are in darkness, and we cast off all feeling, becoming a person without regulation (Eph. 4:18-19). This is dangerous. Many Christians are like this. Today, however, we have been taught that the Triune God has come into us to dwell in our spirit as life. With this life there is the constant flowing and current, which is the fellowship of life, and by this flowing of life there is always the bountiful sense of life, the rich consciousness of life, the richness of the inner feeling. Then by this inner sense the law of life regulates in everything all day long. What I am saying here is not mere knowledge; it is based on experience. Your own experience confirms this.
Again I say, if the fellowship of life is frustrated, stopped, and broken, the inner sense will be lost, and the regulating will not work. In this case, we are outside of life. We may still be very good and moral, but we are merely keeping the moral laws; there is no inner regulation of life. We Christians should not be regulated merely by outward moral regulations. We are persons who are regulated by the inner regulation of the inner law, the law of life. This is the big difference between the people in the world and Christians. The worldly, moral persons act only according to outward regulations, but we Christians walk according to the inward regulation. Why do I not do certain things? It is not because of outward regulations but because of the inner regulation. Something within me is regulating, so I cannot do those things, I cannot say certain things, and I cannot go to certain places. Others can go because they do not have the inner regulating. But I have it, so I cannot go. Strictly speaking, a Christian is a person who lives, acts, and does things from within. Whatever he does must be something of life, something as the working out of the inner life, not merely an outward behavior.
(Practical Lessons on the Experience of Life, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee)
