By the dispensing of the processed Divine Trinity, God will be able to accomplish His purpose and work in us. Now we are waiting for the redemption of our body, that is, for the spreading of God’s essence into our body that our body of humiliation may be permeated with His element so that we will be exactly the same as God and will completely become God from the inside to the outside. Some people criticize us, saying, “How can we human beings be made God? This is heresy.” This is because they have not seen this vision. Ephesians 4:23-24 says, “And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality.” This indicates that this new man has not only the image of God outwardly but also the life and nature of God inwardly (Col. 3:10). Therefore, this new man is God. When we put on the new man, we put on God.
Not only so, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that when we behold and reflect the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image. This image is not the image of God with which man was created; it is the image of the resurrected, glorified, pneumatic Christ, to which the believers are being conformed by being transformed in their inward essence. Today this Christ is the processed Triune God. In other words, we are being conformed to God. Romans 8:29 says that God predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son. One day we will all have the image of God’s Son; we will all fully become the sons of God. Surely the sons of God are God. Hence, 1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.”
If you read these few verses you will prostrate yourself and bow your head to worship the Lord, saying, “O God, yes, we can never share in Your Godhead to become an object for people to worship; but we thank You that in Your highest purpose, by the dispensing in regeneration, renewing, redemption, and sealing, You are transforming us to build Yourself into us that we may become exactly the same as You are, within and without, that we may become God. We worship You for this highest purpose of Yours.” If you have this kind of realization, your entire living will have a great change. You will no longer be going up and down continually in the realm of the knowledge of good and evil. You will jump out of that realm and no longer try to be one who is good or one who is superior to all others. You will just be like God, express God, and have God’s image. This is the church, the Body of Christ.
The issue of the divine dispensing is transformation, which is the building. God’s building is to take Himself as the material and build Himself into His chosen and redeemed people. Some brothers and sisters have an incorrect concept, thinking that if they have compatible interests and the same opinion and serve together in coordination, they are built up together. That is not building. The genuine building is the Triune God building Himself into the believers through the transformation of the believers. Ephesians 3 presents us a picture of the apostle praying to God the Father that He would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened through the Holy Spirit that Christ may make His home in us. This is a picture of the dispensing of the Triune God. In John 14:23 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” An abode is something that is built up. Hence, for the Triune God to make an abode in us is for Him to build Himself into us, that is, to build Himself with us together as a mutual dwelling place for Him and us.
Brothers and sisters, how much has God been built into you today? We might have believed in the Lord for a long time, yet we still might not have allowed the Triune God to dispense Himself sufficiently in us. As a result, many years have gone by, but we are still materials scattered in different places, and even the foundation has not been properly laid. If we are willing to receive more of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity, the element of God will increase in us day by day and there will be the building day by day. As a result, very soon God will have a dwelling place in us, a place where He can rest. God will be comfortable and restful in us because He will have obtained a dwelling place and He Himself will also have become our dwelling place.
This is not a doctrine; this should be our daily experience. This is the growth of life, and this is also the genuine spiritual growth, the real overcoming life. The Lord’s recovery, beginning with Brother Nee, has always been concerned with this building. What we need is not the outward material blessings nor the so-called spirituality or victory. What we need is Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3, that is, that the Father would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our hearts. We need to pray for one another and the church. We all need to be strengthened into our inner man that we may be joined to the Spirit, to the Triune God, to experience the continual dispensing of the Divine Trinity, with the Father as the source, the Son as the element, and the Spirit as the essence (Eph. 4:4-6). This dispensing issues in the building of God in us. Thus, we and God, God and we, become a mutual dwelling place. First we dwell in Him, and then He dwells in us. Eventually, by our dwelling in Him and His dwelling in us, He and we become one; that is, God becomes man and man becomes God. This is the ultimate issue of the making of the abode in John 14—the New Jerusalem. In other words, this mutual dwelling of us in Him and Him in us issues in the New Jerusalem. Thank the Lord that today we are living in the reality of the New Jerusalem to build the Body of Christ for the New Jerusalem.
M. C. substituting for W. L.
(The Dispensing, Transformation and Building of the Processed Divine Trinity in the Believers, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)