THE DISPENSING OF THE FATHER
The dispensing of the Father can be seen in the Gospel of John. Verse 32 of chapter six says that the Father gives us the true bread out of heaven. The Lord Jesus told us clearly that He is the very bread from heaven given by the Father. This means that the Father is dispensing Christ as food to all of us. John 6:40 says that the will of the Father is that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life. Christ as the heavenly bread dispensed to us is the embodiment of the eternal life. When we receive this bread and eat it, we have this bread within us as the eternal life. The Father gives us the heavenly bread, which signifies the Son. Thus, the Son is the heavenly food for our life supply.
We can also see the dispensing of the Father in John 8:29, which says that He [the Father] who sent the Son is with the Son. The Father gives the Son as the heavenly bread, but when He gives the Son, He comes with the Son. The Father who sent the Son is with the Son. The natural thought is that the Father remained in the heavens when He sent the Son to us to be our food supply. But according to the divine revelation, the Father was with the Son when the Son came. This shows that not only the Son but also the Father is the component of the heavenly bread. When we receive the Son, we have the Father with the Son as our food supply. This is the dispensing of the Father.
John 5:24 says that He who hears the Son and believes the Father who sent the Son has eternal life. The book of John repeatedly tells us that God has given Himself for us to receive Him as our eternal life. This giving and receiving indicates the dispensing of the Father.
THE DISPENSING OF THE SON
Now we want to see the dispensing of the Son. The Son, who shared in our blood and flesh, was manifested in the flesh (Heb. 2:14; 1 Tim. 3:16). As we have seen, the Son came of a woman in the likeness of the flesh of sin. The dispensing of the Son is also seen in grace and reality coming through Jesus Christ (John 1:17b). Jesus Christ came for the purpose of dispensing God Himself as grace and reality to us. God Himself as grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. This is the dispensing of the Son.
The Son came that we might have life and have life abundantly (John 10:10b). He desired to dispense Himself into us as life. This can also be seen in John 19:34, which says that the soldier pierced His side and there came out blood and water. The blood is for our redemption, and the water is for God’s dispensing. The blood deals with sins, and the water is the flow of the divine life to quench our thirst and swallow up our death. The water is for the dispensing of the divine life into our being. The Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20; Titus 2:14). His giving of Himself was for His dispensing.
The Son gave Himself to us that we might eat Him. When the Lord Jesus established His table, He gave the bread to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body" (Matt. 26:26). This shows us that to remember the Lord at His table is to enjoy Him by eating Him. The Lord Jesus, who gave Himself on the cross for us, is edible. The bread on our dining table has been processed, or cooked. After the cross our Lord is now the heavenly bread who has been cooked. Now this bread is ready for us to take and eat. Today Jesus is edible. The Lord’s table, of which we partake, is a sign, a symbol, of our daily walk, indicating that our daily walk is one of taking Christ as our life supply and living by this supply. One day a week we come together to give a testimony to the entire universe with a declaration that this is the way we live. We live by eating Jesus as our food, our life supply. We need to see the vision of Jesus being edible.
(Living In and With the Divine Trinity, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
