In the Triune God, the Father is the Source and the Son is the Expression (part 1)

John’s mending ministry is in life and by life. Life is a Person, the Triune God Himself in the Father as the source, the Son as the expression, and the Spirit as the realization.

In his mending ministry – both in his Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation – John speaks extensively of the Divine Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in a very mysterious way. This is probably due to the heresies against the Triune God and the Person of Christ, but the Apostle John wrote polemically concerning the Triune God.

We need to realize that, for the carrying out of the mending ministry of life, by life, and with life, we need to see a clear revelation of the Divine Trinity. The expressions, “the Triune God” and “the Divine Trinity” are not in the Bible, but the reality of these expressions is there.

John realized that apart from the Triune God, who is the very reality of the divine life, the mending cannot take place. Life is not a thing, a power, an influence, a blessing, or even a spiritual condition. Life is a Person – Life is God Himself, the Triune God.

For us to be properly mended by God and to cooperate with Him to carry out a genuine mending ministry, we need to receive a revelation of the Triune God. The Triune God is not merely “for the theologians” and it is not “too objective” for us to understand.

The revelation concerning the Triune God is the central structure and the essential element of the Bible. If we don’t see the Triune God and experience Him, we have nothing – the entire Bible will be an empty book and the economy of God would be dead knowledge to us.

Only by the Triune God and in the sphere of the Triune God both in knowledge and in our experience can we enter into the very centre and essence of the divine revelation in the Bible.

The disciples and the apostles were full and overflowing with the Triune God so much so that Paul, when he prayed for the believers, he bowed his knees to the Father that He would strengthen them through His Spirit into their inner man so that Christ the Son would make His home in their hearts through faith (Eph. 3:16-19). How we need to be poor in spirit and exercised in our mind to devote ourselves to both knowing and experiencing the Triune God!

In the Triune God, The Father is the Source

In the Gospel of John we see a clear revelation of the Triune God. The Father is the source, the Son is the expression of the Father, and the Spirit is the realization of the Son with the Father (see John 14:7-20). First of all, the Father is the source (see John 6:46; 7:29; 13:3).

The universe didn’t come into being from a “Big Bang” – the universe has a source, which is God the Father! Concerning God the Father there John tells us five main things:

1. No one has ever seen God the Father (John 1:18; 5:37; 6:46). The Father is the invisible source, like the underground fountain, which cannot be seen. He is rich, yet hidden; and everything else comes from Him.
2. All that the Father has is the Son’s and is in the Son (John 16:15). The Father loves the Son and He has deposited all that He has in the Son. Now if you want to enjoy the riches of God the Father, you need to come to the Son, who is the depository of all that the Father is. In the Son we have everything of the Father. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily (Col. 2:9).
3. The Father sent the Son (John 7:29; 6:57). God the Father didn’t give us things or virtues; He gives us His Son. And the Son came from the Father and with the Father (in John 7:29 the Greek word for “from” means “from with”). The Father has deposited all He has in the Son and He came with the Son through incarnation. The Father sent the Son and He came with the Son and in the Son.
4. The Father is expressed in the Son (John 14:7-11; 8:19). The abstract and invisible Father was fully expressed in an individual way through the Son, who manifested Him. When you see Christ, you see the Father, because the Father is in Christ and is expressed in Christ.
5. The Father is working in the Son (John 14:10; 7:16). The Son speaks and the Father does His works. They are perfectly coordinated. The Son doesn’t speak or do anything of Himself; when the Son speaks, the Father does His works.

The Son is the Expression of the Father (part 1)

The mysterious, invisible, hidden, and abstract God the Father desires to have a visible, tangible, full expression, someone to manifest Him in all His riches and attributes. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the expression of the Father (John 1:18).

Without Christ the Son, the Father would remain unknown and mysterious. But now in Christ, we can understand who and what God is, and all God’s attributes can be clearly seen. The Son came not firstly to accomplish redemption for us, but to express and manifest the Father in all His living on earth.

Concerning the Son being the expression of the Father there are at least 16 major aspects, 7 of which will be listed below – and the rest will be introduced in the next blog post.

1. The Son is the Word who is God and who was with God in the beginning (John 1:1). John doesn’t say that “in the beginning was God”; he says, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the Word was God.” Christ is the eternal word as the definition, expression, and explanation of God. This is very meaningful. As the Word of God, Christ expresses God, defines God, conveys God’s thoughts, and explains God to us.
2. The Son is equal with God (John 5:18). Christ is God. God is Triune: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – three, yet one. Christ didn’t consider His equality with God as a treasure to be grasped, but He Himself was God.
3. The Son and the Father are one (John 10:30). Christ was not only God; He was one with God the Father in all He was and did. There’s nothing that the Son did that was not in oneness with the Father.
4. The Son is the expression of the Father (John 14:8-9; 8:19). The hidden and invisible God has a visible and tangible manifestation in the Son, Christ. When Christ came, the Father was manifested and expressed.
5. The Son lives because of the Father (John 6:57a). The Son didn’t live apart from the Father; He continually fed upon the Father with His life, and He lived because of the Father. We should live the same way – because of the Christ we eat and enjoy!
6. The Son came to carry out the Father’s will (John 6:38; 5:19-20, 30; 12:49). The Father has a will, a good pleasure, a heart’s desire, and the Son came to carry out the Father’s will, His desire, and His good pleasure. He didn’t live for Himself but for the Father, and His food was to do the Father’s will.
7. The Son became flesh, bringing grace and reality (John 1:14, 16-17; 8:32, 36). In the Son God the Father was manifested fully, and the Son brought grace and reality to man. Grace is God enjoyed by man, and reality is God realized by man. The Son came to make God the Father enjoyable to us that we may realize who God the Father is. God the Father is love, light, holiness, and righteousness; God the Son made the Father known by living out all that God the Father is, full of grace and reality.

[part 2 – see the next blog post here]

Father, grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of You. Enlighten the eyes of our heart, remove the veils of religion and spiritual opinions, and cause us to see, realize, and enjoy the Triune God. Thank You Father for being the source. We praise You, Son of God, for being one with the Father, for expressing the Father, and for making the Father real to us. Thank You, God the Spirit, for bringing us into the subjective and practical realization of all that the Father and the Son are and have! Triune God, we love You and we open to You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, Taking Christ as Our Person for the Church Life (pp. 44-46), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Mending Ministry of John, week 2 / msg 2, The Revelation of the Triune God and of the Consummated Spirit.
• Further reading: recommending, The Economy of God and the Mystery of the Transmission of the Divine Trinity (chs. 4-5).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # How rich the source, the Father as the fountain, / And all this wealth He wants man to enjoy! / O blessed fact, this vast exhaustless portion / Is now for us forever to employ!
  # O God, Thou art the source of life, / Divine, and rich and free! / As living water flowing out / Unto eternity! / In love Thou in the Son didst flow / Among the human race; / Thou dost as Spirit also flow / Within us thru Thy grace.
  # I praise Thee for Thy mystery, / That I may truly contact Thee; / In unapproachable light Thou wast / But now as Spirit nigh to me. / The Father, Son, and Spirit, Thou, / The triune God, my life fore’er; / In me Thou art the full supply / That I Thy holy nature share.