«　WEEK 4　DAY 5　»

　　2 Cor. 12:9 And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you,…..

　　2 Cor. 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

　　The word dispense means to distribute. Suppose we have a large container of juice. In order for people to drink the juice, we must find a way to dispense the juice from the container into them. The best way is to pour the juice into cups and then distribute it among the people present. The juice used to be in the container, but now it is in the people into whom it has been dispensed. When we speak of the dispensation of the Triune God, we mean that God distributes Himself to us and then dispenses Himself into our being just as the juice is dispensed from the container into those who drink it. In His dispensation, God actually enters into our being, fills our vessel, and becomes one with us. This is the dispensation of the Triune God for the fulfillment of His purpose.

　　For God to dispense Himself into His chosen people, He must be triune; that is, He must be God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Although our God is triune, we reject tritheism, which is the doctrine that the Three of the Trinity are three distinct Gods. We do not have three Gods—we have the unique Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. We have indicated that the Trinity of the Godhead is not for theology, but for dispensing. God does not desire to exist alone. He longs to dispense Himself into men created, chosen, and called by Him. Hallelujah, we are those men, and God wants to dispense Himself into us! This is implied in the book of Romans. Let us now consider the Triune God as revealed in this book and then consider God's dispensation. (Life-study of Romans, msg. 60)

　　Among the sixty-six books of the Bible, 2 Corinthians is unique in that it concludes with a blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This blessing is composed of attributes of the Triune God: grace, love, and fellowship. The love of God the Father is the source, the fount, and grace is the flow, the expression, of love. With love as the source, we may do something for others or give something to them. This is grace as the outflow and expression of love. For example, I may desire to give a watch to a brother. The giving of the watch is an expression of my love for him. The love within me is expressed by my giving him a watch. We may use this to illustrate the love of God and the grace of Christ. Love is with the Father as the source, and grace is with the Son as the course, the flow, the expression.

　　The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is a matter of communication, transportation, transmission. Therefore, love is the source, grace is the flow, and fellowship is the transmission of the flow with the source. In this way we have love, grace, and fellowship as our enjoyment, and we participate in them.

　　Second Corinthians 13:14 clearly says that grace is of Christ, love is of God, and fellowship is of the Holy Spirit. Because the book of 2 Corinthians emphasizes grace, grace is mentioned first in 13:14. Elsewhere in this book Paul speaks strongly of grace. For example, in 1:12 he says, “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.” Then in 8:1-15 we see grace from four parties, in particular, the grace of Christ. In 8:9 Paul says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, being rich, for your sakes He became poor, in order that you by His poverty might become rich.” Then in 12:9 we have perhaps the most famous verse on grace in the whole Bible: “And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.”

　　Grace as presented in 2 Corinthians is actually the Triune God embodied in the Son and transmitted into our being through the Spirit for our enjoyment. Hence, grace is the Triune God as our life, life supply, and enjoyment. This grace issues out from the Father's love and is transmitted into our being by the Spirit. Therefore, we have the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—the full enjoyment of the Triune God. (Life-Study of 2 Corinthians, msg. 58)

　　According to the Scriptures, we testify strongly that our Lord today is not merely a part of the Triune God—He is the embodiment of the entire Triune God, the Son with the Father and as the Spirit. In our experience today, He is the Spirit as the reality of the Son with the Father to be our life for our enjoyment. Realizing that He is such a wonderful One, we do not care for dead doctrines, vain religion, or meaningless rituals. Our concern is to have the daily experience and enjoyment of the Triune God. (Life-Study of 1 John, msg. 32)