Ⅲ
We live in the Divine Trinity by abiding in Christ as the true vine—vv. 1, 5:
A
The true vine with its branches—Christ the Son with the believers in the Son—is the organism of the Triune God in the divine economy to grow with His riches and express His life—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 3:9; John 15:1, 5:
１
The function of the true vine as a sign of the Son is for the Triune God to have an organism in the Son for His multiplication, spreading, and glorification in His divine life—vv. 8, 16.
２
The Father as the husbandman is the source and the founder; God the Son is the center, the embodiment, and the manifestation; God the Spirit is the reality and realization; and the branches are the Body, the corporate expression—vv. 1, 4-5, 26:
ａ
All that the Father is and has is embodied in Christ the Son and then realized in the Spirit as the reality—16:13-15.
ｂ
All that the Spirit has is wrought into us, the branches, to be expressed and testified through us; in this way the processed Triune God is expressed, manifested, and glorified in the church—Eph. 3:16-21.
B
As branches of the vine, we need to abide in the vine—John 15:4-5:
１
When we believed in the Lord Jesus, He branched into us, and we became branches in Him—3:15.
２
To be in the Lord is a matter of union; to abide in the Lord is a matter of fellowship—1 Cor. 1:9, 30.
Morning Nourishment
John 15:1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.8 In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so you will become My disciples.
26 But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of reality, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify concerning Me.
In John 15 we see that Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is the true vine….Christ the Son as the true vine with the believers as its branches is the organism of the Triune God in God’s economy, the divine dispensing, to grow with His riches and express the divine life. As the organism of the Triune God, this vine is corporate and universal.
John 15 reveals not only Christ the Son as the vine but also the Father as the husbandman, the Body of Christ as the branches of the vine, and God the Spirit as the Spirit of reality. As the vine, Christ the Son is the center…. Everything that God the Father is and has is for the center, is embodied in the center, and is expressed through the center. God the Father is expressed, manifested, and glorified through the vine. Therefore, God the Father is the source and God the Son is the center. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 2929)
Today’s Reading
[In John 15:26] God the Spirit is called the Spirit of reality. This means that the Spirit is the reality. Whatever God the Father is in the Son and whatever He has centralized in Christ the Son will be realized by the Spirit. All that God the Father is in the Son is a reality in God the Spirit. Everything centralized in the Son is revealed, testified, witnessed, and realized by the Spirit of reality. Therefore, God the Father is the source, the founder; Christ the Son is the center, the embodiment, and the manifestation; and God the Spirit is the realization, the reality. This is exceedingly profound and deep.Moreover, in this revelation there is not only the Triune God but also the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is the church. In this revelation the church is likened to the branches of a vine…. If the branches are taken away from the vine, the vine will have no body. Without the branches, the vine has nothing remaining except the root and the stem. Hence, the branches are the body of the vine.
The Father is the source of the vine, the Son is the vine, and the Spirit is the life-juice of the vine. This great vine is the organism of the Triune God. All that the Father is, is in this organism, embodied in the vine, which is the second of the Trinity. Within the vine is the circulating life flow of the Spirit. It is the Spirit who carries the riches of the Father to sustain the vine and its branches. This vine into which we have been grafted is the organism of the Triune God.
All that God the Father is and has is centralized and embodied in Christ the Son, and all of this is realized in the Spirit of reality. Now all of this has been wrought into us and will be expressed and testified through us. John 15 has four very important items: God the Father as the source and founder, God the Son as the center and manifestation, God the Spirit as the reality and realization, and the branches as the Body, the corporate expression. The branches are vital, for they express what God is in Christ as the Spirit….The full expression depends upon the branches, the Body, for what God is in Christ the Son and as the Spirit will be expressed by the branches, the Body. All that God the Father is and has is in Christ the Son, all that the Son is and has is realized as the Spirit, and all that the Spirit has is in the Body, in the church, in us…. All that the Spirit has is expressed in us, that is, in the branches, the church. The Triune God in Christ is expressed, manifested, and glorified in the church. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 2929-2930, 2938-2939)
Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 285-286