Scripture Reading: John 14:7-26; 15:1-16, 26-27
Ⅰ
We may experience and enjoy Christ as the expression of the Father realized as the Spirit—John 14:7-26:
A
Christ the Son is the embodiment and expression of the Father (vv. 7-11), and the Spirit is the reality and realization of the Son (vv. 17-20):
１
In the Son the Father is expressed and seen, and as the Spirit the Son is revealed and realized—Isa. 9:6; 2 Cor. 3:17.
２
The Father in the Son is expressed among the believers, and the Son as the Spirit is realized in the believers—John 14:9, 16-18.
３
The Triune God—the Father in the Son and the Son as the Spirit—dispenses Himself into us to be our portion so that we may experience and enjoy Him as our everything.
B
Christ realized as the Spirit is another Comforter, the Spirit of reality— vv. 16-17:
１
The Holy Spirit as another Comforter, the reality of Jesus and the realization of the Lord, is the One who is alongside us, ministering to us and taking care of all our needs.
２
The Spirit of reality is the realization of what the Father and the Son are; the reality of all the divine attributes of both God the Father and God the Son is the Spirit—1 John 5:6.
C
As the expression of the Father realized as the Spirit, Christ comes to us with the Father and makes an abode with us—John 14:21-23:
１
The basis of 15:4-5 is 14:23, where we have the mutual abode made by the appearing of the Father and the Son as the Spirit to the believer who loves Him; this abode is prepared by the visitation of the Triune God.
２
The Father and the Son come to take us over, to possess us; in this way, the Father and the Son settle within us to make an abode with us, that is, to build the Father's house—vv. 2-3, 23.
３
By calling on the name of the Lord, we may experience and enjoy Christ as the expression of the Father realized as the Spirit so that Christ the Son would come to us with the Father to make an abode with us—Rom. 10:13.
Ⅱ
We may experience and enjoy Christ as the true vine—John 15:1-16, 26:
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, 5a.
B
God 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:
１
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.
２
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.
C
The organism of the Triune God in John 15 is the Triune God united, mingled, and incorporated with His chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people—14:20:
１
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit coinhere with the disciples mutually, for the Triune God and the disciples are united, mingled, and incorporated into one—15:4-5.
２
The goal of God's economy is this enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers.
D
As the branches of the true vine, we are the multiplication, the duplication, the spreading, and the enlargement of Christ—vv. 4-5, 16:
１
Christ, the infinite God, is the vine, and we are His branches; we are branches of the infinite God, organically one with Him—1 Cor. 6:17.
２
Because we are branches of the divine vine, parts of the organism of the Triune God, we are the same as God in life and nature—1 John 5:11-12.
３
When we believed in the Lord Jesus, He branched into us, we became branches in Him, and He became our life—John 3:15; 11:25; 14:6; Col. 3:4.
４
The vine is everything to the branches; from the vine and through the vine, we receive everything that we need to live as branches—John 15:4.
５
Christ as the vine does everything through the branches; without Him we can do nothing, and without us He can do nothing—v. 5.
E
As branches of the vine, we need to abide in the vine by living in the mingled spirit—vv. 4-5; 1 Cor. 6:17:
１
To be in the Lord is a matter of union; to abide in the Lord is a matter of fellowship—1:9, 30.
２
Our abiding in Christ as the vine depends on seeing a clear vision that we are branches in the vine—John 15:2.
F
The Spirit of reality testifies concerning the Son as the true vine, and through the believers as the branches, this testimony will go forth throughout the whole world—vv. 18-27.