Scripture Reading: 1 John 5:20; John 1:14, 17; 8:32; 14:6; 16:13; 17:17
Ⅰ
The Son of God has come and has given us an understanding so that we might know the true One, the genuine and real God—1 John 5:20:
A
This understanding is the faculty of our mind enlightened and empowered by the Spirit of reality to apprehend the divine reality in our regenerated spirit— Eph. 4:23; John 16:12-15.
B
Know in 1 John 5:20 is the ability of the divine life to know the true God in our regenerated spirit through our renewed mind, enlightened by the Spirit of reality—John 17:3; Eph. 1:17.
C
In 1 John 5:20 Him who is true—or, the true One—refers to God becoming sub- jective to us, to the God who is objective becoming the true One in our life and experience:
１
The true One is the divine reality; to know the true One means to know the divine reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality.
２
This indicates that the divine reality—God Himself, who was once objective to us—has become our subjective reality in our experience—v. 6.
D
To be in the true One is to be in His Son Jesus Christ—v. 20:
１
This indicates that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the true God.
２
This also indicates that the true One and Jesus Christ are one in the way of coinherence; thus, to be in the Son is to be in the true One.
E
The word this in verse 20 refers to the God who has come through incarnation and has given us the ability to know Him as the genuine God and to be one with Him organically in His Son Jesus Christ:
１
This genuine and real God is eternal life to us so that we may partake of Him as everything for our regenerated being.
２
This refers to the true God and Jesus Christ in whom we are; it includes the fact that we are in this One, the true One, and implies that, in a prac- tical sense, eternal life is the God in whom we are experientially.
３
Therefore, the true God and eternal life include our being in the true One and in His Son Jesus Christ; now in our experience the true One becomes the true God, and Jesus Christ becomes eternal life.
Ⅱ
We need to know, experience, and be constituted with the divine reality— John 1:14, 17; 8:32; 14:6; 17:17; 1 John 5:6:
A
The divine reality is the Triune God and His word—John 14:6; 1 John 5:6:
１
Reality is the element of God realized by us in the Son—John 1:14.
２
The divine reality is God, who is light and love, incarnated to be the reality of the divine things—1 John 1:5; 4:8; John 1:1, 14.
３
The divine reality is Christ, who is God incarnated and in whom all the full- ness of the Godhead dwells bodily, as the reality of God and man, the types, figures, and shadows in the Old Testament, and all the divine and spiritual things—Col. 2:9, 16-17; John 1:18, 51; 11:25; 14:6.
４
The divine reality is the Spirit, who is Christ transfigured, as the reality of Christ and of the divine revelation; hence, the Spirit is the reality—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17; John 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:13-15; 1 John 5:6.
５
The divine reality is the Word of God as the divine revelation, which not only reveals but also conveys the reality of God and Christ and of all the divine and spiritual things; hence, the Word of God also is reality—John 17:17.
B
We experience the divine reality through the dispensing of the Divine Trinity— 1 John 4:13-14; 5:6; 2 Cor. 13:14:
１
The divine reality is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit— becoming our experience and enjoyment through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension—John 1:14, 29; 20:22.
２
The divine reality is the Father in the Son and the Son as the Spirit dispensed into God's chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people so that they may enjoy Him as their life, their life supply, and their everything—3:15; 4:14; 6:48; 20:22.
３
We experience the divine reality in the church as the mutual dwelling place of God and His redeemed, regenerated people—1 Tim. 3:15; Eph. 2:21-22; John 14:2-3.
C
The divine reality is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—be- coming our constituent—4:13-14; 1 John 5:6:
１
We are constituted with the divine reality through the Word, by the Spirit, and in the church life—John 17:17; 16:13; 1 John 5:6; 1 Tim. 3:15.
２
The divine truth, the divine reality in the Word, sanctifies us, saturating us with the element of God; the more of the divine reality we have, the more we are saturated with the divine element—John 17:17.
３
The Spirit of reality guides the believers into all the reality of the Triune God and of all divine matters—16:13; 2 Cor. 13:14:
ａ
In John 16:13 reality refers to what the Father has, what the Son has, and what the Spirit receives of the Son and of what the Father has.
ｂ
Through the Spirit the reality of the Triune God is transmitted into us; thus, the reality into which the Spirit guides us is the reality of the Tri- une God—1 John 4:13-14; 5:6.
ｃ
As the Spirit of reality guides us into the divine reality by transmitting this reality into us, the divine reality—the processed and consummated Triune God—becomes the essence of our being—Eph. 3:14-17a.
４
The divine reality should be wrought into our inward parts and become our reality, life, and living, and this reality should be applied to our entire being in everything and in every way and thereby become our reality in our daily walk and in our worship of the Father—Psa. 51:6; 3 John 3; John 4:23-24.