| In 2 Cor. 13:14 we have a threefold 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 threefold blessing involves the Triune God, for here we have the grace of Christ the Son, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. To speak of the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is actually to say that the love is God, that the grace is Christ, and that the fellowship is the Holy Spirit. Thus, we have God the Father as love, we have God the Son as grace, and we have God the Spirit as fellowship. This means that we have the Triune God in a direct way as our enjoyment. What we have is not merely a blessing from Him or by Him. In the New Testament the real blessing is the Triune God Himself. As we have pointed out, this blessing is threefold, a blessing of grace, love, and fellowship. With love as the source, grace as the course, and fellowship as the transmission, the Triune God reaches us to be our life, our life supply, and our enjoyment. Now in a practical way we can enjoy the Triune God all day long. This is our unique New Testament blessing. After His resurrection, Christ charged His disciples to disciple the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), that is, to bring the believing ones into the Triune God, into an organic union with the processed God, who has passed through incarnation, human living, and crucifixion and has entered into resurrection. It is based upon such an organic union that at the conclusion of his second Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle blesses the believers with the blessed Trinity in the participation of the Son's grace with the Father's love through the Spirit's fellowship. Thus, it is evident that the divine revelation of the trinity of the Godhead in the Holy Word, from Genesis through Revelation, is not for the study of theology, but for the apprehension of how God in His mysterious and marvelous trinity dispenses Himself into His chosen people, that we as His chosen and redeemed people may, as indicated in the apostle's blessing to the Corinthian believers, participate in, experience, enjoy, and possess the processed Triune God now and for eternity. (Life-Study of 2 Corinthians, pp. 523-524,527,529) |
