the divine rea lity - amana trust · the divine reality is the word of god as the divine...
TRANSCRIPT
International Blending ConferenceBaarlo, The Netherlands
24th to 26th October 2014
The
DivineReality
2014 International Blending Conference Baarlo, The Netherlands
24-26 October 2014
MEETING SCHEDULE
Friday 24 October 19:30 – 21:30 Meeting One
Saturday 25 October
10:00 – 12:00 Meeting Two 15:30 – 17:30 Meeting Three 19:30 – 21:30 Meeting Four
Lord’s Day 26 October
9:15 – 10:00 Lord’s Table 10:00 – 12:00 Meeting Five
© 2014 Living Stream Ministry All outlines used with permission. Please do not duplicate or distribute.
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GENERAL SUBJECT: THE DIVINE REALITY
Message One
Knowing the Divine Reality (1)
The Triune God and His Word
Scripture Reading: John 1:14, 17; 8:32; 14:6; 17:17; 1 John 5:6; Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5
I. The divine reality is the Triune God and His word— 1 John 5:6:
A. Reality is the element of God realized by us in the Son—John 1:14. B. 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. C. The divine reality is Christ, who is God incarnated and in whom all
the fullness 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: 1. Because Christ the Son is the embodiment of God, He is the reality
of what God is—Col. 2:9. 2. The truth is the reality of the divine things, and this reality is
Christ Himself—John 8:32. 3. The reality of the divine things came through Christ and becomes
the realization of God to us—14:6. D. 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.
E. 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: 1. The Father’s word carries the reality of the Father with it. 2. God’s word is the reality, the truth, unlike Satan’s word, which is
vanity, a lie—8:44. F. God, Christ, and the Spirit—the Divine Trinity—are essentially one;
hence, these three, being the basic elements of the substance of the divine reality, are actually one reality—John 1:1, 14; 14:6; 1 John 5:6: 1. This one divine reality is the substance of the Word of God as the
divine revelation. 2. The divine reality thus becomes the revealed divine reality in the
divine Word and makes the divine Word the reality—John 17:17. 3. The divine Word conveys this one divine reality as the contents of
the faith, and the contents of the faith are the substance of the gospel revealed in the entire New Testament as its reality, which is the divine reality of the Divine Trinity—Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5.
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II. The divine reality is versus the lie, the vanity of the old creation, and the idolatrous substitutes of the true God—John 8:44; Eccl. 1:2; 1 John 5:20-21:
A. The devil’s nature is a lie and brings in death and darkness—John 8:44: 1. With darkness is falsehood, the opposite of truth—1 John 1:6. 2. The satanic lie is the expression of the satanic darkness—Rom.
1:25; 3:4. B. No matter how good, excellent, marvelous, and wonderful a thing may
be, as long as it is of the old creation, it is part of the vanity of vanities under the sun; only the new creation, which is in the heavens and not “under the sun,” is not vanity but is a reality—Eccl. 1:2; 2 Cor. 5:17.
C. Anything that replaces, or is a substitute for, the divine reality is an idol, and we should garrison ourselves against it—1 John 5:20-21: 1. Idols are the heretical substitutes for the genuine God and the
vain replacement for the real God. 2. We should be on the alert to guard ourselves from heretical
teachings and from all vain replacements of our genuine and real God.
Notes
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Message Two
Knowing the Divine Reality (2)
Being in the True One
Scripture Reading: John 1:14, 18; 17:3; 1 John 5:20
I. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, has come and has given us an understanding that we might know the genuine and real God—John 1:14, 18; 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. Because as believers we have been born of the divine life, we are able to know the true God and the things of God—John 1:12-13; 3:6, 15; 17:3.
II. First John 5:20 twice speaks of Him who is true, the true One, the True:
A. The term the true One refers to God becoming subjective to us, to the God who is objective becoming the true One in our life and experience.
B. 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.
C. This verse indicates that the divine reality, which is God Himself, has become our reality in our experience; the God who was once objective to us has become our subjective reality—v. 6.
III. To be in the true One is to be in His Son Jesus Christ—v. 20:
A. This indicates that Jesus Christ the Son of God is the true God. B. This also indicates that the true One and Jesus Christ are one in the
way of coinherence; therefore, to be in the Son is spontaneously to be in the true One.
IV. The word this in verse 20 refers to the God who has come through incarnation and has given us an understanding to know Him as the genuine God and to be one with Him organically in His Son Jesus Christ:
A. All this is the genuine and real God and eternal life to us. B. This genuine and real God is eternal life to us so that we may partake
of Him as everything for our regenerated being. C. 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 practical sense, eternal life is the God in whom we are in our experience.
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D. Therefore, the true God and eternal life include our being in the true One and His Son Jesus Christ; now in our experience the true One becomes the true God, and Jesus Christ becomes eternal life.
V. By being in the True we know the divine reality intrinsically and experientially—v. 20; John 17:3.
Notes
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Message Three
Experiencing the Divine Reality
Scripture Reading: John 14:2-3, 7-11, 17-20; 1 Tim. 3:15; Eph. 2:21-22
I. 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.
II. We experience the divine reality through the dispensing of the Divine Trinity—1 John 4:13-14; 5:6; 2 Cor. 13:14:
A. 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—John 3:15; 4:14; 6:48; 20:22.
B. John 14 unveils the way the Triune God dispenses Himself into us: 1. The Son is the embodiment and expression of the Father, and the
Spirit is the reality and realization of the Son—vv. 7-11, 17-20. 2. In the Son the Father is expressed and seen, and as the Spirit the
Son is revealed and realized—vv. 9, 17. 3. The Father in the Son is expressed among the believers, and the
Son as the Spirit is realized in the believers—vv. 11, 17, 20. 4. God the Father is hidden, God the Son is manifested among men,
and God the Spirit enters into us to our life, our life supply, and our everything.
5. In this way 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 everything in His Divine Trinity.
III. 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:
A. The church is the supporting pillar and the holding base of the truth— 1 Tim. 3:15: 1. The truth is the Triune God, having Christ as the embodiment,
center, and expression, to produce the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, and the kingdom of God—Col. 2:9; Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; 1 Tim. 3:15; John 3:3, 5.
2. Truth in 1 Timothy 3:15 refers to the real things revealed in the New Testament concerning Christ and the church according to God’s New Testament economy—Matt. 16:16, 18; Eph. 5:32.
3. As the pillar which bears the truth and the base which upholds the pillar, the church testifies the reality, the truth, of Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ—Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4.
B. The center and reality of the universe is God’s dwelling place among His people—John 14:2-3; Rev. 21:1-3:
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1. Without God’s people as His dwelling place, the universe would be empty and vain, without a center and without reality—Eph. 2:21-22.
2. God’s dwelling place is a mutual abode—the dwelling place both of God and His redeemed, regenerated people: a. God dwells in us, and we dwell in Him—John 14:20; 15:1, 4a. b. We and the Triune God have a mutual dwelling in a mutual
dwelling place. c. This wonderful mutual dwelling place is the center and reality
of the entire universe and also the center and reality of the entire Bible.
Notes
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Message Four
Being Constituted with the Divine Reality
Scripture Reading: John 16:13; 1 John 5:6; 2 John 2, 4; 3 John 3-4, 12
I. The divine reality is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—becoming our constituent—John 4:13-14; 5:6:
A. 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.
B. 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.
II. The Spirit of reality guides us into all the reality—John 16:13:
A. The Spirit of reality guides the believers into all the reality of the Triune God and of all divine matters—2 Cor. 13:14.
B. 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: 1. What the Father has is reality, what the Son has is reality, and
what the Spirit receives is also reality—John 14:6; 17. 2. What the Father has becomes the Son’s, what the Son has is
received by the Spirit, and what the Spirit receives is disclosed to us—15:26.
3. The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and we, the believers, are all involved in this process: a. The Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is transfigured to
be the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reaching of the Divine Trinity to us—2 Cor. 13:14.
b. We are the destination of the Triune God; all that the Triune God is and has is being transmitted to us.
c. Because we are organically united to the Spirit—that is, organically united to the processed and consummated Triune God—whatever He is and has now is our portion as our reality—John 16:13.
C. 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 Triune God—1 John 4:13-14; 5:6.
D. 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.
III. We need to be constituted with the divine reality in our inward parts, that is, the parts of our soul—the mind, the emotion, and the will—Psa. 51:6:
A. Christ’s inward parts instructed Him in the nights—16:7; Isa. 50:4; Luke 6:12.
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B. When God counseled Christ as a man, Christ’s inward parts instructed Him though His contact with God.
C. The inward parts of Christ were one with God; this is the proper experience of a God-man—Phil. 1:8.
IV. The divine reality should 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—3 John 3:
A. The divine reality—the Triune God—abides in us now and will be with us for eternity—2 John 2.
B. The divine reality which has been wrought into us molds, shapes, and determines our daily life; this is what it means to walk in the truth—v. 4; 3 John 3-4.
C. The revealed truth of God is the reality of the essence of the Christian life—v. 12: 1. This truth is the divine rule for the walk of the believers, and by it
the believers’ walk is determined. 2. This truth, this reality, gives a good testimony to the one who
walks in it.
Notes
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Message Five
Living in the Divine Reality—Truth Sanctifying for Oneness
Scripture Reading: John 17:15-17, 21-23
I. The divine light is the source of the divine truth; when the divine light shines upon us, it becomes the truth, which is the divine reality—John 1:5, 9; 18:37; 8:12, 32.
II. The truth sanctifies us for oneness; the truth sanctifies, and sanctification issues in oneness—17:17, 21-22.
III. The truth that sanctifies us for oneness involves the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of reality, and the word of the Father—14:6, 17; 15:26; 17:17.
IV. When the word mingled with the essence of the Triune God is imparted into us as the truth, the reality, this reality sanctifies us—v. 17:
A. When the word is mingled with the living Spirit in our spirit, we are sanctified with the essence of God.
B. We become one with God because His essence is being wrought into us; this is what it means to be sanctified by the word of the truth.
V. To be sanctified is to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God and to allow Christ to live in us—vv. 11, 14-17, 21-26.
VI. The four factors of division—worldliness, ambition, self-exaltation, and opinions and concepts—can be dealt with only by the sanctifying truth—v. 17.
VII. Sanctification issues in the genuine oneness because this sanctification keeps us in the Triune God—v. 21.
VIII. The genuine oneness is versus “the evil”—vv. 15-17, 21-23:
A. The world is the satanic system with Satan as the evil within it; Satan and the world are one entity—vv. 14-16: 1. Satan is one with the world; Satan is the evil, and the world also is
evil. 2. Satan has become the personified evil in the world—v. 15.
B. The evil (v. 15) is the world with its ambition, self-exaltation, and opinions and concepts, all of which produce division.
C. In the Triune God there is no ambition, in the glory of the Father there is no self-exaltation, and in the place where Christ lives and reigns there are no opinions and concepts—vv. 21-23.
D. We should no longer be in the evil—we should be in the genuine oneness by being in the Triune God through the sanctifying truth—vv. 15, 17, 21.
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Notes
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