“The True One Called the True God” VS “His Son Jesus Christ Called the Eternal Life”
John 17:3 – “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
|
Aspect |
The True One Called the True God |
His Son Jesus Christ Called the Eternal Life |
|---|---|---|
|
Meaning |
Refers to the True One—God the Father Himself. When we are in Him, He becomes to us the real and genuine God in experience. |
Refers to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, who is the reality and content of eternal life, enabling us to enjoy God as life. |
|
Purpose |
To unite believers with God through regeneration so that they may know Him as the only true God (1 John 5:20a). |
To bring believers into the experience and fellowship of divine life, enjoying the dispensing of eternal life (1 John 1:2). |
|
Explanation |
The “True One” is God objectively, but when we abide in Him, He becomes the “True God” to us in reality and experience. |
Jesus Christ is God’s Son objectively, but when we are in Him, He becomes the eternal life that we subjectively experience and live by. |
|
Distinction |
Denotes God in His essence as the source and origin. |
Denotes God expressed and experienced as life—the flow and supply from the source. |
|
Example |
After regeneration, believers are joined to God in spirit and experientially know Him as the True One (1 John 5:20: “We are in Him who is true”). |
Believers live in Christ, expressing the reality of eternal life, as Paul said, “Christ our life” (Col 3:4). |
|
Application |
Practice fellowship in spirit to make God not merely objective but real and experiential as the True God. |
Live in union with Christ to enjoy and express the eternal life within us. |
|
Interrelationship |
When we are in the True One and in His Son Jesus Christ, the True One becomes the True God, and His Son becomes the Eternal Life; the two are one in our experience. |
Likewise, the True God and Eternal Life are inseparable: the True God is the source, and Eternal Life is the outflow and impartation. |
|
Related Scriptures |
1 John 5:20 – “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” |
1 John 1:2 – “(The life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.)” |
Core Points:
- 1. “The True One” refers to God the Father; “His Son Jesus Christ” is the embodiment of eternal life.
- 2. When believers are in Them, the True God and Eternal Life are one in experience.
- 3. The word “This” in 1 John 5:20 includes the experiential fact of our being in the True God and in eternal life.
- 4. The True God is the source, and Eternal Life is the flow; through being in Christ we experience the True One as the True God.
Conclusion:
In the divine economy, the True One and His Son Jesus Christ are not two separate entities in experience.
For those who abide in Them, they are one reality—“This is the True God and the Eternal Life.”
We not only know Him as the True God objectively but also enjoy Him subjectively as our Eternal Life.
Thus, our being “in Him” makes the Triune God our reality and life for our living.
*Please refer to the June 2025 Summer Training, General Topic: Experiencing, Enjoying, and Manifesting Christ (Part 3), Chapter 12: The True One
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