Three words describe the believers’ relationship with the Triune God: union, mingling, and incorporation. Union and mingling refer to our relationship with the Lord in life and nature, incorporation to persons indwelling one another. These three actions indicate a deepening development in our relationship with the Triune God. For the carrying out of God’s economy, there is the need not only of uniting and mingling but also incorporation, carried out through the incorporation of two corporate persons.

God and man are both corporate persons. God is not just a single person. He is three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—a corporate person. We, the millions of believers, are also a corporate person. These persons are now in one another. This is not a mingling but an incorporation.

The word incorporation also indicates that these persons are incorporated together to carry out their purpose…God’s economy…To carry out His economy, God needs man to be incorporated into Him. (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory,” p. 349)

“God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation (John 14:10-11). The three of the Divine Trinity are an incorporation both in what They are and in what They do” (p. 334). They are an incorporation by Their coinhering mutually, as indicated by the Lord’s statement, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me,” (v. 10) and by Their working together as one, as indicated by the Lord’s statements, “The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works” (v. 10), and “Believe because of the works themselves” (v. 11).

The Lord continued His speaking in John 14 to apply incorporation to the believers. The Spirit as another Comforter, the reality of the Son, who abode with the regenerated believers as the first Comforter, would dwell in them (vv. 16-17). The Son left His believers through death and came back as another Comforter through His resurrection to make them live with Him (vv. 18-19), saying, “Because I live, you also shall live” (v. 19b). As a result, “The consummated Triune God and the regenerated believers became an incorporation in the resurrection of Christ” (p. 335). Thus the Lord could say, “In that day [the day of His resurrection] you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (v. 20).

“You will know that I am in My Father”: The Son and the Father are incorporated into one. “And you in Me”: The regenerated believers are incorporated into the Son and into the Father in the Son. “And I in you”: The Son in the Father is incorporated into the regenerated believers. Here we have three ins. In verse 17 we have a fourth in: “The Spirit of reality...abides with you and shall be in you.” The in of the Spirit of reality in verse 17 is the totality of the three ins in verse 20. (p. 335)

The believers working together as one with the Triune God is particularly seen in John 15 with the vine as the organism of the Triune God and the bearing of fruit (vv. 4-7). The mutual abiding is the basis for our working together as one. We work together with the divine Trinity in the way of incorporation: “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (v. 7). As Witness Lee states,

When we abide in the Lord and let His words abide in us, we actually are one with Him, and He works within us. Then, when we ask in prayer for whatever we will, it is not only we who are praying; He too is praying, in our praying. This kind of prayer is related to fruit-bearing (v. 8) and will surely be answered. (Recovery Version, John 15:7, note 2)

John 15 also indicates how incorporation takes place. We take the initiative to abide in Him, and then this affords Him a way to abide in us. This was developed by Witness Lee in his messages published in CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity”:

To live in the Divine Trinity is…to abide in Him, to remain in Him. The Lord said, “Abide in Me and I in you” (John 15:4). Thus, abiding in Him is a condition of His abiding in us. Whether or not He would abide in us depends upon our abiding in Him. To live in Christ, to abide in Christ, is the first part of our enjoyment of the Triune God…The second part of our enjoyment…[is] His abiding in us. His abiding in us brings His presence to us, so we live with Him. To live in Him puts us into the position of the enjoyment of the Lord. To live with Him is the enjoyment itself. To live with the Divine Trinity is to enjoy the Divine Trinity. To live with a person is to enjoy that person. Thus, to live with the Triune God is our enjoyment of the Triune God. (p. 355)

We abide in Him by walking according to the mingled spirit, minding the things of the spirit, and setting our mind on the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4-6); while His abiding in us mainly takes place in the faculties of our soul. As the Lord Jesus incorporated the Father’s mind, emotion, and will (Matt. 26:42; Heb. 10:7, 9), so we incorporate His mind (Phil. 2:5), will (v. 13), and emotion (cf. Rom. 5:5) in the faculties of our soul. The Spirit of God, Christ, the Spirit of the One who raised Christ from the dead, dwells in us, and even gives life to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:9-11). The Father strengthens us through His Spirit into the inner man (into our mingled spirit where Christ dwells) so that Christ makes His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:17) until Christ is formed in us (Gal. 4:19). This Christ in us is our hope of glory (Col. 1:27) who will saturate our entire being so that our physical body is transfigured, conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21).

John 16 shows the bringing forth of the Lord and the believers as a divine-human constitution (vv. 20-22; Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29), as the Spirit’s child for His moving. “This child is the new babe growing up into the new man. The new man is Christ. He is all the members of the new man and in all the members (Col. 3:10-11)” (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” p. 429). The goal of incorporation is to consummate the one new man, in which God and man are united in life, mingled in nature, and incorporated into one person, with Christ (the Head of the Body) as the person of the one new man.

John 17 ties incorporation to the oneness of the believers and to the divine glory.

That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one… (vv. 21-23)

The ultimate consummation of incorporation is seen in the consummation of the New Jerusalem as the tabernacle of God, which is typified by the Old Testament tabernacle. In the tabernacle there was the hidden manna (typifying Christ) in the golden pot (gold, typifying the Father’s unchangeable divine nature). This golden pot was in the ark (typifying Christ), in the Holy of Holies (typifying our spirit), and the Holy of Holies is in the tabernacle (typifying the church), which consummates in the New Jerusalem. The hidden manna in the golden pot in the ark can be compared to John 14:10-11, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me,” and the ark in the Holy of Holies is seen in the expression “I in them” (17:23).

The way to be incorporated into the tabernacle is to eat the hidden manna. The more we eat Christ, the more we are incorporated into the Triune God as a universal incorporation. (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory,” p. 341)

Incorporation is one of the most significant notions revealed in the Bible. It is revealed particularly in John 14—17, which shows the mutual abiding of the Triune God and the believers, and their working together as one, to produce, propagate, and build up the Father’s house for His dwelling, the Son’s vine for His spreading, and the Spirit’s child for His moving, as the one new man, which needs to arrive at the perfected oneness brought about through the believers’ experience of incorporation.