Definition (house-style)
Perichoresis (Greek: περιχώρησις, “permeation”, “circumincessio”) is the classical theological term for the mutual indwelling and interpenetration of the three divine Persons in one another. In orthodox Trinitarian theology, perichoresis implies a full, symmetrical mutual containment: the Father is fully in the Son and the Spirit; the Son is fully in the Father and the Spirit; the Spirit is fully in the Father and the Son — without any one of the three absorbing or dominating the others. In this corpus, Nee/Lee employ an asymmetric variant of perichoresis: the indwelling proceeds linearly from the Father through the Son to the Spirit, in line with the economic Trinity.
Author variants
Nee/Lee
Nee/Lee describe perichoretic indwelling as a linear inclusion structure: the Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Spirit — in that directional sequence:
“It is the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit in us.”
“The first step was that the Father embodied Himself in the Son; the second step was that the Son was incarnated in humanity… the third step is that both the Father and the Son are now in the Spirit… Christ is not separated from God, and the Spirit is not separated from Christ. Christ is God expressed, and the Spirit is Christ realized in reality.”
[Nee/Lee, The Economy of God, Ch. 1]
This diverges from classical perichoresis: in the Nee/Lee variant, the indwelling is directional (source→expression→transmission) and soteriologically oriented — it describes how the Father and Son are together in the Spirit, so that the Spirit may be poured out into the believer. The term “perichoresis” is not used by Nee/Lee themselves; the heading “mutual indwelling” is editorial. The asymmetry is meant to describe the economic Trinity, not the immanent relations. Classical perichoresis requires equal reciprocity among all three Persons; the Nee/Lee variant carries a hierarchical directional structure closer to the Filioque tradition (the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son) than to the Greek Fathers.