Message Two—God’s Economy
Eph. 1:10 Unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in Him.
3:9 And to enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things.
God’s Household Administration, Dispensation, and Plan
There are over three hundred passages in the Bible referring to the economy of God either directly or indirectly. …Ephesians 1:10 says, “Unto the economy of the fullness of the times”; Ephesians 3:9 says, “To enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things.” First Timothy 1:4 says, “God’s economy, which is in faith.” The Greek word for economy in these three passages is oikonomia, which means “household law”; it denotes “a household management,” “a household administration,” and derivatively, “a dispensation,” “a plan,” or “an economy for administration.”
The Greek word oikonomia is made up of two words: oikos, denoting a “house” or “household,” and nomos, denoting a “law” or “principle.” The meaning of these two words combined is “household administration.” This house is the house of God, including all the saved ones in the whole human race, all those who were chosen by God and have received God as their life (2:19). They are a group of people who became the new creation by receiving God’s life through God’s selection. They are a big family of God. Furthermore, in this big family we the believers are the masters, and all the angels are the servants who wait upon us, ministering to us as those who inherit so great a salvation (Heb. 1:14).
Working Himself, in His Divine Trinity, into His Chosen Ones
The purpose of God in His economy is to work Himself, in His Divine Trinity, into His chosen ones. This God who has a plan, an economy, wants to do only one thing, that is, to work Himself into His chosen ones through all the processes and procedures that He went through in His Divine Trinity. The entire Bible reveals that God wants to work Himself into His chosen ones by passing through various processes in His Divine Trinity.
In order to work Himself into His chosen ones, God must be the Spirit. Moreover, the ultimate consummation and manifestation of the Triune God must also be the Spirit. The Divine Trinity has been processed. God the Father is the source of the Divine Trinity (John 13:3; 1 Cor. 6:19). God the Son is the embodiment of the processed Triune God (Col. 2:9); He passed through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension and eventually became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) as the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God. All that the Divine Trinity has is consummated in the Spirit—the processed, compounded, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, sevenfold intensified, and ultimately consummated Spirit.
This is the way that God works Himself into us. In His Divine Trinity, in His ultimate consummation, God reaches us and comes into us as the Spirit. Not only the Spirit comes, but the Son and the Father also come. Furthermore, when He comes, He does not come into our body of blood and flesh, into our internal organs, such as the stomach. Neither does He come into our mind, emotion, or will. Instead, He comes into our spirit, which is the innermost part, the center, the most sincere part, of our being, to be joined with us. Eventually, these two spirits are joined and mingled as one. Hence, 1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” This is the primary matter in God’s economy. At this point God has wrought Himself into His chosen ones in His Divine Trinity.
Becoming His Children as His Sons with His Life and Nature
to Become His House So That He May Have a Dwelling Place for His Rest
When God works Himself into us, He makes us His children as His sons. According to the Greek, in the New Testament there is only one place—2 Corinthians 6:18—that says we are God’s sons and daughters. There are many places, however, that say we are God’s children (John 1:12; Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:16; Gal. 4:28; Phil. 2:15; 1 John 3:1-2, 10). Logically, only sons are sons; daughters are not sons. Strictly speaking, God has sons only; He does not have daughters. We are all His children. As such, we must exercise to be led by His Spirit continually that we may grow in life and arrive at the stage of being His sons (Rom. 8:14). Sisters, when you live and act in spirit, you are sons of God. Ultimately, when we are fully matured, we become God’s legal heirs to receive our inheritance (v. 17).
By being born of God we have our Father God’s life and nature (John 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:4) to become His house. Both in Greek and in Chinese, the word house has two denotations. On the one hand, it denotes the family, the household (Eph. 2:19); on the other hand, it denotes a habitation, a dwelling place (v. 22). On the one hand, we are God’s household as members of God’s house, God’s family; on the other hand, we are God’s dwelling place on earth, and we have God dwelling in our spirit. God obtains a dwelling place for His rest within us.
Having an Organic Union with the Divine Trinity in Christ
to Become the Members of Christ That Constitute His Body
as the Corporate Expression of the Triune God in Christ
We, the regenerated believers, can become God’s house and God’s dwelling place because first we have been chosen by God in Christ (1:4). That we are in Christ refers not only to a change in our position in our being transferred by God out of Adam into Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 8:1). It also refers to the daily subjective and continual experience in our regenerated spirit; that is, through our organic union with the Divine Trinity we share His life and His nature and have one living and one move with Him.
We are a wild olive tree (Rom. 11:17-24), and the Divine Trinity is the cultivated olive tree. Originally, the two—He and we—are two different trees, each having its own life. But now these two trees are grafted together so that two lives have become one life. This enables us to continually enjoy the riches of the Divine Trinity. As a result, we become the members of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 5:30), the branches of the true vine (John 15:1, 5), to constitute His Body, which is the church. Ephesians 1:22b-23 says, “The church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The church as the Body of Christ is an organism constituted with all those who have been regenerated by God with the divine life to be the fullness of Christ for His expression. Since Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God, when He is expressed, the Triune God is also expressed. Eventually, the church becomes the corporate expression of the Triune God in Christ. This is the economy of God. (CWWL, 1986, vol. 3, “The Revelation and Vision of God,” msg. 5)
