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　　Matt. 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

　　18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

　　Solomon typifies Christ (Matt. 12:42) in speaking God’s word of wisdom (13:35) and in building the church as the temple of God (16:18; 1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21-22), and the temple typifies Christ (Matt. 12:6) and the church as the unique building of God in the universe. These two—Christ and His Body, the church—are the center, the reality, and the goal of God’s eternal economy.

　　Since Solomon and the temple built by him play the strongest roles in the history of Israel and occupy a wide realm in such a history, they are the strong evidence that the history of Israel concerns very much the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy in the Old Testament in the way of typology...That Christ and the church are the centrality and universality of God’s economy is universal in both the New Testament and the Old Testament. We need to see clearly that the books of history were written from the point of view of God’s eternal economy concerning Christ and the church. (Life-study of 1 & 2 Kings, p. 41)

　　In reading the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, we need to see the link between the Old Testament books of history and the New Testament. This link is God’s economy for Christ and for Christ’s Body. This link is shown in the kings’ history, which includes the prophets as God’s overcomers. Again and again, the prophets came in either to help the kings or to deal with them. For example, Nathan helped David and also rebuked him. Elijah dealt with Ahab; Elisha performed miracles in life; and Isaiah helped Hezekiah.

　　In the book of Isaiah two short prophecies clearly show the link between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Isaiah 7:14 says that a virgin would bring forth a son whose name would be called Immanuel. Isaiah 9:6 says that a son would be given to us and that his name would be called the mighty God and the eternal Father. These prophecies reveal that God would become a man as a little child. The mighty God, the eternal Father, became a man in order to make man God in life and in nature (but not in the Godhead). However, in order to be made God in this way, man first needed to be redeemed. Isaiah 53 is a strong chapter on the redemption of Christ. In His humanity the God who had become man was man’s Redeemer, slain for man’s sin. God redeemed man for the purpose of making the redeemed man God in life and in nature so that God can have a consummation of His economy in the Body of Christ as the enlargement of Christ. This Body of Christ will consummate in the New Jerusalem as God’s full expression and enlargement for eternity. In typology the history of the kings is linked to God’s becoming a man to redeem man back to Himself that He might make His redeemed people God in life and in nature so that He might have for eternity a universal, corporate expression of Himself. This, in brief, is God’s economy.

　　The goal of God’s economy is to work on His redeemed people in order to make them God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. This can be accomplished only through, by, with, and in the life-giving Spirit. It is crucial for us in the Lord’s recovery to see that our Christ today is in resurrection and that in resurrection He is the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God. We have Him as the all-inclusive, compound Spirit in our spirit. Now every day we must do everything in our spirit in order that this life-giving Spirit may transform us, conform us, and eventually glorify us that we might be made God in life and in nature. (Life-study of 1 & 2 Kings, pp. 122-123)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1964, vol. 3, “The Economy of God,” ch. 1; CWWL, 1988, vol. 4, “The Economy of God and the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” chs. 1-2