Outline

«　WEEK 5　DAY 1　»

　　1 Tim. 1:3-4 …Charge certain ones not to teach different things nor to give heed to myths and unending genealogies, which produce questionings rather than God's economy, which is in faith.

　　Eph. 3:11 According to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.

　　God’s economy is an eternal plan made by God in Christ…The Christ revealed in the Bible is the embodiment of the Triune God and all the processes through which He has passed, including incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension…Christ, therefore, is the element, sphere, means, goal, and aim of God’s eternal economy. Christ is everything in God’s economy. In fact, all the contents of the eternal economy of God are simply Christ.

　　God’s New Testament economy is His plan to dispense Himself into His chosen people in His trinity…This dispensing has three steps. First, it is of God the Father. The Father is the source, the origin. Second, this dispensing is through God the Son, who is the course. Third, God’s dispensing is in God the Spirit, who is the instrument and sphere. Through these steps of God the Father, through God the Son, and in God the Spirit, God dispenses Himself into His chosen people.

　　This dispensing brings forth the church for the manifestation of the multifarious wisdom of God according to His eternal purpose made in Christ (Eph. 3:9-11). This means that through the dispensing of God in His trinity the church is produced to exhibit God’s manifold wisdom. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 16-18)

　　However, today we have not yet arrived at such a condition. Many people are not living in the spirit to allow God to carry out His dispensing; instead, they are still living in the soul and still have themselves as the center and the lord. For this reason we must help the brothers and sisters to allow the element of Christ to increase in them day by day. Eventually, we the redeemed, regenerated, and transformed saints will be prepared to be the bride and counterpart of Christ through partaking of the riches of Christ’s life and nature, and will become the New Jerusalem as the ultimate consummation of Christ and the church. The New Jerusalem will be the tabernacle for God’s dwelling and the temple for the saints’ dwelling in eternity and will be the ultimate and full expression of the processed Triune God, who is joined and mingled with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite saints (Rev. 21:1—22:5). At that time all things will be headed up under Christ, and there will be full peace and harmony.

　　God’s economy is not for our achievement but for us, the chosen and regenerated ones, to be filled by the Spirit to the extent that the Lord becomes everything in us so that we may be delivered from the old man and may be built up with all the saints to be God’s habitation…This is a matter of God’s habitation; it has nothing to do with our personal gain or loss.

　　The goal of God’s economy is a corporate expression. For this reason, in the Old Testament God created man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26) so that He might put Himself into man and be man’s life, that man might become one with Him and express and represent Him.

　　This is what God is after. God saves us for this. He regenerates us, transforms us, makes us spiritual, and causes us to be seeking, all for this. We are not saved, regenerated, transformed, spiritual, or seeking, for ourselves. Rather, we become such in order that we may be delivered from the natural life and the self so that we can be built up with all the saints into God’s habitation. This is God’s economy and dispensing. It is not a matter of right or wrong, gain or loss. (CWWL, 1990, vol. 3, “The Economy and Dispensing of God,” pp. 91, 94-95)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1983, vol. 2, “The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity,” ch. 1; CWWL, 1990, vol. 3, “The Economy and Dispensing of God,” chs. 1—2