Scripture Reading: Prov. 29:18a; Acts 26:18a; 1 Tim. 1:4; Gal. 2:16, 20
Ⅰ
We in the Lord's recovery must have a vision of God's economy—Acts 26:18a; Prov. 29:18a:
A
We need to be brought into another realm, not the so-called spiritual realm but the realm of God's economy—Rev. 21:9-10.
B
We need to be governed, controlled, and directed by this vision—Prov. 29:18a.
C
We must be strong and unshakable in the vision of God's economy, God's eternal will—Rev. 4:11; 1 Cor. 15:58.
D
If we love the Lord and His recovery and if we mean business to practice the church life in the recovery, we need to endeavor to see all the visions concerning God's economy—Jer. 29:13; 33:3; Deut. 29:29.
Ⅱ
God's economy is God's household administration, which is to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen and redeemed people that He may have a house to express Himself, which house is the church, the Body of Christ—1 Tim. 1:4; 3:15:
A
God's economy, as His household administration, is to produce and constitute a Body for His Son—Eph. 1:22-23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:4, 16; 5:30.
B
The central subject of the Bible is the economy of God, and the entire Bible is concerned with the economy of God—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 1:10:
１
The governing and controlling vision in the Bible is the divine economy—Prov. 29:18a.
２
In our reading of the Bible, we need to focus our attention on the divine economy for the divine dispensing—Eph. 3:9.
３
Unless we know God's economy, we will not understand the Bible—Luke 24:45.
C
Christ is the element, sphere, means, goal, and aim of God's eternal economy; He is everything in God's economy—Matt. 17:5; Luke 24:44.
D
God's economy is to dispense Himself into our being that our being may be constituted with His being; this can be accomplished only by God dispensing Himself into us as the divine life—Eph. 3:16-17a; Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11.
E
The economy of God is that God became flesh, passed through human living, died, resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit to enter into us as life and to dispense God into us so that we may be transformed for the producing of the church, which is the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the counterpart of Christ, the ultimate aggregate of which is the New Jerusalem—John 1:14, 29; 12:24; 20:22; 14:2; 3:3, 5, 29-30; Rev. 21:2.
F
God's economy is God becoming man that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to produce the organic Body of Christ, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem—Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; 12:4-5; Rev. 21:10.
G
According to the desire of His heart, God's eternal economy is to make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead and to make Himself one with man and man one with Him, thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression, that all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues—John 1:12-14; 1 John 3:1a, 2; 2 Pet. 1:4.
H
The divine economy is to produce the new creation out of the chaotic old creation—Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17:
１
The history of the universe is a history of God's economy and Satan's chaos—Gen. 1:1-2, 26; Rev. 20:10—21:4.
２
Both in the Bible and in our experience, the satanic chaos always goes along with the divine economy—Eph. 3:8-10; 4:14-16; 6:24.
３
The Lord needs the overcomers, who will be one with Him to conquer the destructive satanic chaos and to triumph in the constructive divine economy—Rev. 2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21.
I
The Lord's recovery is for the carrying out of God's economy—Eph. 3:2.
Ⅲ
God's economy is initiated and developed in the sphere of faith—1 Tim. 1:4:
A
On the negative side, to exercise faith is to stop our work, our doing; on the positive side, to exercise faith is to trust in the Lord—Heb. 11:6.
B
Faith is a proclamation that we are unable to fulfill God's requirements but that God has done everything for us and that we receive all God has planned for us, all God has done for us, and all God has given to us—John 1:16.
C
God's economy is carried out not by our doing in ourselves but by our believing into Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God—3:15-16.
D
Faith is a matter of seeing a view of the contents of God's economy—Heb. 12:2:
１
Because we have seen a revelation regarding the contents of God's economy, we spontaneously believe in what we see—Eph. 3:9.
２
The ability within us to believe is a product, a result, of having a proper view of God's economy—Heb. 11:6, 9, 23-26; 12:2.
E
The Christian life is a life of faith, a life of believing—Gal. 3:2, 14:
１
We do not live according to what we see; we live according to what we believe—John 20:25-29.
２
Our walk is by faith, not by sight—2 Cor. 5:7.
Ⅳ
Faith is the unique requirement for us to contact God in His economy and the unique way for us to carry out His economy—Gal. 2:16, 20:
A
Galatians 2:16 says that we are justified through faith in Jesus Christ, literally, faith of Jesus Christ:
１
Faith is related to the believers' appreciation of the person of the Son of God as the most precious One—1 Pet. 2:7.
２
Christ is infusing Himself into us to be the faith in us; He becomes in us the faith by which we believe and the capacity to believe through our appreciation of Him—Gal. 2:16.
３
Faith in Jesus Christ denotes an organic union with Him through believing; in this organic union we and Christ are one—John 15:4-5; 1 Cor. 6:17.
４
When we believe in Christ, we enter into Him; we believe ourselves into Christ and thereby become one spirit with Him—John 3:15; 1 Cor. 6:17.
B
In Galatians 2:20 the apostle Paul says, “I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God”:
１
The faith of the Son of God refers to the faith of Jesus Christ in us, which becomes the faith by which we believe in Him—vv. 16, 20; 3:22.
２
As we treasure Him, He causes faith to be generated in us, enabling us to believe in Him—Matt. 17:5; Heb. 12:2.
３
According to our Christian experience, the genuine living faith that operates in us is not only of Christ but also in Christ—Rom. 3:22, 26; Gal. 2:16, 20:
ａ
Paul's thought is that the faith is both of Christ and in Christ—vv. 16, 20.
ｂ
Faith is related not only to the Christ who has been infused into us but also to the Christ who is continually infusing Himself into us.
ｃ
As Christ operates in us, He becomes our faith; this faith is of Him and also in Him.
４
A secret of experiencing Christ living in us is revealed in the words in faith—v. 20:
ａ
Paul lived by the faith that is both in and of the Son of God.
ｂ
The faith that we need is not only faith in the Son of God but also faith of the Son of God; in and by this faith we can carry out God's economy in faith—v. 20; 1 Tim. 1:4.