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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:5, 9-11; 3:8-11; Acts 2:23; 1 Tim. 1:4b; Eph. 3:2; 1 Cor. 9:17
In these chapters we are burdened to see the central line of the divine revelation. If we were to ask a number of students and teachers of the Bible what the central line in the Bible is, they would have different opinions. Our feeling about what the central line is depends on our understanding of the Bible, and our understanding of the Bible depends on what we are. Many Christians in the Far East prefer the book of Proverbs, whereas those in the West prefer the Psalms. A New Testament in Chinese will frequently have Proverbs attached to it, whereas a New Testament in English will frequently have the Psalms accompanying it. What one sees in the Bible can be according to his preference and based upon his culture and his natural disposition. In order to see the central line of the divine revelation, we need to empty ourselves. We need to forget the things behind, even forgetting what we heard in the past in our church life. In this series of messages we want to present the truth concerning the central line of the divine revelation in a new way.
The first thing mentioned in the Bible is a record of God’s creation. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In fact, however, the first thing was not God’s creation. The beginning in Genesis is the beginning of time. Time has a beginning, but eternity does not. Eternity is without beginning and without ending. Only God really knows what eternity is because He is the eternal God. The Gospel of John also uses the phrase in the beginning. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word.” In John 1:1 in the beginning refers to eternity past. In the beginning of time God created, but in eternity past the Word was with God and was God.
We need to consider what God was doing in eternity past. Chapters 1 and 3 of Ephesians give us a glimpse of what He was doing before time began. I would like us to read Ephesians 1:9-11 and 3:9-11. Ephesians 1:9-11 says, “Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, 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; in whom also we were designated as an inheritance, having been predestinated according to the purpose of the One who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” Ephesians 3:9-11 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, in order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church, according to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.” A number of crucial terms are used by Paul in these verses — God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s good pleasure, God’s counsel, and God’s economy.
We have seen that the central line of the divine revelation starts from God. Then the divine revelation shows us the divine economy and the divine dispensing. God Himself, God’s economy, and God’s dispensing can be seen throughout the entire Bible. These three items are the central line of the divine revelation. The divine revelation reveals to us three main entities: God Himself, God’s economy, and God’s dispensing.
The divine economy is an issue of God’s will, purpose, good pleasure, and counsel.
God’s will is God’s wish, God’s desire. God’s will is what He wishes to do and wants to do. God’s good pleasure is of God’s will. Ephesians 1:5 speaks of “the good pleasure of His will.” His good pleasure is embodied in His will, so His will comes first. God’s will was hidden in God as a mystery, so Ephesians 1:9 speaks of “the mystery of His will.” In eternity God planned a will. This will was hidden in Him; hence, it was a mystery. God’s will as a mystery hidden in God issues in God’s economy, dispensation (3:9). From God’s will issues God’s economy through His purpose, good pleasure, and counsel.
God’s purpose is God’s intent set beforehand. God’s good pleasure was purposed in God Himself (1:9b). This shows that God’s good pleasure is embodied not only in God’s will but also in God’s purpose. We have been predestinated according to God’s purpose of the ages, which is His eternal purpose (v. 11a; 3:11). God’s purpose is eternal. It is the eternal plan of God made in eternity past before the beginning of time.
God’s good pleasure is what makes God happy. It is what God likes, what pleases God. We have a hymn in our hymnal that speaks of God’s intent and pleasure (see Hymns, #538). God has predestinated us unto sonship according to the good pleasure of His will (1:5). This means that God likes to have sons. His predestination is unto sonship. Unto means “for” or “in view of.” God’s predestination of us is for sonship or in view of sonship. God is happy and glad about gaining sons. It is His good pleasure to have us as His sons.
God has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself (v. 9). First, there is God’s will; second, God’s purpose; and third, God’s pleasure.
God’s counsel is God’s resolution consummated in the council by the Divine Trinity. A council requires more than one person. A counsel is the decision of a council. A council is a meeting, and the counsel is the resolution made by the council, the meeting. If God is only one, how could He have a council? How could He have a meeting for discussion to make a resolution? This indicates that God is not only one but also three. He is the Divine Trinity.
Acts 2:23 says that Christ was delivered up and crucified by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God. This indicates that in eternity past the Triune God had a meeting; there was a council among the three of the Godhead. The determined counsel was determined in a council held by the Trinity before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8), indicating that the Lord’s crucifixion was not an accident in human history but a purposeful fulfillment of the divine counsel determined by the Triune God. We should not think that Christ was crucified, killed, cut off, merely according to Pilate’s judgment. Christ’s being cut off was determined in a council held by the Trinity in eternity past.
The three of the Godhead had a council among Themselves, and a decision was made called a counsel. God had a will with a purpose according to His good pleasure. Then the Divine Trinity Himself had a council, a meeting, to make a decision, a resolution. This resolution is the counsel. In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us make man.” This shows that the creation of man was also according to the council among the three of the Divine Godhead. Such a council can be compared to today’s Congress in the United States government. The president cannot act without a counsel made by the Congress in a council.
After God’s will, purpose, good pleasure, and counsel, there is God’s economy. God’s economy is God’s household administration, God’s plan and arrangement. With an administration there is the need of a plan, and with a plan there is the need of an arrangement. Based upon God’s will He made a purpose. In His will and purpose, there is His good pleasure. Then the Divine Trinity had a council to make a decision, which was the divine counsel. Based upon that counsel God made a plan with an arrangement, and this plan with this arrangement is His household administration, His economy.
God’s economy (dispensation, plan) is to head up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10). It is to bring all the items in the universe under the headship of Christ. God’s economy is God’s dispensation, plan, arrangement, of the mystery of His will (3:9; 1:9a). What God wanted in eternity past was a mystery. Based upon that mystery God made an arrangement, and that arrangement is His economy.
God’s economy is God’s distribution of Himself in Christ in faith (1 Tim. 1:4b). At the apostle’s time there were different teachings. Thus, he asked Timothy to remain at Ephesus to charge certain ones not to teach different things but to take care of God’s economy in faith (vv. 3-4). Anything other than God’s economy is based upon human works, but the economy of God is based altogether upon our faith in Christ. It is based not upon our doing but upon our believing. The entire Bible reveals to us the economy of God, which is what God intends to do, what God intends to give us, and what God intends to work into us.
The intention of God’s economy is to dispense Himself into His chosen people, making Himself one with them. The Bible reveals that God dwells within His chosen people and that He desires to make Himself fully one with them.
God’s intention in His economy is also to dispense Christ with all His riches into His believers, who were chosen by God for the constitution of the Body of Christ, the church, to express the processed Triune God (Eph. 3:8-10). This is the central line of the divine revelation.
Finally, the intention of God’s economy is to head up all things in Christ (1:10). Today the entire universe is a mess, but when the new heaven and new earth come, everything will be headed up in Christ under His headship. In the church Christ is heading us up so that eventually all things can be headed up in Christ in the new heaven and new earth.
In chapter 3 of Ephesians, Paul uses the Greek word oikonomia with two denotations. First, this word refers to God’s economy. Second, it refers to the stewardship of the apostle. Eventually, God’s economy becomes the stewardship of the apostle. God’s economy was made in eternity (vv. 9-11). The apostle’s stewardship (Gk., economy) of God’s grace was given in time to carry out God’s eternal economy in grace (v. 2; 1 Cor. 9:17). The economy of God is with God Himself, but the stewardship of the apostle was not merely given to Paul as one person. The stewardship has been given to all the believers.
Paul reveals in Ephesians 3 that the economy of God was given to him as the stewardship, but as the receiver of the stewardship, he says that he was less than the least of all saints (v. 8). If the least among the saints is qualified to receive the stewardship, all of us are qualified. Today an electrician knows more than Thomas Edison because he has inherited all the knowledge since Edison’s time. Because we are later than Paul, we have inherited everything that he and others have passed on to us since his time. In this sense we are greater than Paul because he declared that he was less than the least of all saints. In a sense Paul was our initiation, and we are his consummation.
The economy of God has become our stewardship to dispense the grace of God. The riches of Christ are the grace. The stewardship of grace is mentioned in 3:2, and the unsearchable riches of Christ are mentioned in verse 8, so the stewardship of grace is the ministry to distribute, to dispense, the unsearchable riches of Christ to the believers as grace for their enjoyment.
We need to get into all these items of God’s doing in eternity past. In eternity past God was exercising His will for His purpose in which is His good pleasure and for which He had to make a counsel. Based upon this He made an eternal economy to dispense the riches of Christ into God’s chosen people, the believers, so that He could have a church, a Body, an organism for His expression. Eventually, by this dispensing, He will head up all things in Christ. For the accomplishment of His economy God dispenses Himself into us in a fine way. God’s dispensing of Himself into us, His chosen and redeemed people, will consummate in the New Jerusalem.
