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In this message we shall begin to consider God’s work as revealed in the New Testament. Our God is a working God. The Lord’s word in John 5:17 indicates this: “My Father is working until now.” In the New Testament we see God’s work in eternity past, in His old dispensation, in His new dispensation, and in eternity future, with many aspects.
In eternity past God made the divine economy, His eternal plan (Eph. 1:9-11; 3:9-11; 1 Tim. 1:4b). The Greek word translated “dispensation” in Ephesians 1:10; 3:9; and 1 Timothy 1:4 is oikonomia, the anglicized form of which is “economy.” The Greek word means the law of a household or household administration. It denotes God’s household administration to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen people so that He may have the church as His corporate expression. Economy equals dispensation, arrangement, plan. In simple words, we may say that in eternity past God made a plan, a divine, eternal plan.
After God made His eternal plan, He chose the believers: “According as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blemish before Him, in love” (Eph. 1:4). God’s choosing is His selection. From among numberless people He selected us, and this He did in Christ before the foundation of the world. Christ was the sphere in which we were selected by God. Outside of Christ we are not God’s choice.
The phrase “before the foundation of the world” means in eternity past. God chose us according to His infinite foresight before He created us. This implies that the world, which is the universe, was founded for man’s existence to fulfill God’s eternal purpose. God selected us not only before we were created, but even before the foundation of the world. Nothing of His creation had yet come into existence when He selected us.
God chose us in eternity past. The fact that we were chosen in eternity past means that our salvation began before the foundation of the world and before time. The word “chosen” implies that some were selected and that others were not selected. We praise the Lord that we are among the chosen ones. If we turn to our spirit and contact the Lord regarding this matter, we shall realize that just as God is eternal, so His choosing of us was also eternal.
God’s work in eternity past also included His predestinating — marking out — the believers before the foundation of the world. Concerning this, Ephesians 1:5 says, “Having predestinated us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” The Greek word rendered “predestinated” may also be translated “marked out beforehand.” Marking out beforehand is the process, while predestination is the purpose to determine a destiny beforehand. God first selected us and then marked us out beforehand, that is, before the foundation of the world, unto a certain destiny. The destiny of God’s marking us out beforehand is sonship. We were predestinated to be sons of God even before we were created. Hence, as God’s creatures, we need to be regenerated by Him so that we may participate in His life to be His sons. Sonship implies not only the life of a son but also the position of a son. God’s marked-out ones have both the life to be His sons and also the position of sons.
God predestinated us according to His foresight (1 Pet. 1:2). This indicates that our relationship with God was initiated by Him according to His foreknowledge.
Furthermore, God predestinated us unto sonship through Jesus Christ. “Through Jesus Christ” means through the Redeemer, who is the Son of God. Through Him we have been redeemed to be the sons of God with the life and position of God’s sons.
Ephesians 1:5 says that God predestinated us unto sonship according to the good pleasure of His will, which is His purpose. God has a will in which is His good pleasure. God predestinated us to be His sons according to this pleasure, according to the desire of His heart.
Ephesians 1:4 says that God has chosen us to be holy, and verse 5 says that He has predestinated us unto sonship. “To be holy” is the procedure, and “unto sonship” is the goal. We have been predestinated unto sonship. In other words, God has chosen us to be holy so that we might be His sons. Thus, to be holy is the process, the procedure, whereas to be sons of God is the goal. God does not merely want a group of holy people; He desires many sons. It may seem to us that it is adequate for God to choose us to be holy. We may be fully satisfied with this. Nevertheless, God has chosen us to be holy for a purpose that we might be the sons of God.
When I was young, I loved Ephesians 1:4 and 5. However, at first I thought that God had predestinated me unto heaven. Then I thought that I was predestinated unto salvation. Many of us may have thought the same thing, reading into the Bible something of our own concept. But Ephesians 1:5 does not say that God has predestinated us unto heaven or unto salvation. It says that we have been predestinated unto sonship. God made a firm decision before the foundation of the world that we would be His sons. In eternity past, God, through His foresight, marked us out from among a vast number of people to be His sons. It was not initiated by us in time; it was initiated by God in eternity.
In eternity past God probably also made a counsel among the Trinity of the Godhead concerning the coming creation and redemption, as indicated, or implied, by Acts 2:23, which says, “This man [Jesus], delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you, through the hand of lawless men, nailed to the cross and killed.” A bracketed insertion in translation of Acts 2:23 says that “the determined counsel…of God” was decided “in the council held by the Trinity.” In eternity past God should have made a plan according to His good pleasure. Then according to this plan, He selected us and marked us out. In His foreknowledge God knew that the creation would become fallen. Therefore, probably among the Trinity of the Godhead there was a conference concerning the coming creation and redemption. A decision was made regarding how to create the universe and how to redeem it after it had become fallen. This indicates 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.
Christ’s death was also according to the foreknowledge of God. Christ was foreordained, prepared, by God to be His redeeming Lamb (John 1:29) for His elect according to His foreknowledge before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:20). This was done according to God’s eternal purpose and plan, not accidentally. Hence, in the eternal view of God, from the foundation of the world, that is, since the fall of man as a part of the world, Christ was slain (Rev. 13:8).
According to the revelation we have collected from 1, Acts 2:23 Peter 1:20, and Revelation 13:8, the redemption accomplished by Christ through His crucifixion is a great thing in the heart of God for the carrying out of His eternal plan according to His good pleasure.
God’s work in the old dispensation was His work in the Old Testament. The old dispensation was God’s old administrative arrangement or economy. In the Old Testament as well as in the New, God had an economy, a dispensation, an administrative arrangement.
In Acts 17:24 Paul speaks of God as “the God who made the world and all things in it.” This was a very strong inoculation against both the atheistic Epicureans, who did not acknowledge the Creator, and the pantheistic Stoics (v. 18). In his preaching in Acts 14:15 Paul also spoke of the “living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all the things in them.”
According to Ephesians 1:5 and 9, the motive of God’s creation was His desire and pleasure. God carried out the work of creation in order to fulfill His good desire and to satisfy His good pleasure.
God’s creation fulfills His desire and accomplishes His purpose; it also reveals His desire in the universe and manifests His purpose in eternity. Anything we make expresses our desire. Although we may not say very much, the thing we make manifests our purpose. When God created the heavens and the earth, He certainly had a purpose. By His creation we can see that God had a desire and a purpose. First, God’s purpose in His creation is to glorify the Son of God (Col. 1:15-19). Second, God’s creation manifests God. Although God’s divine power and His divine characteristics are invisible, man can have some understanding of them through the things made by God (Rom. 1:20).
Why did God create the heavens and the earth? According to the Bible, the heavens are for the earth, and the earth is for man. Zechariah 12:1 says that God stretched forth the heavens, laid the foundation of the earth, and formed the spirit of man. The heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man with a spirit is for God.
The basis of God’s work in creation was God’s will and plan (Eph. 1:10). Revelation 4:11 says that all things were created according to God’s will. God is a God of purpose, having a will of His own pleasure. He created all things for His will that He might accomplish and fulfill His purpose. God has a will, and according to that will He conceived His plan. According to that will and plan, He created all things.
Although creation was God’s work, the means of His creation were the Son of God (Col. 1:15-16; Heb. 1:2b) and the Word of God (Heb. 11:3; John 1:1-3). The New Testament clearly tells us that God created the universe through Christ as the Son of God and the Word of God. Speaking of Christ as the means of creation, Colossians 1:16 says, “Because in Him were all things created in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and unto Him.” Regarding Christ as the Word, John 1:3 says, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being which has come into being.”
Only God can create. To create means to bring something into existence out of nothing. God is the unique Creator.
After creating the universe, God created man and determined mankind’s appointed seasons and the boundaries of dwelling. Concerning this, Acts 17:26 says, “And He made from one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, determining their appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwelling.” The “one” here refers to Adam. God not only created mankind but determined mankind’s appointed seasons and boundaries of dwelling. The migrations to America in its times and boundaries is a strong proof of this word. After creating mankind, God preserved America. After it was discovered by the Europeans, a great many people migrated here. This was according to God’s sovereignty. God determined the seasons and boundaries of the United States for the sake of His purpose concerning the working out of His recovery.
As part of His work, God dealt with fallen mankind from Adam to Noah. The history of this is recorded in the Old Testament, but it is nevertheless referred to in the New Testament. In the New Testament we can see certain things God did in Old Testament times.
In His dealing with fallen mankind, God rejected Cain and justified Abel. “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained testimony that he was righteous, God testifying to his gifts” (Heb. 11:4). According to typology, Abel’s more excellent sacrifice was a type of Christ, who is the real “better sacrifices” (Heb. 9:23).
Cain offered to God the fruit of his own labor. He brought the fruit of the ground with no blood for shedding. This means that he had rejected God’s way of redemption, which he must have heard from his parents. God’s way of redemption was that of a sacrifice in which blood was shed, for without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb. 9:22). Instead of caring for God’s way, Cain invented his own way of worshipping God according to his concept. God, however, did not accept Cain’s offering. Although Cain should have realized that what God wanted was a sacrifice with the shedding of blood, he did not offer such a sacrifice. Rather, Cain worshipped God according to his own concept, without the shedding of blood. His offering was an insult to God, an abomination in His sight, and He rejected it.
In contrast to Cain, Abel did not present his sacrifice according to his concept, but according to God’s way of salvation. He worshipped God according to His revelation. Abel realized that he needed an offering with the shedding of blood. Because Abel knew that he had been born of fallen parents and that he was sinful, he offered some firstlings of his flock with the shedding of blood for redemption. Therefore, Abel was justified by God.
Hebrews 11:5 says, “By faith Enoch was translated so that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him. For before his translation he obtained the testimony that he was well-pleasing to God.” God’s work in the old dispensation included His translating Enoch from death. The reason God took Enoch away was that he should not see death. His being kept away from death was God’s ultimate salvation. Enoch enjoyed and partook of God’s salvation to the fullest.
Enoch was the first person to be raptured. Because the first mention of a thing in the Bible establishes the principle for that thing, the case of Enoch, the first mention of the rapture, establishes the principle of rapture. The principle of rapture is to be matured in life by walking with God. Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and then God took him away (Gen. 5:22-24).
Before Enoch was translated by God, “he obtained the testimony that he was well-pleasing to God.” Hebrews 11:6 goes on to say, “Now without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing to Him; for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him out.” This verse, since it follows verse 5, indicates that Enoch not only walked with God but that he also believed. Enoch believed that there was a God, and he sought out God by believing that He is a Rewarder. It must have been his believing in God and his seeking God that motivated him to walk with God. Eventually, Enoch was rewarded by God. God gave him the reward of being translated so that he would not see death.
In His old administrative arrangement God judged the ungodly generation with the flood and delivered Noah and his family out of the corrupted generation. Second Peter 2:5 tells us that God “did not spare the ancient world, but guarded Noah, the eighth, a herald of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” To say that Noah was the eighth means that he was one of the eight (1 Pet. 3:20). Noah was a herald of righteousness. To be righteous and godly or unrighteous and ungodly is crucial with respect to God’s governmental judgment (2 Pet. 2:5-9). To be righteous is to be right with man before God, and to be godly is to express God before man. This was the manner of life Noah lived, which saved him from God’s governmental judgment according to His righteousness.
Noah did not preach the gospel; he preached God’s righteousness over against the corruption of his generation. Peter speaks of righteousness here because his emphasis is on God’s government. Noah’s preaching of righteousness was related to God’s government. God told Noah that He would wipe out the world and that Noah should preach righteousness to his generation. God exercised His judgment upon that corrupted generation by bringing a flood upon the world of the ungodly.
Concerning Noah, Hebrews 11:7 says, “By faith Noah, having been warned concerning things not yet seen, being devout, prepared an ark for the salvation of his house, through which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” While Noah was preaching righteousness to his generation, he was building the ark. Noah built the ark by faith according to God’s revelation, not according to his own concept. His building of the ark was absolutely against the tide of his generation. By preparing the ark “he condemned the world.” No one besides Noah’s family appreciated that work. After Noah entered into the ark, God shut him in (Gen. 7:16). When the flood came upon the ungodly generation, Noah and his family were in the ark, protected, preserved, and saved.
