Search
Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4; 1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; Col. 1:25; 1 Cor. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:10; Gen. 1:26-27; 2:9-12, 22; Rev. 21:1-3, 11, 18-22; 22:1-2
In these chapters we will cover a basic item in the Bible, the divine dispensation. We will not try to cover the entire theme of God’s dispensation. Our burden is just to see the central view of the divine dispensation. “Dispensation” is a translation of the Greek word oikonomia. This Greek word has been anglicized into the English word economy and is equal to the word dispensation. The basic meaning of this word is a kind of arrangement, a kind of an arranged order. So it may be considered as a plan, as a management, or as an administration. God has a divine arrangement of His administration. The entire Bible tells us that God has been working and is still working on this plan.
Of course, God’s plan includes a lot of steps, but many Christians have misunderstood the word dispensation to merely indicate a period of time or an epoch for certain dealings of God with man. The best Bible teachers understand that this word denotes God’s plan, God’s arrangement, of His full salvation. This is absolutely right, but we still have to ask, What is the goal of God’s full salvation? What will be the consummation of God’s plan?
If we look into the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, we can see God’s works and also the goal of God’s works. We can realize that God has been going on toward a goal. Some may say that this goal is simply God’s full salvation. But what then is the goal of God’s salvation? Not many Christians have seen the definite goal of God’s salvation.
Genesis 1 tells us that God created man in His own image (vv. 26-27). This surely indicates that God wants man to express Him. At the end of the Bible there is a city that bears the glory of God and that is the composition of many names. There are twelve names from Israel and twelve from the church. All twenty-four of these names denote the saved ones of God. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel denote all the redeemed saints of the Old Testament, and the names of the twelve apostles denote all the saints of the New Testament. This tells us that the New Jerusalem is a composition of all of God’s redeemed ones.
The city bears the glorious image of God, denoting that this composition of God’s redeemed ones is the expression of God. This makes it very clear that God’s goal is to work Himself into His redeemed people. God wants to work Himself into His chosen people so that He may have a full expression in eternity. This is the goal of God’s full salvation. God’s dispensation is toward this goal. We must see not only God’s dispensation but also the goal of God’s dispensation; that is, God is working Himself into His chosen people.
In Ephesians 1:10 we can see that there is a plan, an arrangement, or an administration for God to head up all things in Christ. This is God’s dispensation, His universal administration, to head up all things in Christ. Presently, we cannot see that all things are headed up in Christ, but God is working on this. First, God would collect His chosen people and put them into Christ. Then He would work Christ into them so that they all might become the parts and members of Christ with Christ as their Head. All these dear Christians have been headed up in Christ. We know that Christ is our Head, and we all are members of His Body. This gives us a picture of the heading up of all things in Christ. Although we may come from many different countries, we have been headed up in Christ. In the name of Christ and in His enlivening Spirit we have been headed up in Christ. Christ is the heading up. Verse 10 tells us that in the fullness of the times God will head up the entire universe in Christ. By that time God will be fully expressed. This is the goal of God’s dispensation.
Ephesians 3:9 also speaks of God’s plan, the dispensation of God’s mystery. This is a kind of order or system or arrangement or administration of God’s full salvation. According to the context of Ephesians 3:9, God’s plan of His full salvation is to dispense the unsearchable riches of Christ into His chosen people to produce the church. The dispensing of Christ’s riches is for the producing of the church to fulfill God’s eternal purpose.
In 1 Timothy 1:4 we see God’s household administration, which is to dispense Himself into His children in order that He may have a household, the church, to express Himself. From these three portions of the Word, we can have the general view of the meaning of God’s dispensation. The Greek word oikonomia is composed of two words: oikos, meaning “house,” and nomos, meaning “law.” Hence, it refers to the house arrangement, household management or administration. The word denotes the management and distribution of the wealth of a rich household. In the Old Testament, Joseph is an example of this. Joseph was the administrator of Pharaoh’s house, which was so rich that it could even supply other nations. There was a need of some management and administration and order and system to distribute the riches of Pharaoh’s house. Otherwise, the riches would lie there undistributed.
By this we can see what the oikonomia is. It is the household management to distribute and dispense the riches of the house. Our Father surely has a great house with a rich store of the unsearchable riches of Christ. This great house needs some administration, some management, some system, some plan to dispense and distribute all the riches to God’s people.
The biggest distributor in the New Testament was the apostle Paul. By reading Paul’s writings, we see that Paul in the New Testament was like Joseph in the Old Testament. The unsearchable riches of Christ were under his administration and distribution.
In 1 Corinthians 9:17 Paul uses the word oikonomia to denote the stewardship, that is, the responsibility of such an administration, entrusted to him for preaching the gospel. In Ephesians 3 he uses this word again to denote the office, the duty, of a steward in God’s house, which he calls “the stewardship of the grace of God” (v. 2), committed to him to dispense the grace of God to His children in the church. In Colossians 1:25 he uses the same word again to denote the stewardship given to him by God to complete His word, that is, the divine revelation concerning Christ for the producing of the church as His Body.
Paul was given the stewardship, the office, the duty, of God’s dispensation to distribute all the riches of Christ. Even today we are still under the distribution of Paul. Paul is still doing a dispensing work even as Joseph did. In Joseph’s time all the people had to go to Joseph for the rich supply. If we take away Paul’s fourteen Epistles from the New Testament, so many of the riches are gone. Many unsearchable riches are under Paul’s distribution. His distribution is to distribute the unsearchable riches of Christ to all of us in order that we may be the expression of God.
In 1 Corinthians 4:1 Paul calls himself and his co-workers “stewards (oikonomos) of the mysteries of God,” denoting that they were God’s servants, entrusted with the responsibility to carry out the divine dispensing according to God’s dispensation. In 1 Peter 4:10 Peter tells us that all the believers are stewards of God’s dispensation, dispensing the varied grace of God to supply the house of God (v. 17). All this indicates that the intention of God in His dispensation is to dispense all His riches in Christ through the Spirit into His chosen people so that they may enjoy Him and become His expression.
Our burden is to see God’s original intention. According to the record of Genesis 1 and 2, God’s original intention was to have a bride. After God created man, Adam was single. He was a bachelor. But then God said that it was not good for the man to be alone. This is a type. According to the revelation of the Bible, God is the unique Husband in the entire universe. In Jeremiah 31:32 the Lord considered that He was a Husband to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Isaiah told the children of Israel that their Maker was their Husband (Isa. 54:5).
In the New Testament we find the same thing. In John 3:29 John the Baptist indicated that Christ is the Bridegroom. Paul continues this thought in 2 Corinthians 11:2, where he says that he betrothed the Corinthian believers to one husband to present them as a pure virgin to Christ. In Ephesians 5 he likens Christ as the Husband and the church as the wife. Finally, at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 19:7 there is the marriage of the Lamb, whose wife has made herself ready. The church as the bride will be married to Christ as the Bridegroom. This tells us that unless man becomes God’s wife, God is alone. For the Bible to say that it was not good for the man to be alone implies also that it was not good for God to remain alone. God needed a counterpart, a wife.
The first two chapters of the Bible reveal that God was planning to have a bride who would bear His image. After God created Adam, He brought all the animals to him, and Adam named them, but he did not find among them a counterpart. So God caused him to sleep and took one of his ribs from his side. Genesis 2:22 tells us that God built a woman from that rib. When Adam looked at the woman, he saw that she resembled him and bore his image, so he said, “This time this is bone of my bones / And flesh of my flesh; / This one shall be called Woman / Because out of Man this one was taken” (v. 23). Adam then took her to be his counterpart. This is a picture of what God wants for Himself. It was for this purpose that God created man: to bear His image, to resemble Him, in order to be His counterpart.
For such a one to be produced, there was a need to have God’s divine life. This is why in Genesis 1 and 2, after God had created man in His image, He brought him to the tree of life. This indicated that although man had God’s image, man did not have God’s life. Man was like a photograph. A photograph may bear an image of a person, but it has no life. Adam was created like a photograph of God. He did not have the eternal, uncreated life, the life of God. This life was indicated by the tree of life. So God brought the man who did not yet have God’s divine life to the tree of life so that he might eat of the tree of life. If Adam had eaten of the tree of life, he would have received God’s life. Of course, we know that Adam did not eat of the tree of life at that time. Nevertheless, God’s original intention was that the man who was created in His image should have God’s divine life.
The picture in Genesis 2 is very wonderful! There is the tree of life, and near the tree of life there is a river flowing in four directions. With the flow of the river there is gold, bdellium, and onyx stone. Eventually, in this picture there is also a bride. This picture, with the tree of life growing, with the river flowing, with the gold, the bdellium, the precious stones, and the bride, shows us that God’s original intention was to have a bride bearing His image, possessing His life, and transformed by the flow of life into precious materials to be built up as a bride.
We all are Adam. As men, we bear the image of God. As believers, we also have the life of God. Furthermore, we have a river flowing within us. In John 7:37-38 the Lord indicated that whoever drinks of Him will have rivers of living water flowing out of his being. This means that we bear the image of God, we have the divine life, and we have the flowing river within us. But are we gold, bdellium, and onyx, or are we still muddy? If we say that we are now gold, bdellium, and onyx, our wife or those who serve with us may say that they have never seen them. They may say that they have seen mostly mud. This is our problem, but God has such an intention. God will work this out by the way of His dispensation. God has an administration to distribute Himself into all of us.
In Genesis 2 there are three categories of precious things. Why are there exactly three and not two or four? It is because God is triune — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In typology, gold always signifies the nature of God the Father, bdellium signifies the produce of the overcoming death and life-secreting resurrection of God the Son, and the precious stones signify the issue of the transforming work of God the Spirit. How could we who are muddy human beings be transformed? It is by God the Father’s golden nature, by God the Son’s death and resurrection, and by God the Spirit’s transforming work. If I ask whether we are gold, bdellium, and onyx stone or mud, it would be hard for us to answer because we are in between. We are the mud with a little gold. We are the mud with some amount of bdellium. We are the mud with some amount of precious stone. But let me ask: Do we not have God the Father’s nature? Are we not in the death and resurrection of God the Son? Are we not under the transforming work of God the Spirit? To these questions we can boldly answer yes. We can even boast that although we are muddy, we have God the Father’s nature in us. We are in the death and resurrection of God the Son. We are under the transforming work of God the Spirit. We are all under the transformation today. Hallelujah, we are the people under God’s transformation! One day we will be fully transformed into the gold, bdellium, and precious stones. One day we will be the bride constituted with these three precious elements to be ready (Rev. 19:7). This was God’s original intention revealed in the first two chapters of the Bible.
Now we come to the last two chapters of the Bible, where we find the ultimate consummation of God’s intention. God’s intention will have a consummation, which will be the New Jerusalem, the consummate tabernacle of God as His bride (21:2-3), bearing His glorious image to express Him (v. 11). In that consummation there is no more mud, no more dust. The New Jerusalem is built of gold, pearl, and precious stones (vv. 18-21). All the dust and mud have been transformed. In Revelation we can see the same things as in Genesis — gold, pearls, and precious stones. The only difference is this: the bdellium in Genesis 2 is a kind of resin, a gum congealed into a plant pearl. This means that it is a kind of pearl that comes from the produce of the plant. But the pearls in Revelation 21 are pearls from the animal oyster. In Genesis the bedellium came from the plant, and in Revelation the pearls will come from the produce of the animal. Plant life in the Bible signifies the producing life of Christ, and animal life signifies the redeeming life of Christ. In Genesis 2 there was no fall of man and no sin, so there was no need of redeeming. But in Revelation, after the fall and after sin had entered, there was the need of the redeeming life of the animal. That is the significance of the death and resurrection of God the Son.
The New Jerusalem will be built up with God the Father’s divine nature, with God the Son’s death and resurrection, and with God the Spirit’s transformation. That will be the universal bride to satisfy God’s desire for His eternal expression. This is the consummation of God’s intention. In the first two chapters of the Bible there is God’s intention, and in the last two chapters of the Bible there is the consummation of God’s intention. Both sections show us the goal of God’s dispensation — a bride to be His counterpart, His expression. God’s dispensation began from Adam and has been going on through all the generations. It will consummate in the New Jerusalem, where we can see the goal of God’s dispensation. Today we need to contact the Triune God to be supplied and nourished with the divine life as the river of water of life and as the tree of life (22:1-2), that we may be transformed with the Father’s golden nature, through the Son’s death and resurrection, and by the work of God the Spirit. We need to cooperate with the Triune God.
