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I. Regarding God’s eternal economy — Matt. 11:27:
А. The Father has delivered all His elect to the Son for the building up of the Son’s Body — v. 27a; John 6:37, 44, 65; 17:6b; 18:9.
B. Only the Father knows the Son as the centrality and universality of His economy — Matt. 11:27b; cf. Col. 2:2; Matt. 16:15-17; Gal. 1:15-16; Eph. 3:4; Phil. 3:10.
C. Only the Son knows the Father as the source and Maker of His economy — Matt 11:27c.
D. The Son reveals the Father to His believers for the formation of His Body — v. 27d; John 17:6a.
II. Regarding God’s pleasant will — Matt. 11:25-26:
А. The Father has hidden all the things as the contents of His economy from the wise and intelligent — the worldlings — 1 Cor. 1:26.
B. But He has revealed these things to infants — the Son’s believers — Matt. 19:13-14; 1 Cor. 1:27-28.
C. This is the Father’s pleasant will.
III. Regarding the first God-man as the Head of the Body, the prototype, and the model — Matt. 11:26, 29a:
А. Being absolutely submissive to God and altogether satisfied with God.
B. Being meek, not resisting the opponents, and lowly, humbling Himself among men in His heart.
IV. Regarding His believers as the members of His Body, His mass production, and His duplication — vv. 28a, 29b-30:
А. Answering His call in their heart and coming to Him bodily — v. 28a.
B. Copying Him in their spirit by taking His yoke — God’s will — and toiling for God’s economy according to His model — v. 29a; 1 Pet. 2:21.
C. Sharing in their soul His rest in satisfaction — Matt. 11:28b, 29b-30.
The Lord’s surpassing prayer and His unveiling teaching in Matthew 11:25-30 are regarding four major items: God’s eternal economy; God’s pleasant will; the first God-man as the Head of the Body, the prototype, and the model; and His believers as the members of His Body, His mass production, and His duplication. The mass production is from the prototype, and the duplication is from the model.
God’s eternal economy is seen in Matthew 11:27, where the Lord said, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father; neither does anyone fully know the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
The Father has delivered all His elect to the Son for the building up of the Son’s Body (v. 27a; John 6:37, 44, 65; 17:6b; 18:9). God the Father has given all His chosen ones to the Son, not for them to go to heaven or merely for their salvation but for the building up of the Body of Christ. The Son needs a Body, and the Triune God needs an organism. The Body of Christ is the Triune God’s organism for His expression and enlargement. Physically speaking, our body is our enlargement. The Body of Christ as the organism is the enlargement of Christ as the Head. All the elect given to the Son by the Father are the enlargement of Christ and the organism of the Triune God to express Him.
Only the Father knows the Son as the centrality and universality of His economy (Matt. 11:27b; cf. Col. 2:2; Matt. 16:15-17; Gal. 1:15-16; Eph. 3:4; Phil. 3:10). Christ the Son is the mystery of God. God has His person and His purpose. God’s person is triune. His Trinity is His person. The content of the New Testament is the Triune God. Every chapter of Ephesians reveals the Triune God (see footnote 1 on 2 Cor. 13:14, Recovery Version). Ephesians 1 reveals that God has blessed us in a threefold way. In the Father He has chosen us, in the Son He has redeemed us, and in the Spirit He seals us and is our guarantee. The economy of the Triune God is for Him to dispense Himself into His chosen and redeemed people to make them His expression.
The Triune God’s economy was made according to His purpose for His good pleasure, and His good pleasure comes out of His heart’s desire. God is a living person, full of feeling. He has His heart’s desire. Out of God’s heart’s desire is God’s good pleasure. Out of this pleasure is God’s purpose, and out of this purpose is His economy. The entire Bible is the contents of God’s economy.
Christ as God came to be a man for God’s economy. He is the centrality and universality of God. In January 1934 Brother Watchman Nee gave a conference on Christ being the centrality and universality of God. He is the hub, the rim, and the spokes — the entire content — of God’s economy. The first conference I gave in the United States was on the all-inclusive Christ typified by the good land from only three verses — Deuteronomy 8:7-9. To know Christ, as Paul says in Philippians 3:10, is not a small thing, because He is everything. To know any other person is simple because that person is not all-inclusive.
Christ was God becoming a man, and this man who was in the flesh, as the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This life-giving Spirit is compounded with the Divine Trinity, divinity, humanity, Christ’s death with its effectiveness, and His resurrection with its power. All these items are compounded into the compound Spirit typified by the anointing ointment in Exodus 30. Also, this compounded life-giving Spirit became intensified sevenfold (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6). The New Testament reveals Christ in the flesh in the Gospels, Christ as the life-giving Spirit in the Epistles, and Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit in Revelation. No one can know Christ the Son in an exhaustive way except the Father. The Son is the Father’s word, explanation, definition, and expression.
Only the Son knows the Father as the source and Maker of His economy (Matt. 11:27c). No one fully knows the Father except the Son and those believers to whom the Son wills to reveal the Father. The four Gospels show God the Father. No other book reveals the Father as much as the Gospel of John does. We have seen that the Lord Jesus extolled the Father as the Lord of heaven and of earth (Matt. 11:25). He praised the Father with acknowledgment.
The Son reveals the Father to His believers for the formation of His Body (v. 27d; John 17:6a). God’s economy is for the expression of the Father through the Son with His organism, the Body of Christ. The New Testament teaches that the Father as the source has a desire to have an organism through the Son, and the Son came to call God’s elect to come to Him so that He can regenerate, sanctify, and transform them, making them His Body to be the organism of the Triune God.
The New Testament teaches us, the members of the Body of Christ, to do everything with God, in God, by God, and through God. It does not teach us to love people in an ethical way with our natural love. We have to love others by and with God, in a divine and mystical way. His love is divine, but the outward lover is a mystical human. The Bible teaches us to live as divine and mystical persons.
The Father has hidden all the things as the contents of His economy from the wise and intelligent — the worldlings. In 1 Corinthians 1:26 Paul says, “Consider your calling, brothers, that there are not many wise according to flesh, not many powerful, not many wellborn.” The universities are full of wise and intelligent men who are blind concerning God’s economy.
The Father has revealed these things to infants — the Son’s believers (Matt. 19:13-14; 1 Cor. 1:27-28). In Matthew 19, when people brought the little children to the Lord Jesus, the disciples rebuked them. But the Lord said, “Allow the little children and do not prevent them from coming to Me, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens” (v. 14). If we are wise and intelligent and not as children, there is no hope for us to enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
It is the Father’s pleasant will to hide the contents of His economy from the wise and intelligent, the worldlings, and reveal them to infants, the Son’s believers.
The first God-man is the Head of the Body, the prototype, and the model (11:29a). He came as the one grain of wheat to produce many grains (John 12:24). The one grain was the prototype, and the many grains are the mass production. The mass production is the duplication of the model. Peter says that Christ is a model to the believers (1 Pet. 2:21). The Greek word for model means literally a writing copy, an underwriting used by students to trace letters and thereby learn to draw them. We become the reproduction of Christ as the original writing copy. Christ is the prototype to produce a mass production and the model to produce the many duplications.
Christ was the first God-man, and we are the many God-men. We have to learn of Him in His absolute submission to God and His uttermost satisfaction with God. Christ was so submissive to and satisfied with the Father and His will.
The Lord was meek, meaning that He did not resist His opponents. He was also lowly, meaning that He humbled Himself among men in His heart.
The Lord’s believers answer His call in their heart and come to Him bodily (Matt. 11:28a). To come to Him bodily means that our entire being has to come to Him. This is why Paul charges us in Romans 12:1 to present our bodies to the Lord as a living sacrifice. We have to present our bodies in a practical way by being in the meetings of the church. Since I was saved by the Lord in 1925, I have come to Him with my entire being.
The believers copy the Lord in their spirit by taking His yoke — God’s will — and toiling for God’s economy according to His model (Matt. 11:29a; 1 Pet. 2:21). The Lord told us to learn from Him. To learn from Him is to copy Him, not to imitate Him outwardly. In this way we become His duplication and mass production. The first requirement in learning from Him is to take His yoke, which is God’s will. God’s will has to yoke us, and we have to put our neck into this yoke. Seventy years ago as a young man, I took the yoke of Jesus. That yoke has protected me for the past seventy years.
We also need to be those who toil for God’s economy. All the worldly people are toiling and are burdened in many things. They are very busy. The Lord is calling those who are toiling, who are burdened, and who have no rest or satisfaction to come to Him so that He can give them the real rest with satisfaction. The rest without satisfaction is not the real rest. We take His yoke and toil for God’s economy according to His model, following Him in His footsteps.
The hardest thing is to rest in our soul. People lose sleep because their soul is bothered. The rest that we find by taking the Lord’s yoke and learning from Him is for our soul. We share in our soul His rest in satisfaction (Matt. 11:28b, 29b, 30).
