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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:7-12 Hymns: #972, #750
I. Through His redemption — Eph. 1:7:
А. The forgiveness of offenses.
B. Through His blood.
C. According to the riches of His grace.
II. To make the believers the inheritance of God — vv. 8-11:
А. By His abounding grace — vv. 8-10:
1. In all wisdom and prudence — v. 8:
а. Wisdom is for God to make a plan and purpose a will in eternity.
b. Prudence is for God to apply what He has planned and purposed in time.
2. To make known to all the mystery of His will — v. 9:
а. According to His good pleasure.
b. Which He purposed in Himself.
3. Unto the economy of the fullness of the times — v. 10a:
а. Economy refers to God’s plan for dispensing Himself into His chosen people.
b. Fullness refers to the completion of all the times for God’s dispensing.
c. Times refers to the ages:
1) The age of sin.
2) The age of the law.
3) The age of grace.
4) The age of the kingdom.
4. To head up all things in Christ — v. 10b:
а. The issue of God’s dispensing in all the ages.
b. Especially through the divine dispensing to the church so that the church is saved from the universal collapse in death and darkness and grows in life to be headed up in Christ in peace and harmony.
B. In God’s designation, making the believers a chosen inheritance of God — v. 11:
1. According to the purpose of God, who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
2. Transforming, in the great salvation of Christ, the believers into a treasure (an inheritance of worth) to God in the life element of Christ, to whom they have been redeemed.
3. That they may inherit God as their inheritance.
III. To the praise of God’s glory — v. 12:
А. In the believers who have first hoped in Christ.
B. By the angels and all the positive things in the universe.
C. Mainly in the millennium and ultimately in the new heaven and new earth.
In Ephesians 1 the most striking thing is the dispensing plus the transmitting. The dispensing is done by the processed Trinity, and the transmitting is done by the transcending Christ. What the Trinity dispenses is for producing the many sons of God, the heritage to God as His treasure, His private possession, and a glorified body as the consummation of the Trinity’s dispensing. This is revealed in verses 3 through 14. In these verses there are the many sons of God, God’s heritage, and our glorified body, but the church is not yet mentioned. We need to realize that these items are all for the church, the Body. The dispensing of the processed Trinity produces the constituents for the church, but there is still the need for the formation of the church. The formation of the church does not depend upon the Trinity’s dispensing but upon the transcending Christ’s transmission with His surpassing, transcending power which raised Him up from the dead, seated Him at the throne of God, subjected all things under His feet, and made Him the Head over all things to the church (vv. 19-23).
I was told many years ago that the book of Ephesians is on the church. When I was with the Brethren, they told me that Adam and Eve were a type of Christ and the church. Later, I met Brother Watchman Nee and became one of his close co-workers. He told us strongly that the church comes out of Christ just as Eve came out of Adam. That was a great help to me. It is wonderful to see that the church has come out of Christ. But still at that time in my studying of the holy Word, I had not entered into the intrinsic significance of this matter. For years I was wondering how the church comes out of Christ and how Christ produces the church with His life. Eventually, I came out of mainland China and stayed in Taiwan from 1949 to 1961. During that period of time, the Lord opened my eyes. I saw that the coming out of the church is altogether a matter by the Holy Spirit and in our spirit. Without these two spirits — the Holy Spirit and our spirit — there is no possibility to have the coming out of the church. There is no possibility for the church to come into existence.
We also have seen something further concerning the truth of sanctification. This has been a great subject among us in the recovery for the past seventy years. We studied and investigated this, spending much time to get into others’ writings. But we were not fully satisfied with what we had seen. It was not until this year, 1993, that I saw the full intrinsic significance of sanctification. I saw this when the church in Anaheim was spending time to review our life-study on Hebrews, which was given in 1975. That life-study was very thorough, yet I did not see fully at that time how the sanctification of the Spirit is related to the sonship. Hebrews 2:10 says that the Lord as the Captain of God’s salvation will lead many sons into glory. Then verse 11 speaks of the One who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified. When I considered these two verses, my eyes were opened to see that sanctification is for sonship. This is new light.
When I saw this, I entered into a fuller understanding of Ephesians 1:4-5. Verse 4 says, “To be holy,” and verse 5 says, “Unto sonship.” We need to put these two phrases together — to be holy unto sonship. This shows again that sanctification is for sonship. The Greek preposition for the word unto is very profound. It means “resulting in.” To be holy results in the sonship. God’s sonship comes to us through the Holy Spirit’s sanctification. The concluding notes of chapter 1 of this book point out that the divine sanctification is unto the divine sonship. I hope that the Lord will have mercy on all of us to pick up this thought. Divine sanctification is not for sinless perfection, nor is it merely for a change of our position. It is for the sonship and results in the sonship. We call it the divine sanctification because it is a matter of the Spirit Himself. It is a matter of the Triune God.
Now I would like to present a full view of the divine sanctification as unveiled in the holy Word. God has a desire. Based upon His desire, He made an intention with a purpose. This is His eternal economy, oikonomia (Gk.). This economy was made by the Father, accomplished by the Son, and carried out and applied to us by the Spirit. The carrying out of the eternal economy of God is by the Spirit’s sanctification. The Spirit’s sanctification is the carrying out of God’s eternal purpose in four steps.
The first step of the divine sanctification by the Spirit is His seeking sanctification. This is the Spirit’s coming to seek out God’s chosen people who became lost. The seeking sanctification is fully unveiled in the second parable in Luke 15. There the Spirit is likened to a woman seeking a lost coin by lighting a lamp and sweeping the house (v. 8). She sought this lost coin finely. Eventually, she found it. Actually, the lost coin was the prodigal son. Due to the Spirit’s seeking and finding, the prodigal son woke up. He came to himself (v. 17). He made the decision to rise up and go back to his father to repent.
John 16 goes on to show that this seeking Spirit is also the convicting Spirit. He convicts all the lost sinners of sin in Adam, of righteousness in Christ, and of the judgment for Satan (vv. 8-11). Man’s full repentance is the result of the work of the seeking and convicting Spirit.
First Peter 1:2 tells us that this seeking and convicting of the Spirit is the sanctification of the Spirit before the sprinkling of the blood upon the repentant sinners. This shows that the seeking sanctification was before our repentance and believing in Christ. Actually, our repentance and believing were due to the seeking Spirit, the convicting Spirit. We were lost in sin and among a heap of sinners, but the seeking Spirit came to seek us out. As a result, we woke up, repented, returned to God, and asked Him to forgive us. This was the result of our Father’s choosing with His predestinating in eternity past along with His Spirit’s coming in time to seek us out and convict us. This seeking, this convicting, is the seeking sanctification.
At the juncture we repented and believed in the Lord Jesus, the same Spirit, the seeking Spirit, sanctified us further by regenerating us. We were born of the Spirit (John 3:5), and God as the Spirit came into our spirit (Rom. 8:16; 2 Tim. 4:22). Now we are the sons of God, the children of God. The seeking Spirit woke us up and brought us back to the Father. We repented and believed in the Lord Jesus. We received Christ, and the Spirit sanctified us further, making us the children of God. This is the second step of the divine sanctification, the regenerating sanctification.
The Father put Christ’s redeeming blood upon us, just like the loving father put the best robe upon the returned prodigal son (Luke 15:22; Heb. 13:12). Also, the sanctifying Spirit entered into our spirit with God’s life to make us children of God. Now we have the blood of Christ without and the life of God within. All our offenses have been forgiven through the blood, the redemption of Christ, and our spirit has been regenerated. The Spirit’s regenerating sanctification transpired in our spirit (John 3:6).
After regeneration, the next step of the Spirit’s sanctification is His transforming sanctification. This takes place in our soul. Our regenerated spirit has never been a problem to us. Our problems always come from two sources: our soul (comprising our mind, emotion, and will) and our body. Our untransformed mind, emotion, and will give us much trouble. Following the regeneration of the sanctifying Spirit in our spirit, the sanctifying Spirit carries out His continuous sanctification to transform us in our soul. We were regenerated, sanctified unto God, in our spirit, but we need the sanctifying Spirit’s further work to sanctify our soul. This is the transforming sanctification.
This transformation implies renewing and conformation to the image of Christ. While the sanctifying Spirit works to sanctify us, we are being transformed. Second Corinthians 3:18 tells us clearly that transformation is by the Lord Spirit. This is a strong proof that the Spirit’s transformation is His work to keep sanctifying us. Romans 12:2 says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. The transformation of the sanctifying Spirit first renews our troublesome mind. For us to be transformed, we need some new element added into us to carry away our old element and replace us with the new element. This is a kind of metabolism, which results in a metabolic change within us. Thus, we become another person in our thinking, in our feelings, and in our intentions. The Bible says that we are being transformed from the old man into the new man. This is a further step of the sanctifying Spirit, the transforming sanctification. Now we have the seeking sanctification, the regenerating sanctification, and the transforming sanctification, which includes the renewing and the conforming to the image of Christ.
Our full transformation will one day consummate in our glorification. That will be the work of the sanctifying Spirit to glorify us in our body. Another thing that bothers us besides our soul is our poor, vile body. Lust, weakness, sickness, and death are present in our corrupted body. Our body is really vile, but one day we will be glorified and transfigured in our body (Phil. 3:21). Our spirit has been regenerated, our soul is being transformed, and our body will be transfigured, changed into a glorious body with no more lust, weakness, sickness, or death. This is the glorifying sanctification.
When all these four steps of the divine sanctification (seeking sanctification, regenerating sanctification, transforming sanctification, and glorifying sanctification) take place, we will be glorified. We will be qualified to meet the Lord. By that time we will be able to shout, “We have been fully sanctified!” Today we are like a butterfly who is still in the cocoon. Eventually, we will come out of the cocoon. We will not walk on this earth; we will fly. This is the consummating sanctification.
Now we have seen the proper teaching of the New Testament concerning sanctification. Sanctification is the hinge of God’s carrying out of His eternal economy. The sanctifying Spirit in God’s sanctification first sought us out and then regenerated us, making us sons of God. If a cat begets kittens, those kittens are baby cats. In the same way, God begot us to make us the sons of God. To make us the sons of God is to make us “baby gods,” having God’s life and nature but not His Godhead. In life, in nature, and in expression we are the same as He is, because we are born of Him. Thus, we are not only the children of God, we are not only the sons of God, we are not only the heirs of God, but we are also the “baby gods.” The kittens, the baby cats, are surely cats because they are according to the cats’ kind. God created everything according to its kind. Man, however, was created according to God’s kind because he was created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26). Later, we men were born of God, not only bearing God’s image but also having God’s life and nature. Thus, we become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. This is what the sonship means.
Now we can see the intrinsic significance of Ephesians 1:4-5. God chose us to be holy, predestinating us unto sonship. God dispensed Himself into His chosen people so that His chosen people could be holy as He is. Our being made holy results in our being made sons of God, making us God in life and in nature, but not in the Godhead. The carrying out of God’s eternal economy is hinged on the divine sanctification unto (for) sonship.
Now that we have seen the issue of the Father’s dispensing, we want to go on to see the issue of the Son’s dispensing, which speaks forth the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose. This is revealed to us in Ephesians 1:7-12. These verses say, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses, according to the riches of His grace, which He caused to abound to us in all wisdom and prudence, 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, that we would be to the praise of His glory who have first hoped in Christ.”
Through God’s abounding grace, Christ accomplished redemption for us, and this redemption is for the forgiveness of our offenses. This is somewhat easy to understand. But the above verses are full of difficult expressions and words such as mystery, will, good pleasure, purposed, the economy of the fullness of the times, and to head up all things in Christ. We need to see the intrinsic revelation and significance of this difficult portion of Ephesians 1.
God, according to His desire with an intention, made an economy, and the center of the divine economy is God’s desire to have many sons. God created the universe for His many sons, but man became fallen. Now in this universe there are two ugly things: the rebellion of Satan with his angels and the fall of man. These two things brought the entire universe into a collapse. The universe was created by God in a very beautiful order. But due to Satan’s rebellion and man’s fall, this beautiful order was turned upside down. After man’s fall, in man’s second generation Cain murdered his younger brother Abel (Gen. 4:8). All the evil things, such as murder, fornication, stealing, cheating, and lying, show that today’s world is in an upside-down situation. Everything is upside down today. This upside-down situation has even invaded the church. Some who rebelled even tried to bring the upside-down situation of the human race into the recovery.
But God would never give up His eternal economy. He is very consistent and insistent. He first applied His anticipated salvation to mankind so that mankind could continue on this earth. Then eventually, He Himself came to be a man. He not only created man, but He also came to be a part of mankind, to be one with man. He lived a human life for thirty-three and a half years. Then He was qualified to go to the cross to die a marvelous death, an all-inclusive death. In that death He solved the problem of sin, the problem of the old man, the problem of the world, the problem of Satan, and even the problem of death. He solved every problem, and He ended and cleared up everything of the old creation. He rested for three days, and then He rose up.
In His resurrection He became another kind of person. In incarnation, as God, He became man (John 1:14). Now in resurrection, as man, He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). God became a man to solve all the problems, to terminate all the negative things in the whole earth and even in the whole universe. Then as the last Adam, the last man, the end of mankind, He rose up to become a life-giving Spirit. God who is joined with man became a life-giving Spirit in His divinity and in His humanity.
A number of people oppose this scriptural revelation. They think that the three of the Godhead are separate and that we cannot say the Son became the Spirit. They just care for their theology. They do not care for the spiritual, divine fact. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:45b, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” The Lord in whom we believe, Jesus Christ, who is the last Adam, has become a life-giving Spirit. Paul says that Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20a). If Christ were not the life-giving Spirit, how could He live in us? Christ lives in us, works in us, and even makes His home in our heart (Eph. 3:17). Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” If He were not the Spirit, how could He be with us in our spirit? At the most He could only be among us, not within our spirit.
When I came to this country, a number of saints told me that they never knew that they had a human spirit. Many Christians today do not believe that Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, nor do they believe that they have a spirit. They do not have these two key points. Without these two key points there is no way to live the Christian life. The Bible tells us that God created a spirit within man (Gen. 2:7; Prov. 20:27; Job 32:8; Zech. 12:1). The Bible also tells us how God became a man and died to accomplish redemption to end the old creation. Then He rose up. In His rising up He became another person — the life-giving Spirit — to enter into us. In the morning He rose up. In the evening He came back to the disciples to breathe upon them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). By that time He was the life-giving Spirit to be received by His disciples. From this point onward, the key points of the Christian life are the life-giving Spirit and our spirit.
Today Christ is the life-giving Spirit. He not only rose up but also transcended to the heavens and passed through the heavens (Heb. 4:14). The ascended Christ has at least twelve statuses. Each status qualifies Him to minister in a certain realm. In His ascension He was enthroned as Lord of all and appointed, assigned, to be the Christ of God (Acts 2:36). He is the Leader of all the rulers (Acts 5:31a). He is the Savior (Acts 5:31b). Even though we may want to save people, we cannot do it. But He can do everything. Because He is the omnipotent One, He can save us. He is the High Priest (Heb. 4:15; 7:26) and the Advocate (1 John 2:1b). He is the Intercessor, interceding for us (Heb. 7:25). He is also the Mediator of the new covenant (8:6) and the surety of the new testament (7:22). He is the Life-giver (John 10:10b), the Comforter (14:16-17), and the Lamb-God (Rev. 22:1b). He is in the heavens ministering all the time. The key point is that today He is the life-giving Spirit. Without being the life-giving Spirit, He could never be the High Priest ministering to us. He could never be the Life-giver. He could never be the Comforter. He is the life-giving Spirit to execute His covenant, to carry out what He has accomplished through His all-inclusive death.
Ephesians 1 says that in Him we have redemption. He redeemed us back to Himself. We were fallen in Adam. That was our location. But Christ’s redemption redeemed us out of that location and brought us into Himself as the realm and the element. Actually, this realm and this element are the Spirit. He is the life-giving Spirit, and He has redeemed us out of Adam into Himself as the life-giving Spirit. As the redeemed ones of Christ, we all should declare, “I am in the Spirit!” We are not on the earth, nor are we merely in the heavens; we are in the Spirit. The Spirit is our location. The Spirit is our realm. The Spirit is our element. In this realm and with this element, Christ is working every day to transform us.
The Spirit, who is the realm and the element, is the sanctifying and transforming Spirit. He is transforming us metabolically, making us a particular treasure to become God’s private possession, even God’s heritage, God’s inheritance (Eph. 1:11). God wants to inherit something. He wants to inherit those who were once sinners and who have become a treasure. Today we are in the cocoon, but eventually we will become a butterfly. We are expecting to be glorified, and God is also expecting to see that we are glorified. Then He will have a complete treasure. This may seem like a dream, but one day this dream will be fulfilled.
The transforming Spirit makes us right-side up. Before we were saved, we were in an upside-down situation. We were collapsed in death and darkness. But the Spirit in His seeking sanctification brought us back to God. We believed into Christ, and the Spirit continued to sanctify us by regenerating us. Then this Spirit, who is Christ Himself, continues His sanctifying work to transform us every day, making us right-side up.
A brother may talk to his wife apart from the Spirit in an upside-down way. But gradually the Lord transforms this brother to make him realize that his way is not the Lord’s way. The Lord’s way is not in our flesh or in our American way of thinking. His way is in our spirit. Eventually, the Lord will work in this brother again and again to turn him to his spirit. There the Holy Spirit will meet him to shine over him, enlighten him, and speak to him in a personal way. The Spirit may say, “From now on don’t talk to your wife without My speaking.” This will make this brother right-side up.
Bit by bit the transforming Spirit is making us upright. We are not merely corrected or adjusted outwardly but transformed inwardly. The very Christ who is living in us, working in us, and making His home in us is transforming us day by day. When a person moves into a new house, he makes many adjustments. Christ is making His home in us and making many adjustments within us.
In our marriage life we are upside down much of the time. The wife’s attitude toward her husband may not be proper. It is upside down. But every day the indwelling Christ is fixing His dwelling place. He is transforming us, making us right-side up. This transformation makes us a treasure. God is making us His treasure by transforming us.
As we are being transformed, we are being made right-side up; that is, we are being headed up under Christ. It is a beauty to see this. In the Lord’s recovery we should be Jesus lovers who have been headed up under Christ. When we are headed up, there is no turmoil, no fighting, no debating, no confusion, and no collapse. Instead, everything is in a good order. We Jesus lovers should take the lead to be headed up in Christ. Then eventually Christ will have all things in heaven and on earth headed up under Him.
God has given Him to be the Head over all things, but all things today would not be headed up. But we, His lovers, should take the lead to be headed up in Christ. Today’s whole universe is in an upside-down situation. The whole universe needs to be made right-side up, to be headed up. We are the Jesus lovers, who are willing in Christ’s redemption to be transformed by the sanctifying Spirit to be made right-side up. This is why the Lord needs a recovery. Among us there should be no struggling, no fighting, and no debates. There should just be fellowship and submission.
This is all due to the dispensing of the Son. The Son’s dispensing in His redemption and His transformation through the sanctifying Spirit issues in the heritage prepared as a treasure to God. The Father’s dispensing results in a group of sons. The Son’s dispensing results in all of us being made a treasure. Now God not only has a group of sons but also has all the sons becoming His treasure, His heritage. Many of us came to this conference from a long distance because we want to be right-side up. What is the Lord doing today in His dispensing? He is making us right-side up by transforming us in our soul. This transformation includes our being renewed and conformed to the image of Christ, resulting in a heritage produced for God.
We all have seen that the first main point in Ephesians 1 is the threefold dispensing of the processed Divine Trinity. The Father’s dispensing is to make us holy unto sonship. God chose us with a purpose to make us different from everything in this universe, that is, to sanctify us and to make us holy for the purpose that we could be begotten of God to be His sons. The secondfold aspect of the dispensing is somewhat complicated. For the firstfold dispensing there are only two verses, but for the secondfold dispensing of the Son, there are verses 7 through 12.
Verses 10 and 11 are some of the hardest verses in the whole Bible for readers to apprehend. These verses say, “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.” God’s economy will be consummated at the fullness of the times. In God’s economy there are four main ages, and these ages are called “the times.” There are the age of sin from Adam to Moses, the age of law from Moses to Christ’s first coming, the age of grace from Christ’s first coming to His second coming, and the age of the kingdom. In these four ages God is working to recover His lost creation back to His purpose. Then at the fullness of the times, God’s economy will be consummated. This economy is to head up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.
Verse 11 says that we have been designated as an inheritance. Designated in Greek means “chosen or assigned by lot.” We have been designated, marked out, and assigned by lot to be God’s inheritance as a treasure. In the secondfold dispensing of the Trinity, Christ has redeemed us. In His redemption He has redeemed us back to Himself, even into Himself, and He has imparted Himself into us. Thus, the redeeming Christ has become a realm in which we are enjoying the dispensing. He is also the element by and with which we are being renewed and transformed to be a treasure, a heritage of worth, to God.
God created us, but we fell into sin, forsaking God as our Head. Then we became a collapse. Since Satan’s rebellion plus man’s fall, the entire universe has lost its order. It became collapsed in death and darkness. Now Christ came to redeem us out of Adam into Christ, and this redemption implies the forgiveness of our sins. After forgiving us, Christ brought us back to God, to Himself. Now we are in Christ as a realm and an element. In this realm and with this element, after we have been redeemed, the Triune God is now in Christ as the life-giving Spirit dispensing His element into us daily and hourly to renew us day by day and transform us hour after hour, making us a treasure, an inheritance of worth.
We were in the collapse as God’s enemies, but Christ redeemed us out from Adam, from sin, and from the collapse. Then in this redemption, gradually, as we are growing in Christ, we are headed up in Christ. This heading up is the order of the church, the order of Christ’s Body. In our physical body there is an order. Things are not upside down but right-side up. Generally speaking, the church is a setting up of the proper divine order. This will lead to a consummation at the fullness of the four ages when all things in the heavens and on the earth will be headed up in Christ. That will be the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth depicted in Revelation 21 and 22. The New Jerusalem will be the consummation of today’s church.
In Christ’s redemption the life-giving Spirit is dispensing hourly into us the element of the processed and redeeming Triune God in Christ to renew us and transform us. While we are being transformed, we are being regulated and put into an order. That order is the church. This heading up leads to the final heading up at the fullness of the ages. That will be the new heaven and new earth with the consummation of the church as the New Jerusalem, in which everything will be in order under one Head. The whole universe will be new at that time. Being new means to be out of the collapse. There is no more collapse in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. Today the church life should be a miniature of that situation.
The firstfold dispensing of the Divine Trinity is to produce sons, but we need the secondfold dispensing to redeem us back to God in Christ. In this realm with this divine element we are being renewed, transformed, and brought into order. There is the heading up today in the church, which leads to the final and consummate heading up at the fullness of the times, the ages, in the new heaven and new earth. There we can see the New Jerusalem with everything in order. This is the issue of the secondfold dispensing of the Son, which speaks forth the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose.
The Son’s dispensing in His redemption and transformation of the believers issues in a heritage of worth, a private possession, transforming God’s chosen people, with Christ as the element of life, into a treasure to be God’s inheritance as His personal possession. This is to bring the redeemed universe from the collapse into a good order, to head up all things (collapsed in death and corruption) under Christ through the church built up as the Body of Christ. This is also carried out by the Lord as the transforming Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17-18), to make God’s chosen people a new creation by the renewing of the transforming Spirit.
