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Scripture Reading: Rom. 6:14; 6, 7, Heb. 8:13b; John 1:1, 14, 17b; 2 Cor. 8:9a; 13:14a; 1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:7b-8; Rom. 5:15b, 20b; Eph. 1:6-7; Rom. 3:24; 5:2a; John 1:16; 1 Tim. 1:14; Eph. 2:5-8; 2 Thes. 2:16; Heb. 4:16; 2 Cor. 9:8; Rev. 22:21; James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5; 2 Tim. 4:22; Luke 1:28, 30; Gal. 2:20-21; 2 Cor. 12:9; 8:1-2; 1 Pet. 5:10; Eph. 3:2, 8; 4:28-29; 1 Cor. 15:10; Rom. 5:17b, 21b; Acts 4:33; 11:23
I. The New Testament believers being not under the law in God’s economy but under the grace in God’s economy — Rom. 6:14:
А. The law being for the old covenant in God’s economy, which is also called the first covenant, a covenant which is becoming old and growing decrepit and which is near to disappearing — Heb. 8:13b, 7a.
B. Grace being for the new covenant in God’s economy, which is also called the second covenant, the better covenant — vv. 13a, 7c, 6b.
II. The grace of God in His economy being His embodiment:
А. God becoming flesh to be grace for man’s enjoyment — John 1:1, 14.
B. Grace coming through Jesus Christ — the grace of Christ — v. 17b; 2 Cor. 8:9a; 13:14a.
III. The grace of God in His economy being rich, multiplying, and abounding — Eph. 2:7; 1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:7b-8:
А. The grace of God and the gift in grace of Jesus Christ having abounded to the many — Rom. 5:15b, 20b.
B. Graced in Christ — Eph. 1:6.
C. Through the redemption of Christ — v. 7; Rom. 3:24.
D. By the believers’ faith — 5:2a.
E. Of His fullness the believers having all received, and grace upon grace — John 1:16.
IV. The believers’ experience of the grace in God’s economy:
А. Having faith and love through the Lord’s superabounding grace — 1 Tim. 1:14.
B. Receiving the salvation in life in Christ’s resurrection and ascension — Eph. 2:5-8.
C. Having obtained access into and standing in God’s abounding grace — Rom. 5:2a.
D. Enjoying eternal comfort and good hope in grace — 2 Thes. 2:16.
E. Coming forward with boldness to the throne of grace to find grace for timely help — Heb. 4:16.
F. Receiving God’s abounding supply of all grace — 2 Cor. 9:8.
G. Constantly enjoying God’s multiplying grace — 1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 22:21.
H. Enjoying God’s greater grace by being humble — James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5.
I. Enjoying the Lord’s presence in our spirit — 2 Tim. 4:22; cf. Luke 1:28, 30.
J. Living out God’s righteousness by Christ — Gal. 2:20-21.
K. Experiencing the perfecting of the Lord’s sufficient grace, Christ’s overshadowing power, in our weakness — 2 Cor. 12:9.
L. Displaying the riches of liberality in the depth of poverty — 8:1-2.
M. Being perfected, established, strengthened, and grounded by God’s all grace after having suffered — 1 Pet. 5:10.
N. Carrying out the stewardship of the grace of God entrusted by Him — dispensing to people the riches of Christ as the grace of God — Eph. 3:2, 8.
O. In our living, speaking words for building up and thus giving grace to people — 4:28-29.
P. Being a surpassing one and laboring abundantly for the Lord — 1 Cor. 15:10.
Q. Reigning in life by receiving the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness — grace reigning unto eternal life — Rom. 5:17b, 21b.
V. All believers having grace upon them and the church being built up:
А. All believers having great grace upon them — Acts 4:33.
B. The grace received by the believers being visible — 11:23.
Thank the Lord! In these last days God is speaking among us. To be without God’s speaking is a terrible thing. Without God’s word we would be in darkness, without God’s word we would cast off restraint, and without God’s word we would fall completely into death. If we have God’s word, everything is all right. God’s word is light, God’s word is revelation, God’s word is life, God’s word is supply, and God’s word is simply God Himself, the Lord Himself, and the Spirit Himself. In this message I hope that the Lord would grant us grace and give us His speaking that we may see what the grace of God in His economy is.
As Christians, we are very familiar with the term grace, and we have often come across it in our reading of the New Testament. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us...full of grace and reality.” God became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace. This shows that grace is the incarnated God. If God remained in Himself, He could not become grace. If God was merely God and was not incarnated to become a man, He could not be grace. Hence, in the Old Testament the word grace is used very little, because at that time God had not become flesh and could not become grace. In the New Testament, however, God became flesh, and when He became flesh, He became grace.
In the previous chapter we saw the economy of God and the law of God in His economy. God’s economy is to work out an organism for His Divine Trinity. No one knows how long God had been in eternity, and it is very difficult for anyone to know what He did in eternity past. According to my study of the Word, He did only one thing in eternity; that is, the Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — held a council. In that council the Triune God decided that the divine economy was to have an organism. We need the entire Bible to explain the contents of that counsel. What is covered from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation is the content of that divine counsel in eternity. The content is that God created the heavens, the earth, and all things, and among all things He created the human race that the human race may have His image.
When I first read the Bible and came to the word image, I was puzzled. Does not the Bible tell us that God has no form or image? Then, how could God create man in His image and according to His likeness? Some say that God’s image and likeness are man. In Genesis 18, before the Lord Jesus became flesh, He appeared with two angels in the form of man. That was God’s outward likeness. He fellowshipped and had a conversation with Abraham, and Abraham gave Him water to wash His feet. Furthermore, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, prepared a meal and brought it for Him to eat. Therefore, God’s image and likeness are man. In the beginning I accepted such an explanation to a certain extent. However, the more I studied the Bible, the more I was bothered and the more I was not satisfied with such an explanation.
God indeed created man in His image and according to His likeness. Gradually, I began to see that the image refers to what God is inwardly — His divine attributes. For example, God is love, God is light, God is holiness, and God is righteousness. These are the four great attributes of God. What God is, is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Love and light are easy to understand. Holiness refers to God’s being transcendent, different and distinct from all things; this is holiness. Righteousness refers to God’s being absolutely right, not crooked or biased, not twisted or distorted, but perfect, just, upright, and right from any angle; this is righteousness. God is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. These are God’s attributes. These attributes are inward; they are within God’s being.
Likeness is how God appears outwardly. Image and likeness are not two things. The former is God’s inward being, and the latter is the outward expression of God’s inward being. The outward expression of God is His likeness. What is expressed outwardly is God’s virtues. Attributes are inward, but when they are expressed, they become virtues. God is love; this is something within God. When God as love is expressed, that is God’s virtue. God created man in His inward attributes and according to His outward virtues. Hence, man is very noble. Man is a photo of God’s inward attributes and outward virtues. This is how God created man. Praise the Lord! Among all the creatures, man is the only one who expresses God’s attributes and God’s virtues. Man bears God’s inward image and God’s outward likeness. Although man was created in such an excellent way, God did not put Himself into man. Man did not have God’s life, God’s nature, or God Himself within him. You may take a very good picture of me, but after seeing it, I would say, “This picture is good, but it is not good enough because I am not really in the picture. That picture does not have my life, my nature, or myself.”
This is how God created Adam in the beginning. Adam had God’s image and God’s likeness but not God’s life, God’s nature, or God Himself. A picture of you cannot fully express you; it can only give others a general idea of your form. Regardless of how good the picture of a person is, it cannot fully express the person himself. A photo is dead; it is lifeless. I, however, am full of life; my entire being is organic. No picture can express me organically. After he was created, Adam had God’s image and God’s likeness. Adam had both God’s inward being and outward expression, but he did not have God’s life or nature. This means that he did not have God Himself. Since he did not have God as his person, he could neither represent God nor express God. Hence, he could not achieve the purpose of becoming God’s organism. He was not qualified to be God’s organism because neither his image nor his likeness was organic; he did not have God as his life.
In His economy God did not intend to have merely a “photo.” Rather, God’s intention was that the man whom He created would become His organism to express Him. Therefore, God put Adam into a garden. In the garden there were many trees, and in the middle there was the tree of life. There was also another tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life gives life to man, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brings death to man. One of these two trees signifies God as the source of life, and the other signifies Satan as the element of death. The Bible calls Satan the one “who has the might of death” (Heb. 2:14). Everything that is of death is stored up and accumulated in Satan. God is the source of life; Satan is the hotbed of death. After the creation of man, God brought man in front of the two trees and warned him, “Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). Instead of eating of the tree of life, Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Originally, Adam was the good material that could receive the tree of life. This means that he could receive God into him as his life and nature, that is, as his person. However, after Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan’s life and nature, even Satan himself, entered into him. Adam’s transgression was not only due to his wrongdoing outwardly but due to his eating something wrong inwardly. This resulted in his being constituted a sinner in his nature.
The counsel that God made in the council in eternity was only half-accomplished when Satan interrupted it. Satan put his sinful nature into man so that it became man’s sinful nature. Thus, man was constituted a sinner and was condemned before God unto perdition. Hence, in Genesis 3, after the fall of man, God came to proclaim the glad tidings. Adam and Eve hid themselves from God’s presence because they were afraid of God. Furthermore, they had made themselves loincloths of leaves to cover the shame of their nakedness. At that time, God came and called to Adam, saying, “Where are you?” Then He said to the serpent, “I will put enmity / Between you and the woman / And between your seed and her seed; / He will bruise you on the head, / But you will bruise him on the heel” (vv. 9, 15). This was a promise. Not only so, but after speaking such a word, God killed a lamb and used its skin to make coats for Adam and Eve. It seems that God was saying to Adam, “Don’t make loincloths of leaves for yourself. The loincloths of leaves are your own labor, and they cannot give you rest. Put on My coats!” As soon as they put on the coats, they had rest. This was the gospel, which was a gospel of promise: The seed of the woman would come. When He came, on the one hand, He bruised the head of the serpent, and on the other hand, He was killed, shedding His blood for our sins and thus becoming righteousness to us, the sinners, that we may be justified and delivered from the devil.
After God gave such a promise, not much seemed to happen. According to the record of the Bible, it seems that God did not do much, except to tell Adam and his descendants that over and over they had to kill bulls and goats as sacrifices to cover their sins. Two thousand years passed from Adam to Abraham. During that period man fell from God into sin; this means that he fell from God’s ruling into the ruling of his own conscience. After another fall, man fell from the ruling of conscience into the ruling of human government. Eventually, in Noah’s time God came in to execute His judgment by destroying the people of that generation with the flood. After Noah, man fell again and again until eventually he fell into Babel. At Babel man was altogether in rebellion against God and in the worship of idols. Therefore, out of that place — Babel — God chose a man and called him. That man was Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham. God brought him to the land of Canaan and told him that He would give that land to him and to his seed and that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed (12:3). This gospel was much greater than the gospel in Genesis 3. However, we have to know that the seed of the woman in Genesis 3 is the seed of Abraham in Genesis 12. The seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head is the seed of Abraham in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham did not merely receive a promise as Adam did. God swore to Abraham and made a covenant with him. That covenant made with an oath was the predecessor of the new covenant.
The predecessor of the new covenant was the covenant God made with Abraham based on the promise He gave to Adam. In this covenant God promised that Abraham would beget a son, a seed, in whom the families of the earth would be blessed. In Galatians 3 Paul says that today we who have believed in the Lord Jesus have received the blessing that God promised to Abraham with a covenant, that is, the promise of the Spirit (v. 14). The Spirit is also called the Spirit of grace. When the blessing that God gave to Abraham comes to us, it is grace; this grace is the seed of Abraham, which is also the seed of the woman.
It was two thousand years from Adam to Abraham and another two thousand years from Abraham to Christ. It took four thousand years for God’s promise to Adam to be fulfilled. With God, however, there is no element of time; in God’s eyes one thousand years are like one day. In those two thousand years from Abraham to Christ, it seems again that God did not do anything. During that period the descendants of Abraham went down to Egypt and were under the slavery of Pharaoh for four hundred thirty years. At the fullness of those four hundred thirty years, God came in again to lead them out of Egypt. However, after leading them out, God did not bring them immediately into Canaan. Thus, the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
After the passing of forty years, the aged Moses was already one hundred twenty years old. He reiterated God’s law and encouraged the children of Israel to enter Canaan. Then, after their entrance into Canaan, it was not until approximately five hundred years had elapsed, at the time of David, that they subdued all the enemies within their borders. Eventually, Solomon, the son of David, built the temple for God. Regrettably, this wonderful situation did not last long. Solomon was excellent in the beginning but became corrupt in his old age. He indulged in lusts and selected a thousand wives and concubines for himself. Many among these wives were heathen women who brought in heathen gods. He was corrupted and so were his descendants. Eventually, the Jewish people were defeated first by Assyria and later by Babylon and Medo-Persia. Sixty years before Christ’s birth, the Roman Empire conquered the king of the Jews and thus brought in the fall of the Jewish nation.
The children of Israel were under such circumstances for two thousand years, but eventually Christ was born. He was the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David. He was God who became flesh and was born in a manger. Later, He was taken to Egypt to escape Herod’s slaying. Hence, not only the children of Israel but even the Lord Jesus went down to Egypt. After His birth He did not do anything but first went down to Egypt. This proves that the incarnated Savior was joined with His redeemed as one. He went down to Egypt just as His redeemed did. Then one day God called His Son out of Egypt, and this Son is a corporate Son, who includes Israel as well as Christ. This Son came out of Egypt and returned to Nazareth, where He grew up until the full age of thirty when He came out to minister. After three and a half years He was crucified. On the night when He was going to die, He established a new covenant with His disciples (Luke 22:20). That new covenant was the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31 as the continuation of the covenant that God made with Abraham.
The New Testament believers are not under the law in God’s economy but under the grace in God’s economy (Rom. 6:14). Today we are not the saints in the Old Testament who were under the law; rather, as the New Testament believers, we are all under the grace of God.
To carry out God’s economy and achieve the purpose of obtaining an organism for God involves two covenants. One covenant is a covenant that existed originally, and the other covenant is a covenant added along the way, a covenant that should have been unnecessary. The Bible uses two women to signify these two covenants: The first woman is Sarah, the wife of Abraham as the rightful woman, and the other woman is Hagar, who was a concubine. In the Bible the position of the law is like that of a concubine and not like that of a rightful woman, so the children brought forth by the law were unto slavery and could not be reckoned as the free children of God (cf. Gal. 4:22-31).
In between the covenant that God made with Abraham and the new covenant that the Lord enacted with His precious blood, there was the covenant of Moses. Moses, who, on the one hand, represented God and, on the other hand, represented Israel, enacted a covenant for the two parties, which covenant was the old covenant. The old covenant, referred to as “the first” in Hebrews 8, was a covenant which was becoming old and growing decrepit and which was near to disappearing (vv. 13b, 7a). This first covenant was a covenant that should not have existed; it was not in God’s plan but was added along the way. We may illustrate this in the following way: A person drives from Anaheim to the airport, and because he has no plan to see a doctor on the way, he expects to arrive at the airport in fifty minutes. However, along the way he has an accident and is injured. The car is pulled aside while a policeman calls a doctor. This is the story of the law of the Old Testament. According to Romans 5, the law was something added; it was not something in the original plan but was inserted afterward. The law is God’s portrait, God’s photograph; it is not God Himself. The photograph came first, and then the person Himself followed. The law is God’s photograph, and grace is God Himself. Before God came, He first sent a picture to testify of Himself and also to expose man’s real condition. God knew that man had fallen to such an extent that he was filled with the devil, having the devil’s life and nature and even the devil himself, so that man could not walk according to God’s law.
When the Lord Jesus came (by God’s incarnation), grace came. Grace is for the new covenant in God’s economy, which is also called the second covenant, the better covenant (vv. 13a, 7c, 6b). The law requires us to do something by ourselves; grace is God doing something for us. Actually, we do not have to do anything, and we cannot do anything. God does not require us to do anything; He does everything for us from the beginning to the end. It was God who carried out His incarnation, it was He who lived out His human living for thirty-three and a half years, it was He who accomplished the all-inclusive death on the cross, it was He who attained His entrance into resurrection, and it was He who accomplished His entrance into ascension. Everything was accomplished by Him. We just need to enter into His accomplishments and enjoy Him as our rest. This is grace.
The grace of God in His economy is His embodiment. God became flesh that He may enter into man and be mingled with man as one; this is Emmanuel. He is the God-man; He is God yet man, and man yet God. God and man became one in Him. This Emmanuel, the incarnated God, is grace for man’s enjoyment (John 1:1, 14). Here we have One who was God becoming man, who was called Emmanuel and who was also called Jesus. He is grace. I hope that we all can see this revelation and vision. What is grace? Grace is the embodied God. First, God as the Father was embodied in the Son, and then the Son was realized as the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit enters into us as grace for our enjoyment.
We must see what grace is. Grace is the embodiment of God, who became a God-man with divinity and humanity, passed through human living, died, resurrected, and entered into ascension. Now He has become the life-giving Spirit and is dwelling in us today. Therefore, 2 Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit,” and then it says, “Grace be with you.” The Lord being with our spirit equals grace being with us. The Lord as grace is for us to receive and enjoy as our supply and experience.
This grace came through Jesus Christ; hence, it is the grace of Christ (John 1:17b; 2 Cor. 8:9a; 13:14a). In Greek, expressions such as the grace of Christ and the love of God are appositions. Grace and Christ, Christ and grace — the two are one. The grace of Christ does not mean that Christ is Christ and that grace is grace; rather, it means that Christ is grace. Likewise, the love of God does not mean that outside of God there is something called love; rather, it means that God is love. This is the sense in 2 Corinthians 13:14, where the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are mentioned. God is love, Christ is grace, and the Holy Spirit is fellowship.
The first three stanzas of Hymns, #497 read as follows:
Grace to the apostle Paul was God in Christ. Can we also say that grace to us is God in Christ? I hope that we all can see that grace to us is God in Christ. All other things are not grace: neither wives nor husbands, neither sons nor daughters, neither properties nor bank accounts, neither education nor position. All these are not grace to us. Only God in Christ is grace to us. If we lose this Christ, we lose everything of grace. If we gain this Christ, He is everything of grace.
I hope that we all can see this matter. God has no intention to put us under the law; His intention is to put us in His grace. Today we are those who have received grace, which is the Triune God, which is the Father given to us in the Son, and which is the Son realized as the Spirit dwelling in our spirit. The Spirit dwelling in us is the practical grace. This is grace; we live this and we live by this. Apart from this, we can do nothing and we have nothing.
The grace of God in His economy is rich, multiplying, and abounding (Eph. 2:7; 1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:7b-8). The riches of God’s grace surpass every limitation. These are the riches of God Himself for our enjoyment. Furthermore, the grace of God and the gift in grace of Jesus Christ have abounded to the many (Rom. 5:15b, 20b).
God has graced us in Christ with the grace in His economy (Eph. 1:6). Graced here as a verb indicates that we have been put in the position of grace that we may become the object of God’s grace and favor, that is, that we may enjoy all that God is to us.
A part of the grace of God in His economy is that Christ has become our redemption for the forgiveness of our offenses (Eph. 1:7). Moreover, we have been justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:24). It is through the redemption of Christ that we can enjoy this Christ who is grace.
On the one hand, we can enjoy Christ as grace through His redemption. On the other hand, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand (5:2a). Faith issues in our justification, and it also gives us access into the grace of God. The Greek phrase for believe into has the sense of entering into. For example, there may be a jumbo jet here with everything ready, but we still must enter into the plane to enjoy flying. If we use our own flesh and its natural endeavor, we cannot enjoy God as grace, but if we believe into Christ, we have access into the full enjoyment of the grace of God.
Finally, of His fullness the believers have all received, and grace upon grace (John 1:16). When Christ in us is daily received, enjoyed, and experienced by us, that is grace being added to us, grace upon grace.
Grace is Christ. All the spiritual experiences of a Christian should be experiences of Christ as grace. In our experience of the grace in God’s economy, first, we have faith and love through the Lord’s superabounding grace (1 Tim. 1:14). To be a believer is a matter of faith and love. Faith and love are products of the Lord’s grace. Through faith we receive the Lord, and through love we enjoy the Lord whom we have received. We have neither faith nor love, but when we allow the Lord to come into us, both faith and love from the Lord as grace come into us.
When we preach the gospel, we infuse people with such a trustworthy and lovely Lord. I have been to Hong Kong numerous times, and I have noticed that the jewelers there have the skill of talking continually and unceasingly. If a jeweler is not able to convince you the first day, he will talk to you again the next day when you pass by his store. After listening, you cannot help but buy a piece of jewelry from him, because the jewelry is really lovable. However, if he showed you a lump of clay, regardless of what he said, you would never stop to listen to his talk. When we preach the gospel, we are presenting to people a treasure of peerless worth in the universe. After we finish our speaking, many will believe because what is good is simply good, and what is precious is simply precious. In the end, everyone will want what we speak of.
When the Lord as the One of peerless worth appears to us, we simply cannot run away from Him. The Lord is too wonderful. He is so beautiful and sweet; He is incomparable. I have read something concerning J. N. Darby, who was a teacher among the Brethren in the nineteenth century. He lived to be eighty years old and remained single his whole life. At the age of eighty, one day during his travels he was staying in a hotel alone. In his loneliness he had such a sweet feeling within that he knelt down and prayed, “O Lord Jesus, I still love You.” This word touched me very much. Such a word coming from an old man proves how sweet the Lord Jesus is. What is this? This is the Lord Himself as grace coming into us to become our faith and love.
In their experience of the grace in God’s economy, the believers also receive the salvation in life in Christ’s resurrection and ascension (Eph. 2:5-8). This salvation is a salvation in life. We just need to believe into the Lord Jesus by calling on His name, confessing our sins, and praying to Him; then He will come into us. He is the resurrected and ascended One. Today He is in resurrection and ascension. When He comes into us, we are also resurrected and ascended in Him. This is salvation in life. This salvation is not something superficial; it is not merely to save us from hell. This salvation is the resurrected and ascended Lord. Today in His resurrection and ascension He has entered into us to be our person. We are also resurrected and seated in the heavenlies together with Him. This is the salvation that we have received. This salvation is the resurrected and ascended Christ becoming our grace.
The believers’ experience of the grace in God’s economy enables them to obtain access into and stand in God’s grace (Rom. 5:2a). Today we are not under the law but under the grace in God’s economy. This grace is God Himself. Sometimes I have heard people say that they flew from Taipei to the United States. In my heart I said, “How could you fly from Taipei? It is not you who flew but the airplane.” Some people say that they lean upon Jesus. This is wrong. If you fly from Taipei to the United States by leaning upon the airplane, this leaning is not dependable. You do not lean upon the airplane, but you enter into the airplane. You are resting while the airplane is flying; you enjoy the restfulness of flying. Noah was saved by entering into the ark, not by leaning upon the ark. Today we are standing in grace. This grace is Christ, the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving Spirit.
In this grace we enjoy God’s eternal comfort and good hope (2 Thes. 2:16). God’s comfort is not temporary and transitory comfort but eternal comfort. This eternal comfort is the eternal life. We have the eternal life in us, and this eternal life is our eternal comfort. This comfort is sufficient for any kind of environment and situation. Furthermore, we enjoy good hope in grace. This means that at the Lord’s coming, we will enter into His glory.
Furthermore, in their experience of the grace in God’s economy, the believers come forward with boldness to the throne of grace to find grace for timely help (Heb. 4:16). The very Christ who is sitting on the throne in heaven is also now in our spirit, where the habitation of God is (Eph. 2:22). Since today our spirit is the place of God’s habitation, whenever we turn to our spirit, we touch the throne in heaven, and this throne is the throne of grace to us. When we come forward to the throne of grace, we receive Christ as grace for our timely help.
In their experience of the grace in God’s economy, the believers also receive God’s abounding supply of all grace. Second Corinthians 9:8 says, “God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that, in everything always having all sufficiency, you may abound unto every good work.” Today we have God abundantly supplying us with all grace.
We are constantly enjoying God’s multiplying grace (1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 22:21). Peter speaks of this multiplying grace in his first and second Epistles. This grace is not dead but living and multiplying; it is being multiplied to us day by day.
The believers also enjoy God’s greater grace by being humble (James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). Grace has a measure. The Lord Himself is without measure, but our experience of Him has a measure. When we are humble and broad-minded, the grace in us is greater. When we are proud and narrow-minded, the grace in us is smaller. The measure of our enjoyment of God’s grace depends on us. If we are broad, the grace is greater; if we are narrow, the grace is smaller.
In our experience of the grace in God’s economy, we enjoy the Lord’s presence in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; cf. Luke 1:28, 30). The Lord being with us in our spirit is grace being enjoyed by us in our spirit.
In their experience of the grace in God’s economy, the believers live out the righteousness of God by Christ (Gal. 2:20-21). Paul says that he did not live by his own righteousness but that he was crucified with Christ and that it was Christ who lived in him. Thus, what was lived out was the righteousness that God desired. If we do not live out God’s righteousness by Christ, we nullify the grace of God. If, instead of nullifying the grace of God, we desire to enjoy it daily, we need to live not by ourselves but by the Christ who is in our spirit. Thus, what we live out is the righteousness that God desires. This righteousness is of grace.
The believers’ experience of the grace in God’s economy is the experience of the perfecting of the Lord’s sufficient grace, Christ’s overshadowing power, in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Why is the Lord’s grace perfected in our weakness? It is because when a person is weak and cannot do anything, the Lord comes to do everything for him. When someone is strong, he does not need others. Would you rather be strong or weak? The good thing about being weak is that the Lord comes to do everything for you. The bad thing about being strong is that you put the Lord aside. When you are strong, the Lord has no ground and cannot do anything for you; hence, you cannot enjoy rest. When you are weak, the Lord has the ground and can do things for you right away. When the Lord does everything for you, you enjoy the Lord as your rest.
In their experience of the grace in God’s economy, the believers display the riches of liberality in the depth of poverty (8:1-2). This is the grace given by the Lord to the believers and the churches in Macedonia. This grace is Christ’s resurrection life by which we overcome the usurpation of temporal and uncertain riches and become generous in ministering to the needy saints.
Our experience of the grace in God’s economy is that after we have suffered, we are perfected, established, strengthened, and grounded by God’s all grace (1 Pet. 5:10).
In our experience of the grace in God’s economy, we carry out the stewardship of the grace of God entrusted by Him — dispensing the riches of Christ as the grace of God to His chosen people for the producing and building up of the church (Eph. 3:2, 8).
Not only the apostles as stewards dispensed grace into people, but we also, in our living, should speak words for building up and thus give grace to people. Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear.” In verse 28 Paul says that we should labor, working with our own hands in that which is respectable, that we may have something to share with him who has need. As Christians, we should have something in our living, both materially and spiritually, to minister to others.
Paul experienced the Lord’s grace to be a surpassing one and to labor abundantly for the Lord (1 Cor. 15:10). The Lord whom he experienced enabled him to labor more abundantly than all the saints. When he did that, he experienced Christ as his grace. Today the resurrected Christ brings the processed Triune God in resurrection into us to be our life and life supply so that we may experience Him as grace and thus be a surpassing one and labor abundantly for the Lord.
We reign in life by receiving the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness. This is grace reigning in life unto eternal life (Rom. 5:17b, 21b). The life we have received does not merely save us from a few things; rather, it enthrones us as kings to reign over all things. We have received righteousness objectively, but we still need to continually receive the abundance of grace so that we can reign in life subjectively. If we have the experience of the aforementioned sixteen items, we are those who stand in the abundance of grace. Then we can reign in life so that everything is controlled by us instead of everything directing us. This is to overcome. This is grace reigning unto eternal life.
In the church life, when all the believers have grace upon them, the church will be built up. However, it is easy for us to come out of grace and argue with others. A person who has seen grace knows Christ and has nothing to argue about with others. If a person argues, he does not know grace. How do we stand in grace? Practically, it means that we come back to our spirit. We need to exercise to turn back to our spirit. When we return to our spirit, we stand in grace. Regardless of how much others criticize you, judge you, or dispute with you, never open your mouth and never reason. Instead, learn to return to your spirit. Once you begin to reason, you will begin to debate; if you keep arguing, you will end up murmuring. Do not reason or murmur; do not stay in your mind or in your emotion but be in spirit. When you are in spirit, you are in Christ; that is to stand in grace. Sometimes when you pray-read a verse or sing a hymn, the Lord’s word will bring you into the grace in Christ. You may be full of reasonings and murmurings, but when you turn back to your spirit, you stand in grace. As a result, what comes out of your mouth is grace. In His economy God does not require you to do anything. What God wants in His economy is for Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, to become the embodied grace to you. He lives in us, and we live in Him as grace. In this way God can obtain His organism.
Today we are not merely individual Christians, because it is not just one individual alone who receives grace, but all the believers receive great grace (Acts 4:33). No individual by himself is the organism of God. This organism is corporate, not individual. We have been crucified with Christ; now Christ is in us not only to be our life and life supply but also to be our person. Christ and we live together; two lives have one living, two natures are mingled into one nature, and two spirits become one spirit. Such a living is the organism for the processed and consummated Triune God to live among us organically for His expression. This is God’s intention in His economy.
In such an organic church life, the grace received by the believers is visible (11:23). The Triune God received and enjoyed by the believers is expressed in their salvation, change in life, holy living, and the gifts they exercise in their meetings, all of which can be seen by others.
What God wants today is that we experience the grace in His economy so that the Divine Trinity may have an organism. Today people only talk about the universal church and the local churches; they debate a great deal, yet there is no manifestation of this organism. This is my concern. We may be right concerning the church both universally and locally, yet there may be no organism. This organism is not a matter of arguing about the local churches or the universal church; this organism depends on our going to the cross and on the resurrected Christ’s being in us. We become one with Him as the One who died, resurrected, and ascended — two lives share one living, two natures are mingled into one nature (without producing a third nature), and two spirits become one spirit. If there is a group of brothers and sisters who live on the earth in this way, this group of brothers and sisters is the organism that God desires to have.
Brothers and sisters, if we study each of the items mentioned above, we will see that the apostles’ teaching in the beginning was according to the pattern of their living. What they taught was concerning such an organism. They did not speak about the universal church or the local churches. If we only speak about these things, we are still speaking about the “photo”; we do not have God as the organic One in us. If we can see this and live in this organic One, instead of engaging in outward discussions and debates about the photo, we will experience great deliverance.
Today the processed and consummated Triune God has become the life-giving Spirit and is all-inclusive. As such a One, He is in us to bring us all into His organism. In this organism is the organic element that God wants. It is not the outward explanation of doctrines. The more we are right in doctrine, the less organic element we have. The more we remain in the “photo,” the less we are in the living person. I hope that our eyes will be opened to see where our real need is. We need to be in the processed and consummated Triune God, taking Him as our life and our person. We are on the cross, and yet in His resurrection we have been resurrected, and we have ascended with Him. Here, God and man are mingled to produce an organism. This is accomplished by grace. The grace in God’s economy is the embodiment of God for man to receive as his enjoyment and supply. We should learn to receive such an embodied grace that we may have this enjoyment and supply. As a result, we will be full of the organic element in our inner being and thus become the organism of God.
