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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:9-11; 3:2-11
Ephesians 1:9-11 says, “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.” There are six crucial items in these verses: mystery, will, good pleasure, purpose, economy, and counsel. We need to know how to arrange these six items in a proper sequence. The good pleasure of God comes first. God’s good pleasure is a matter in His heart. Out of this good pleasure, God made up His mind to do something, and this is His will. According to His will, He had a council in eternity past to make a counsel. There was a council held by God in His divine person, the Trinity, in eternity past in order to make a decision, which is His determined will. This determined will is the counsel. Two items are “of His will” — the mystery of His will and the counsel of His will. The counsel of His will was not revealed but hidden in God, so it became a mystery. The mystery is the counsel, and the counsel is the mystery.
Then according to this counsel, the Triune God made a purpose. This purpose becomes God’s oikonomia, God’s economy, God’s dispensation. According to our usage, dispensation is different from dispensing. Dispensation refers to God’s plan, and dispensing refers to the actual dispensing of God into His chosen and redeemed people. Dr. C. I. Scofield, in his reference Bible, says that there are seven dispensations: the dispensations of innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, grace, and the kingdom. That means that God has seven plans, and these seven plans are seven different dealings of God with man in different periods of time. This understanding of the word dispensation is correct, but we have also seen something further and deeper concerning the real meaning of this word. God’s dispensation, God’s economy, is His divine plan to dispense Himself with all His divine riches into His chosen and redeemed people. This economy, oikonomia, which was hidden in God, is a mystery.
We may use an illustration of a person planning a trip to show the meaning of good pleasure, will, counsel, purpose, economy, and mystery. A brother may have a desire to attend a training in Irving. To come to Irving to attend a training is a good pleasure in him. Out of this pleasure he makes up his mind. This is his will. Then he has a council with his wife and children. The whole family agrees with his desire to come to Irving. Thus, out of this council a decision is made, which is the counsel. According to this counsel, he makes a plan, and this plan is his purpose. This purpose becomes his oikonomia, which is hidden from the brothers in Irving, so it is a mystery to them. But when this brother arrives in Irving, this mystery is revealed to the brothers in Irving by his presence.
In eternity past God had a good pleasure, and His good pleasure is to dispense Himself into His chosen people in order to produce an organism, which is the church as the Body of Christ, for His full, perfect, complete, and eternal expression. We all need to have a vision of God’s good pleasure. Even human beings have a good pleasure. If you do not have a good pleasure, there is no reason for you to live. A person enjoys his life because there is a good pleasure in his life. The term good pleasure is used twice in Ephesians 1. Verse 5 says, “Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” God’s good pleasure is related to His predestination of us. Verse 9 says, “Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself.” God’s good pleasure is related to His heart concerning us. When He thought about us as the object of His dispensing, He was happy.
God’s good pleasure became the divine will. This will was discussed in the council of the Divine Trinity to become the counsel of His will (v. 11), and this determined will became a plan, a purpose, which is the New Testament oikonomia, God’s economy. God kept this economy hidden within Himself for many years, so it was a mystery. It was a mystery until the apostles were raised up, especially the apostle Paul. This mystery was revealed to them in their spirit, the human spirit regenerated, indwelt by, and mingled with the Holy Spirit (3:5). It is in our spirit that we can see the divine revelation of God’s good pleasure, which eventually became God’s economy, God’s eternal plan.
We need to see the vision concerning the economy of the Divine Trinity. We have seen that this economy is a plan, an arrangement (v. 9b; 1:10). Paul uses the word oikonomia in Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Colossians, and 1 Corinthians. In 1 Timothy 1:3-4 Paul urges Timothy to remain in Ephesus to charge certain ones not to teach different things from God’s economy, which is in faith. This economy is not in the law but in faith. The law represents the Old Testament. All the things written by Moses in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, are in the law. But whatever Paul ministered as God’s economy is in faith. Paul told Timothy to charge certain ones not to teach different things. The main different thing taught by these ones was the law. Paul, however, said that the economy of God ministered by him was not in the law but in faith.
God’s economy is in faith. It is not by our doing but by our faith in God’s grace. It is not by our doing in ourselves but by our believing in Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. In the Lord’s ministry, we are not teaching the saints to observe something, to keep something, or to do something. We are ministering to the saints something that needs the exercise of their faith. Faith does not originate from us. Faith originates from what we see. When we see God’s economy, this generates and initiates a believing within us. God’s economy is God’s will to dispense Himself into you and me to produce an organism, the Body of Christ, for His good pleasure. Faith comes from seeing this vision. We need a vision, a seeing. We need to see that in the whole universe God’s good pleasure is to impart Himself, to dispense Himself, into us so that we may become parts of His organism, the organic Body of Christ. A dispensary is a place where medicine is dispensed to sick patients. God Himself is a dispensary, and He is also an all-inclusive dose, dispensing Himself into us, His patients.
The apostle Paul’s teaching begins from God’s heart, not from man’s fall. His teaching shows us the good pleasure that God has had since eternity past. God’s desire is not merely to save sinners but to impart, to dispense, Himself into us as all our need. His dispensing is not only to heal us but also to make us His organism, His living Body. In eternity past God had the desire to dispense Himself into His chosen people to make them all the Body of His embodiment, Christ. This Body is the very organism of the Head, Christ. Our physical body is an organism to match us and to complete us in order to express us in a full and adequate way. In the same way, the Body of Christ is His completion for His full expression.
We need to go to visit people with the gospel in order to carry out God’s economy. God needs people as vessels (Rom. 9:21, 23), as “bottles,” to contain Him as the all-inclusive dose. We go out to visit people with the gospel to gain more bottles for God, and we fill these bottles with God Himself. When I looked at the situation of all the churches in the Lord’s recovery in 1984, I saw that there were very few new bottles. We need to be those who are one with God’s heart to gain some new bottles, some new people, into whom He can dispense Himself.
God loves us because we are the vessels, the bottles, who have been made by Him in order to contain Him. God does not merely desire to save us because we are fallen. He wants us as vessels for His dispensing. He needs a Body and a wife to match Him. In the universe there is a divine romance. The concluding picture of the entire Bible is a couple, a husband and a wife (Rev. 21:2; 22:17a). The New Jerusalem is actually a divine couple composed of the processed Triune God married to the transformed tripartite man. This divine couple is the issue of the divine dispensing in God’s economy. Since I have seen this, my concept concerning God, Christ, the church, and the believers in Christ has been revolutionized. We need such a vision of God’s economy, which is altogether in faith.
The economy of the Divine Trinity, which is His plan, or arrangement, was made by God [the Father and the Spirit] according to God’s purpose of the ages [eternal] in Christ Jesus our Lord [the Son] (Eph. 3:11). God’s economy is to have us designated as an inheritance, predestinated according to the counsel of God’s will (1:11). We are God’s vessels, God’s bottles, so we are His inheritance, His possession. He possessed us as His inheritance for the purpose of containing Him. He desires to dispense Himself into us all the time. This dispensing is not once for all. It is continuing all the time and will go on for eternity. God has made us His inheritance for His enjoyment. We are God’s inheritance by being His vessels. His containers are His inheritance. He needs more vessels into which He can dispense Himself with all His riches.
God made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself (v. 9b). God’s economy was a mystery hidden from the ages in Himself, who created all things (3:9c, 5a), but it is revealed now to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit [mingled with the Spirit] and is brought to light to all men (vv. 5b, 9a). Such a mingled spirit is the means by which the New Testament revelation concerning God’s economy is revealed to the apostles and prophets. We need to be in this spirit to see such a revelation.
The apostle Paul had a clear vision of God’s economy, but I am concerned that His economy is still a hidden mystery to many Christians. Paul says in Ephesians that he had been commissioned to reveal, to make known, to bring to light, the mystery of God’s economy. To reveal is to make known, and to make known is to enlighten, to bring to light. There are many Christians who have never been enlightened concerning God’s economy. Such a mystery has not been made known to them. We need to pray that God’s economy would not remain a mystery to us and that we would be enlightened with the truth and the vision of His economy.
We need a revelation of the mystery of Christ (v. 4), which is the church produced out of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul preached the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel to the nations [Gentiles], making the nations fellow heirs, fellow members of the Body, and fellow partakers of the promise (v. 6b). Through the church God’s multifarious wisdom is made known, especially to the rulers and the authorities of Satan’s dark kingdom in the heavenlies (v. 10). The economy that God purposed in Himself is to head up all things in Christ at the fullness of the times (1:10). When the New Jerusalem comes in the new heaven and the new earth, all things will be headed up in Christ through the church.
The economy of the Divine Trinity became the apostles’ stewardship of God’s grace. Ephesians 3:2 says, “If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of the grace of God which was given to me for you.” The word for stewardship here and for economy in 1:10 is oikonomia. Oikonomia was first God’s plan, God’s economy. Then this economy of God became the stewardship that God gave to the apostle Paul. The economy and the stewardship are actually one. This means that what the apostles were doing is what God is doing in His economy. What we are doing should be exactly what God is doing today. We should be those who are carrying out God’s economy. The carrying out of God’s economy is the stewardship of God’s grace. Such a stewardship is for the dispensing of God Himself as grace to all His chosen people. Out of this stewardship comes the ministry of the apostles, and this ministry corresponds with God’s economy. The ministry we have must correspond with God’s dispensing of Himself into His chosen people for the producing of the Body of Christ. This is God’s ministry given to us as our stewardship. The ministry revealed in the New Testament is unique. God does not have two economies or two stewardships. God has only one divine economy and one divine stewardship. Out of this stewardship is the one, unique ministry of the apostles to dispense Christ as God’s grace into His chosen people for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to be the organism of the processed Triune God for His full and eternal expression.
We have pointed out that God’s economy is not in the law but in faith. Galatians 3 is a chapter concerning the contrast between the Spirit by faith versus the flesh by law. Many believers in the province of Galatia had been distracted by the Judaizers from the New Testament faith to the Old Testament law. The Judaizers were those who were telling people that in addition to believing in Jesus, they still needed to keep the law. This forced the apostle Paul to write his letter to the Galatians. Galatians 3:1-2 says, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed crucified? This only I wish to learn from you, Did you receive the Spirit out of the works of law or out of the hearing of faith?” The Spirit is the unique blessing of the New Testament gospel, the consummated Triune God dispensed into our being. The Galatians received the Spirit out of the hearing of faith, not out of the works of the law. Footnote 3 on Galatians 3:2 in the Recovery Version says,
The law was the basic condition for the relationship between man and God in God’s Old Testament economy (v. 23); faith is the unique way for God to carry out His New Testament economy with man (1 Tim. 1:4). The law is related to the flesh (Rom. 7:5) and depends on the effort of the flesh, the very flesh that is the expression of the “I.” Faith is related to the Spirit and trusts in the operation of the Spirit, the very Spirit who is the realization of Christ. In the Old Testament the “I” and the flesh played an important role in the keeping of the law. In the New Testament Christ and the Spirit take over the position of the “I” and the flesh, and faith replaces the law, that we may live Christ by the Spirit. To keep the law by the flesh is man’s natural way; it is in the darkness of man’s concept and results in death and wretchedness (Rom. 7:10-11, 24). To receive the Spirit out of the hearing of faith is God’s revealed way; it is in the light of God’s revelation and issues in life and glory (Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11, 30). Hence, we must treasure the hearing of faith, not the works of law. It is by the hearing of faith that we received the Spirit so that we might participate in God’s promised blessing and live Christ.
In 1 Timothy 1:3-4 Paul told Timothy to charge certain ones not to teach things other than God’s economy. This economy is in faith, not in the law. It does not belong to the law in the Old Testament. But it altogether belongs to the New Testament faith, which is the contents of the entire New Testament. The divine economy in faith must be made fully clear to the saints in the administration and shepherding of a local church.
Our seeing of the divine economy is a matter of degree. Thirty years ago I saw something concerning His economy, His heart’s desire, but I did not see it then as deeply as I see it today. I believe that after another period of time the Lord will show me more. Related to the depth of our seeing, the hardship is in our understanding. This is why Paul prayed that we believers would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph. 1:17). We need the seeing spirit and the understanding wisdom. Whatever we do must be based upon the vision of God’s economy.
