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In this message we shall give a further word on the heading up of all things in Christ. Ephesians 1:9 and 10 say, “Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself unto a dispensation 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.” The Greek word rendered “unto” at the beginning of verse 10 can also be rendered “in order to have.” Thus, that portion can be translated, “according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself in order to have a dispensation of the fullness of the times.”
The dispensation which God purposed in Himself is to head up all things in Christ at the fullness of the times. The times refer to the ages. When the new heaven and the new earth come after all the dispensations of God in all the ages have been completed, that will be the fullness of the times. The word “dispensation” is also found in 3:2, “If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward.” The dispensation of the grace of God means the administration of the grace of God.
In order to understand what the dispensation of the grace of God is, we need to see that in eternity past God purposed a plan. According to this plan, He created the universe with the heavens, the earth, and billions of items. He then created mankind as the center of the universe to be a vessel to contain God for God’s expression. This word is brief, but it covers the whole Bible. Man was created not to be an instrument, but a vessel to contain God so that God may be expressed from within man. This is God’s eternal plan, His eternal purpose.
In His wisdom God allowed an archangel to rebel. Without God’s permission, no rebellion could ever take place. Not even the rebellion among the angels could happen without God’s permission. God allowed one of His angels to rebel against Him. This was according to God’s wisdom. Satan’s rebellion serves in the same way as the black background of a painting that makes the main object all the more outstanding.
The book of Genesis reveals that Satan came to inject himself into man, who was the center of the universe. When Satan injected himself into man, Satan became death and darkness to man. Whenever Satan comes to us or into our home, there is death and darkness. The result of this death and darkness is a collapse. A person who is full of life can stand upright. But when the power of death has been injected into him, he falls down; he collapses. Instead of being headed up, he collapses into a heap. As we pointed out in the foregoing message, the entire universe, including mankind, is a heap of collapse caused by Satan injecting himself as the factor of death into God’s creation. Satan has brought death to the entire creation of God. All of creation has been infected by the death factor of Satan. This is the reason that Romans 8:20 and 21 say that the creation has been subjected to vanity and is under the slavery of corruption.
In order to inject a substance into a person’s body, there is no need to inject it into every part. Instead, the injection is made at a certain spot, and then the substance spreads throughout the body. Likewise, Satan injected himself into man, the center of the universe, and from man Satan’s poison has spread everywhere. Therefore, not only is man subject to death, but also every living thing is subject to it. Whenever any living thing dies, it collapses. The element of death has spread into every part of God’s creation, causing the creation to collapse into a heap.
The collapse of the universe gives God an excellent opportunity to manifest His wisdom. Without such a situation of death and collapse, God’s wisdom could not be fully manifested. Through the church God’s manifold wisdom will be expressed. The collapse caused by Satan’s injection of the factor of death into man serves as the black background to make God’s wisdom all the more glorious.
Satan’s way is always to act ahead of God. This is a principle in the Bible. Whenever God wants to do something, Satan acts first. For example, the Bible reveals that God’s intention is to build a city, the New Jerusalem. But the first city was a counterfeit one built by Satan. Likewise, God’s intention is to impart Himself into man and to work Himself into man. But before God did this, His enemy, Satan, came in to do a counterfeit work by injecting himself into man. After God created man, He placed him in front of the tree of life. This indicates that God desired man to take Him in. God is never in a hurry; He is always willing to wait. Satan, on the contrary, is always in a rush. We need to learn from this that anything that we do hurriedly is probably not of God, but of Satan. Before God dispensed Himself into man, Satan injected himself into man, the center of God’s creation, and thereby caused the entire creation to collapse. Now instead of life, there is death everywhere: in the offices, factories, businesses, schools, and even in the so-called churches. Because death is everywhere and in everything, everything is in a state of collapse. This is the background of God’s working Himself into man.
God has come to work Himself into man, not into man as originally created by Him, but into the man whom Satan has injected with himself. Because both Satan and God are in man, man has become a battlefield between God and Satan. Originally, God and Satan were fighting in the universe, but now they are fighting within man. Do you realize that you are a battlefield and that a war is raging within between God and Satan? As Christians, we have a war raging within us. The factor of death is fighting against the factor of life, and the factor of life is conquering, subduing, and swallowing up the factor of death.
The use of antibiotics illustrates this. When an antibiotic gets into our bodies, it fights against the germs. Jesus Christ is the best antibiotic. From the day we received Him, a war has been raging within us. Day after day Christ, the heavenly antibiotic, kills the germs. Because the poison of death had been injected into us, we collapsed into a heap. But when Christ came in, the factor of life came in with Him, and gradually we began to rise up, not by being taught, but by taking the factor of life into our being. The more life we receive, the more we rise up. However, even after we have received Christ, the enemy may inject still more of the factor of death into us and cause us to collapse once again. At such a time, we need a further injection of the heavenly antibiotic.
The collapse comes from the factor of death, and the rising up comes from the factor of life. When the factor of death causes a collapse, all the parts of our being become detached from one another. This is illustrated by the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. When those bones were dead and dry, they were detached. But when the breath entered into them, they became living, they rose up, and they were attached (Ezek. 37:4-10). This rising up and attaching is actually the heading up. Formerly, the bones were piled in a heap, each of them detached from the body. But when the breath of life entered into these dead bones, they firstly rose up and then became attached to one another. After this they became a body, and even an army. This is what it means to be headed up.
We should not take this merely as a doctrine, but consider it in the light of our experience. Many of us can testify that we used to be detached and in the heap caused by the universal collapse. But one day the factor of life came into us, and we rose up and became attached. After coming into the church life, we had the deep sense that we were more and more upright and that we were becoming more attached. This is the heading up in Christ. A number of times, however, the power of death has worked even in the church to inject the factor of death into the members of the church. When the factor of death gets into certain members, they are poisoned and spread the poison of death to others. Once again these dear ones collapse into a heap and are thus far removed from being headed up. But, praise the Lord, the factor of life eventually reaches them again! When the breath of life is breathed into them and the factor of life enters into them, they rise up once more, become reattached, and experience being headed up.
With Satan’s injection there is no administration because his injection is illegal. Nothing that is illegal or rebellious has an administration. However, a legally constituted government has an administration. Although Satan’s injection has no administration, God’s working of Himself into us does have an administration. But this administration is not according to our natural concept. The Greek word which can be rendered “administration” in 1:10, oikonomia,is difficult to translate. It can also be rendered “stewardship” or “household arrangement.” The anglicized form of this word is economy. I like dispensation, stewardship, and household arrangement better than administration, although administration can be used in 1:10 because eventually the dispensation, the stewardship, the household arrangement will become an eternal administration.
The government in Washington, D. C., is an administration, but it is not a dispensation, a stewardship, or a household arrangement. A household arrangement is sweet, and a stewardship is intimate. According to ancient custom, there was a steward in the royal family, and his ministry was called a stewardship. Hence, the stewardship is simply the service of a steward. A steward was not a mere slave, but a person intimately related to the family, one who took care of the household arrangement. Such a stewardship, such a household arrangement, was the best administration. But today’s concept of administration does not have this thought of intimacy or sweetness. Nevertheless, God’s administration as a household arrangement is sweet and as a stewardship is intimate.
The stewardship, moreover, involves a dispensation. Dispensation here refers not to an age, but to a dispensing. For example, a mother dispenses food to her children every morning at breakfast. As the children sit down at the table, the mother dispenses nourishing food for them to eat. In such a dispensation a proper control is always exercised. If a child misbehaves, the mother may say, “If you don’t behave, there will be no breakfast for you.” Thus, the dispensation of food is the best control. I have observed this with my own grandchildren, who obey their grandmother better than they obey me, because she is the one who dispenses treats to them. Because she does the dispensing, she can very easily and pleasantly control them. She controls them by means of a sweet dispensation, a dispensation that is also a kind of administration and intimate service. The heading up of all things in Christ does not take place by a governmental administration. On the contrary, it comes about by a sweet stewardship, by an intimate household arrangement, by a pleasant dispensation. It takes place through the dispensing of the abundant life supply of the Triune God into us. The Apostle Paul calls this a “dispensation of the grace of God” (3:2), a stewardship of the grace of God.
We have seen that Satan’s injection has no administration or stewardship because he subtly injects himself into us. But God is working Himself into His chosen ones by a sweet, intimate stewardship. Paul’s ministry was such a stewardship. It was a model of the dispensation of grace, of the dispensing of God as grace into His chosen ones. By this dispensation of grace, the dispensing of God Himself as our enjoyment, the factor of life is ministered into the chosen ones. As the life factor gets into them, they are raised up and attached to Christ in the Body. This is the dispensation that heads up all things in Christ.
After the fall of man, God’s dispensation came in, beginning on a very small scale. With Abel we cannot see much of the dispensation of God as the life supply to His chosen people. With Enoch, however, there is a slight implication of such a dispensation, but it is not very clear. When we come to Noah, we can see the dispensation of God as the life supply on a very small scale. Then in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob we see a certain amount of God’s dispensation. Furthermore, with Moses and the tabernacle there was an administration, a household arrangement, an intimate stewardship. This is clearly seen with Moses, Aaron, and the priests with the Levitical service. Coming to the New Testament, we have the dispensation of life with the Lord Jesus. What a sweet, intimate stewardship there was with Him! Throughout His ministry, He was dispensing God as the life supply to His chosen ones. This intimate stewardship is continued with the Apostles, especially with the Apostle Paul, who had the stewardship of the grace of God. In his ministry Paul was constantly dispensing Christ as life into the believers. Paul’s ministry was a sweet and intimate stewardship, a pleasant household arrangement. Paul even taught Timothy how to behave in the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15). The way to behave in God’s house is to have the household arrangement, an intimate stewardship, and to dispense Christ to all the members of God’s household. It is not by controlling or even by a governmental administration; it is by a sweet dispensation, an intimate stewardship, a very dear household arrangement.
By such a ministry the factor of life is imparted into the church people. By such a sweet, intimate stewardship the life supply is dispensed into the members of the Body of Christ. The more the factor of life is ministered to us, the more we rise up and become attached. Every time you receive the life supply you spontaneously rise up. There is no need for anyone to tell you to have fellowship with others, for you automatically long to be attached.
God’s way to head us up is to work Himself as the factor of life into us that we may rise up and be attached to one another. It is not by a governmental administration, but by a sweet dispensation, an intimate stewardship, a comfortable household arrangement. Through this dispensation, the life factor is ministered to all the members of the church that they may rise up and be attached in the Body. This is the heading up in Christ.
