Basic Word God's Economy and The Heart of The Bible

                       The Heart of the Bible and the Central Revelation of the Bible   

                                       GOD’S ECONOMY AND MAN’S CONCEPT

Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26-27; John 1:12-13; 15:5; 16:8-9; Rom. 8:2, 4; 11:17, 24; 1 Cor. 6:17; 15:45; Eph. 1:10; 3:9; Col. 1:27; 2:2, 16-17; 3:3-4, 10-11; 1 Tim. 1:4

In the past we have emphasized the matter of living Christ. Today many who have attempted to live Christ may ask why it is difficult to live Christ. In order to answer such a question, we need to see some basic things.

THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN MAN’S CONCEPT AND GOD’S ECONOMY

First, we experience difficulty in trying to live Christ because there is a great discrepancy between God’s economy and our concept. In the universe there are only three parties—God, man, and God’s enemy, Satan. Two parties, God and man, are positive, but the third party, Satan, is negative. Under God’s sovereignty Satan is here, and he has been around for a long time. At the time of creation the two positive parties, God and man, were similar (Gen. 1:26-27); they were going in the same direction, but due to man’s fall, man took a direction other than God’s direction. This change in direction initiated the discrepancy between God’s economy and man’s concept.

                                                   God’s Economy—the Grafted Life

Many Christians do not see or know what God’s economy is (Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4). Actually, some among us also find the term economy difficult to understand. The word economy is an anglicized form of the Greek word oikonomia. This Greek word means, literally, “house law”; it denotes a household administration for dispensing a father’s riches into the members of his household. Thus, God’s economy in the Bible refers to God’s plan and administration to dispense Himself with all His divine riches into His chosen people.

God’s economy was determined in eternity past (Eph. 3:9-11). It [154] was not an afterthought or an accident that occurred after God created the universe. God’s economy is His eternal purpose, planned by Him in eternity past for eternity future. To fulfill His eternal purpose and accomplish His eternal economy, God dispenses Himself into His chosen people. This economy is fully revealed in the New Testament, especially in the four books that compose the heart of the Bible—Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. We should never forget these four books, because they are vital in the unveiling of God’s economy.

The Greek word for economy is used several times in Ephesians, but it is translated differently depending on the context in which it is used. For instance, it is rendered “economy” in Ephesians 1:10, whereas it is translated “stewardship” in 3:2. In relation to God, this word denotes His economy, His administration; in relation to the believers, it denotes the stewardship given to the apostles and all the believers for the dispensing of God into His chosen people. In His economy the Divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, with the Father as the source, the Son as the course, and the Spirit as the flow—reaches our spirit and mingles with us as one spirit (2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 6:17).

God Creating Man and Joining Himself to Man in the Way of Life

God’s economy is to work Himself into us. This is not a simple matter, for in His economy the almighty, infinite, great, and all-inclusive God works Himself into us in an organic way, that is, in the way of life. A dentist may be able to replace missing teeth with dentures; however, the dentures and the person into whose mouth they are placed will forever be two different entities because dentures are not organic. The case of surgery is different. After a surgeon is finished operating on a patient, he closes with stitches whatever openings were made during the course of the operation. These openings eventually heal organically. To place a false tooth, a denture, into the mouth is not organic, since dentures do not have life, but to join two pieces of living flesh that have been cut is organic, because these elements possess a common life.

When God dispenses Himself into us, He does not do it in an inorganic way, a way in which He and we remain separate. God dispenses Himself into us in an organic way so that He and we are joined [155] as one by life. In order to accomplish this joining, God had to create man in an organic way.

                                  The Christian Life Being a Grafted Life

God is life, and life is organic. Genesis 1:26-27 shows that God created man in His image and according to His likeness. The fact that God created man in His image indicates that God created man in such a way that man could contain God and be organically joined to Him as one. Today we must see that the union and oneness of God and man are altogether organic. Many Christian teachers, including some among the Brethren, have taught that the Christian life is an exchanged life, in which we give up our poor life in order to obtain a better one. This teaching is wrong. Our Christian life is not an exchanged life but a grafted life, in which two lives are organically joined to grow together as one life. Such a grafted life is revealed in Romans 11:17, which says, “Some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a fellow partaker of the root of fatness of the olive tree.”

Grafting is not a matter of putting two pieces of dead wood together in the way that two pieces of wood are joined together in carpentry. Grafting involves the joining of two similar lives so that they grow together as one life and have one living. In grafting, a branch is cut off from one tree and joined organically to another tree. A. B. Simpson’s hymn (Hymns, #482, published by Living Stream Ministry) refers to this in the third stanza:

This the secret nature hideth,

Harvest grows from buried grain;

A poor tree with better grafted,

Richer, sweeter life doth gain.

In our case, Christ is the cultivated olive tree, and we were the branches of a wild olive tree. In grafting, the life of the branch is not exchanged for the life of the tree to which is it grafted. The two lives are united as one so that they can share one mingled life and one living. Romans 11:24 says, “You were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into the cultivated olive tree.” This shows that the Christian life is not an exchanged life but a grafted life.

In order for grafting to be effective, the trees being grafted must [156] share a similar life. Some may argue that the divine life and the human life are not similar. However, God created man according to His kind (cf. Acts 17:28-29a). Thus, the human life and the divine life are similar. Since God and man are of the same kind, it is possible for man to be joined to God and to live together with Him in an organic union (John 15:5; Rom. 6:5; 11:17-24; 1 Cor. 6:17). Furthermore, the fact that God created man in His image indicates that the human life has the same function as the divine life, that is, the function of expressing God. Thus, these two lives must be similar. God’s intention is that the divine life and the human life would be mingled in man, making it possible for God to express Himself in humanity.

God has an economy to graft us into Himself so that He may dispense Himself as life into our being, making His life and our life one life. Such a life may be called a mingled life. Today the believers in Christ are human and divine; they were born human and reborn divine. Every believer has had two births—a human birth and a divine birth. John 1:12-13 says, “Those who believe into His name...were begotten...of God.” The birth originating from God is a divine birth that imparts the divine life with its nature into man. Based on this birth, the believers are divine, for God is their Father according to the divine life. Thus, we may say that all the believers are divine dignitaries according to the divine birth. This is not heretical; it is the truth according to the Scriptures. All the genuine believers in Christ are sons of God, and God is their Father (20:17; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 3:26; 4:6). We should forever be bold to declare our status as children of God (Rom. 8:16; 1 John 3:1). We are sons of God, who are divine as well as human. Thus, we must live a life that is humanly divine and divinely human. Such a life is not an exchanged life but a grafted life. We have been grafted into God by believing into Christ. This is God’s economy to dispense Himself into our being organically.

We must see that God’s intention is not merely to join Himself to us in the same way that dentures are placed in a person’s mouth. God’s intention is to work His being into our being organically. This is the revelation in the Bible. However, because of our background in religion, we may not have a clear vision to see what God has revealed.

In John 15:5 the Lord said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” This is a picture of grafting. The words in this verse are simple, yet their significance is profound. John 15:5 reveals that in Christ we the believers have become branches of God. If we see this, we will be ecstatic. The branches in this verse are organic branches of the living God in Christ. In other words, in Christ we have been joined to God organically to share His life, nature, and image. In Christ we have become God’s organism. Today, just as the branches of a vine are part of the vine, so also we are parts of Christ. Some opposers say that it is heretical to say this; however, they are in darkness and do not see the light in the Bible. We are members of Christ, branches of Christ, the true vine (v. 1), and thus we are parts of Christ organically. This is God’s economy.