Key Points
- God’s economy is to produce the Body of Christ
- For this, He is working to dispense Himself into all His chosen people
- We need to see man’s role as vessels to contain Him and express Him
- There is a need for our own children to be raised up as “Timothys” to be prepared and useful vessels
Eph. 1:10 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;
Eph. 3:8 To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel
Eph. 3:9 And to enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things,
Eph. 3:10 In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church,
The Body Of Christ— The Goal of The Divine Economy
The divine economy is God’s eternal plan to dispense Christ into His chosen people to produce, constitute, and build up the organic Body of Christ (Eph. 1:10; 3:8-10; 1 Tim. 1:4). Since Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God, for God to dispense Christ into His chosen people actually means that God dispenses Himself in Christ into His chosen people. In brief, God’s economy is to gain a Body for Christ. This Body is the enlargement of the Triune God for His expression that He may be satisfied.
Do not forget the word is in Ephesians 1:23: “[The church] is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” This means that the church is the Body, and the Body is the fullness. These two levels of “is” are in succession rather than in parallel. It is not that on the one hand the church is the Body, while on the other hand the church is the fullness. Rather, it is that the church is the Body, and the Body is the fullness. According to doctrine, the fullness equals the Body, and the Body equals the church. But according to reality, a man can be in the church and still not live in the Body. All the brothers and sisters who meet in Hong Kong are in the church, but who is living in the Body? This becomes a big question mark. Strictly speaking, that which can fulfill God’s eternal purpose is not the church in name but the Body. The Body is the fullness of Christ.
Every part of the organic Body of Christ is an issue of the grace in the economy of God. Grace is the enjoyment of the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—as the enjoyment of life, and the life of God is with God the Father as the substance, God the Son as the element, and God the Spirit as the essence.
Christ, the last Adam, after passing through an all-inclusive death, became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection as the essence of the Divine Trinity to come into us to be our life and everything. Day by day we need to be filled with Him, saturated with Him, permeated by Him, infused by Him, and transfused by Him. Hence, as we read the New Testament, we cannot avoid the word Spirit. Especially in the Epistles, the emphasis is on the Spirit, and the Spirit is frequently linked with grace.
The entire economy of God, and especially that in the New Testament age, is a matter of dispensing…Many matters are covered in the New Testament, but if we dive into the depth of the New Testament as the divine revelation, we will see that God surely has an economy, a household administration, to carry out His eternal purpose. This economy is just God’s universal operation. If you would ask me what God is doing today, I would answer that God is operating in one thing and for one thing: He is spending much time to patiently dispense Himself into all His chosen people. Everything that is mentioned in the New Testament concerning God has to do with His dispensing for His economy.
Man—The Center of God’s Plan
Romans 9:21 discloses God’s purpose in creating man [“Does not the potter have authority over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?”]. This verse is unique in its revelation of God’s purpose in the creation of man. Without this verse it would be difficult for us to realize that God’s purpose in creating man was to make him His vessel to contain Him. We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that we are God’s containers and that He is our content.
God’s selection in His sovereign mercy has a goal, and this goal is to have many vessels to contain God and express Him eternally. God created us in such a way that we are able to take Him into us and contain Him as our life and life supply, to the end that we may be one with Him to express what He is and that He may be glorified in us and with us. This is God’s goal in His selection and in His creation of man.
Our God, who is full of wisdom, has a plan, and the entire universe was created according to His purpose, His will, His plan. We must know what God’s eternal plan is…Man’s position, man’s place, in God’s plan is very central. It is absolutely right to say that the Bible is a book full of Christ, yet we can also say that the Bible is a book full of men. Even God Himself became a man (John 1:1, 14). Jesus is the complete God and the perfect man. Even after His resurrection and ascension, He is still a man. Before Stephen was stoned, he said that he saw “the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Stephen saw the Lord Jesus as the Son of Man in the heavens. Man is the center of God’s plan. A bicycle wheel may have a hub with many spokes. The hub and the spokes subsist in the wheel. If the hub, the center, is taken away, the spokes will collapse. In like manner, without man as the center, God’s plan would collapse.
Vessels of Mercy Unto Honor And Glory
The believers in Christ are vessels of mercy unto honor and glory. Romans 9:23 goes on to speak of God’s making known “the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory.” As vessels, we are not instruments or weapons—we are containers. According to Romans 9, we contain mercy, honor, and glory. This mercy, honor, and glory are actually the Triune God. In the initial stage of our experience the Triune God is our mercy, in the progressing stage He is our honor, and in the completing stage He is our glory. At present we are enjoying our God as mercy and somewhat as honor. When the Lord Jesus comes back, we shall be fully brought into honor and also into glory. Then we shall be filled with the Triune God not only as our mercy but also as our honor and glory.
Romans 9 reveals that the climax of our usefulness to God is that we are vessels to contain Him and express Him. We are His container and His expression, and He is our content and our life. He lives in us that we may live Him. Eventually, He and we, we and He, will be wholly one in life and nature. This is our destiny as vessels of mercy.
Second Timothy 2:21 says, “If therefore anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared unto every good work.” A vessel unto honor has to meet a certain standard that it may contain a specific object of honor. Here the word honor is related to our nature, the word sanctified indicates our position, the word useful implies the matter of function, and the word prepared reveals the matter of training. Paul exhorted Timothy to cleanse himself from the vessels of dishonor that he could be trained in these four matters. These four items together would make Timothy a vessel unto honor according to a certain standard. This also involves our character.
Honorable vessels are of both the divine nature (gold) and the redeemed and regenerated human nature (silver). These, like Timothy and other genuine believers, constitute the firm foundation (2 Tim. 2:19) to hold the truth.
When God bestows grace on the church, He needs vessels. There is the need for more Timothys to be raised up. It is true that we can save men from the world, but there is a greater need for raising up people from among Christian families.
Excerpted from: Raising Up the Next Generation for the Church Life Chapters 1 and 2
Discussion Questions
- How is God’s economy related to us being vessels?
- How do the verses “vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the master…” (Second Timothy 2:21) and “vessels of mercy … unto glory.” (Romans 9:23) imply a process in God’s economy? Describe the process.
- Consider the children and young people you are connected with. Where are they in this process and how can they be shepherded further according to their age and capacity?