THE STEPS OF GOD’S ECONOMY

THE STEPS OF GOD’S ECONOMY

We have seen God’s purpose and what is dispensed by God; now we must realize how God is dispensed through His economy. In other words, Spirit is what God dispenses into man, but now we need to see the means by which He does this. It is by the Trinity. The Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is the very economy of the Godhead. Christianity during the past centuries has had many teachings about the Trinity, but the Trinity can never be adequately understood unless it is related to the divine economy. Why are all three persons of the Godhead required for the development of His economy? We know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three different Gods but one God, who is expressed in three persons. Yet what is the purpose of there being three persons of the Godhead? Why are there God the Father, God the Son, and also God the Holy Spirit? It is because only through the Trinity can the essential means be provided whereby His Spirit is dispensed into us.

Second Corinthians 13:14 shows the steps of God’s economy by the Trinity. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Here we have the grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. What are these? Are these three different Gods? Are love, grace, and fellowship three different items? No. Love, grace, and fellowship are one element in three stages: love is the source, grace is the expression of love, and fellowship is the transmission of this love in grace. Likewise, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are one God expressed in three persons: God is the source, Christ is the expression of God, and the Holy Spirit is the transmission bringing God in Christ into man. Thus, the three persons of the Trinity become the three successive steps in the process of God’s economy. Without these three steps, God’s essence could never be dispensed into man. The economy of God is developed from the Father, in the Son, and through the Spirit.
(Excerpt from The Economy of God, ch. 1)