The Economy and Dispensing of God

The goal of God’s economy is a corporate expression. God created man according to His image and after His likeness so that He might put Himself into man and be man’s life (Gen. 1:26), that man might become one with Him and express and represent Him. In Genesis, God gained one man, Jacob. After being dealt with and transformed by the Lord, Jacob became God’s Israel. By the end of Exodus, God had gained the descendants of Jacob as the nation of Israel, and the tabernacle was erected to be God’s moving habitation on earth for the expression of His glory. At the end of the Old Testament, there was a temple as God’s habitation on earth for the expression of His glory. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus, who is God Himself, came as a man to be God’s tabernacle on earth so that God might dwell on earth and express Himself (John 1:14, 18). The Lord Jesus passed through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit in order to enter into His believers (20:22). This expanded tabernacle is now God’s habitation on earth for His full expression.

This is what God desires, and this is the goal of God’s salvation. He regenerates us, transforms us, makes us spiritual, and causes us to be seeking for this purpose. We are not saved, regenerated, transformed, spiritual, or seeking, for ourselves. Rather, we become such in order to be delivered from the natural life and the self so that we can be built up with all the saints into the reality of God’s habitation. This is the goal of God’s economy and His dispensing.