God’s Economy: recovered by Witness Lee, enjoyed by local churches

The Goal of God’s Economy

The Issue of God’s Economy in the Present Age—The Church

The church as revealed in the Bible is not a physical building with stained glass windows and a steeple, an inaccurate and unscriptural concept unintentionally held by many. According to the divine revelation of the Bible, the church is simply Christ Himself within all of His believers. In 1 Corinthians 12, which deals with the church, the apostle Paul draws a comparison between the members of our physical body and the members of the church:

For even as the body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ (v. 12).

Instead of writing, “so also is the church,” Paul writes, “so also is the Christ.” This key phrase indicates that the essence of the church is Christ Himself.

Just as Eve came out of Adam and matched Adam, so the church is that which comes out of Christ and matches Christ.

A Picture of the Church in Genesis This intrinsic relationship between Christ and the church was foreshadowed in the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. We know that Adam is a type of Christ (Romans 5:14). After creating Adam, God declared that it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18), implying that it was also not good for God to be alone. God, like Adam, needed someone to match Him as His counterpart. So God put Adam to sleep, which signifies death (John 11:11, 13). Similarly, the Lord Jesus was “put to sleep” on the cross. After God put Adam to sleep, He took a rib out of his side and “built” (the literal Hebrew word) a woman (Genesis 2:22). In the same way, “one of the soldiers pierced [Jesus’] side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). The blood was for redemption to purchase the church (Acts 20:28). The water was for imparting life, to produce the church. Out of Adam’s side came a rib to build Eve, and out of Christ’s side came blood and water to produce the church. Just as Eve came out of Adam and matched Adam, so the church is that which comes out of Christ and matches Christ.

	Adam	Christ
*Action taken by God*	Put to sleep	Put to death
*Issue from side*	A rib	Blood and water
*Product*	Eve	The church

The Two Aspects of the Church The church has two aspects: universal and local. The first two references to the church in the New Testament—both by the Lord Himself—illustrate these two aspects. The first instance occurs in Matthew 16:18, where the Lord Jesus utters the greatest prophecy in the Bible: “I will build My church.” This church is the universal church. Paul, Peter, Martin Luther, and all the believers in Christ throughout the generations are included in the church in its universal aspect.

The second aspect of the church is seen in Matthew 18:17. In explaining how to deal with certain problems among the believers, the Lord Jesus advised the parties involved to “tell it to the church.” This points to the local aspect of the church. If the church were only universal, how could one speak to it? According to the Lord’s word here, the church must also be very practical. The local aspect of the church, then, is simply the practicality of the universal church.

The Universal Aspect	The Local Aspect
“I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18)	“Tell it to the church” (Matt. 18:17)
“the church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22-23)	“the church which was in Jerusalem” (Acts 8:1)
“Christ also loved the church” (Eph. 5:25)	“concern for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28)
“To Him be the glory in the church” (Eph. 3:21)	“all the churches…greet you” (Rom. 16:16)
“His Body, which is the church” (Col. 1:18)	“in Antioch, in the local church” (Acts 13:1)

How is the church expressed in its local aspect? The New Testament records that the early believers gathered together simply as the church in their city. There was a church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:2), a church in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), a church in Antioch (Acts 13:1), and a church in Cenchrea (Romans 16:1). In Revelation 1:11, the Lord Jesus Himself also alluded to this principle of one church for one city:

Saying, What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

The church must also be very practical.

Since at that time there was only one church in each city, these seven churches could be easily identified simply by the names of the cities in which they were meeting.

Two additional verses which illustrate this principle are Acts 14:23 and Titus 1:5. In Acts 14:23, the apostles appointed elders in every church, while in Titus 1:5 Paul directed Titus to appoint elders in every city. This striking interchangeable use of the words church and city strongly indicates that the proper ground or jurisdiction of a church is the city in which it exists.

The Church | The New Jerusalem