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

The Steps of God’s Economy

Creating Man

The first step God took for the carrying out of His economy was to create man. Genesis 1 reveals that after God created the heavens, the earth, and millions of items, there was some particular consideration and even a council held among the three of the Godhead: “Let us make man…” (Genesis 1:26). This fact underscores the crucial role of man in God’s creation.

Furthermore, God created man in His own image (Genesis 1:26). The earth and heavens express to a degree something of God’s beauty and order (Romans 1:20), but man alone has the unique privilege of possessing God’s very image. In this sense, man can be likened to a glove. A glove is made in the image of a hand, but without a hand to fill it, the glove is empty and useless. Once the hand gets into the glove, however, the purpose for the existence of the glove is fulfilled. The hand becomes the glove’s content, and the glove becomes the hand’s expression. In the same way, God’s desire is to dispense Himself into man to become man’s content for the purpose of making man His expression.

In addition, God created man with three parts—body, soul, and spirit. The body functions to contact and receive the things of the physical realm; the soul is for contacting and receiving the things of the psychological realm; and the spirit was created to contact and receive the things of the spiritual realm. These three parts are clearly delineated in 1 Thessalonians 5:23:

And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (emphases added)

Of the three parts of man, the spirit plays the most crucial role in God’s economy. The human spirit is the only part of man that corresponds to God, who is Spirit (John 4:24). Therefore, with the spirit man is able to contact and receive God, be born of God (John 3:6), worship God (John 4:24), serve God (Romans 1:9), and be filled with God (Ephesians 5:18).

Of the three parts of man, the spirit plays the most crucial role in God’s economy.

Shortly after man’s creation, however, Satan deceived him, enticing him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As man partook of that tree, sin also entered into him (Romans 5:12) and damaged his entire being. Sin deadened man’s spirit (Ephesians 2:1), made man an enemy of God in his mind (Colossians 1:21), and transmuted man’s body into the flesh (Genesis 6:3; Romans 6:12). In such a corrupted state, man was no longer qualified to receive God’s dispensing.