These chapters deal with the basics of God’s economy and its mark. We are not touching here upon some unimportant teachings, but upon the basic things of God’s economy—not merely in the way of doctrine but in the way of experience. God in His economy intends to dispense Himself into us, which He has already accomplished in the human spirit. The Triune God has been dispensed into us. It is for this purpose that God created us in three parts—body, soul, and spirit. This tripartite being is God’s temple. God’s temple consists of three parts—the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, the very place where God’s shekinah glory and God’s Christ dwelt. The three parts of our being correspond exactly with the three parts of the temple—the body with the outer court, the soul with the Holy Place, and the spirit with the Holy of Holies. Today God in Christ is dwelling in our spirit, the Holy of Holies.
God’s economy is to dispense Himself into our spirit as His abode and to take His residence in our spirit as a base to spread Himself through our whole being. Our spirit is His home, His dwelling place, His habitation, the very place from which He spreads Himself through our whole being. By spreading Himself through us, He saturates every part of our being with Himself. First, He thoroughly mingles Himself with our spirit, then with the soul, and last with the body. He comes into our spirit to start the mingling by regenerating our spirit. Regeneration is the mingling of God Himself with our spirit. After regeneration, if we cooperate with Him, offering ourselves to Him and giving Him the opportunity, He will spread Himself from our spirit into our soul to renew all the parts of our soul. This is His transforming work. Through transformation the very essence of the Triune God is mingled with our soul, our very self. When our soul is transformed into the image of the Lord, our thoughts, our desires, and our decisions will always express the Lord.
God’s first step, therefore, is to regenerate our spirit; His second step is to transform our soul; and finally, the last step is to transfigure, or change, our body at the second coming of the Lord. The Lord will then permeate our body, and His glory will saturate our whole being. This transfiguration is the ultimate consummation of His mingling with our being to the uttermost. At that time God’s economy of dispensing Himself into us will be fully accomplished. We must remember these three steps by which God mingles Himself with us in every way. This hymn expresses the final consummation.
Christ is the hope of glory, my very life is He,
He has regenerated and saturated me;
He comes to change my body by His subduing might
Like to His glorious body in glory bright!
He comes, He comes, Christ comes to glorify me!
My body He’ll transfigure, like His own it then will be.
He comes, He comes, redemption to apply!
As Hope of glory He will come, His saints to glorify.
Christ is the hope of glory, He is God’s mystery;
He shares with me God’s fulness and brings God into me.
He comes to make me blended with God in every way,
That I may share His glory with Him for aye.
Christ is the hope of glory, redemption full is He:
Redemption to my body, from death to set it free.
He comes to make my body a glorious one to be
And swallow death forever in victory.
Christ is the hope of glory, He is my history:
His life is my experience, for He is one with me;
He comes to bring me into His glorious liberty,
That one with Him completely I’ll ever be.
(Hymns, #949)
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