In His Economy God gives us only One Person – Christ – and only One Way – the Cross

In His economy God gives us one person – Christ – and one way – the cross; Christ and the cross fulfills God’s purpose and are the only way He takes to fulfill His desire.

The way God deals with all the problems in the universe is the cross. God doesn’t negotiate or compromise. He simply terminates. Man tries to solve the problems by giving solutions and trying to compromise, but God makes no compromise.

The death of Christ is God’s power to eliminate all the problems in the universe. Through the cross, Christ has abolished all the negative things to carry out His plan.

To our human mind the cross may seem a foolishness, for it terminates us, but in God’s mind He has only one way to deal with everything and everyone. He doesn’t sit down to hear both parties when there’s a disagreement: He simply terminates everyone and everything, so that the new creation would come out of the old creation.

The human way of solving problems is to negotiate, and the result – as we see it both in the world situation and in our personal life – is compromise, more problems, and more issues than before.

But God’s way is simply to terminate everything and everyone through the cross. He terminated us – He crucified us with Himself on the cross, and it is now no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20).

The more we allow the death of Christ to operate in us, the more the life of Christ operates in others in the Body of Christ. The way to have real peace in the church life and in the family life is to have the cross applied to all parties, and Christ will be the One who lives and is expressed.

In a very real sense both two thousand years ago and when we experience it today, the crucifixion of Christ has silenced the entire universe, and it has simplified the extremely complicated situation in the universe.

How can all our problems be solved, and how can the misunderstandings, issues, offenses, and problems in the family life and church life be taken care of?

It is not by merely apologizing, asking for forgiveness, or learning to forgive, but by the cross of Christ being experienced by us daily. It is when we experience the crucified Christ that all we are, all we have, and all we can do are terminated, and the Lord’s resurrection life is imparted through us into others.

In His Economy God gives us only One Person – Christ – and only One Way – the Cross

In the book of Colossians we see that, in His economy, God gives us only one person – Christ, and He has only one way to deal with all the problems – the cross; Christ and the cross is God’s unique person and way in His economy.

God intends that the all-inclusive Christ be everything to us as the reality of all the positive things in the universe. In God’s dictionary there’s only one word – Christ! Christ is our Savior, our life, salvation, patience, endurance, love, and everything.

God wants that Christ would fill all in all, that He would be everything and everyone in the universe.

Everything else other than Christ is a substitute, and needs to be crossed out; everything is but a shadow – Christ is the reality. We must therefore give Christ the first place, the preeminence – He must be the Preeminent one. To have such an experience of allowing Christ to be our all in all, we need to be circumcised, crucified, buried with Christ.

The one person – Christ – is the center of God’s economy, and the one way – the cross – is the center of God’s government (see 1 Cor. 2:2; 1:17-18, 23; Gal. 6:14).

God governs everything by the cross and deals with everything by the cross (see Col. 1:20; 2:14-15). He doesn’t negotiate or “tries to make things work”; in God’s eyes, anything or anyone other than Christ needs to be terminated.

By the cross Christ has dealt with all the negative things in the universe, and He is still governing everything through the cross (Eph. 2:14-16).

Both 2000 years ago at Golgotha and today in our experience, Christ and the cross are the solution to all our problems.

All our problems as mankind were solved by Christ on the cross, and today in our family life, church life, personal life, and work life, Christ and the cross still are the unique solution.

By His cross, Christ crucifies everything that is other than Himself; He crucifies our self-made laws, habits, commandments, rituals, and practices, together with all the sinful things, so that we can live a church life in oneness and in building up the Body of Christ.

In the church life Christ must be all and in all, and everything that is not Christ must go to the cross (Col. 1:18; 3:10-11).

If something is not Christ, it must be terminated; in the Body of Christ – which is the corporate Christ – there cannot be Greek or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, Chinese, American, black, white, etc – Christ has to be all in all.

When we experience Christ and the cross we are crossed out, we become nothing, we have nothing, and we are able to do nothing. But if we don’t experience Christ and the cross, what we are, what we have, and what we can do will become a substitute for Christ (see 1 Cor. 1:17-18, 23).

Lord, grant us to realize that there’s only one way – the cross – and only one person – Christ – in God’s economy. May Christ become our everything: our center, our life, our reality, and our very being. May everything that is not Christ in us and related to us be terminated and replaced by Christ. Lord Jesus, we bring You our problems and issues, so that Christ and the cross may be applied to them. May Christ be everything to us in the church life, and may everything that is not Christ go to the cross!

Having a Clear Vision of the Cross as God’s way in His Administration, as seen in Colossians

In the book of Colossians we see a clear vision of the cross as God’s way in His administration. Because man was seduced by Satan and became sinful and rebellious, God had a problem.

How did God solve this problem? He didn’t negotiate with Satan or with the fallen man, but He Himself became a fallen man, and He put the flesh which was related to so many negative things – on Himself.

Christ became a man of sin – not in reality, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin, without the nature of sin. This is God’s super-way to take care of the problem. He put on Himself the negative things and, after 33.5 years, went to the cross, and as He was nailed and crucified there, all the problems that God had were solved.

What a marvelous way – not negotiation but termination! Through Christ God reconciled all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross – through Him, whether things on the earth or the things in the heavens (Col. 1:20).

Through the blood of the cross of Christ, all things were reconciled to Himself, that is, He made peace with Himself for all things. Because we were sinners, we needed redemption, and because we were also enemies of God, we needed reconciliation.

Therefore, Christ became a man and died – peace has been made, and there’s reconciliation through the death of Christ! He has wiped out the handwriting in ordinances, which was against us, which was contrary to us, and He has taken it out-of-the-way, nailing it to the cross (Col. 2:14).

God gave the commandments and ordinances to preserve His people, but when the reality of these came, there’s no more need of these ordinances. At the cross God nailed all the ordinances, wiping out all the handwritings; now these ordinances are no longer effective.

Ordinances refer to the ordinances of the ceremonial law with its rituals, which are the forms or ways of living and worship (Eph. 2:15). Christ nailed the ordinances to the cross, that is, He abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances.

He stripped off the rulers and the authorities, making a display of them openly, triumphing over them in it (Col. 2:15).

There was a fight that took place at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, and activities involving Christ, God, and the evil angelic rulers and authorities were brought to a focus on the cross; thus, the cross became God’s eternal, central, and unique way.

At the same time, the evil rulers and the authorities were busy in attempting to frustrate the work of God and Christ, pressing in close to God and Christ; thus, there was a warfare raging at the cross. At the cross there was God, man, Satan, all creation, and all rulers and authorities.

The focus of the whole universe was there: the problems of all mankind were hanging on Christ, the cohorts of Satan were frustrating, Christ charged sin, He nailed the commandments, stripped off the rulers and authorities, and made a display openly to declare His victory.

What a shame on Satan! God openly made a display of the angelic rulers and authorities on the cross and triumphed over them in it, putting them to shame. When Satan troubles us, we need to remind Him that he has been stripped off, he has been made an open display, and Christ just stripped him off.

Satan, shame on you! Christ has accomplished an all-inclusive death on the cross, and Satan has been destroyed, sin has been put to death, and death has been abolished. Hallelujah, God openly made a display of the evil angelic rulers and authorities on the cross and triumphed over them in it, putting them to shame. Glory be to God, who dealt with everything through the cross of Christ, and shame be to Satan, who has been stripped off and made an open display by Christ through His death on the cross!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, msgs. 1, 9-10, 22-23, 26-28 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Ezekiel (2), msg. 7 (week 19 in the HWMR), The Cross – the Center of the Universe.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Death by Him has been abolished, / Incorrupted life is shown; / Death’s enthralling bonds are broken, / Resurrection life is known. (Hymns #540)
  # In all things Thou art foremost, / In everything the best, / In quality the finest, / In quantity boundless. / Superlative in nature, / In form resplendent Thou, / Surpassing e’en the highest, / The peerless One art Thou. (Song on Christ in Colossians)
  # Since it must be thus, I pray, Lord, / Help me go the narrow way; / Deal with pride and make me willing / Thus to suffer, Thee t’obey. / I for greater power pray not, / Deeper death is what I need; / All the meaning of the Cross, Lord, / Work in me-for this I plead. (Hymns #279)