In order for God to carry out His economy, He must have stewards to serve, minister, manage, and execute His economy; may we be the faithful stewards of the mysteries of God as He entrusts us with Christ and the church.
The general subject for this week’s morning revival is, Carrying out the Stewardship of God for the One New Man, for there’s a connection between the matter of the stewardship in Eph. 3 and the one new man in ch. 4.
The general subject we are enjoying is The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man. When God created Adam in Gen. 1:26, he was called the first man, and God had a twofold purpose for him – to express God and represent Him.
Adam was not only an individual person but a corporate one, including you and me, for the entire human race came out of Adam. God intended that Adam would express God in His image; yes, Adam was a man, but he was supposed to express God in His image.
So God gave this man human virtues that exactly correspond to His own divine attributes, and if this man would allow the divine attributes to get into those human virtues, the Spirit will infuse man’s virtues with the divine attributes, and this man becomes the enlarged and expanded expression of God on the earth.
Such a corporate man would actually become God in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead.
Then, God wanted Adam to rule and reign with His authority and exercise His dominion; if Adam would do that, he would subdue and defeat Satan and the satanic kingdom.
However, because man fell, he didn’t do any of these two things; rather, the first man became the old man, and he failed God in His purpose. So the first man became the old man, and this old man is utterly useless to God in relation to His purpose; God can’t use this old man.
So God Himself came through incarnation to be the Son of Man, and this Son of Man was also called the second man.
Adam was the first man, Christ was the second man, and Christ was also the last Adam, the end of the adamic race; this second man absolutely fulfils God’s intention in creating man. In His human living we see how Christ perfectly expressed the divine image, and all the rich attributes of the bountiful God were expressed through His aromatic human virtues.
This was a man expressing God’s image in a wonderful and complete way. He also exercised God’s dominion, and wherever He went, the kingdom of God went with Him, and He exercised God’s authority over the demons, over Satan, and over all the negative things.
This Man went through death, and in His death He terminated the old man; along with this, He also created the one new man.
Now this one new man, which He was individually, is a corporate new man. In Ephesians 4 we see how the built-up Body of Christ is the one new man, and in v. 13 this is a full-grown man.
Once the Lord has that man, He has everything, for that corporate person is the bride of Christ and the warrior!
This corporate new man becomes the New Jerusalem, the bride in Rev. 19 who also defeats Satan and the Antichrist; this man, this corporate person, will last for eternity! Hallelujah!
For God to Carry out His Economy, He must have Stewards to Serve and Minister His Economy
We may never connect the matter of stewardship in Eph. 3 with the new man in Eph. 4, no matter how many times we read the Bible, but there’s a connection between the stewardship of grace (of God) and the new man.
Paul said that he received the stewardship of God right after he mentioned the creation of the new man, and right before the bringing forth of the new man.
Then he prayed that tremendous prayer in Eph. 3, which is the prayer for the reality and the practicality of the one new man.
The full-grown perfect man is the result of the perfecting of the stewards; stewards perfect others to do the same the things that they do, and then all the perfected ones function to build up the Body of Christ, with the result that the built-up Body of Christ is the new man.
What is the stewardship? A steward is a person responsible for the distribution of wealth, riches, and life-supply, or food; he is not the owner of these things but they were entrusted to him, and he needs to faithfully distribute them according to the wishes of the owner.
In describing his ministry, Paul said that he is a steward (Col. 1:25); he became a minister according to the stewardship of God which was given to him for the saints, to complete the word of God.
In Eph. 3:2 he said, If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of the grace of God. In 1 Cor. 4:1-2 Paul said that he is a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God. In order for God, the riches being in the universe, to carry out His economy, He must have faithful stewards to minister, serve, manage, and execute His economy (1 Cor. 4:11; 1 Pet. 4:10).
God doesn’t carry out His economy by Himself, and He doesn’t carry out His economy directly – He has to have stewards, and this is how He does it.
One of the big and overriding principles in His economy is that He works in man, through man, and with man; He doesn’t act alone but rather, if there’s no man to act, He doesn’t act.
This includes His dispensing work. God doesn’t dispense Himself into us directly but through His stewards. Look at the picture of feeding the five thousand; the Lord blessed the food, but it wasn’t He who dispensed it to the people but rather, he gave the food to the disciples, and they dispensed it.
The Lord has unsearchable riches in His economy, and He wants to dispense them all into His people; how does this take place? How do God’s riches reach us? Do God’s riches come to us directly from heaven?
No, they come to us through God’s stewards; someone is cooperating with God to dispense Him into us as the gospel, and then to continue to nourish us for us to grow in life.
We receive God’s dispensing through a steward, and we also are being commissioned to be God’s stewards to carry out His economy. The Greek word for steward is of the same root as the word for economy in 1 Tim. 1:4 and Eph. 1:10.
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n English there are three words for the same Greek word: stewardship, economy, and dispensation. When it is with God, it is His economy, His plan, His intention and desire to dispense Himself into man; we call this His economy.
But when that economy comes to the stewards who will actually do the dispensing, we call it stewardship; then, as the stewards carry out their function, it is called dispensing.
This Greek word means “a dispensing steward”, “a household administrator, who dispenses the household supply to its members.”
A steward is nothing else but a dispenser, one who dispenses the divine supply to God’s children (Luke 12:42; 16:1; Titus 1:7; 1 Pet. 4:10).
Who is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will set over His house to give them their portion of food at the proper time?
The apostles were appointed by the Lord to be such faithful stewards; an apostle is a steward, one who ministers the riches of the life supply into the members of the Body to build them up to be the one new man. An apostle is not a teacher or an administrator but a steward.
The dispensing service, the stewardship, is the ministry of the apostles. We also are such stewards, for when God’s dispensing reaches us and fills us, we are commissioned to dispense the processed and consummated Triune God into man!
Hallelujah, God has chosen us to be His stewards, those who are one with Him to serve, minister, manage, and execute His economy! Amen, Lord, thank You for reaching us through some faithful stewards who ministered the word of God to us; thank You for dispensing Yourself into us to bring God’s life with all its riches into our being. May we remain under the divine dispensing and may we be the faithful stewards of the mysteries of God to dispense God into man! Hallelujah, God has an economy, He dispenses Himself into us, and we are commissioned with His stewardship to dispense God into man for the fulfillment of His economy for the one new man!
Being Faithful Stewards who Minister the Mysteries of God to Dispense God into Man
What do the stewards minister or dispense to the people of God? According to the New Testament, the stewardship is of the mysteries of God; the dispensing service is of the mysteries of God.
In God’s economy revealed in the New Testament, there are mainly two mysteries: Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ (Rom. 16:25; Rev. 10:7).
The first mystery of God is the one revealed in Col. 2:2, which is Christ as the mystery of God. God is a mystery; in Himself He is unreachable and unknowable, but Christ is the mystery of God, for in Christ and through Christ we can know God.
Christ as the mystery of God is a mystery, and He makes God known to us.
The second mystery is revealed in Eph. 3:4, and the whole book of Ephesians explains it; it is the church as the mystery of Christ.
Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ are the two mysteries entrusted to us, God’s faithful stewards, to minister to man for the fulfilment of God’s economy to gain the one new man.
The two mysteries that we have been entrusted with and which we have to faithfully dispense are Christ and the church; Christ is the mystery of God and the church is the mystery of Christ.
In the fourteen epistles of Paul – and in particular in Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians – we can perceive his understanding of the mystery of God (Christ) and the mystery of Christ (the church).
Through Paul’s writings and through the proper unfolding of his writings through the ministry of the age, we can read, enjoy, digest, and be constituted with the mysteries of God.
In the dispensing ministry it is most important that stewards be found faithful (see 1 Cor. 4:2; 7:25; Luke 12:42; Matt. 24:45; 25:21; Luke 16:10-12; 19:17; Eph. 6:21; Col. 1:7; 4:7, 9; 1 Tim. 1:12; 3:11; 2 Tim. 2:2; 1 Pet. 5:12; Rev. 2:10, 13; 17:14).
Nothing is more important than for a steward to be faithful. Suppose there is a wealthy person who makes provisions in his will to give away his tremendous wealth according to a specific plan, according to his heart’s desire.
For this to take place, he needs to have someone who is absolutely trustworthy, someone in whom he can entrust that he will dispense all his riches according to his desire.
This is the reason that not everyone can fulfil the function of a steward; first of all, we have to understand the intention of the owner, understand His will, know it, and be faithful enough to execute it according to the One who has the will.
Paul said in 1 Tim. 1:12 that he thanks God who empowers him, Christ Jesus our Lord, for He has counted him faithful, appointing him to the ministry. Can God trust us with His mysteries?
He trusted Paul with His greatest treasures, but can He trust us? We need to pray,
Lord, make us trustworthy and faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. May You count us faithful, appointing us to the ministry, so that we may carry out Your economy according to Your desire in Your word. May we be able to receive the mysteries of God and dispense them into man for the carrying out of God’s economy through His dispensing of Himself into man! Amen, Lord, make us the best dispensers of the processed and consummated Triune God into His children! Make us Your faithful stewards, those entrusted with Your mysteries to dispense the divine life supply to God’s children!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Corinthians, msg. 34 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man (2019 fall ITERO), week 8, Carrying Out the Stewardship of God for the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– In Christ as Spirit You dispense all to me, / Making me a steward in Your economy. / Ever faithful to the measure I have received / To impart You to others, life conceived. (Song on, O Lord, You have from days of eternity)
– Of which I became a minister / According to the stewardship / Of God, which was given / To me for you, / To complete the word of God. (Song on, Christ in You, the Hope of Glory)
– Christ is the mystery of God; / God is invisible, unshown, / His image man hath never seen, / But Christ the Son hath made Him known. / The Church the myst’ry is of Christ, / For He is now to man unshown; / No man on earth may see Him now, / But thru the Church He is made known. (Hymns #818)
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