In the Bible we can see the divine history within the human history in many details. Actually, God’s history is our history because He is in union with us. Within the shell of the outward human history there is the divine history.
Our living, purposeful, active, and acting God has a history, a biography, and His biography is fully recorded in the Bible. Since God wrote the Bible through His servants, the Bible is God’s autobiography, His history. His history has everything to do with us!
God’s history is our history because God wants to be joined to man and be one with man! Hallelujah, the Bible is God’s history and our story!
God’s history is our history in His union with us
In eternity past God made an economy, and all He did in eternity past before stepping on the bridge of time was to prepare all things so that He may be one with man. God’s move is to deify man and make man the same as He is in life and nature so that man may match Him as His counterpart.
In eternity past God was preparing for His move to be in this kind of an organic union with man. In the Old Testament God referred to Himself again and again as the Husband and His people as His wife (Isa. 54:5; 62:5; Jer. 2:2; 3:1, 14; 31:32; Ezek. 16:8; 23:5; Hosea 2:7, 19).
But in the Old Testament, before Christ came and became the life-giving Spirit, God’s move was only with and outside of man. God’s desire to be one with man in an organic way is fulfilled and realized in the New Testament.
All the believers in Christ are organically joined to the Triune God to be His wife, the church, the bride of Christ!
God’s preparation for His move to be in union with man
The divine history began with the eternal God and His economy (see Eph. 3:9-10; 1:10), in which He desires to dispense Himself into man to fill man and make man His full expression.
According to His economy, God desires to work Himself into man so that He may be one with man and that He may be man’s life, life supply, and man’s everything, with the result that man is His corporate expression.
We see this from the beginning of the Bible in Gen. 1:26 and 2:9, to the end of the Bible in Rev. 21-22.
God’s intention in His economy is to eventually obtain a corporate entity, His Bride, composed of the mingling of God and man, to be His counterpart and His expression for eternity. This is what He desires and what He wants to accomplish in His economy.
It all starts with this – God’s economy is the source of the divine history within the human history.
Christ’s death was according to God’s counsel
In eternity past, God had a council, a conference, to make the determination of the crucial death of Christ, the second of the Divine Trinity, as a man for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy.
Yes, it was man who put the Lord to death, but Christ was delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God (see Acts 2:23)!
Christ’s death was no an accident, nor was it a quick remedy God put together to deal with our sin. No, in His foreknowledge God forethought that we would fall, and so He prepared a way for our redemption – He determined in eternity past concerning the crucial death of Christ for our redemption and for the carrying out of God’s economy.
Christ’s goings forth are from ancient times
In eternity past Christ was preparing to carry out His goings forth – His coming – from eternity into time (see Micah 5:2).
His incarnation wasn’t something of a sudden with no plan or purpose; Christ as the Second of the Divine Trinity prepared from eternity past His goings forth! Christ’s goings forth include His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
Now as the life-giving Spirit His goings forth continue with our regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification! He is going forth in our being until He comes forth out our being to His glory!
God blessed the believers in Christ before the foundation of the world
Our regeneration and our turning to God are not an accident either. It may seem like “there was a coincidence of situations” and we repented and believed in the Lord, but God in His wisdom and foreknowledge prepared everything beforehand for us to be regenerated!
Eph. 1:3-6 tells us that God blessed us, His believers, in Christ with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies before the foundation of the world! He chose us to be holy – He chose us to be sanctified, separated unto Himself and saturated with God’s holy nature! He chose us to be the same as He is, holy!
Also, God predestinated us, marked us out, unto sonship! He wants to make us sons of God with His divine life, according to the good pleasure of His will and to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Hallelujah, God predestinated us and marked us out to be His sons with His divine life that we may fully express Him!
Isn’t this glorious? Our God not only “loves us and wants us to be with Him”, but in His love and wisdom, He planned beforehand and prepared everything for Christ’s coming, His goings forth, and for our regeneration and maturation in life.
His unique work is to work Himself into us and be everything to us that we may grow in life, be matured, and become His bride, His counterpart. Hallelujah!
Lord, thank You for unveiling us to see more of Your economy even in eternity past. Lord, since Your goal is to work Yourself into man, we pray – do it! Work Yourself into us, Lord, and flow out of us to work Yourself into others! Be our life, our life supply, and our everything, that we may be a part of Your corporate expression!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from, The History of God in His Union with Man (ch. 1), and, The Move of God in Man (ch. 1), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of the Minor Prophets, week 5 (entitled, The Universal History according to God’s Economy—the Divine History within the Human History).
- Hymns on this topic:
# God the Lord has spoken, and His mystery shown, / Christ and His expression has His counsel willed.
# God’s economy and goal / According to His heart’s desire / Are to build Himself into our being.
# Christ is the hope of glory, He is my history: / His life is my experience, for He is one with me. - Picture source: San Clemente sunset (taken with permission).
Yes, Lord. We thank You!!!