God's counsel is God's resolution consummated in the council by the Divine Trinity. A council requires more than one person. A counsel is the decision of a council. A council is a meeting, and the counsel is the resolution made by the council, the meeting. If God is only one, how could He have a council? How could He have a meeting for discussion to make a resolution? This indicates that God is not only one but also three. He is the Divine Trinity.
Acts 2:23 says that Christ was delivered up and crucified by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God. This indicates that in eternity past the Triune God had a meeting; there was a council among the three of the Godhead. The determined counsel was determined in a council held by the Trinity before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8), indicating that the Lord's crucifixion was not an accident in human history but a purposeful fulfillment of the divine counsel determined by the Triune God. We should not think that Christ was crucified, killed, cut off, merely according to Pilate's judgment. His being cut off was determined in a council held by the Trinity in eternity past.
The three of the Godhead had a council among themselves, and a decision was made called a counsel. God had a will with a purpose according to His good pleasure. Then the Divine Trinity Himself had a council, a meeting, to make a decision, a resolution. This resolution is the counsel. In Genesis 1:26 God said, "Let us make man...." This shows that the creation of man was also according to the council among the three of the divine Godhead. Such a council can be compared to today's Congress in the United States government. The President cannot act without a counsel made by the Congress in a council.
After God's will, purpose, good pleasure, and counsel, there is God's economy. God's economy is God's household administration, God's plan and arrangement. With an administration, there is the need of a plan, and with a plan, there is the need of an arrangement. Based upon God's will, He made a purpose. In His will and purpose, there is His good pleasure. Then the Divine Trinity had a council to make a decision, which is the divine counsel. Based upon that counsel, God made a plan with an arrangement, and this plan with this arrangement is His household administration, His economy.
God's economy (dispensation, plan) is to head up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10). It is to bring all the items in the universe under the headship of Christ. God's economy is God's dispensation, plan, arrangement, of the mystery of His will (3:9; 1:9a). What God wanted in eternity past was a mystery. Based upon that mystery, God made an arrangement, and that arrangement is His economy.
God's economy is God's distribution of Himself in Christ in faith (1 Tim. 1:4b). At the apostle's time, there were different teachings. Thus, he asked Timothy to remain at Ephesus to charge certain ones not to teach differently but to take care of God's economy in faith (vv. 3-4). Anything other than God's economy is based upon human works, but the economy of God is based altogether upon our faith in Christ. It is based not upon our doing but upon our believing. The entire Bible reveals to us the economy of God, which is what God intends to do, what God intends to give us, and what God intends to work into us.