The mark of God’s economy is this: God in three persons has come into us. The New Testament deals more with the fact that God in the Spirit has come into us than with the fact of His coming upon us. The little word in— referring to Christ being in us (Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Col. 1:27), Christ living in us (Gal. 2:20), Christ being formed in us (4:19), Christ making His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:17), Christ abiding in us and we in Him (John 15:4), etc.—occurs many times in the New Testament. If you have time, you can count how many times this little word is used in the New Testament. God made man purposely with three parts so that He could come into man and man would fit His purpose. As we have seen, man is a tripartite being—body, soul, and spirit (1 Thes. 5:23)—corresponding to the tabernacle with its three parts—the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Only the innermost part, the Holy of Holies, was the place where God’s shekinah glory dwelt and where the Ark as a type of Christ remained. This shows clearly that God and Christ have come to dwell in our spirit (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:22). Our spirit is our innermost part as the Holy of Holies within us.
We can trace this from the Scriptures very clearly, especially in 2 Timothy 4:22, which says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” Also, according to Ephesians 4:6, God the Father is in us, according to 2 Corinthians 13:5, God the Son is in us, and according to Romans 8:11, God the Spirit is in us. The Triune God in the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is now in our spirit. This is the mark of God’s economy: the Triune God is in our spirit to be our life and our everything. How regrettable that God’s economy has been neglected in the past centuries by His children! We must recover this mark of God in our spirit.
Using our spirit as His center, God works Himself out from our spirit into all our inward parts. The Triune God is in the center of our being. This is most wonderful! God came into the human nature, brought the human nature into the divine nature, and put an end to all negative things; now the Triune God and all that He has accomplished are in our spirit as our life and everything. From this central point the Triune God spreads out to saturate the inward parts of our being with Himself. The human spirit is the very spot of the mark of God’s economy. If we miss this spot, we miss the mark of God’s economy. I do not say that this is the goal of God’s economy; rather, I say that it is the mark of God’s economy. This mark has been neglected by most Christians today. We may talk about many scriptural things and not hit this spot. In fact, we must realize that all the teachings of the sixty-six books of the Bible are for this mark. All the different gifts and all the different functions are for this mark and must be centered on this mark.
How can we realize the Triune God indwelling our spirit? How can we experience the indwelling Spirit in our spirit? We must realize that the Triune God is always operating within us (Phil. 2:13). He is operating within us, not merely outside of us. Furthermore, He is operating within us even more than He is operating upon us. The Greek word translated “operates” is equivalent to the English word energizes. The indwelling God is energizing within us all the time. He is also living within us through Christ, who lives in us (Gal. 2:20). In other words, the Triune God is within us today as our life (Col. 3:4). With this life there is also the inner law, the living law—not the law of letters but the law of life (Rom. 8:2). This divine law of life is always regulating us from within (Heb. 8:10). In addition to inwardly regulating us, the indwelling Triune God is anointing us within all the time (1 John 2:27).
Let us consider these four words further—operating, living, regulating, and anointing. How much the church needs the inner revelation and experience of these four things! We should not consider these things as teaching, but we should experience the Triune God every day operating in us, living in us, regulating us, and anointing us. We should allow this wonderful Triune God to continually regulate us in our thinking, in our motives, in our words, in our attitudes, and in our relationships with others. Even our eating and our clothing should be regulated by Him. We must experience Him to such an extent and in such a practical way. This must not degrade into a doctrine; doctrine does not work. When we practice to experience the Triune God according to these four words, we will be revolutionized. We must realize that such a wonderful Christ is indwelling our spirit for the purpose of operating and living in us and regulating and anointing us.