In the first step there was the need to exercise foreknowledge. Second, God selected persons according to His foreknowledge, and third, He predestinated or marked out His chosen people. This is according to the New Testament revelation. In the first step of God’s economy, the works which were done in eternity past were all done by the Father. This does not mean, however, that when the Father did these three things, the Son was not there or the Spirit was not there. If we say this, we jeopardize the essential Trinity and the unique essence of the Trinity. In other words, we jeopardize the existence of the Triune God. This kind of interpretation leads to modalism because modalism tells us that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have a successive existence. Their existences are in succession. When the Father was there, there was no Son or no Spirit. When the Son came, the Father was over and the Spirit was not yet. Then when the Spirit came, the Father and the Son both were over. This is the heresy of modalism. When the Father was working to exercise His foreknowledge to choose His people and to mark out His chosen ones to predestinate them unto sonship, the Son was with Him and the Spirit was with Him. He did it in the Son and with the Spirit.
After this first step of His economy, God came in firstly to create, secondly to become flesh, thirdly to live a human life on this earth, fourthly to die an all-inclusive death on the cross, fifthly to enter into resurrection, and finally to enter into ascension, the exaltation. These are the six main works in the second step of God’s economy, and these works all have been done by the Son with the Father and by the Spirit. In the Bible we are told that, “all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being which has come into being” (John 1:3). The creating work was done by the Son for God to become flesh in Him.
For God to live a human life among the human race on this earth in a lowly family is a particular work. This does not seem so great, but no human adjective can describe this work. Too often we Christians do not think about this. We do not consider God’s living on this earth in the Man Jesus for thirty-three and a half years as a great work. When people teach concerning Christ, they mostly do not stress this aspect. They stress His creation, His incarnation, His crucifixion, His resurrection, and His ascension. They skip over His human living. We must realize, however, that among His six works, the item of His human living took Him the longest time. The Lord did not spend thirty-three and a half years to create. Also, He took only nine months to become flesh, He only took six hours to die an all-inclusive death, and He might have taken less than thirty-six hours to accomplish His resurrection. Of course, His exaltation work probably involved only a matter of minutes to accomplish. However, He took thirty-three and a half years to accomplish His human living. This is marvelous!
The major part of the revelation in the four Gospels is the human living of Jesus. His conception, His birth, His death, resurrection, and ascension are at the two ends of this revelation, while the main part is His human living. For example, in the book of Matthew, chapter one covers the Lord’s conception and birth, and chapters twenty-seven and twenty-eight cover His death and resurrection. Therefore, twenty-five chapters of Matthew are on the Lord’s human living. The bulk of the revelation in the four Gospels covers the human living of our Savior.
I hope that none of us, especially the young saints among us, would think that we have exhausted the New Testament. I would like to have another ten years to have a Life-study of the New Testament. Many of today’s Christians merely pick up “gleanings” from the field of the divine revelation, and they become proud. This is a poor situation. Even what we have picked up from the divine revelation of the holy Word might also be considered in the Lord’s eyes as “gleanings.” It may be that we have not touched the harvest in the Lord’s revelation. Our Life-study of the Bible, only comparatively speaking, may be the best.
Now we can see what a great, fine, and patient work was done by this One who spent thirty-three and a half years to carry out the silent work of His human living. This work has all been done by the Son. This again, however, does not mean that when the Son was doing this work the Father was absent, and the Spirit came to replace Him. This kind of understanding is modalism. The New Testament, though, tells us that whatever the Son did, He did it with the Father and by the Spirit. The Son was sent by the Father and He was even given to us by the Father, but when He came, He came with the Father. He did not only come with the Father, but He also came in the Father’s name. This means that He came as the Father. If I come to the meeting in another person’s name, that means I come as that person. If I go to the bank to draw some money in another person’s name, I go there as that person. The bank would not call me by my name, but it would call me by that other person’s name. In the same way, the Son came with the Father in the Father’s name.
The Son came in a way of divine conception which was carried out by the Spirit, of the Spirit, and with the Spirit. The divine conception of Jesus was carried out by the Holy Spirit, of the Holy Spirit, and with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the very essence of His conception. The Lord’s human essence came from the virgin Mary and His divine essence came from the Holy Spirit. His conception was a mingling of the divine essence with the human essence, and this mingling produced a God-man. This was a man produced of two essences and two natures—the divine and the human. He came with the Father and He came by the Spirit. He did His work with the Father and He did His work by the Spirit. When He was baptized in the water, He was baptized with the Father and by the Spirit. When He was arrested, He was arrested with the Father and by the Spirit. When He was judged and crucified, He was judged and crucified with the Father and by the Spirit. If we do not see this, we jeopardize the existence of the Trinity. The works done by the Son were done with the Father and by the Spirit.
We have seen that Jesus was conceived of the Spirit and that the Spirit was one of His two essences. After His baptism He was standing in the water with the essence of the Holy Spirit, and, no doubt, also with the Father, yet the Spirit still came down as a dove to descend upon Him, and the Father spoke from the heavens concerning Him. This is the economical Trinity to carry out God’s economy. In the same principle, when He was crucified and hanging on the cross, God forsook Him (Matt. 27:46). This does not mean that God left Him essentially, but that God left Him economically.
There are three steps in God’s economy and each step has a certain amount of work. We have covered two steps and now we must see the third step—the step of the Spirit’s application. In this step there are a great many works. After finishing the works of the second step, the Son became a life-giving Spirit. Actually, the life-giving Spirit is the issue of the work He has done in the second step. He finished incarnation, human living, His all-inclusive death, resurrection, and ascension. In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, and this life-giving Spirit is the issue of His incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. This does not mean that the life-giving Spirit is a separate Spirit from the Holy Spirit. This means, however, that His death and resurrection has brought all the works He has done in the second step into the very constitution of the Spirit. Therefore, before His death “the Spirit was not yet” (John 7:39), but after His resurrection the Spirit came out with all the constituents of divinity, humanity, human living, His all-inclusive death, and His excellent resurrection. The third step, the step of the Spirit’s application, is not the Spirit working with the Son but rather the Son working as the Spirit with the Father.