Thank the Lord! In these last days God is speaking among us. To be without God’s speaking is a terrible thing. Without God’s word, we would be in darkness; without God’s word, we would cast off restraint; and without God’s word, we would fall completely into death. If we have God’s word, everything is all right. God’s word is light, God’s word is revelation, God’s word is life, God’s word is supply, and God’s word is simply God Himself, the Lord Himself, and the Spirit Himself. In this message I hope that the Lord would grant us grace and give us His speaking that we may see what the grace of God in His economy is.

As Christians, we are very familiar with the term grace, and we have often come across it in our reading of the New Testament. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us...full of grace and reality.” God became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace. This shows that grace is the incarnated God. If God remained in Himself, He could not become grace. If God was merely God and was not incarnated to become a man, He could not be grace. Hence, in the Old Testament the word “grace” is used very little, because at that time God had not become flesh and could not become grace. In the New Testament, however, God became flesh, and when He became flesh, He became grace.

In the previous message we saw the economy of God and the law of God in His economy. God’s economy is to work out an organism for His Divine Trinity. No one knows how long God had been in eternity, and it is very difficult for anyone to know what He did in eternity past. According to my study of the Word, He did only one thing in eternity; that is, the Divine Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—held a council. In that council the Triune God decided that the divine economy was to have an organism. We need the entire Bible to explain the contents of that counsel. What is covered from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation is the content of that divine counsel in eternity. The content is that God created the heavens, the earth, and all things, and among all things He created the human race that the human race may have His image.

When I first read the Bible and came to the word image, I was puzzled. Does not the Bible tell us that God has no form or image? Then, how could God create man in His image and according to His likeness? Some say that God’s image and likeness is man. In Genesis 18, before the Lord Jesus became flesh, He appeared with two angels in the form of man. That was God’s outward likeness. He fellowshipped and had a conversation with Abraham, and Abraham gave Him water to wash His feet. Furthermore, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, prepared a meal and brought it for Him to eat. Therefore, God’s image and likeness is man. In the beginning I accepted such an explanation to a certain extent. However, the more I studied the Bible, the more I was bothered and the more I was not satisfied with such an explanation.

God indeed created man in His image and according to His likeness. Gradually I began to see that the image refers to what God is inwardly—His divine attributes. For example, God is love, God is light, God is holiness, and God is righteousness. These are the four great attributes of God. What God is, is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Love and light are easy to understand. Holiness refers to God’s being transcendent, different and distinct from all things; this is holiness. Righteousness refers to God’s being absolutely right, not crooked or biased, not twisted or distorted, but perfect, just, upright, and right from any angle; this is righteousness. God is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. These are God’s attributes. These attributes are inward; they are within God’s being.

Likeness is how God appears outwardly. Image and likeness are not two things. The former is God’s inward being, and the latter is the outward expression of God’s inward being. The outward expression of God is His likeness. What is expressed outwardly is God’s virtues. Attributes are inward, but when they are expressed, they become virtues. God is love; this is something within God. When God as love is expressed, that is God’s virtue. God created man in His inward attributes and according to His outward virtues. Hence, man is very noble. Man is a photo of God’s inward attributes and outward virtues. This is how God created man. Praise the Lord! Among all the creatures, man is the only one who expresses God’s attributes and God’s virtues. Man bears God’s inward image and God’s outward likeness. Although man was created in such an excellent way, God did not put Himself into man. Man did not have God’s life, God’s nature, or God Himself within him. You may take a very good picture of me, but after seeing it, I would say, “This picture is good, but it is not good enough because I am not really in the picture. That picture does not have my life, my nature, or myself.”

This is how God created Adam in the beginning. Adam had God’s image and God’s likeness but not God’s life, God’s nature, or God Himself. A picture of you cannot fully express you; it can only give others a general idea of your form. Regardless how good the picture of a person is, it cannot fully express the person himself. A photo is dead; it is lifeless. I, however, am full of life; my entire being is organic. No picture can express me organically. After he was created, Adam had God’s image and God’s likeness. He had both God’s inward being and outward expression, but he did not have God’s life or nature. This means that he did not have God Himself. Since he did not have God as his person, he could neither represent God nor express God. Hence, he could not achieve the purpose of becoming God’s organism. He was not qualified to be God’s organism because neither his image nor his likeness was organic; he did not have God as his life.

In His economy God did not intend to have merely a “photo.” Rather, God’s intention was that the man whom He created would become His organism to express Him. Therefore, God put Adam into a garden. In the garden there were many trees, and in the middle there was the tree of life. There was also another tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life gives life to man, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brings death to man. One of these two trees signifies God as the source of life, and the other signifies Satan as the element of death. The Bible calls Satan the one “who has the might of death” (Heb. 2:14). Everything that is of death is stored up and accumulated in Satan. God is the source of life; Satan is the hotbed of death. After the creation of man, God brought man in front of the two trees and warned him, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). Instead of eating of the tree of life, Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Originally, Adam was the good material that could receive the tree of life. This means that he could receive God into him as his life and nature, that is, as his person. However, after Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan’s life and nature, even Satan himself, entered into him. Adam’s transgression was not only due to his wrongdoing outwardly but due to his eating something wrong inwardly. This resulted in his being constituted a sinner in his nature.

The counsel that God made in the council in eternity was only half-accomplished when Satan interrupted it. Satan put his sinful nature into man so that it became man’s sinful nature. Thus, man was constituted a sinner and was condemned before God unto perdition. Hence, in Genesis 3, after the fall of man, God came to proclaim the glad tidings. Adam and Eve hid themselves from God’s presence because they were afraid of God. Furthermore, they had made themselves aprons of leaves to cover the shame of their nakedness. At that time, God came and called to Adam, saying, “Where art thou?” Then He said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, / and between thy seed and her seed; / it shall bruise thy head, / and thou shalt bruise his heel” (vv. 9, 15). This was a promise. Not only so, but after speaking such a word, God killed a lamb and used its skin to make coats for Adam and Eve. It seems that God was saying to Adam, “Don’t make aprons of leaves for yourself. The aprons of leaves are your own labor, and they cannot give you rest. Put on My coats!” As soon as they put on the coats, they had rest. This was the gospel, which was a gospel of promise: The seed of woman would come. When He came, on the one hand, He bruised the head of the serpent, and on the other hand, He was killed, shedding His blood for our sins and thus becoming righteousness to us, the sinners, that we may be justified and delivered from the devil.

After God gave such a promise, not much seemed to happen. According to the record of the Bible, it seems that God did not do much, except to tell Adam and his descendants that over and over they had to kill bulls and goats as sacrifices to cover their sins. Two thousand years passed from Adam to Abraham. During that period, man fell from God into sin; this means that he fell from God’s ruling into the ruling of his own conscience. After another fall, man fell from the ruling of conscience into the ruling of human government. Eventually, in Noah’s time, God came in to execute His judgment by destroying the people of that generation with the flood. After Noah, man fell again and again until eventually he fell into Babel. At Babel man was altogether in rebellion against God and in the worship of idols. Therefore, out of that place—Babel—God chose a man and called him. That man was Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham. God brought him to the land of Canaan and told him that He would give that land to him and to his seed, and that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3). This gospel was much greater than the gospel in Genesis 3. However, we have to know that the seed of woman in Genesis 3 is the seed of Abraham in Genesis 12. The seed of woman who would bruise the serpent’s head is the seed of Abraham in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham did not merely receive a promise as Adam did. God swore to Abraham and made a covenant with him. That covenant made with an oath was the predecessor of the new covenant.

The predecessor of the new covenant was the covenant God made with Abraham based on the promise He gave to Adam. In this covenant God promised that Abraham would beget a son, a seed, in whom the families of the earth would be blessed. In Galatians 3 Paul says that today we who have believed in the Lord Jesus have received the blessing which God promised to Abraham with a covenant, that is, the promise of the Spirit (v. 14). The Spirit is also called the Spirit of grace. When the blessing that God gave to Abraham comes to us, it is grace; this grace is the seed of Abraham, which is also the seed of woman.

It was two thousand years from Adam to Abraham and another two thousand years from Abraham to Christ. It took four thousand years for God’s promise to Adam to be fulfilled. With God, however, there is no element of time; in God’s eyes, one thousand years are like one day. In those two thousand years from Abraham to Christ, it seems again that God did not do anything. During that period, the descendants of Abraham went down to Egypt and were under the slavery of Pharaoh for four hundred thirty years. At the fullness of those four hundred thirty years, God came in again to lead them out of Egypt. However, after leading them out, God did not bring them immediately into Canaan. Thus, the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years.

After the passing of forty years, the aged Moses was already one hundred twenty years old. He reiterated God’s law and encouraged the children of Israel to enter Canaan. Then, after their entrance into Canaan, it was not until approximately five hundred years had elapsed, at the time of David, that they subdued all the enemies within their borders. Eventually, Solomon, the son of David, built the temple for God. Unfortunately, this wonderful situation did not last long. Solomon was excellent in the beginning but became corrupt in his old age. He indulged in lusts and selected a thousand wives and concubines for himself. Many among these wives were heathen women who brought in heathen gods. He was corrupted and so were his descendants. Eventually, the Jewish people were defeated first by Assyria and later by Babylon and Medo-Persia. Sixty years before Christ’s birth, the Roman Empire conquered the king of the Jews and thus brought in the fall of the Jewish nation.

The children of Israel were under such circumstances for two thousand years, but eventually Christ was born. He was the seed of woman, the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David. He was God who became flesh and was born in a manger. Later He was taken to Egypt to escape Herod’s slaying. Hence, not only the children of Israel but even the Lord Jesus went down to Egypt. After His birth, He did not do anything but first went down to Egypt. This proves that the incarnated Savior was joined with His redeemed as one. He went down to Egypt just as His redeemed did. Then one day God called His Son out of Egypt, and this Son is a corporate Son, who includes Israel as well as Christ. This Son came out of Egypt and returned to Nazareth, where He grew up until the full age of thirty when He came out to minister. After three and a half years, He was crucified. On the night when He was going to die, He established a new covenant with His disciples (Luke 22:20). That new covenant was the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31 as the continuation of the covenant that God made with Abraham.