In the universe there are three parties-God, man, and Satan. Satan, under God’s sovereignty, is the negative party. The other two parties, God and man, should be identical. But when man fell, he took a direction other than God’s. This was the beginning of the discrepancy between God’s economy and man’s concepts.
The matter of God’s economy is foreign to most Christians. This term economy, anglicized from the Greek, is not easy to define. The meaning in Greek is a dispensing, or an administration for dispensing. God’s economy is to dispense Himself into His chosen people. That God would dispense Himself into man, and that certain ones would be the recipients of His dispensing, was not a decision made in response to conditions that were going on in time. It was not accidental, nor was it determined by circumstances. Rather, it was purposed by Him in eternity past and pertains also to eternity future.
This matter of God’s economy is made abundantly clear in the four books that form the heart of the New Testament- Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. (I hope you will prize these books, even unto the New Jerusalem!) In Ephesians, for example, the Greek word is used in 1:10 and 3:9, where it is translated dispensation, and in 3:2, where it is translated stewardship. In Colossians 1:25 it is also translated stewardship.
God dispenses Himself into us organically. The life He imparts to us is not like a set of dentures, which may be worn year after year without ever becoming part of us. His dispensing is more like the grafting of one piece of skin on another. The two pieces grow together and within a short time cannot be separated. They have become organically joined and share a common life.
God is life. Life is organic. The Bible tells us that God created man in His image (Gen. 1:26). Man was created in God’s image so that He and man could be organically one. It is not like the kind of oneness formed by putting several volumes of a book next to each other. It is rather the growing together of two like entities. You may argue that the divine life and the human life are not like entities. There is some truth to this: one is human and the other is divine! But for man to be in God’s image means that the function of both lives is the same.
Our relationship to God is likened to grafting in Romans 11:17, 19, 23 and 24. We are the branches grafted into the olive tree. Two pieces of dry wood cannot be grafted together; they would have to be joined inorganically by a carpenter! Only a living branch and a living tree can be grafted together. Grafting is an organic process.
The Christian life is a hybrid life; that is, it is the product or result of the blending of two different lives. We were born human, but in our second birth we were born of God (John 1:13). By the new birth the divine life has been imparted into us. As sons of God, we are divine dignitaries! It is not a small thing for anyone to harm us. We are divinely human, and humanly divine! Our life has been grafted into God. He is working Himself into us organically.
John 15 clearly pictures this organic relationship. The vine and the branches are not united by a carpenter’s hammer! The branches are not like dentures artificially held in place! We are the branches of God, organically one with Him! We are part of God, just as my arm is part of me. Some may say that this is heretical teaching; such ones are in darkness. If we are in the light, we shall see and rejoice that as the branches of Christ, we are part of Him.
Organically-we are organically joined to God! This is His economy.
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