Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. He was succeeded by Hezekiah his son (vv. 19-20).
From the time that Solomon, the builder of the temple, became fallen and corrupted until the children of Israel were carried away into captivity was a period of four hundred years. During this time God expected a change among the children of Israel, but year by year they stubbornly remained the same. This forced God to give them up. Although God gave up Israel, He kept the principle, found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, of gaining some overcomers so that He could still have a lineage of people on earth to maintain His economy and carry it out. All the real prophets in the times of the kings and the captivity, such as Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jonah, Daniel, and Zechariah, were overcomers. Through such overcomers Ezra and Nehemiah were awakened to realize that they had to go back to the land of their fathers.
The entire history of Israel is a type for God's economy. The fulfillment of this type can be seen in the history of Christianity. Today Christianity is in captivity, but we in the Lord's recovery are outside the captivity. In the type, the Lord's recovery started with a small number, with ones such as Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Today the recovery may be small in number, but it is spreading into the captivity to call out more overcomers. The Lord's recovery is not to gain all the Christians in this age but to call out a smaller group to be the overcomers. In the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus repeatedly issues a call for the overcomers (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21). These overcomers will become Mount Zion, the peak in God's accomplishment of His economy (14:1).
The Bible is one book consisting of two sections—the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains many types and pictures, and in the New Testament we have the fulfillment of the typology in the Old Testament. Most fundamental Christians, however, pay attention only to part of the fulfillment of the Old Testament typology in the New Testament. In the recovery the Lord, by His mercy, has been continually showing us more and more concerning the fulfillment of the Old Testament typology in the New Testament, especially in relation to God's economy.
In reading the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, we need to see the link between the Old Testament books of history and the New Testament. This link is God's economy for Christ and for Christ's Body. This link is shown in the kings' history, which includes the prophets as God's overcomers. Again and again, the prophets came in either to help the kings or to deal with them. For example, Nathan helped David and also rebuked him. Elijah dealt with Ahab; Elisha performed miracles in life; and Isaiah helped Hezekiah.
In the book of Isaiah two short prophecies clearly show the link between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Isaiah 7:14 says that a virgin would bring forth a son whose name would be called Immanuel. Isaiah 9:6 says that a son would be given to us and that his name would be called the mighty God and the eternal Father. These prophecies reveal that God would become a man as a little child. The mighty God, the eternal Father, became a man in order to make man God in life and in nature (but not in the Godhead). However, in order to be made God in this way, man first needed to be redeemed. Isaiah 53 is a strong chapter on the redemption of Christ. In His humanity the God who had become man was man's Redeemer, slain for man's sin. God redeemed man for the purpose of making the redeemed man God in life and in nature so that God can have a consummation of His economy in the Body of Christ as the enlargement of Christ. This Body of Christ will consummate in the New Jerusalem as God's full expression and enlargement for eternity. In typology the history of the kings is linked to God's becoming a man to redeem man back to Himself that He might make His redeemed people God in life and in nature so that He might have for eternity a universal, corporate expression of Himself. This, in brief, is God's economy.
Jesus, who is God become man, eventually became the life-giving Spirit in His resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45b). The matters related to this are unveiled in the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. The New Testament shows us that Jesus is God becoming man through incarnation; that He lived a human life on earth; that He died an all-inclusive death, which solved all the problems in the universe, including sin, death, Satan, the world, and the old creation; and that He entered into resurrection. In resurrection He uplifted His humanity into divinity, regenerating His humanity to be the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 1:3-4; Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29). In that same birth we, the many members of Christ, were regenerated with Him (1 Pet. 1:3). In and through His resurrection Christ also became the life-giving Spirit.
The life-giving Spirit, who is the all-inclusive Christ, is the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God. This Spirit is also the reality of Christ's resurrection. Furthermore, this Spirit, the consummated Triune God, is the pneumatic Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God. The aggregate of all this is the life-giving Spirit. Such a marvelous matter is unveiled in detail in the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation.
The goal of God's economy is to work on His redeemed people in order to make them God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. This can be accomplished only through, by, with, and in the life-giving Spirit. It is crucial for us in the Lord's recovery to see that our Christ today is in resurrection and that in resurrection He is the pneumatic Christ, the life-giving Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God. We have Him as the all-inclusive, compound Spirit in our spirit. Now every day we must do everything in our spirit in order that this life-giving Spirit may transform us, conform us, and eventually glorify us that we might be made God in life and in nature.