Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:9; John 1:1, 14; 12:24; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 21:2, 9-11
I. God's eternal economy is to make man the same as He is in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead and to make Himself one with man and man one with Him, thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression, that all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues—Eph. 3:9; 1:10:
A. The main contents of the New Testament are that the Triune God has an eternal economy according to His good pleasure to dispense Himself into His chosen and redeemed people in His life and nature to make them His duplication so that they may express Him; this corporate expression is the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem—3:9-21; Rev. 21:2, 9-11.
B. God's economy is His intention to dispense Himself in His Divine Trinity into His chosen and redeemed people to be their life and nature so that they may be the same as He is for His corporate expression—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 1:3-23.
C. God's good pleasure is to be one with man and to make man the same as He is in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead—vv. 5, 9.
D. For the accomplishment of His economy, God created us in His own image with the intention that we would become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead—Gen. 1:26; Rev. 4:3; 21:10-11.
E. God became man in order to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind—God-man kind—John 1:1, 14; 12:24; Heb. 2:10:
1. God sent His Son to be a man and to live a God-man life by the divine life—John 3:16; 1:14; 6:57.
2. The God-man living issues in a universal, great man who is exactly the same as Christ—a corporate God-man who lives a God-man life by the divine life for the manifestation of God in the flesh—Eph. 4:24; 1 Tim. 3:15-16.
F. God's economy, as recorded in the Scriptures, is that God became man to make man God in life, nature, and expression so that we may have a God-man living and become the Body of Christ—Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; 8:4, 14, 29; 12:4-5.
II. The high peak of the divine revelation is that God became man so that man may become God in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead to produce and build up the organic Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem for the fulfillment of God's economy to close this age and bring Christ back to set up His kingdom—John 1:12-14; 1 John 3:1-2; Rom. 8:3; 12:4-5; Rev. 11:15:
A. God has a heart's desire and an eternal purpose; He wants to make Himself man and to make man God so that the two—God and man—may be the same in life, nature, and expression—Eph. 1:5, 9; 3:11; 4:16; 5:30, 32.
B. God redeemed us for the purpose of making us God in life and nature so that He can have the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem as God's enlargement and expression for eternity—1:7; 4:16; Rev. 21:2.
C. The One who is God yet man dwells in the one who is man yet God, and the one who is man yet God dwells in the One who is God yet man; thus, they are a mutual dwelling place—John 14:2-3, 20, 23; 15:4.
D. God became man to make man God in life, nature, and expression through a marvelous process:
1. With God this process was incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection—1:14; 6:57a; 1:29; 3:14; 12:24; 20:22.
2. With man this process is regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification—3:6; Rom. 12:2.
3. In Paul's Epistles we see the ascended Christ ministering Himself to us as the life-giving Spirit to transform us into His image, making us the same as He is in life, nature, and expression—2 Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 8:29.
E. It is only by God's becoming man to make man God in life, nature, and expression that the Body of Christ can be produced and built up; this is the high peak of the divine revelation given to us by God—v. 3; 1:3-4; 8:14, 16, 29; 12:4-5:
1. The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living by a group of God's redeemed who have been made God, the God-men, by God and who live not by themselves but by another life, which is the processed and consummated Triune God—Gal. 2:20.
2. The highest peak in God's economy is the reality of the Body of Christ—Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11; 12:4-5.
3. The reality of the Body of Christ is the union and mingling of God and man to live out a corporate God-man—John 14:20; 15:4; Eph. 4:4-6, 24.
F. The New Jerusalem, the ultimate consummation of the Bible, involves God becoming man and man becoming God in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead—Rev. 21:2, 9-11; 3:12:
1. The New Jerusalem is a composition of divinity and humanity mingled, blended, and built up together as one entity—John 14:20, 23; Rev. 21:9-11:
a. All the components have the same life, nature, and constitution and thus are a corporate person.
b. God and man, man and God, are built up together by being blended and mingled together; this is a matter of God becoming man and man becoming God in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead—John 14:20, 23; 1 Cor. 6:17.
2. The New Jerusalem is a composition of God's chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified people who have been deified—John 3:6; Heb. 2:11; Rom. 12:2; 8:29-30:
a. For us to be deified means that we are being constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life, nature, and expression to be His corporate expression for eternity—Rev. 21:11.
b. The deification of the believers is a process that will consummate in the New Jerusalem; this is the highest truth and the highest gospel—3:12.