Living Stream Ministry

OUR NEED TO BE RELEASED FROM
OUR HUMAN CONCEPT AND TO BE BROUGHT INTO
THE CENTRAL LINE OF GOD’S ECONOMY

In reading the Psalms, we should see the contrast between the human concept and the divine concept. Most of the saints do not see such a contrast. Instead, they highly appraise everything in the Psalms. In a sense, it seems that they received the help from reading the Psalms, but actually they did not receive the real help. Instead, they were misled.

I am burdened for us to see the contrast between the human concept in the Psalms and the divine concept in the New Testament. According to our concept, we may feel that the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, tells us mainly that we have to fear God, to take refuge in Him, to trust in Him, to wait on Him, to hope in Him, to praise Him, to thank Him, and to worship Him. This concept, however, is not the divine concept in the New Testament. What the New Testament shows us is God’s economy.

In God’s economy, God has only one intention—to gain an organism for Himself. In eternity past God decided to do one thing in His economy—to create for Himself an organism, the Body of Christ. He created the universe and man for this purpose. Then man became fallen, but God promised man that He would come through a woman to be a man, to join Himself with man, and to become one with man (Gen. 3:15). Eventually, He became a man and lived a life on this earth to show people the life of a God-man. Afterward, He went to the cross and died not only for our sins but also to deal with every problem in the universe. Then He was resurrected. In His incarnation He brought God into man, and in His resurrection He brought man into God so that God and man could be one.

Although this is the revelation of the New Testament, not many see this revelation. Instead, most Christians still hold a natural and religious concept of trying to do good. Most Christians would say that they need to improve their conduct. Because they know that they are weak and the temptations are strong, they ask God to help them and try to trust in God. But they do not see the central line of God’s economy to make God and man, man and God, one entity, with the two having one living by one life with one nature. Such a revelation is missing among Christians today.

Many do not have an ear to hear this central teaching of God’s economy. Paul solemnly charged Timothy before God and before Christ by His appearing and His kingdom to proclaim the word (2 Tim. 4:1-2). Paul was being poured out as a drink offering (v. 6), so he charged Timothy to be faithful to proclaim the healthy word. Then he said, "For the time will come when they will not tolerate the healthy teaching; but according to their own lusts they will heap up to themselves teachers, having itching ears" (v. 3). People who have itching ears are those who seek pleasant speaking for their own pleasure. According to Paul’s word to Timothy, the itching and turned-away ear is the main factor in the worsening decline in the churches. We have to be faithful to speak the healthy words of God’s economy, not the words that satisfy people’s itching ears.

(Life-Study of Psalms, Chapter 16, by Witness Lee)