The Vision of the Tabernacle

Chapter 1

Keeping the Oneness of the Spirit

God’s Eternal Economy Footnote

God’s eternal purpose is to have a people that belong exclusively to Him; a people who represent Him on this earth by exercising dominion in His name and executing judgment on His enemy Satan. The creation of man was for this purpose. God created man in His image and likeness and commanded him to multiply, with the goal of increasing the expression of God on the earth. He also commanded him to rule over the earth and the animals; thus man would rule in the name of God (Gen. 1:26-28).

How would man be able to carry all of this out for God? He could only do it if he had God’s life. Therefore, the Creator caused the tree of life, representing God as life, to grow in the garden of Eden, and He expected man to eat of its fruit and thus receive the life of God. This would enable man to represent God and rule for Him.

However, with the intention of frustrating this divine plan, Satan acted craftily and caused man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which represents Satan as the source of death. When man ate of its fruit, sin, the sinful nature of Satan, entered into him and with it, death (Rom. 5:12).

It appears that God’s plan was ruined, but God did not give up what He had planned in eternity past. After the human race fell again and again, lower and lower, culminating in the tower of Babel, God established a new beginning by calling Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans (Gen. 12). Abraham was the father of the called race. God promised him that his descendents would be as numerous as the dust of the earth and as the stars of heaven (13:16: 15:5). The dust of the earth refers to Abraham’s earthly descendents, to the children of Israel, and the stars refer to his heavenly descendents, the Christians, the church (Gal. 3:7).

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