THE NEW ECONOMY

          It had taken Jesus 3 ½ years to initiate the change of the economy of the old creation and to prepare twelve men who would teach and model that change to the world.

          Passion week brings His time to a close. The Monarch of creation’s New Economy entered the capital city of the old. Its corruption was full. Its sin was finished. He overturned its currency and

stopped the flow of its religion. The collapse of the Old Economy is begun.

          To the Fig Tree Economy He declared, “You did not know the time of your visitation. How often I would have gathered you as a hen does its chicks, but you would not! I will take your divine assignment from you and I will give it to a nation bringing forth the fruits of that assignment. The New Nation will be my Kingdom of Priests. They shall receive the olive branch from the mouth of the dove released of Noah and plant the New Economy of my Kingdom in the earth. And this Olive Tree Economy of my Kingdom of Priests shall increase till all the kingdoms of the earth are become the very Kingdom of my God and of his Christ.”

          The Priesthood of the Old Economy reasoned, “We must stop him else the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation.”

          Religion planned his execution in coincidence with Passover. All minds would be upon Moses and the Old Economy. They will lose sympathy with the Rebel.

          He will die, but yet shall he live. Before he could be taken in Gethsemane, a woman with costly ointment would embalm his body while the Life was yet within it. Now His own prophetic words were sealed within Himself, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

          Before he would be slain, He symbolically broke His own body and poured out his own blood, feeding each to the twelve who would succeed Him. In this New Economy, contrary to the statutes of the Old, the blood, the very life of the Sacrifice, must be eaten, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. The Passover of the New Economy is instituted. From henceforth shall all offerings be made in submitting one’s will in obedience, with grateful breath lifted in continual praise and giving the body a “living sacrifice.”

          But the Old Economy will not pass except its prophetic demand be satisfied. Its cup of sin must be drunk down. As spoken by Caiaphas the high priest, “It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.”  And indeed the whole nation would not perish, for the first three thousand souls entering the New Economy would be of National Israel.

          Seven wounds were opened. Seven vials of blood were poured upon the ground. Too late, oh tempter of souls! The seventh was the last of eight, for the first was already poured into the twelve vessels gathered at the counsel table of a new governmental order, a New Economy to be known as the Kingdom of Almighty God.

          Seven sayings were uttered as the Last Adam, along with all the first Adam’s fallen economy, took His final breath. Too late, oh tempter of souls! His final breath sounding, “It is finished” was the last of eight utterances, for the first was breathed into the twelve apostles of the New Economy: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” which Gift is become the very heart of the New Economy. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. He will comfort you.  He will empower you. He will send you. He will go with you unto the ends of the earth. 

So the eighth breath is taken and exhaled, “It is finished.” The first Adam and his failed economy collapse in death upon the cross but in the eighth breath there is the promise of a new beginning.

          From the Old Economy’s perspective “It is finished!” The Rebel is dead. The rebellion has failed. The hope of the New Economy is perished with Him. If He were perchance alive in the tomb, the stone at its door and the Roman watch would see to His certain death.  Even some of His own resigned themselves, “It was all vanity!  I go a fishing.”

          In the cold damp silence, wrapped in a linen binder, lay the dust of a new Earth’s genesis, a celestial dust brought into this Old Economy by the creative increase of fish and bread. Now the napkin is removed, folded and laid to one side. Out of the dust of a new ground a Father shapes the form of his Last Son. Now He breathes into the dust. He is the last Adam, not just living soul; He is life-giving Spirit. The grave clothes fall through the body of the Progenitor of a new species of creature destined to reign over a new heaven and a new earth. He is the Son of Man, the Federal Head of the Holy Nation, the New Economy. Now many sons are to be in the bringing, not unto shame in falling, but unto glory in rising, a glory fitting to the sons of the New Economy. Amen.

Bobby Norton

April 5, 2015