THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
Christ and the Church
Message One—God’s Ultimate Intention—Christ and the Church
Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:18-25; Eph. 5:23-32; John 19:34; Eph. 5:25-27, 32
I. Christ and the church are a great mystery—Eph. 5:32; cf. 1 Tim. 3:15-16a: (2001 WT, msg. 10)
A. God is a mystery, and Christ, as the embodiment of God to express Him is the mystery of God—Col. 2:2. (2001 WT, msg. 10)
B. Christ also is a mystery, and the church, as the Body of Christ to express Him is the mystery of Christ—Eph. 3:4. (2001 WT, msg. 10)
C. Christ and the church as one spirit, typified by a husband and wife as one flesh, are the great mystery—1 Cor. 6:17. (2001 WT, msg. 10)
II. The entire Bible is a divine romance, a record of how God courts His chosen people and eventually marries them—Gen. 2:21-24; S. S. 1:2-4; Isa. 54:5; 62:5; Jer. 2:2; 3:1, 14; 31:32; Ezek. 16:8; 23:5; Hosea 2:7, 19; Matt. 9:15; John 3:29; 2 Cor.11:2; Eph. 5:25-32; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9-10; 22:17: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
A. When we as God’s people enter into a love relationship with God, we receive His life, just as Eve received the life of Adam—Gen. 2:21-22. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
B. It is this life that enables us to become one with God and makes Him one with us. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
C. In order for God and His people to be one, there must be a mutual love between them—John 14:21, 23; Exo. 20:6. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
D. The love between God and His people unfolded in the Bible is primarily like the affectionate love between a man and a woman—Jer. 2:2; 31:3. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
E. As God’s people love God and spend time to fellowship with Him in His word, God infuses them with His divine element, making them one with Him as His spouse, the same as He is in life, nature, and expression—Psa. 119:140, 15-16; Eph. 5:25-27. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
III. In Genesis 2 we see a picture of Christ and the church in the types of Adam and Eve: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
A. Adam typifies God in Christ as the real, universal Husband, who is seeking a wife for Himself—Rom. 5:14; cf. Isa. 54:5; John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:31-32; Rev. 21:9. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
B. “Jehovah God said, It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper as his counterpart”—Gen. 2:18: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
1. Adam’s need for a wife typifies and portrays God’s need, in His economy, to have a wife as His counterpart, His complement (lit., his parallel). (2013 ST, msg. 8)
2. Although God, Christ, is absolutely and eternally perfect, He is not complete without the church as His wife. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
3. God desires to have both Adam, typifying Christ, and Eve, typifying the church; His purpose is to “let them have dominion” (1:26); it is to have a victorious Christ plus a victorious church, a Christ who has overcome the work of the devil plus a church that has overthrown the work of the devil; God wants Christ and the church to have dominion—Rom. 5:17; 16:20; Eph. 1:22-23. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
IV. “Jehovah God built the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman and brought her to the man”—Gen. 2:22: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
A. From the ground God formed every animal of the field and every bird of heaven and brought them to Adam, “and the man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of heaven and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper as his counterpart”—Gen. 2:19-20. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
B. In order to produce a counterpart for Himself, God first became a man, as typified by God’s creation of Adam—John 1:14; Rom. 5:14. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
C. “Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place”—Gen. 2:21: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
1. Adam’s deep sleep for the producing of Eve as his wife typifies Christ’s death on the cross for the producing of the church as His counterpart—Eph. 5:25-27. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
2. Christ’s death is the life-releasing, life-imparting, life-propagating, life-multiplying, life-reproducing death, which is signified by the grain of wheat falling into the ground to die and to grow up in order to produce many grains (12:24) for the making of the loaf, which is the Body, the church—1 Cor. 10:17; 12:24. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
3. Through such a process God in Christ has been wrought into man with His life and nature so that man can be the same as God in life and nature in order to match Him as His counterpart. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
D. Genesis 2:22 does not say that Eve was created but that she was built; the building of Eve with the rib taken from Adam’s side typifies the building of the church with the resurrection life released from Christ through His death on the cross and imparted into His believers in His resurrection—John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
1. The church as the real Eve is the totality of Christ in all His believers; the church is there production of Christ; other than Christ’s element, there should be no other element in the church—Gen. 5:2. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
2. Only that which comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 5:28-30. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
3. At the end of the Bible is a city, New Jerusalem, the ultimate and eternal woman, the corporate bride, the wife of the Lamb built with three precious materials, fulfilling for eternity the type shown in Genesis 2; thus, in type all the precious materials mentioned in 2:11-12 are for the building of the woman—Rev. 21:9; 22:17; 21:18-21. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
V. As Eve was taken out of Adam and brought back to Adam to be one flesh with him, so the church produced out of Christ will go back to Christ to be one spirit with Him; Christ and the church as one spirit, typified by a husband and wife as one flesh, are the great mystery—Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:27; Rev. 19:7; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 5:28-32: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
A. “The man said, This time this is bone of my bones / And flesh of my flesh; / This one shall be called Woman / Because out of Man this one was taken. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”—Gen. 2:23-24: (2013 ST, msg. 8)
1. In Hebrew Man is Ish, and Woman is Ishshah. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
2. The church is a pure product out of Christ; the church is “Christly,” “resurrectionly” and heavenly. (2013 ST, msg. 8)
B. Adam and Eve, being one, lived a married life together as husband and wife; this portrays that in the New Jerusalem the processed and consummated redeeming Triune God as the universal Husband will live a married life with the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity as the wife, forever—Gen. 2:24-25; Rev. 22:17a. (2013 ST, msg. 8)