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:
A. God is a mystery, and Christ, as the embodiment of God to express Him is the mystery of God—Col. 2:2.
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.
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.
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:
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.
B. It is this life that enables us to become one with God and makes Him one with us.
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.
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.
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.
III. In Genesis 2 we see a picture of Christ and the church in the types of Adam and Eve:
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.
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:
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).
2. Although God, Christ, is absolutely and eternally perfect, He is not complete without the church as His wife.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
1. In Hebrew Man is Ish, and Woman is Ishshah.
2. The church is a pure product out of Christ; the church is “Christly,” “resurrectionly” and heavenly.
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.
Ministry Excerpts:
Ephesians 5:32 speaks of a great mystery. Christ with the church is the great mystery in this universe. In these messages our burden is the central thought of God. We have seen clearly from the revelation of the Scriptures that the central thought of God is Christ as the expression of God with His Body, which is the church. So the central thought of God is Christ and the church, or we may say Christ with the church. This is the center of the divine mind, the divine thought, which is clearly seen in the blueprint of the divine plan unveiled in the first two chapters of the Bible. In the picture in Revelation 21 and 22, the last two chapters of the Scriptures, we can also see that the eternal purpose, the ultimate intention, of God is to have Christ expressed through the Body. Hence, Christ and His Body, which is the church, are the great mystery as the central thought of God.
Brothers and sisters, the central thought of God is that Christ must have a church as His Body, His Bride, His increase, and His counterpart to express God in a corporate way. In all the Scriptures, nothing is more important or vital than this. Nothing is more central than this. This is the very central thought of God. If you ask me what the Lord is seeking after today, I must tell you that the Lord is seeking nothing other than the church as the Body, the bride, and the increase to match Christ and to express Christ in a corporate way. This is the ultimate intention of God. (The Central Thought of God, ch. 7)
THE PROCESS—2:21-24
Now we need to consider the process. What did God do in order to produce a complement for Himself?
To Become a Man—Adam Created
One day, God became a man (John 1:14). This man was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem and was named Jesus. God becoming man was typified by the creation of man. Before creation there was no man. By God’s sovereign creation a man suddenly came into being. Likewise, before the birth of Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem, God was only God. However, through the incarnation God became a man. This man was the real Adam. The Adam in Genesis 2 was a photograph (Rom. 5:14); with the birth of Christ in the flesh, the real Adam came. According to the Bible, Adam in the garden is called the first Adam, and the Lord Jesus as the real Adam is called the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45). As the last One He is the real One.
To Pass Through Death—Adam Sleeping
One day the real Adam was put to sleep on the cross where He slept for six hours, from nine o’clock in the morning until three o’clock in the afternoon (Mark 15:25, 33). This was signified by the phrase in Genesis 2 which said that “God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam” and that “He took one of his ribs” to build him a wife (Gen. 2:21). That sleep of Adam’s was a type of Christ’s death on the cross for producing the church. This is the life-releasing, life-imparting, life-propagating, life-multiplying, and life-reproducing death of Christ, which is signified by a grain of wheat falling into the ground to die and to grow up in order to produce many grains (John 12:24) for the making of the loaf which is the Body, the church (1 Cor. 10:17). By producing the church in this way God in Christ has been wrought into man as life. Firstly, God became a man. Then this man with the divine life and nature, was multiplied through death and resurrection into many believers who become the many members to compose the real Eve to match Him and to complement Him. It is through this process that God in Christ has been wrought into man with His life and nature that man in life and nature can be the same as He is in order to match Him as His complement.
To Flow Out His Life—Adam’s Rib Taken Out
At the end of Christ’s crucifixion, the Jews, who did not want the bodies of the crucified criminals to remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, asked Pilate to have their legs broken (John 19:31). When the soldiers came to Jesus to break His legs, they found that He had died already and that there was no need for them to break His bones. This fulfilled the scripture which said, “A bone of Him shall not be broken” (John 19:32-33, 36; Exo. 12:46; Num. 9:12; Psa. 34:20). Nevertheless, the soldiers pierced His side and blood and water came out (John 19:34). The blood was for redemption (Heb. 9:22; 1 Pet. 1:18-19). What does the water signify? In Exodus 17:6 we find the type of the smitten rock (1 Cor. 10:4). After the rock was smitten, it was cleft, and living water came forth. Jesus on the cross was smitten with the rod of Moses, that is, by the law of God. He was cleft. His side was pierced, and water came forth. This water was the flow of His divine life signifying the life which produces the church.
To Be Resurrected—Adam Wakened
After God finished the work of producing Eve during Adam’s sleep, Adam awoke from his sleep. As Adam’s sleep typifies the death of Christ, so his waking signifies the resurrection of Christ. After waking, Adam became another person with Eve produced out of him. After His resurrection Christ also became another person with the church brought forth out of Him. As Adam eventually awoke from his sleep to take Eve as his counterpart, so Christ was also resurrected from the dead to take the church as His complement.
To Bring Forth the Church—Eve Builded
When Adam awoke from his sleep, he immediately discovered that Eve, who was builded with His rib, was present. Likewise, when Christ was resurrected from the dead (1 Cor. 15:20), the church was brought forth with His divine life. Through His death the divine life within Him was released and through His resurrection this released, divine life was imparted into us who believe in Him. So, the Bible says that through His resurrection we were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3). He was the grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died and produced many grains (John 12:24). We are the many grains who have been regenerated with His resurrection life. As regenerated ones who have Him as life and who live by Him, we compose His church, the real Eve in resurrection.
When Adam saw Eve he said, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23, Heb.). When Christ saw the church He might have said, “I have seen the cattle, lions, turtles, fishes, and birds, but none of them could match Me. This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, for the church is produced by My death and resurrection. The church comes out of Me. The church and I can be one.”
To Be One with Man—
Adam and Eve Becoming One Flesh
In typology, Adam and Eve became one flesh (Gen. 2:23-24). In actuality, Christ and the church are one spirit, because he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). Figuratively speaking, all the believers of Christ are “members of His Body.” The marriage union between husband and wife is a great mystery “with regard to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:29-32).
In Genesis 2 we see the creation of man and the tree of life which denotes God as man’s life and life supply. As God works Himself into man, man begins to experience the flow of life, and at the flow of life there are the precious materials—gold, pearl, and onyx stone. At the end of Genesis 2 we see the building of a woman. All the precious materials mentioned earlier in this chapter are for the building of this woman. If we only have Genesis 2, we cannot understand this matter adequately and clearly. However, at the end of the Bible we also find a woman, the New Jerusalem. This woman is a city built with gold, pearl, and precious stones. In Genesis 2, these materials were found at the flow of life, but were not yet builded. At the end of the Bible all of these materials have been built up into a city, which is the ultimate and eternal woman. In Genesis 2 we can see the New Jerusalem foreshadowed by Eve and in Revelation 21 we can see Eve consummated in the New Jerusalem, the corporate bride of the Lamb built with the three precious materials. Thus, we see once again that nearly everything found in Genesis 1 and 2 is a seed that grows throughout the Bible and ripens into a harvest in the book of Revelation.
Today we are neither at the beginning nor at the consummation—we are on the way. I am not even satisfied to be in Ephesians 5. I want to be in Revelation 19:7-9, at the marriage supper of Christ. In order to get there we must put off all the natural things—the cattle, the turtles, the horses, etc. Perhaps your natural disposition is like a strong horse. We must put off this natural life. Praise the Lord that within us we have another life, another element—Christ as the life-giving Spirit. We must live by this life, day and night putting off the old man and putting on the new man. In this way we will be transformed and conformed to His image, prepared for the wedding feast at the time of His return. Eventually, we will be the New Jerusalem, and God’s eternal purpose will be completely fulfilled.
THE RESULT
A Bride Gained—Eve Gained by Adam
The result of Adam’s sleep in which his side was opened to release a rib was that he gained Eve as his complement to match him. This signifies that the result of Christ’s death with His side pierced to release His divine life was that He obtained the church as His complement. Henceforth, God is no longer alone. Christ has gained a bride to match Him. Revelation 21—22 unfolds that in eternity the New Jerusalem as the consummation of the church will be the bride of Christ for God’s full complement to match Him eternally.
One with Man—Adam and Eve Becoming One Flesh
Adam and Eve eventually became one flesh, one complete unit. This was a figure of God and man being joined as one. God’s desire is to be one with man. He has reached this goal through Christ’s death and resurrection which produced the church, representing the proper humanity to match Him as the husband. In this union humanity is one with divinity; this union will last for eternity. The coming New Jerusalem will be just the unity of God and man, a living, complete unit composed with divinity and humanity.
Living with Man—Adam Living with Eve
Adam and Eve, being one, lived together. This portrayed that God, the universal husband, will live with regenerated humanity forever. The universal marriage life of God and man is fully revealed in Revelation 21. In eternity, God in Christ will be the center, reality, and life of man’s living, and man will live by God in Christ as life. Man will express God’s glory and will exercise God’s authority over the new earth. God and man, man and God will live together in a marriage life forever.
So, Genesis 1:1—2:3 is a picture of God’s purpose, and 2:4-25 is a portrait of the way to fulfill God’s purpose. These two sections may be considered as a blueprint of an architectural plan. Genesis 3 through Revelation 20 may be considered as the building process, and Revelation 21 and 22 as a photograph of the finished building. (Life-Study of Genesis, msg. 17)