THE FIRST PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
From Adam to Noah
Message Two—Adam
Scripture Reading: Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45, 47; Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7, 9; 3:22-24; Eph. 4:17-18
I. Adam is a type of Christ producing the church as His counterpart—Gen. 2:21-23; Eph. 5:28-32: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
A. In Romans 5:14 we are told that Adam was “a type of Him who was to come,” Christ: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
1. Adam was the head of the old collective man (mankind); whatever he did and whatever happened to him is participated in by all mankind—v. 12. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
2. Christ is the Head of the corporate new man, the church; whatever He did and whatever happened to Him is participated in by all the members of His Body—vv. 17-21; Eph. 2:15-16; 1:22-23. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
B. The rib taken from Adam’s opened side typifies the unbreakable, indestructible, eternal life of Christ, which flowed out of His pierced side to impart life to His believers for the producing and building up of the church—Gen. 2:21-22; Heb. 7:16; John 19:34. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
C. 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—Gen. 2:21-23; 1 Pet. 1:3: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
1. The church as the real Eve is the totality of Christ in all His believers— 1 Cor. 12:12. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
2. Only that which comes out of the resurrection life of Christ can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ—Eph. 5:28-30. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
II. Adam was a vessel created in the image of God to receive God and to contain God for the reproduction of God—Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7, 9: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
A. The creation of man was God’s preliminary preparation for the dispensing of Himself as the Triune God into the tripartite man according to His economy—2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-17a. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
B. The basic teaching of the Scriptures is that we are vessels to receive and contain God as the unique content—Gen. 2:7; 2 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 9:21, 23: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
1. Man is a vessel created in the image of God for the purpose of containing God. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
2. “If we do not contain God and know God as our content, we are a senseless contradiction” (The Economy of God, p. 44). (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
3. If the vessel is open, God can fulfill His purpose, but if the vessel is closed, God’s purpose is frustrated. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
C. God’s purpose in the creation of man in His image and after His likeness was that man would receive Him as life and express Him in all His attributes—Gen. 1:26-27; 2:9: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
1. God created man in His image and after His likeness because His intention is to come into man and to be one with man—Eph. 3:17a. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
2. God created man in His own image in such a way that man has the capacity to contain God’s love, light, righteousness, and holiness—1 John 1:5; 4:8; Eph. 4:24; 5:2, 8-9. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
3. Because we were created according to God’s kind, our human virtues have the capacity to contain the divine attributes—2 Cor. 10:1; 11:10. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
D. For God to create man in His image means that God created man with the intention that man would become a duplicate of God, the reproduction of God—John 12:24: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
1. The first grain—the first God-man—was a prototype, and the many grains—the many God-men—produced by this one grain are the mass reproduction; this is the reproduction of God. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
2. God’s “hobby” is to have His reproduction throughout the earth; this reproduction makes God happy because it looks like Him, speaks like Him, and lives like Him—Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10; 1 John 3:1. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
E. If Adam had eaten of the tree of life and thereby had taken God into him as life, he would have become not only a man made by God in His image but also a God-man—a man filled with God as his life and with the divine attributes filling his human virtues. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
III. As a fallen man, Adam was separated from the life of God and was not permitted to contact God as the tree of life—Gen. 3:1-6, 11-13, 22-24: (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
A. Satan’s tempting of man to take the tree of knowledge indicates that Satan wants to keep man from taking God as his life—vv. 1-6. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
B. The significance of man’s fall is that man was estranged from the life of God—Eph. 4:17-18. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)
C. God’s prohibiting of man by the cherubim and the flaming sword from taking the tree of life indicates that God’s glory (signified by the cherubim), holiness (signified by the flame), and righteousness (signified by the sword) do not allow sinful man to abuse the life of God—Heb. 9:5; 12:29; Rom. 2:5. (2000 FTTA-F, msg. 2)