Crystallization-Study of GENESIS(3)
Message Three
Transformation for God's Building
Scripture Reading: Gen. 28:10-22; 32:28; 35:10, 15;Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 4:3; 21:11
I. We need to be enlightened by and fully saturated with the thought that inthe universe God is doing only one thing—building His eternal habitation—Bethel—Gen. 28:10-22; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22; Rev. 21:2-3:
A. The entire Bible is a book of building; the main subject of the Bible is the buildingof God—Gen. 28:10-22; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22; 4:16; Rev. 21:2-3.
B. The central and divine thought of the Scriptures is that God is seeking a divinebuilding as the mingling of Himself with humanity—a living composition of personsredeemed by and mingled with Himself—Matt. 16:18.
C. God's building is the desire of His heart and the goal of His salvation—Exo.1:11; 25:8; 40:2-3; Eph. 1:5, 9; 2:21-22; 4:16.
D. We need to have a divine understanding of God's building—Matt. 16:18; Eph.4:16:
1. God's building is the mingling of God with man—John 14:20; 15:4a; 1 John4:15:
a. The principle of God's building is that God builds Himself into us andbuilds us into Himself—Eph. 3:17a.
b. The church is God's building composed of Himself as the divinematerial mingled with man as the human material—1 Cor. 3:9, 11.
2. God's building is the corporate expression of the Triune God—1 Tim. 3:15-16; John 17:22; Eph. 3:19b, 21:
a. God's intention is to have a group of people built up as a spiritual buildingto express Him and to represent Him by dealing with His enemyand recovering the lost earth—Gen. 1:26; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9.
b. God's desire to be expressed and represented by man on earth can befulfilled only when we are built up together—Gen. 1:26; Eph. 2:21-22.
3. God's building is the enlargement, the expansion, of God to express Himselfin a corporate way—John 3:29a, 30a; Col. 2:19:
a. The genuine building is the enlargement, the expansion, of the TriuneGod, enabling God to express Himself in a corporate way—Eph. 3:21.
b. The divine building is the Triune God as life being wrought into us sothat we may become His one expression, the enlargement and expansionof God in His economy—vv. 9, 17a, 19b, 21; 1:10.
E. Bethel, the house of God, is the church today and will consummate in the NewJerusalem as the eternal Bethel, the eternal dwelling place of God and Hisredeemed elect—Gen. 28:19; 35:15; 1 Tim. 3:15; Rev. 21:3, 22.
II. Jacob, a man under God's transforming hand, represents a life of transformationfor God's building—Gen. 32:28; 35:10, 15:
A. Jacob's history must become our biography:
1. There are three distinct periods in Jacob's life: the period of dealings (chs.25—32), the period of transformation (chs. 32—36), and the period of maturity(chs. 37—50).
2. Everything that happened to Jacob was for his transformation:
a. In order to be transformed, Jacob had to be pressed into situations thatgave him no choice except to undergo a change—31:36-42; 32:28.
b. From Jacob's experience we see that everything that happens to us isunder God's sovereignty for our transformation—Rom. 8:28-29; 12:2.
c. Jacob's transformation began from the time the Lord came and touchedJacob's strongest part, his thigh, in Genesis 32; from that time onward,the process of transformation continued until chapter 37.
d. The trouble that Simeon and Levi caused Jacob touched him in thedepths of his being, and he began to be transformed—34:30; 49:5-7.
3. Jacob had been chosen to be the expression of God and a prince of God, andhe could become God's expression and a prince of God only throughtransformation—1:26; 32:28; 2 Cor. 3:18:
a. Israel means "one who struggles with God" (Gen. 32:28) and "the princeof God."
b. God's purpose in dealing with Jacob, a supplanter, was to transformhim into Israel, a prince of God, bearing His image to express Him andexercising His dominion to represent Him—1:26.
c. Jacob's name was changed to Israel; a supplanter (Jacob) was changedinto a prince of God—32:27-28; 35:10.
d. The Christian life is a life of struggling with God to be transformed byGod into a prince of God—Rom. 12:2; 5:17.
e. God's purpose in selecting, predestinating, and calling us is to transformpitiful sinners into royal sons so that, after the process of transformationhas been completed, we may reign as kings—Rev. 22:5.
B. Because of the fall, we became distorted clay; God's way is not to reform distortedones but to transform them into stones for the building up of God'shouse, Bethel—Gen. 2:7; John 1:42; 1 Pet. 2:4-5.
C. To be transformed is to have the pneumatic Christ, Christ in resurrection asthe life-giving Spirit, dispensed and wrought into our soul to replace what weare in the natural life so that Christ may increase and our natural life maydecrease—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Eph. 3:17a.
D. Transformation is not outward correction or adjustment but the metabolicfunction of the life of God in us, by the addition of the element of the divine lifeof Christ into our being, so that we may express the image of Christ outwardly—2 Cor. 3:18:
1. The process of transformation is both organic and metabolic; it is organicbecause it is related to life, and it is metabolic because it is related to aprocess in which old elements are discharged and new elements areadded—Rom. 5:10.
2. The metabolic change that takes place during transformation is a changeboth in inward constitution and outward form—12:2; 8:29.
3. Transformation is for the mass reproduction of the firstborn Son of God asthe prototype of a God-man so that we may be shaped into His image to beexactly the same as the firstborn Son of God—v. 29.
E. Whether we are overcomers or defeated ones depends upon the transformationof our soul and upon our attitude toward the Lord's transforming work—12:2:
1. God's transforming work is actually His exercising of His kingdom; to obeyGod is to cooperate with His transforming work—2 Cor. 3:18; 10:5-6.
2. If we let the Triune God as the life-giving Spirit transform us day by day,we will be overcomers—Rom. 12:2; 8:28-29, 37.
F. Transformation issues in building up; the building up of the jasper wall of theNew Jerusalem goes along with transformation—12:2; Rev. 21:18a:
1. The Spirit's transforming work is with His bountiful supply of the divineelement for the building up of Bethel, God's dwelling place—Phil. 1:19.
2. Consummately, the transforming work of the Spirit issues in the NewJerusalem, which bears the image of God for His expression:
a. God appears like a jasper stone, and the New Jerusalem, having theglory of God, shines like a jasper stone—Rev. 4:3; 21:11.
b. The first layer of the wall's foundation, as well as the entire wall of theNew Jerusalem, is built with jasper, indicating that the main materialin the building of the city is jasper—vv. 18-19.
c. Since jasper signifies God expressed in His communicable glory, themain function of the New Jerusalem is to express God in bearing Hisglory—4:3; 21:11.
G. The book of Genesis is a miniature of the complete revelation of the entireBible:
1. At the end of Genesis we see a man called Israel, a transformed personwho is clear, transparent, and full of life; this transformed person is a seed,a miniature, of the New Jerusalem—35:10.
2. At the end of Revelation we see the New Jerusalem, a transparent city filledwith the life of God, having the glory of God, and whose light is like "a mostprecious stone, like a jasper stone, as clear as crystal"—21:11, 3; 22:1-2.