GENERAL SUBJECT
THE RECOVERY OF THE CHURCH
Message Nine
The Status of the Church—the Counterpart of Christ
Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:18-25; John 19:34; Eph. 5:25-27, 32
I. 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.
II. 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 com-plete 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); His purpose is to have a victorious Christ plus a victorious church, a Christ who has over-come 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.
III. We need to see what God did in order to produce a counterpart for Him-self:
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:
1. The wife must be the same as the husband in life, nature, and expression.
2. Among the cattle, the birds, and the animals, Adam did not find a counter-part for himself, one that could match him.
B. In order to produce a counterpart for Himself, God first became a man, as typi-fied 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 f lesh 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. In the Bible sleep often refers to death—1 Cor. 15:18; 1 Thes. 4:13-16; John 11:11-14.
3. 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).
4. Through Christ's death the divine life within Him was released, and through His resurrection His released divine life was imparted into His believers for the constituting of the church.
5. 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. "Jehovah God built the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman and brought her to the man"—Gen. 2:22:
1. The rib taken from Adam's opened side typifies the unbreakable, indestruc-tible eternal life of Christ (Heb. 7:16; John 19:32-33, 36; Exo. 12:46; Psa. 34:20), which flowed out of His pierced side (John 19:34) to impart life to His believers for the producing and building up of the church as His coun-terpart:
a. Out of Christ's side came blood and water, but all that came out of Adam's side was the rib without the blood.
b. At Adam's time there was no need of redemption through the blood, be-cause there was no sin.
c. However, by the time that Christ was "sleeping" on the cross, there was the problem of sin; thus, the blood that came out of Christ's side was for our judicial redemption.
d. Following the blood, the water came out, which is the f lowing life of God for our organic salvation (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4; Num. 20:8); this divine, flowing, uncreated life is typified by the rib taken out of Adam's side (Rom. 5:10).
2. 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; 1Pet. 1:3.
3. The church as the real Eve is the totality of Christ in all His believers; the church is the reproduction of Christ; other than Christ's element, there should be no other element in the church—Gen. 5:2.
4. 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:
a. We need to put off all the natural life until the living Christ can be ex-pressed from within our spirit; then we will be the church in reality— Col. 3:10-11.
b. To live out anything other than Christ is not the church; "it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20); "to me, to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21)—this is the church!
c. Only that which comes out of Christ can be recognized by Christ; only that which comes out of Christ can return to Christ and match Him.
5. At the end of the Bible is a city, New Jerusalem, the ultimate and eternal woman, the corporate bride, the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:9; 22:17) built with three precious materials (21:18-21), fulfilling for eternity the type shown in Genesis 2; thus, in type all the precious materials mentioned in Genesis 2:11-12 are for the building of the woman.
6. As Eve was taken out of Adam and brought back to Adam to be one f lesh with him (v. 24), so the church produced out of Christ will go back to Christ (Eph. 5:27; Rev. 19:7) to be one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17); Christ and the church as one spirit, typified by a husband and wife as one flesh, are the great mystery (Eph. 5:28-32).
7. In the future, Christ as the holy Bridegroom will present us to Himself as His counterpart for His marriage just as God presented Eve to Adam as his counterpart for his marriage—vv. 27, 31-32; Gen. 2:22-24; Rev. 19:7-9:
a. Ephesians 5:27 reveals the beauty of the bride, saying that Christ will "present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish."
b. The beauty of the bride comes from the very Christ who is wrought into the church and who is then expressed through the church—v. 26; Psa. 45:9-14.
c. The Lord's recovery is for the preparation of the bride of Christ, who is composed of all the overcomers—Rev. 19:7-9; Gen. 2:22; Matt. 16:18.
E. "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 f lesh"—Gen. 2:23-24:
1. In Hebrew Man is Ish, and Woman is Ishshah; the church is a pure product out of Christ; the church is "Christly," "resurrectionly," and heavenly.
2. Only those who are regenerated of Christ and who live by Christ as the church can match Christ and complement Him.
3. When Christ sees this, He surely says, "This time this is bone of My bones and flesh of My flesh"—cf. v. 23; Eph. 5:30.
4. Just as Evewas theincreaseofAdam, thechurch as thebride is thein-crease of Christ as the Bridegroom—John 3:29-30.
5. Adam and Eve becoming one flesh, a complete unit, is a figure of God and man being joined as one; the coming New Jerusalem will be the eternal union of God and man, a universal couple as a complete unit composed of divinity and humanity—cf. Gen. 5:2.
F. Adam and Eve, being one, lived a married life together as husband and wife (2:24-25); this portrays that in the New Jerusalem the processed and consum-mated redeeming Triune God as the universal Husband will live a married life with the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity as the wife, forever (Rev. 22:17a):
1. The entire revelation of the Bible shows us the love story of a universal couple.
2. The sovereign Lord, who created the universe and all things, that is, the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—who went through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascen-sion, and who ultimately became the life-giving Spirit, is joined in marriage to the created, redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite man—composed of spirit, soul, and body—who ultimately constitutes the church, the expression of God.
3. In the eternity that is without end, by the divine, eternal, and surpassingly glorious life, they will live a life that is the mingling of God and man as one spirit, a life that is superexcellent and that overflows with blessings and joy.