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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26-28; Psa. 8:4-8; Heb. 2:6-9; 2 Cor. 4:4-6; Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10-11
In the previous chapter we have seen the main items in Genesis 1, the first chapter of the Scriptures. We have seen that the direction of God’s creation is toward the goal of life. On the first day there was no life. There was only the Spirit of God coming to shine, to move, to brood, and to bring light into darkness. When the light came, there was the dividing.
On the third day there was the dividing of the land from the waters. With the land there is life, and with the waters there is death. With the land there are the riches of life and the beauty of life. The third day is a symbol of the resurrection life. It is a day of resurrection. On the third day all the different kinds of life — grass, herbs, trees — came into being. All these kinds of life came into being on the land, through the land, and from the land.
The land that is recovered from the burial of the waters of death typifies Christ resurrected from death. He is the all-inclusive land. With Him there are the riches of life. All the herbs, the trees, the flowers, and the plants are figures of the riches of Christ Himself as life. Christ is rich in life like all the plants. Whenever you see a flower that is so beautiful and the trees and grass that are so green, you have to realize that all these things are signs, types, figures, of the very Christ of God. He is rich in life. He is the One who was resurrected on the third day. He is the One who was buried into the depths of death, yet He was raised up. He was recovered. He was resurrected from the dead to show that He is the Lord of life, the Author of life (Acts 3:15). With Him there are the riches of life.
On the third day with the land we can also see the beauty of life. The flowers reveal the beauty of Christ expressed in His life. No one can exhaust speaking about the varieties of flowers in their beauty. All these flowers are figures of the beauties of Christ as life to us. This is something revealed and taught by the Scriptures. Song of Songs 1:14 mentions the henna flower, an Old World plant with which Jewish girls beautified themselves. Christ is a cluster of henna flowers. He is beautiful. Not only so, in Song of Songs 1:13 Christ is likened to a bundle of myrrh. Myrrh signifies the sweetness, the sweet smell, of Christ. Christ is so sweet to us. Christ is life to us in beauty and in sweetness.
In the second chapter of Song of Songs, Christ is likened to an apple tree (v. 3). With Him there is the shadow under which we are covered from the sunshine to enjoy rest, and with Him there is the fruit that we can taste for our satisfaction. In the fifth chapter of Song of Songs, Christ is likened to the cedars (v. 15). Cedars are big trees grown on the mountains of Lebanon. They signify the greatness of Christ. The plants — the trees, the grass, the flowers — are figures of Christ as life to us. He is so beautiful, so sweet, so great, and so rich!
We are told that most of these plants produced from the land on the third day were the plants yielding fruit. This means that they yield food for the life supply. Revelation 22:2 says that the tree of life produces twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month. Christ as life to us is not only beautiful, sweet, and rich but also supplying what we need all the time. Thus, we can see that the land recovered on the third day is an all-inclusive type of Christ, and all the plants produced from the land represent the different aspects of Christ as life to us.
On the fourth day there were the greater lights, the embodied lights. This means that there was more light and thus more life would be produced. So on the fifth day we see the stronger life in its riches and beauties. This is a life that can live in salty water, that is, in an environment of death. This is another aspect of Christ being life to us.
In the sight of God, human society today is like a sea of death, a dead sea. Some American friends once asked me if I appreciated Los Angeles. I said, “Yes, I do, but you have to realize what Los Angeles is in the eyes of God. It is nothing but a dead sea, a sea full of death.” Not only a big city but even a small village is a small part of the dead sea. However, Christ can live in this environment of death. If you have Christ as life, you can live in this dead sea. You can live in this salty water yet not be salted, not be affected or influenced by death.
When I first went to Shanghai, the biggest city in China, some people took me to the main street of the city and said, “Brother Lee, look at all these attractive and sinful stores. Are you not afraid that you will be affected?” I said, “Brothers, as far as myself is concerned, I am afraid. But as far as Christ is concerned, I am not afraid, because Christ is living within me all the time. He can live in the environment of death, yet He cannot be affected. He can never be influenced by anything of death.” This is just like the fish. They can live in the salty water, but they can never be salted unless they are killed.
On the fifth day there was also a life that can fly. It is a life that is transcendent, a life that is above all. Nothing can suppress it, nothing can retain it, and nothing can hold it. This signifies Christ as life to us.
On the sixth day God created the cattle and the beasts of the earth. This is the life that can do something for man. The life of a dog is much stronger than that of a fish. Then there is the highest life among the creatures, which is the human life. This is a life that not only can live in death, be transcendent, work for God, and do the will of God but also can express and represent God. This is a life with the image of God and the authority of God. It is at this point that God rested.
The completion of God’s work is a life with His image and His authority. We may have thought that God rested because He had finished His work. But as long as there is not a life with the image and authority of God, there is no rest for God. God is still working today in the New Testament age because there is the lack of such a life that is full of His image and His authority. The goal, the aim, of the Lord’s work is to gain a life that can express Him and represent Him in a full way. If there is such a life, there is the completion of the work of God, and God can have the rest, the Sabbath.
We need to see the picture of God’s creation. It starts with the things without life, the inanimate things. Then gradually it goes on to different stages of life. First, it is the vegetable life, which is the lower life, a life without consciousness. Then it goes on to the higher life with a low consciousness. This includes the life of the fish, the birds, and even the cattle, the beasts, and the creeping things. Eventually, there is the highest life of the creatures with the highest consciousness. That is the human life, a life that can express and represent God. The central thought of God is to bring life to us so that we can bear His image and have His authority.
We have also seen Christ typified in Genesis 1. On the first day there are the Spirit of Christ, Christ as the word, and Christ as the light. On the second day there is the cross of Christ. On the third day there is the all-inclusive Christ as the land with all the riches and beauties of life. On the fourth day there is Christ as the sun with the moon, including all the stars, as a corporate, collective reflector of Christ. On the fifth day there is the stronger life for the expression of Christ, and on the sixth day there is an even stronger aspect of Christ as life. Eventually, there is a man as the all-inclusive figure of Christ. Christ as a man is the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45).
Adam was created in the image of God. God is invisible, yet He has an image. His image is Christ Himself (Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:4). Thus, Adam was created according to Christ. Adam was copied according to Christ, so he was a copy of Christ. The image of God is the expression of God. Christ as the image of God is the declaration, the expression, of God. He declares God and expresses God (John 1:18). Because Adam was created according to Christ and is a copy of Christ, we may say that he was the duplication and multiplication of Christ.
As the descendants of Adam, we are duplicates of Christ because we were made in the image of God. This means that we were made according to Christ in the expression of God. We are the copies, the duplication, the multiplication, of Christ. God created man because He had the intention to have Christ multiplied, increased, copied, duplicated. This is the very thought of God.
God’s intention, God’s desire, is to duplicate, to multiply, Christ, the expression of God. Christ was the only begotten Son of God from eternity, and in resurrection He became the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). He was the very image of God, but now He is the first one of many images of God. After God’s creation, there is the duplication, the multiplication, of Christ. God created man, and that man is Christ in image and likeness.
Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2:6-9 show that the man referred to in Genesis 1 is Christ. Christ is a man. God is mindful of man and remembers man because man is the figure of Christ and the multiplication of Christ. God remembers nothing but Christ. God remembers you because you are the image, the expression, of Christ. God is mindful of you because you are one aspect of Christ, a duplicate of Christ, a copy of Christ. God remembers you not because of yourself but because of Christ. If you have nothing to do with Christ, God has no interest in you and will discard you. But God has a lot of interest in you because of Christ. The first time that the Bible mentions something about man is in Genesis 1:26-28. Later on, in Hebrews 2:6-9, we are told that the man mentioned in Genesis 1 is Christ Himself. This is something mysterious. We have to see the central thought of God; then we will know what man is.
Man as a duplicate and figure of Christ was committed with the authority of God. God is the Head with the headship, but God committed His headship to this very man. He put everything under the control of this man, and this man in figure is Christ, who is the expression of God and the authority of God, the representative of God.
Why do we Christians have to realize the order of God’s headship? It is simply because we know something about man. Man is the duplicate and multiplication of Christ. With Christ, there is the authority of God, so we are under authority and have the order of authority. If you are not under authority, you can never exercise authority. If you are going to be the authority, you have to be under authority. If you can subject yourself to the authority of God, you can exercise the authority of God. Christ is the expression of God and the representative of God with the full authority of God’s headship.
At the time of Genesis 1 God did not gain the real man of His desire. When the church is brought into existence, the church with the Head, Christ, is that real man. Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10 tell us that the real man is the new man. The church as the new man is the real man created according to the image of God.
Adam was just a figure, not the real man. The real man is the church. Adam had the form of Christ, but he did not have the life of Christ. Adam was just a photograph of Christ, without the life of Christ. Today the church has not only the form, the appearance, of Christ but also Christ as the living One, as life. The church with Christ as life is the real man that God is after.
The central thought of God is to have such a man with the appearance, the form, the life, and everything of Christ. This is the new man, the real man. The human race is a figure because it just has the form, the appearance, of Christ, not the life, the substance, and nature of Christ. But today we as the church have not only the appearance, the form, of Christ but also the life, the nature, and the substance of Christ. As a member of the new man, we can say that we are Christ in life and in nature.
Actually, we were created when Adam was. On the one hand, God created one man, but on the other hand, millions were included in that one man. Therefore, what God created was not just an individual man but a collective man, a corporate man, a man including millions of sons and daughters. The new man is the church with many persons as a corporate, collective Body. Thus, in His creation God created a corporate man, and in His redemption He created a new man, which is the church. The man created in God’s creation was just a man in form. That was not the real man. But the man created in God’s redemption is the real man, the church. The church as the real man not only has the form, the appearance, of Christ but also the life, the nature, and the substance of Christ.
Therefore, in Genesis 1 we have Christ as everything. We also have Christ as the image, the expression, and the definition of God. Then we have the church, the Body, as the corporate expression of Christ. This is the central thought of God.
Since the fall, man has had a wrong concept of always wanting to do something for God, to work for God, but we have to give up this thought. We have to be corrected and adjusted. We have to see that the central thought of God is not that we do something for God or that we work for God. Rather, the central thought of God concerning us is that He can make us a part of Christ and that He can work Christ into us.
In the old creation we had only the form, the appearance, of Christ. We were the duplication, the multiplication, of Christ in form, in appearance. We had neither the life of Christ nor the reality of Christ. Now in regeneration, God works Christ into us as life and as reality. What God desires is to make us the very living image, duplication, multiplication, of Christ. We have to give up all thoughts of doing anything for God or working for God. Rather, we must see that we have to be worked on by God. We are not the workmen of God but the workmanship of God (Eph. 2:10). We are in the hand of God to be worked on by God so that we may be the expression, the image, of Christ both in form and in reality. Hence, we need to be stopped from all kinds of work, even Christian work. We have to be broken and emptied so that we may be wrought with Christ by the Spirit. God’s central thought is to have Christ as everything to us so that we, as the Body of Christ, can be the expression, the image, of Christ.
About twenty years ago I was very busy with the Lord’s work. I was working all the time, day and night. At a certain point, the Lord put a stop to my work. At that time, I was really troubled. I asked the Lord, “Lord, what is this? I worked for You day and night. Why did You stop me from working for You?” In the first month I did not understand. The more I prayed, “Lord, deliver me from all the troubles,” the more troubles came. Physically, I was very ill; mentally, I was very perplexed; and financially, I was put into a terrible condition. One day the Lord said to me, “Do you want to know why I brought you into such a circumstance and why these things are happening to you? It is simply because you worked too much and did too much. Your concept is to do all the time, but what you need is not to do but to be done away with. It is not a matter of your working for Me but a matter of your being worked on by Me. You have to stop. To work for Me is not My central thought. This is not My mind. My mind is to have you worked on by Me. What is the measure of Christ in you? How much has Christ been wrought into you?” On that day, I could do nothing but prostrate myself before the Lord and confess that I had only a small measure of the fullness of Christ.
May the Lord reveal to you that the central thought of God is to make you a part of Christ and to make Christ everything to you in a very practical and living way, not in the way of doctrine or knowledge. How much have you realized Christ as your life? How much do you have of the measure of Christ? Your thought is to work, to preach, to teach, to do something for the Lord. But you have to realize that the central thought of God is to have Christ wrought into you.
Today’s Christianity has very little measure of Christ. There are a lot of activities, a great deal of work, and different kinds of movements, but there is only a small measure of Christ. This is not something of the mind of God. We have to realize that in God’s creation, the direction, the goal, is Christ as life and everything to us that we may be wrought by God with Christ to be the very expression, duplication, and multiplication of Christ in form, appearance, life, and reality.
In His creation God did not tell man to do anything. Man was created in the image of God and then committed by God with His divine authority. Man had a life with the image of God to express God and with the authority of God to represent God, not a life to do something or to work something for God. Many times when you meet some Christians, you have the sense that they are busy people working for God. They are diligent and faithful. But you do not sense the expression and the authority of God. On the other hand, with some saints, it seems that they are not so busy and not so diligent working for God, yet you sense the expression of God and the authority of God. You have the sense that God is with them. They are people full of the presence of God. Whenever you meet them, you sense the expression and the headship, the authority, of God. This is what God is after.
May the Lord be merciful to us that we may see the central thought of God, that is, to have Christ wrought into us that we may become a part of Christ for God to have Himself expressed in us and to have His authority exercised through us.
