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Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:4-25
From the previous chapters we realize that the life of man, the highest life among the creatures, is a life with the image of God and with the authority of God, so this life can bring rest to God. This is because this life can subdue the earth and all things on this earth. To subdue all things is to bring them under the control of God, in subjection to God. This means that before this subduing, there must have been something in this universe and on this earth that was against God and needed to be subdued.
Genesis 1:28 tells us that God charged man to subdue the earth, not the waters or the air. This is because on this earth there was the serpent, the head of the creeping things. In Genesis 3 the serpent spoiled the man whom God created. God’s intention is to have man wrought with His image and entrusted with His authority to represent Him on this earth and to subdue the earth with all the enemies, the creeping things. This will bring the earth and all things on the earth into subjection to God to bring rest to God. Rest implies satisfaction. It is when God can rest and is satisfied that His work is completed. This is the central thought of God. What God is seeking after today is a life that can bring Him rest.
Are you satisfied with your Christian life and with your church life? If you are not satisfied, how can God be satisfied? It is only when you are living a life with the image of God to express God and with the authority of God to represent God and subdue the enemies of God that you have rest and God has rest with you. Then you are satisfied, and God is also satisfied. This is the center of the divine mind. It is not your work and doings. I am afraid that the more you work, the more you will lose your rest and satisfaction. The more you try to do good or do something for God, the more you will be dissatisfied. We are being called to realize the central thought of God. If we will give up ourselves to enjoy Christ as everything to us, we will have the proper church life. Then we will have rest and be satisfied. When we are satisfied, God also is satisfied.
After man was created, on the one hand, God rested, but on the other hand, God’s work was not completed because man did not yet have the divine life. Up to that point, man had the form and the appearance of God but not the life and nature, the substance, of God. In Genesis 1 there are the created lives in different degrees, but in Genesis 2 there is the unique and highest life, the divine life, the uncreated life, signified by the tree of life. Adam was made as the highest life among the created lives, but he did not have the divine life at the time of creation. God’s intention was that Adam would take God as his life. Without the divine life being accepted, received, realized, and experienced by man, man can never be the expression and representative of God.
Man was made as a vessel to contain God as life. The human life is the vessel, but the divine life, the life that is God Himself, is the real life, the life that is able to express God and to represent God to exercise the authority to subdue all the enemies of God. After the first chapter of Genesis until the end of the whole Scripture, the primary matter is that the man created by God must receive God as his divine life. Hence, immediately after man was created, God put man in front of the tree of life with the intention that man would receive the tree of life as his food, his life supply. The tree of life is a symbol of God being our life and life supply.
The Lord told us repeatedly in the Gospel of John that we have to believe into Him and receive Him that we may have the eternal life, the life which is God Himself (1:4, 12-13; 3:15-16, 36; 11:25; 14:6). The Lord’s word here is related to Genesis 2 and Revelation 21 and 22. After man’s creation, the first thing, the primary thing, for man to pay attention to is to receive God as his life.
The second thing is that we have to be transformed into the image of God day by day in, by, and with the life of God so that we can be the expression of God. God has no intention to ask us to do anything for Him. We should give up that concept. God’s intention is for us to be vessels to contain Him. We should not be the doing or working Christians but the receiving Christians, the eating Christians, and the drinking Christians. We have to receive God, feed on God in Christ, and drink of Christ as the Spirit. We have to be filled with God. God can do everything, but He cannot be a vessel for Himself. He needs us to be His vessels. As His vessels, we need to receive, enjoy, eat, and drink God in Christ and by the Spirit.
After God created man, He did not tell him how to behave. God did not tell man to do anything except to take care of his eating. We have to pay full attention to what we eat. If we eat rightly, we will be in God’s intention. If we eat wrongly, we will be usurped by God’s enemy. After Adam was created, God did not say, “Adam, you have to be patient, be humble, love others, and make sure that you love your wife.” Neither did God tell Eve, “Eve, you have to be clear that as a wife, you have to be submissive to your husband.” God did not give them any commandment concerning their outward behavior. He simply told them to be careful about what they ate.
We have to receive, to eat, of the tree of life, which is to take Christ in as our life and life supply. In the Gospel of John, the Lord told us to believe into Him (3:15-16; 14:12), to love Him (vv. 15, 21, 23), to abide in Him (15:4-7), to eat Him (6:51, 57), and to drink Him (4:14; 7:37). As long as we experience and enjoy Christ by feeding on Him, receiving Him, and drinking of Him, we will be a satisfaction and a rest to God. When we are satisfied, God is satisfied. When we are at rest, God is at rest.
In the first chapter of Genesis there are the created lives in different degrees, but in the second chapter there is the divine life as the unique life, which is God Himself to be received, realized, and experienced by the created man. In this chapter we are told that man was an earthen vessel made of clay, of dust. Second Corinthians 4:7 says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” God Himself is the treasure, and we are the earthen vessels. Romans 9 also says that we are vessels to contain God (vv. 21, 23).
We are living vessels, living souls, with a spirit as the organ to receive Christ. Our body is a vessel with a stomach as an organ by which we can contain, receive, and digest food. Similarly, we were made as a vessel to contain God with an organ to receive God. This organ is our spirit. Man was made out of the dust with a body as the outward vessel, with a living soul as the personality, and with a spirit as the organ to receive God. God put this man at the “divine table” with the intention that he would eat the tree of life to receive the divine life as his life and life supply. This is the central thought of God. Our spiritual hunger is a sign that we need more of God, that we have to receive God once more as our life supply. We have to exercise our spirit to contact God in Christ through the Spirit. We need to eat the fruit of the tree of life not just once but all the time.
After being created, Adam was short of two things. First, he was short of the divine life within, and second, he was short of a wife, a counterpart, to match him without. Adam was created in a complete form, but he was not completed. He needed to be completed by receiving God and by having a wife. Thus, in Genesis 2, God revealed to us that man was created completely as a vessel. However, he still needed to be completed with the divine life and with a counterpart, a helpmate, a wife. Adam needed to receive God as life into him to be filled with God. Then eventually, he would have a bride (vv. 18-23).
After we have received God in Christ as life to us, and after we have realized, experienced, enjoyed, and appropriated God as life to us, what will come out eventually will be the bride of Christ. The last item of the whole Scripture is a bride (Rev. 21:2, 9; 22:17). The holy city, the New Jerusalem, is the bride of the Lamb as the wife, the counterpart, of Christ. John the Baptist told us that Christ is both the Lamb (John 1:29) and the Bridegroom who will marry the bride (3:29). Today Christ is preached mostly as the redeeming Lamb, but Christ as the Bridegroom is neglected. The goal of the redemption of Christ is to have a bride.
The last item of Genesis 2 is a bride, a counterpart. We need to receive Christ, experience Christ, and be filled with Christ. Then the ultimate issue, the outcome, of this experience is that we will be built up together as a corporate bride to match Christ. The more we enjoy, experience, and realize Christ, the more we will be built up together as a corporate bride to Christ.
Our nature was earthen, but after we receive Christ as life, we have Him as a precious and excellent treasure within us. Second Corinthians 4:6-7 shows that when God shines in our hearts, Christ as the treasure comes into us, the earthen vessels. This treasure is as precious as gold. In the Scriptures gold is a type of the divine nature of God. Now we have something of gold within us as our nature. This occurred at the time of our regeneration. By regeneration we received God as our nature.
We need to look at the picture in Genesis 2 to receive a revelation of God’s central thought. A man was created of dust, clay, and then he was placed before the tree of life. Beside the tree of life there was a river flowing, and in the flow of the river there was gold. Today if we receive Christ as our life, there will be a flow of the living water within us, and in this flow there is the nature of gold. In the flow of the river there were also bdellium (pearl), something that is bright, and onyx stone, which is precious. This means that after our regeneration, there will be transformation, conformation, and even glorification, which will involve a metabolic change in our spirit, soul, and body. We were made as clay, but we will be transformed into gold, pearl, and precious stones. After we are regenerated, we have the divine nature as gold. Then the Lord continues to transform us from the human form to the divine form, from clay to something as precious as gold, pearl, and onyx stone.
We can sense that some saints are precious, as the precious stone, and so bright, as the pearl. On the contrary, we can sense that other brothers and sisters are opaque and even in darkness. We cannot sense anything precious or weighty within them. They are like a piece of very thin paper, not like a piece of heavy stone. With them everything is superficial. This is because they have not experienced much transformation by the divine life within them.
After regeneration we have to be transformed from the natural form into the glorious form, the form of the divine life. We need to be transformed into the image of Christ from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). When we are transformed into the nature of gold, the nature of pearl, and the nature of the onyx stone, we will be precious material for the building up of the church as the Body, as the bride to Christ. First, we have to receive Christ; second, we have to be transformed by Christ, through Christ, and with Christ; and third, we have to be built up together as the Body, as a corporate bride to match Christ. This is the central thought of God. This is the center of God’s mind.
Many say that they have received a vision from the Bible or some revelation from the Scriptures, but I would ask, “What kind of revelation have you received?” One day a brother came to me with great excitement. He told me, “Brother Lee, I saw a great light in my Bible study this morning. I am a quick person. I think quickly, speak quickly, and act quickly. Everything with me is quick. So today the Lord revealed to me that I have to be slow.” This is not wrong, but this is not the central thought of God. You may say that you have seen some light about a certain truth or about certain gifts, but we need to see what God’s desire is. The central thought of the divine mind is that we, as living vessels to contain God, have to receive God in Christ and through the Spirit as life and the life supply into us; that we have to be transformed into gold, pearl, and precious stones; and that we have to be built up together as a living Body, a corporate bride with the nature, form, appearance, and essence of Christ as a living counterpart to match Christ. We must be controlled and directed by this light. This light will cause us to drop many other things that are less important, valuable, and weighty.
The apostle Paul told us that we must build the church with gold, silver, and precious stones. Silver stands for the same thing as pearl. In Genesis 2 there are gold, pearl, and precious stones (vv. 11-12). In 1 Corinthians 3 there are gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12). Then in Revelation 21 in the last item of the Scriptures, the holy city, the New Jerusalem, there are gold, pearl, and precious stones. The city proper and the street of the city are gold (vv. 18b, 21b). All the entrances, the twelve gates, are pearls (v. 21a), and the stones for the building up of the wall are precious stones (vv. 18-20). Thus, from the beginning to the end of the Scriptures there are three kinds of materials. These materials come into being through the flowing of the current of the divine life.
After we have been built up together with others in the very flow of the divine life, we will be a part of the counterpart of Christ. We will be living, functioning members of Christ. Then Christ will be satisfied with us, and we will be satisfied with Christ. This is what the Lord is after today.
