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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:21, 26-28, 31; Matt. 6:10; Col. 1:15; Rom. 8:29; 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2; Luke 10:19; Rev. 2:26-27; Gen. 2:10-12, 18-24
Life is for the expression of God. There is the need of life because God’s intention is to express Himself, and life is the means to express God. In creation all the lower lives are for the higher lives, all the higher lives are for the highest created life, and this highest life is for the divine life. Man as the highest created life is living to express God. We must remember that man is according to God’s kind. Man is not in his likeness but in God’s likeness. Man is not in his image but in God’s image. James tells us that man uses his tongue not only to bless the Lord but also to “curse men, who have been made according to the likeness of God” (3:9). We have to realize that all men have been made according to the likeness of God, so we should not despise any man. First Corinthians 11:7 says, “A man ought not to have his head covered, since he is God’s image and glory.” Man was made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26) to express God and glorify Him. We may say that God is our glory, but this verse says that we are God’s glory. We may realize that God is our glory and may want to experience God as our glory, but we also have to realize that we are God’s glory because we are going to express God by His life. Without life, man can never express God. Thus, life is the means for us to express God. The plant life and the animal life are for the human life, for us to live for God. The human life, the highest created life, is for the divine life, the uncreated life.
Man was created not only to express God but also to represent God. We have been committed, entrusted, with God’s authority. This means that God has authorized us to be His representatives. Thus, we have dominion over all things on earth except God (v. 26). God is above us; we are under God, but we are above everything else. We are above the things in the water, the things on the earth, and the things in the air. Man is the real commander in chief of the land, of the sea, and of the air, and he was made to represent God by life.
God’s eternal purpose is to have Himself expressed through the created human life, but Satan came in to frustrate this. He did everything he could to damage God’s purpose, to frustrate God from accomplishing His eternal intention. There is a struggle, a war, in the universe between Satan and God. God’s direction is toward the expression of Himself, and Satan’s direction is against this. Thus, in this universe there are two directions: the divine direction and the satanic direction. These two directions contradict each other. God is going to fulfill His purpose, and Satan is doing everything he can to frustrate God’s purpose. This is the unique war and struggle in the entire universe, and this war is also going on within us. Within us there is a struggle between Satan and God. God wants to express Himself through us, and Satan is doing everything to frustrate this.
Before man was created, Satan rebelled against God and ruined and even usurped the earth. In a sense, the right of God on this earth has been robbed by Satan. The earth was and still is, in a sense, under the usurping hand of the enemy (1 John 5:19). There is no problem for God in the heavens, but there is a real problem for God on this earth. This is why the Lord Jesus prayed, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth” (Matt. 6:10). There is no problem for God’s will in heaven, but there is a real problem for God’s will on this earth. This is why we need to pray that the Father’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. The real problem is that Satan today is usurping the earth. The earth is under his usurping hand. This is why God said in Genesis 1 that the life that resembles Him has to conquer the earth, to subdue the earth (v. 28). The earth has to be subdued and conquered because of the rebellion against God on this earth instigated by Satan. The rebellious earth needs to be conquered by man living with God’s life. To conquer, to subdue, the earth we need the divine life.
Genesis 1:26 tells us that man was to have dominion “over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Among the creeping things is the serpent. The serpent signifies Satan, the devil, who is the leader of the creeping things (cf. Luke 10:19). To have dominion over the creeping things means to rule over Satan. To conquer means to conquer the rebellion of Satan. Since God is almighty, all powerful, it would be easy for Him to get rid of Satan on His own. But God would not get rid of Satan directly by Himself. God wanted another creature, man, to be used by Him to get rid of Satan. Thus, the human life is the means for God to get rid of Satan.
In His creation of man, God desires to accomplish two things: He wants to express Himself, and He wants to get rid of His enemy, Satan. God uses man to express Himself and to get rid of Satan.
Genesis 1:26 tells us that man was made in the image of God. On the one hand, the Bible tells us clearly that God is invisible, yet on the other hand, the Bible tells us also that God has an image. In Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let Us make man in Our image,” but verse 27 says that God created man “in His own image.” Verse 26 uses the plural pronoun our, and verse 27 uses the singular pronoun His, showing that man was made in the image of the Triune God. Colossians 1:15 tells us that Christ is the image of the invisible God. Thus, man was created according to Christ because Christ is the image of God.
God’s intention is that we would be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). Second Corinthians 3:18 tells us that we have to be transformed into the Lord’s image from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. We were made in the Triune God’s image, which is Christ, and eventually we will become God’s image. We have received Christ into us, and He is gradually transforming us into His image. In eternity as the New Jerusalem, all God’s redeemed people will be fully conformed to the image of God’s Son to express God to the uttermost. Christ is the image of God, so He is the model, the pattern, the mold. When clay or dough is put into a mold, it is conformed to the image of that mold. We were made according to Christ, and we have received Christ into us so that we may actually be transformed and conformed into the image of Christ to eventually express Christ in His image in eternity. In eternity we will be absolutely like Him. First John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” God’s purpose will be fulfilled when we are fully transformed and conformed into His image. At that time, we will be fully one with God and fully according to God’s kind. We will be God’s expression, fully expressing Him in His image.
Furthermore, God’s intention is for man to represent Him with His authority. He desires that man would reign in His life (Rom. 5:17). After the resurrection the Lord Jesus told the disciples that all authority had been given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). Because all the authority had been given to Him, Christ as the heavenly King sent His disciples to go and disciple all the nations (v. 19). We as His disciples go with His authority. Christ has given us not only His power but also His authority to rule over Satan. In Luke 10:19 the Lord said, “Behold, I have given you the authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Serpents may signify Satan and his angels (Eph. 2:2; 6:11-12); scorpions may signify the demons (Luke 10:17, 20). The disciples subdued their evil power by the authority of the Lord.
One day the overcomers will have the authority to rule over the earth, just as Christ has such authority. Revelation 2:26-27 says, “He who overcomes and he who keeps My works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he will shepherd them with an iron rod, as vessels of pottery are broken in pieces, as I also have received from My Father.” Psalm 2:8-9 tells us that God gave Christ authority to rule over the nations; here in Revelation 2 Christ gives the same authority to His overcomers. Revelation 20:4-5 tells us that the overcomers are sitting upon thrones, and authority to judge has been given to them. These overcomers reign with Christ for a thousand years. The resurrection of kingship is a reward to the overcomers that they may reign as co-kings with Christ in the millennial kingdom (cf. v. 6). Finally, all God’s redeemed will “reign forever and ever” (22:5) as the constituents of the New Jerusalem. To reign forever will be the final blessing to God’s redeemed in eternity.
We have seen that God’s desire is for man to be filled with His life so that man might express Him in His image and represent Him with His dominion. God’s desire for man to express Him and for man to have dominion over His enemy can be realized only by God’s life. Thus, we see in Genesis 2 that God placed man in front of the tree of life with the intention that man would take God as life into himself (vv. 8-9). Genesis 2 also says that a river went forth from Eden to water the garden (v. 10), showing that when we partake of God as life, we are brought into the fellowship, the flow, of this life.
The issue of the flow of life as seen in Genesis 2 is gold, bdellium (a kind of pearl), and onyx stone (vv. 11-12). As we enjoy the Triune God, the flow of the divine life within us, we are transformed into precious materials for God’s building in the entire universe. The issue of the flow is transformation and building.
The three precious materials in Genesis correspond to the three persons of the Godhead. Gold typifies God the Father in His divine nature. When we were saved, we were born of the Father, and the Father’s divine nature was imparted into us. We have become partakers of God the Father’s divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4).
To consider the significance of pearls, we need to consider how a pearl is formed. First, an oyster is wounded by a particle of sand. This particle lodges in the wound of the oyster, and the oyster secretes its life-juice around the sand to produce a pearl. A particle of sand is changed into a pearl through the process of secretion. This depicts Christ as the living One coming into the death waters, being wounded by us, and secreting His life over us to make us precious pearls for the building of God’s eternal expression. Christ was the real, living oyster who came into the death waters. He was wounded for our transgressions, and we believed in His redemptive death. Thus, He was able to secrete His life over us for us to become pearls. On the one hand, we have the blood of Christ to cleanse us, and on the other hand, we have the life of Christ secreting all the time into us and upon us to make us pearls for God’s building.
Precious stones are produced through a tremendous amount of pressure and heat. When a black piece of coal is subjected to tremendous amounts of pressure and heat over a period of many years, it will be transformed into a diamond. In a sense, we are like the black coal, and we are under the pressure and in the oven. Job, David, and all the saints who followed the Lord in the way of His heart’s desire passed through the heat and pressure so that they could be transformed into precious stones. All the sufferings that Job went through were measured by God. God allowed Satan to go only so far with Job. There was a limit as to what Job would pass through. All of us have to pass through the pressure and the heat. Then we will be transformed into precious stones.
Apart from the Lord we human beings are not stone but vessels of clay. Clay is good only for making bricks, which are pieces of clay that have been burnt. In the Bible the buildings built up by Satan were built with bricks, such as Babel (Gen. 11:3-4) and the storage cities of Egypt (Exo. 1:11, 14). On the other hand, the building built up by God is built with precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12; Rev. 21:19-20). In Matthew 16 when Simon Peter recognized the Lord as the Christ and as the Son of the living God, the Lord changed his name from Simon Bar-jona to Peter, which means “a stone,” material for God’s building (1 Pet. 2:5). Originally, Simon was a man of clay, but the Lord changed him into a living stone. Eventually, we believers are all the living stones to be transformed into precious stones. How much transformation we need!
The work of the Holy Spirit in our environment is to burn us and press us. Whether we like this or not, we need it, and the Holy Spirit has to do it. The Holy Spirit day by day is burning us and putting some pressure upon us. When a brother gets married, he gets into the oven. The husband becomes the oven to the wife, and the wife becomes the oven to the husband. The wife and the husband burn each other. Furthermore, the husband many times is not a pleasure to the wife but a pressure, and the wife is a real pressure to the husband. When a couple has children, these little ones increase the pressure and the heat. All the married brothers and sisters know what I am talking about. This is the Lord’s way to transform us. The Triune God is working within us and on us to transform us into gold, pearls, and precious stones. This transformation is for the preparation of the bride of Christ, for the building up of the church.
The church cannot be built up by doctrinal teachings or by organization. The church can come into being only by the flowing of the divine life that transforms us into gold, pearls, and precious stones. Without the experience and enjoyment of the inner flow of life in the midst of an environment of heat and pressure, we will remain men of clay. Clay is not the proper material for God’s heavenly, spiritual, and divine building work. A local church cannot be realized by teaching or by organization. The only way that a local church can be built up is by life. This is why we must stress and focus on the divine life all the time. We must try our best by His mercy and grace to minister life to others. We have to eat the tree of life and drink the river of water of life day after day so that we can be transformed into precious material. What the church needs today is the ministry of life. Life is the only means, the only way, for the church to be built up.
In Genesis 2 there is the picture of how the bride of Christ comes into being. Before God prepared a bride for Adam, He brought all the animals to Adam, and Adam named each one. But none of these created things matched Adam, and they could not be his counterpart (vv. 19-20). Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam (v. 21). Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14), and his sleep is a type of Christ’s death. In the Bible sleep means death (1 Cor. 15:18; 1 Thes. 4:13-16; John 11:11-14).
During Adam’s sleep, God took one of his ribs from his side. Likewise, when Christ was sleeping on the cross, something came out of His side. John 19:34 tells us that when the soldier pierced His side, out came blood and water. At Adam’s time there was no sin, so there was no need of redemption. It was not until Genesis 3 that sin came in. Thus, all that came out of Adam’s side was the rib without the blood. However, by the time that Christ was sleeping on the cross, there was the problem of sin. Thus, His death must deal with this sin problem. The blood came out of Christ’s side for redemption. Following the blood, the water came out, which is the flowing life to produce the church. This divine, flowing, uncreated life is typified by the rib taken out of Adam’s side.
When the Lord Jesus was dying on the cross, two others were dying with Him. Their legs were broken, but when the soldiers came to the Lord Jesus, He was already dead, and there was no need to break His bones. This fulfilled the prophecy that not one of His bones would be broken (John 19:31-33). Thus, the bone taken out of Adam’s side signifies the Lord’s unbroken, unbreakable, resurrection life. His resurrection life is unbreakable. The rib taken out of Adam signifies the resurrection life, and God built a woman with the rib of Adam. Now God builds up the church with the resurrection life of Christ. Just as Eve was a part of Adam, so the church is a part of Christ. Eve was bone of Adam’s bones and flesh of Adam’s flesh. Today we as the church are a part of Christ (Eph. 5:30-32). This marvelous revelation can be seen by comparing Genesis 2, John 19, and Ephesians 5.
When we received the Lord Jesus, He came into us as the resurrection life, the unbreakable life. It is this life that transforms us. This life is the tree of life, the river of life, the very life that supplies us and that flows within us to transform us. Day by day as we enjoy this flowing, divine, uncreated, unbreakable life, we are being transformed. This transformation is mentioned and revealed in Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18. As we are being transformed, we are also being built into the church to be the bride to satisfy Christ as His counterpart. At the end of Genesis 2 is Eve, and at the end of the entire Bible is the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate Eve, the ultimate consummation of the universal bride built up with precious materials produced by the resurrection life of Christ.
The life seen in Genesis 2 is the flowing life, the transforming life, and the building life. This life flows within us, transforms us, and eventually builds us up as the bride of Christ. This bride, the New Jerusalem, will fulfill the two aspects of the purpose of God. First, the New Jerusalem will be the full expression of God in God’s full image (Rev. 21:11 cf. 4:3). Second, this New Jerusalem will subdue the enemy, conquer the earth, and exercise God’s authority over the entire universe, especially over the creeping things (22:5; 21:15; cf. v. 8; 20:10, 14-15). God’s dominion will be realized on the whole earth through the New Jerusalem. Thus, God’s purpose is fully fulfilled by the New Jerusalem, which is the result, the issue, the ultimate consummation of life. What we believers need is life, and this life is nothing less than the Triune God Himself, the Father in the Son and the Son as the Spirit. May we all be brought into the enjoyment and experience of this flowing, transforming, and building life to be prepared as the bride that will bring Christ back.
