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Scripture Reading: Gen. 3:15, 20-21; 4:4, 26; 5:22, 24; 6:9, 14; 7:7; 12:1; 26:4; 28:12-14, 16-19; 32:28; 41:40-41
Prayer: Lord, how we thank You that You are the speaking God. You have spoken through all the generations. We worship You that You are still speaking today. How we thank You for all the divine provisions for Your speaking! Thank You that You have an oracle of all Your saints on this earth. You have given us the blood, the Spirit, and the Word. Lord, how much we trust in You. We trust in Your cleansing blood and Your anointing Spirit and Your enlightening Word. How good that we are all sitting around Your Word, even around Yourself! Lord, do visit us, and anoint every attendant. Anoint the hearts, the minds, and the spirits. Anoint the speaking and the listening. Lord, be with us throughout the meeting. Lord, meet every need. Lord, even meet Your need through the speaking. Reveal Yourself to us, and take away all the veils. Remove all the coverings that we may have a clear sky above us. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Amen.
We need a central view of God’s divine dispensation. Some Bible teachers in the past have pointed out that there are seven dispensations revealed in the Bible. The first is the dispensation of innocence, which was before Adam’s fall. The second is the dispensation of conscience, which was after the fall and to the time of Noah. The third dispensation is that of human government, which was from Noah to Abraham. The fourth is the dispensation of promise, which was from Abraham to Moses. These four dispensations are covered by one book, Genesis. The fifth dispensation is that of law, which covers the rest of the Old Testament from Exodus through Malachi. The sixth dispensation is that of grace, which covers almost the entire New Testament from John the Baptist to the second coming of Christ. The last dispensation, the seventh, is the dispensation of the kingdom, the one-thousand-year reign of Christ.
Although this teaching is right, they did not point out clearly what is the ultimate goal of all these dispensations of God. These dispensations are steps of God’s divine system and arrangement and administration. Of course, some might say that through all these dispensations God was working out His salvation. But we would ask, What is God’s salvation? Is it just to forgive us of our sins and just to bring us into heaven? Or is it something further? What is the goal of all these dispensations? What is God’s goal in His full salvation?
The entire Bible consummates in the New Jerusalem. In the first two chapters of the Bible, God clearly shows that His intention is to have a bride bearing His image, possessing His life, and being transformed and built up as a bride to match Him, to satisfy Him, and to express Him. God’s eternal intention is not just to save a group of sinners and bring them into heaven but to have a glorious bride to be His counterpart to match Him. How He is, this bride should also be. This bride will be a match to the Triune God for His expression. This is much, much greater than forgiveness of sin or going to heaven. This is to make all of us a part of God, just like a wife is a part of her husband. God is going to reach His goal through all the dispensations and complete His work of making us His counterpart. He began to work in Genesis 3, and He works through the entire Old Testament and the New Testament to reach His goal, the New Jerusalem. God’s goal is a city that will be His bride. The entire city of the New Jerusalem will be a bride. It will be a corporate bride bearing His glorious image to express Him, built up with God the Father’s nature, through God the Son’s death and resurrection, and by God the Spirit’s transformation. This city will be nourished and supplied and fed all the time with the divine life signified by the river of water of life and the tree of life. Then in the entire universe there will be such an organism to match God, to be His bride, His counterpart, to satisfy Him and express Him. This is God’s goal in His dispensations, and today the proper church life is just a miniature of this bride. Hallelujah for such a goal!
In this chapter we want to look at the book of Genesis from a bird’s-eye view. If you have such a view of Genesis, you will realize that it is composed of eight great persons with an annex. There are Adam, Abel, Enosh, Enoch, and Noah. There are also Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph as an annex to Jacob. In our life-study of Genesis we pointed out that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob depict one complete person with Joseph as an annex. So there are two groups and a total of nine great men as landmarks of the human race.
The first great landmark of the human race was Adam, who fell away from God. We should not forget that he was the first generation of mankind. He was the father of all of us, and he was made in the image of God. God intended that Adam would take the divine life into himself and that he would have the flowing of the river within him to be transformed into gold, bdellium, and onyx stone for the building up of a bride. But he fell away from God; in other words, he lost God. That was a real loss. If you lose God, you lose everything. In Genesis 2 God charged Adam to be careful about his eating. There were two categories of food. One would issue in life, and the other in death. Adam ate the wrong one. After eating the wrong tree, he realized that he was about to die. That threatened him, so he kept himself away from God’s presence and hid himself under a covering.
But God is eternal, and He would never give up His intention. After man’s fall God came in to find Adam. The first words that God spoke to fallen man were, Where are you? (3:9). After God found Adam, He gave him a promise that the seed of woman would bruise the head of the serpent (v. 15). Such a word to them was the gospel! That was good news, because after Eve and Adam had eaten of the wrong tree, they were scared and prepared to die. They thought that their destiny was nothing but death. But God spoke to them about the seed. The seed indicates life-giving. Instead of death, life was there. So this was good news! This was the gospel! This was the first preaching of the gospel in the entire universe. This gospel preaching was concerning Christ being the seed of woman. Eventually, Christ came through a virgin. He was the son of a virgin. The son of a virgin is just the seed of the woman. Surely Eve and Adam were scared, and they hated that serpent, so God promised them that the seed of woman would bruise the head of the serpent. Hallelujah for such a gospel! We know that Adam believed this gospel because he called his wife’s name Eve, indicating that she would be the mother of all living (v. 20). This is a strong sign that Adam believed in God’s promise as the gospel. Adam believed, and God also did something. He made a coat of the skin of an animal sacrifice to cover Adam (v. 21). We know that the coat of the skin of the sacrifice was a type of Christ being our righteousness. So in the first great landmark of human history, Adam, we can see the fall of man, the gospel, and redemption.
From Adam we go on to Abel. The revelation with all these great men was progressive. It was advancing from one level to another level until it reached the top. Abel was the continuation of Adam. Adam was redeemed. Abel was not only redeemed but also brought back to God through the offering typifying Christ (4:4). We too were not only redeemed but also brought back to God to contact God and to fellowship with God. Abel’s offering was not for sins. His offering was for fellowship with God. Through this offering, which is a type of Christ, he was fully accepted by God. But he suffered the persecution, the martyrdom, for God’s testimony (vv. 5-8). It is the same today. If we bear God’s testimony that we can fellowship with God through Christ, we will suffer the persecution.
From Abel we go on to Enosh. The word Enosh indicates a fragile man. I do believe that Seth, Enosh’s father, realized that they were fragile men, so he named his son Enosh, meaning “fragile, mortal man.” Enosh realized that he was weak and fragile, so he had no trust in himself. He called upon the name of Jehovah (v. 26). He did not call upon the name of God the Almighty but upon the name of Jehovah, the eternal One, the One who was, who is, and who will be, the One who is the great I Am. He is the great To Be. In the entire universe everything is vanity. Everything is not “to be.” Everything is to vanish away. Only this eternal One is To Be; only He is. He is the reality. He exists forever — yesterday, today, and forever, He is the same, without any change. He is the self-existing and ever-existing One. He is everything. Whatever we need, He is. His name is I Am.
In John 8 the Lord Jesus used the name I Am several times. In verse 24 He said, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” The Lord was saying, “To get out of sin, you must believe that I am.” In verse 58 the Lord Jesus said, “I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I am.” The Lord is the great I Am. He is Jehovah.
In Genesis 4 Enosh realized that he was weak and fragile, so he called upon the name of this ever-existing One. This means that this fragile man did not live by himself. He lived by the ever-existing One. This is like saying, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Enosh lived not by his fragile man but by the great I Am, the ever-existing, eternal Lord. How did he live this life? It was by calling on this name. So you can see that to call upon the name of the Lord is an ancient matter. It is not our invention today. We are so weak, so fragile, so easy to be broken. Just a long face from our wife can put us down. Just one half sentence from our son can break us. We are so fragile, we have no way to live, so we call upon His name. When we call upon Him, He lives for us. We are fragile, but He is so strong. So we call upon His name. Calling on the Lord’s name makes us happy, strong, and even victorious. This was the landmark of Enosh. Hallelujah for such a landmark! In human history that was the landmark of one who called upon the name of the Lord.
The revelation progresses further with Enoch. How good it is that in Enoch there was a man walking with Elohim (Gen. 5:22). Elohim is the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Without the Son to redeem us, to be our Redeemer, how could sinful man walk with God? How could the holy God who lives in unapproachable light come to walk with men? Hallelujah! In the Godhead there is not only the Father but also the Son who is our Redeemer. You may think that in Enoch’s time the Lord Jesus had not been crucified. This is your view. This is not God’s view. In Revelation 13:8 we are told that the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world. This means that before you were born and before Enoch was born, in God’s eyes Christ had died already. So the holy God was altogether free to come to a sinner through Christ, and a sinner like Enoch was free to walk with God. Is this not wonderful? Enoch had a companion, and God had a companion. They were walking together. What a wonderful thing that a man can walk with God!
Enoch went further than calling upon the name of Jehovah; he walked with God. Sisters, do not just call on the name of the Lord. After you call upon the name of the Lord, you need to walk with the Lord. When you are with your husband, the Lord Jesus needs to walk with you. What kind of life is this? This is the life under God’s dispensing. It is by this that God can carry out His dispensation, dispensing Himself into man. In the Bible walking means to have your life, to have your being, to do things, to say things, to think things, to go anywhere. To walk with God is to have your life with God. This does not mean that God was willing to go everywhere and to do everything with Enoch. Sometimes God probably said that He would not go there or that He would not do a certain thing. If Enoch had not gone along with God, their walking together would have been broken. In our experience we realize this. Too many times we call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus comes to walk with us. But then we want to do something that He does not want to do. When we insist on doing our thing, this breaks the company, the walking together. After calling upon the Lord’s name, we have to go with the Lord. Then the Lord would go with us. We should not ask Him to follow us; we have to follow Him. It is not that God walked with Enoch but that Enoch walked with God. God did not live Enoch’s life, but Enoch lived God’s life. Enoch was living a life that was God’s life. This is wonderful!
Enoch not only walked with God but also was taken away from death (Gen. 5:24). Genesis 5 is a record of death. It tells us that this one died, that one died, and another one died. Everyone was under death, but Enoch was kept from death. By walking with God day after day for three hundred years, he was kept, in everything, away from the element and atmosphere of death. This kind of “God-walking” kept Enoch from death.
In principle, today it is the same. Whenever we walk with the Lord and live with the Lord, at that time we are kept away from death. We all have experienced that if we do not walk with the Lord and live by the Lord, we are under death. Hallelujah! There is a living way to be kept away from the power and dominion of death. This is a part of God’s dispensing. As we walk with Him, He is dispensing Himself into our being, so we are kept away from death.
From Enoch we go on to Noah. As a continuation of Enoch, Noah not only walked with God (6:9) but went further and worked with God according to God’s salvation (v. 14). He was one in the same interest with God. At that time God was very much interested in building the ark. But God did not do it by Himself. He charged His co-worker, Noah, to build the ark for Him. So Noah worked with God. In the Lord’s recovery we are co-workers with God. What God is interested in, we are too. We have a common interest with God. Today the Lord is also building up an ark, the church life. God wants to build up the ark for His testimony. He will not do it by Himself directly. He will only build up the ark through the persons who are His co-workers. The co-workers of God must be co-walkers. If we do not walk with God, we can never work with God. Are we building up the local church? That is wonderful! But we have to walk with God. Only the co-walkers with God can do God’s work. Noah was such a person. How good it is that Noah was a person who was not only fallen and redeemed, who was not only brought back to God, who not only called on the Lord’s name, who not only lived by Him and walked with Him, but also worked with Him. He had a common interest with God.
Noah was not building something else. He was building the ark. The ark built by Noah is a type, not of a historical Christ but of a present Christ. He is not a Christ far away from us but a practical Christ. Today in the Lord’s recovery we are building up such a Christ. We are building up a practical and present Christ to be a salvation not only to ourselves but also to others. The local churches are building up the ark for the salvation of so many others because we are now in a common interest with God.
What is salvation? It is God’s dispensing in His dispensation. God carries out His dispensation so that He might be dispensed into all His people. At least a little bit of the divine nature was dispensed into Adam. More was dispensed into Abel. Still more was dispensed into Enosh and into Enoch. A greater portion was dispensed into Noah so that he could become a co-worker of God. He could have a common interest with God. Are you not today’s Noah? You have to say yes because first you were fallen, and then you became redeemed. Then you were brought back to God, and today you are calling on His name. You also are walking with Him and working with Him. What is your interest today? I have the assurance that deep within you there is the conviction that your interest today is common with God. Your interest is just God’s interest. This is why you would forget about so many other things except the church life. You love the church life because God is for the church, and the church is God’s interest. You are one with God, so His interest is your interest. This means that you are today’s Noah. Eventually, Noah with his entire family entered into the ark, into what he had worked on for God and with God (7:7), and was kept away from the judgment of the death water. Today you should follow the same steps, not only to work with God but to enter into what you have worked with God and for God, so that you may enjoy the practical and present Christ and be kept away from the judgment of death.
Now we have to go on from Noah to this complete person composed with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph. With this complete person you can see more items. This complete person was called by God as the God of glory (12:1; Acts 7:2-3; Heb. 11:8). And even before he was called, he was chosen by God (Rom. 9:11-13). We may not have such a realization of being chosen by God. We may only realize that we have been called by God. But before calling us, God selected us. He considered us as His choice. When we go to the supermarket, we do not buy every item. We only buy our choice. God has selected us. We all are His choice. He loved us, and to His eyes we are the best. Hallelujah! God selected us. We did not select ourselves. We may reject ourselves, but He selected us and considered us as His choice. If He had not selected us, we would not be here in the Lord’s recovery.
Acts 7 tells us that the very God who called Abraham appeared to him as the God of glory. Glory is the highest attraction. Look at the situation. Abraham was living in an idolatrous country with so many attractions. Suddenly, the very God of glory came and called him out. The attraction to come out of that country was the very glory of God. That glory attracted Abraham.
So he was called by the God of glory. We all have been called by the God of glory. When you were called, did you not realize that the Lord Jesus was so lovable? This means that Jesus is the Jesus of glory. If He were not of glory, how could He be so lovable? Then He charmed us and attracted us to Himself by His glory. In all the church meetings there is a kind of charming by the Lord so that He might draw us to Himself. Through all the generations the Lord Jesus has charmed and called so many people. All of us have been called by the God of glory, attracted by the divine glory.
Then Abraham received God’s promise of the gospel with the Spirit as the blessing (Gen. 12:2-3; Gal. 3:8, 14). Galatians 3:8 tells us that what God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12 was the preaching of the gospel. This is the second preaching of the gospel in the Scriptures. The first was in Genesis 3:15. The first preaching of the gospel was concerning the seed of the woman, and the second preaching of the gospel was concerning the seed of Abraham. This is the same seed. The seed of the woman is the seed of Abraham. The seed is Jesus Christ, the charming One. This is the center of the gospel. The blessing of this gospel is the Spirit. This charming Jesus today is the life-giving Spirit. This is why He is not only charming but also prevailing. People might ask, “Where is your Jesus?” My Jesus is within me. He is the Spirit. He is prevailing. He is living, and He lives in me. Sometimes I can hardly bear His wonderful living within me. It is too wonderful! Hallelujah! This is the blessing of Abraham. The blessing of Abraham is just the life-giving Spirit (Gal. 3:14). When the life-giving Spirit comes to us, that is the Triune God reaching us. It is not a small thing for the life-giving Spirit to live in us. This means that the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — is here. Our Christ is living, and He is living within us. We have received such a gospel.
Not only have we received such a gospel, but we are also inheriting all the riches of God. The riches of God are typified by the rich produce of the good land that was inherited by Isaac (Gen. 25:5; 26:4; 28:13-14). This signifies that we who have received such a gospel inherit all the riches of God. It is too rich!
After this we need to see a vision. According to the record of the Bible, after Isaac inherited all the riches, his continuation, Jacob, saw a vision in a dream. He saw the vision of Bethel, of God’s house (Gen. 28:12-13, 16-19). God made it clear to Jacob that what was on His heart was a house. Heaven is not God’s house. God’s house is His redeemed people. God wants His redeemed people to be His dwelling place, His house. According to Isaiah 66:1 and 2, heaven is God’s throne, and the earth is His footstool. What then is His house? Isaiah tells us clearly that man is God’s dwelling place. The heart of the contrite one is God’s house. God does not desire to dwell in heaven. He wants to dwell in you and me in a corporate way.
God showed His heart’s desire — to have Bethel, the house of God — to Jacob. We all need to have such a dream and to see such a vision. God wants a house, and today the church is God’s house (1 Tim. 3:15).
When Jacob saw the dream, he was not yet transformed. He was still a supplanter, a heel holder. On the one hand, he saw the vision of Bethel, and on the other hand, he was being transformed. One day God came in to change his name from supplanter to the prince of God, from Jacob to Israel (Gen. 32:28; 41:40-41). He was transformed into the prince of God to express Him and to reign for Him on the earth.
After Jacob’s transformation Joseph became a great steward to carry out God’s dispensation, to distribute the riches of God to feed all the hungry people on the earth. All eight of these great persons plus Joseph actually depict one complete person.
Our experience can be fully seen in these nine great men. You are Adam, and you are Abel. You are Enosh, and you are Enoch. You are Noah. You are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph. Eventually, you will be transformed. Today we are on the way to be transformed. In Adam we became fallen and redeemed. In Abel we were brought back to God and suffered persecution. In Enosh we called upon the name of the Lord and lived not by ourselves but by Him. In Enoch we walked with God, and in Noah we worked with God. In Abraham we were called out by the God of glory, and in Isaac we inherited all the riches of God. In Jacob the supplanter we saw God’s choosing and the dream of God’s house. How marvelous that even the supplanters are qualified to see the vision of God’s house! In Israel we became the prince of God, and in Joseph we reigned to distribute the riches of God to the hungry ones. This is God’s dispensation. By the time we come to Israel and Joseph, God has nearly been fully infused into man. This man became the prince of God. He became one with God to express Him and to reign for Him.
This is God’s dispensing in His dispensation. God has dispensed Himself to carry out His dispensation. By this dispensing in His dispensation He could have a prince on this earth who was saturated with Himself. He could work Himself into His chosen people to express Him and to reign for Him. The end of Genesis shows a prince of God, filled with God, saturated with God, and one with God to express Him and to reign for Him. Here we can see the goal of God’s dispensation — to make God’s chosen people one with Him, bearing His image, possessing His life, and having the flow of life within to transform them into His glorious image to express Him and to reign for Him. Hallelujah for such a wonderful dispensing of God in His dispensation and its glorious goal!
