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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26a; Col. 1:15a; Gen. 2:7; Prov. 20:27; Job 32:8; Zech. 12:1; John 4:24; 3:6b; 1 Cor. 6:17; Gal. 5:16; Rom. 8:4b; Gen. 2:8-9; Psa. 36:9a; John 1:1-4a; 14:6a; Col. 3:4a; Rev. 2:7; 22:2; Gen. 2:16; John 6:57b; 15:5; Phil. 1:20-21a
I. In God’s image and according to His likeness — Gen. 1:26a:
А. Not in God’s image and according to His likeness merely in form.
B. But by God’s life in an organic union with Him.
C. Not to produce a toy without life but to produce a living and genuine manifestation and expression of God with His life.
D. As Christ being the living image of the invisible God in life — Col. 1:15a.
E. Thus, the man created by God in His image and according to His likeness must be in the organic union with God.
II. With a spirit created by God — Gen. 2:7:
А. The breath of life breathed by God into man’s body formed with dust — Prov. 20:27; Job 32:8.
B. This spirit of man being ranked with the heavens and the earth in the holy Word of God — Zech. 12:1:
1. The heavens being for the earth.
2. The earth being for man to exist.
3. The spirit of man being for God:
а. To worship God — John 4:24.
b. To be regenerated by God — 3:6b.
c. To be joined to God — 1 Cor. 6:17.
d. That man may walk and live in the organic union with God — Gal. 5:16; Rom. 8:4b.
III. Putting man before the tree of life — Gen. 2:8-9:
А. The tree of life being a figure signifying God as life to man — Psa. 36:9a; John 1:1-4a; 14:6a; Col. 3:4a; Rev. 2:7; 22:2.
B. Good for man to take and eat — Gen. 2:16; John 6:57b.
C. That man may be constituted with God as the constituent of life.
D. Thus, man and God becoming organically united and living together as one person — 15:5; Phil. 1:20-21a.
In the Bible what is unveiled to us is simply the organic union in God’s relationship with man. In the six chapters of this book we will cover the six major steps of this organic union, from the first two chapters of the Bible to the last two chapters. The first step of the organic union is God’s creation of man. This is fully recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis. At the end of the Bible the organic union in God’s relationship with man consummates in the New Jerusalem. This is fully unveiled in the last two chapters of Revelation. Between these two ends are the remaining four steps of the organic union: God’s incarnation, God’s salvation, the growth of the believers, and the building up of the Body of Christ. These six steps cover the entire Bible and give us the details of this organic union.
Most Christians have read through the first two chapters of the Bible concerning God’s creation of man. However, most of the students and even the teachers of the Bible have not entered into the intrinsic significance of this portion of the holy Word. The way to study, to understand, and to interpret the holy Word is exemplified by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 22:23-33. One day the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection (v. 23; Acts 23:8), asked the Lord Jesus concerning seven brothers who consecutively and respectively married one woman. They asked the Lord whose wife this woman would be in the resurrection. The Lord answered, “You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). In the Lord’s answer He told the Sadducees that, although they had the Pentateuch, the Scriptures, in their hands, they did not understand it. Then the Lord quoted Moses’ writing in Exodus 3:6: “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Matt. 22:32). Next, the Lord interpreted His quotation of the holy Word, telling the Sadducees that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The Lord saw the intrinsic significance of the threefold divine title the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, that is, that God is not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but He is the God of the living. Thus, the Lord used this divine title, with the life and power implied in it, to prove to the Sadducees that the dead Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be resurrected. This is the way to interpret the Bible.
After many years of studying Genesis 1 and 2, my conclusion is that in such a wonderful and marvelous record concerning the creation of man by God, there are three striking points. Every one of these points is crucial.
The first crucial and striking point concerning God’s creation of man is that God created man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26a). What is God’s image? Since God is invisible, it is difficult to understand how the invisible God could have an image. In Colossians 1:15 we are told that Christ is the image of the invisible God. Still, we may ask what it means to say that Christ is the image of God. We may also wonder what the likeness of God is and what the difference between image and likeness is. For years I did not understand what God’s image and God’s likeness are. Gradually, I began to understand that God’s image is what God is in His divine attributes. God is love (1 John 4:8), God is light (1:5), God is holy (Lev. 19:2) and is even holiness (Heb. 12:10), and God is righteous (Psa. 7:9b) and is even righteousness (Jer. 23:6). God is also patient and is even patience itself.
One day nearly sixty years ago I went to visit Brother Watchman Nee at his home. Immediately after sitting down, he raised the question, “Witness, please tell me, what is patience?” I was surprised that he would ask me such a simple question. I thought I knew what patience is. However, since it was Brother Nee who asked me concerning patience, I realized that his question was not simple. Therefore, I did not dare to answer quickly. After considering my response for some time, I said, “Patience is to suffer silently the mistreatment of others.” However, Brother Nee replied that that was not patience. Eventually, he said to me, “Patience is Christ.” From Brother Nee’s response we can realize that patience is God Himself. We are not patient. All of us, young and old, male and female, have lost our temper many times. In a given day we may lose our temper several times. This shows that we have no patience. Patience is not us. Patience is God. Patience is one of the attributes of God.
Only God is all kinds of virtues. God is kindness, forbearance, and even humility. No one is genuinely humble; only God is humble. One day God humbled Himself to become a man. He was God, lofty in the universe; but the great, unlimited God came down to the lowest part of the universe to be a small, limited man. In John 7:6 He told His brothers in the flesh, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.” By this He indicated that while He lived here on earth as a man, He, the eternal, infinite, unlimited God, was limited even in the matter of time. This is genuine humility.
We human beings are lacking in genuine virtues. A man and woman may love each other during their courtship, but immediately after their wedding they may argue with each other. It is common for a husband and wife to quarrel and lose their tempers. Only God does not have any temper.
God’s image is the totality, the aggregate, of all that He is. He is love, He is light, He is patience, He is kindness, He is mercy, and He is forbearance. All the items of God’s attributes added together equal the image of God. When Christ came to express God in humanity, He expressed God in all His attributes. This is God’s image. God created man in this image. Therefore, we all have a small amount of love, light, and other virtues. We are not animals; we are human beings created in the image of God. Hence, we do have some virtues, although they are temporal and do not last. God made us as men in His image to express what He is. In this expression God’s attributes become our virtues. God’s likeness is just the expression of what God is. God’s image is what God is. When this image is expressed, that is God’s likeness. As human beings, we were made in God’s image to express what He is. Thus, we were made according to His likeness.
In God’s creation we were all made God in the sense that we were created in God’s image and according to God’s likeness. This means that we all look like God. To be made God in this sense is not to be made an object of worship. We are not God in that sense. We look like God, just as a photograph of a person looks like the person, because we were made in God’s image and according to His likeness. When we say that we look like God, it may seem that we are deifying ourselves. If we do not look like God, whom do we look like? Yes, it is true that we look like man. However, in whose image and according to whose likeness was man made? Man was made in the image of God and according to the likeness of God. Therefore, man was created after God’s kind. In Genesis 1 we are told that in God’s creation, God made the plants and the animals according to their own kind, respectively (vv. 12, 21, 24-25). However, man, who was created in the image and likeness of God, was made according to God’s kind, not man’s kind. Therefore, at least we can say that we are like God.
God did not create man in His image and according to His likeness merely in form. Toy makers make toys in human form, but in that form there is no reality, because there is no life within the toys. God created man in His image and according to His likeness not only in form but also in life in order that man could be one with God in nature and in life. God’s intention in creating man was that God and man, man and God, could be joined in a union that is altogether organic, in life. This organic union is by God’s life. In His creation of man, God did not produce a toy without life, but He produced man as a living and genuine manifestation and expression of God with His life, just as Christ is the living image of the invisible God in life. Thus, the man created by God in His image and according to His likeness must be in the organic union with God.
The second striking point in the creation of man is that God created man with a spirit.
Genesis 2:7 says that God formed man from the dust of the ground. No doubt this refers to man’s body as the framework of man’s being. We do have a body formed from dust. Science tells us that our body is just a composition of the elements of the earth, just like dust. Whatever is in the dust is in our body. However, this is not all in God’s creation of man. After God formed a body for man, God breathed the breath of life into man’s nostrils. Dust does not have any life, but the breath of God has life. Therefore, God’s breath is the breath of life.
In Genesis 2:7 the word for breath in Hebrew is neshamah. It is used also in Proverbs 20:27, which says, “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah.” This indicates that the very breath of life breathed into man’s body became man’s spirit. This is confirmed by Job 32:8, which says, “There is a spirit in man, / And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.” In this verse a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty are in apposition, indicating that the spirit of man and the breath of God are one. The spirit of man is the breath of God, and the breath of God is man’s spirit. God not only formed a body to be the frame of man, but He also produced a spirit to be the very inner organ within man. God has prepared a stomach in our physical body. The stomach is a physical organ for us to receive, digest, and assimilate food. In a similar way, God produced an inner organ, that is, our spirit, for us to use to contact God. This corresponds with the Lord’s word in John 4:24: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” Only spirit can contact Spirit. Only spirit can worship Spirit. God is Spirit, and we have a spirit so that we can worship and contact God.
If we stay away from our spirit and remain in our mind, the more we think, the more we consider, the more we will feel that there is no God. But if we turn to our spirit in the inmost part of our being, we will spontaneously worship God, saying, “God, I thank You.” To attempt to substantiate God by using our mind is like trying to smell a fragrance by using our eyes. Our eyes simply cannot smell the fragrance. Therefore, to us there is no fragrance, because we cannot see it. However, if we would cease trying to use our eyes and instead use our nose, we would surely smell the fragrance. God is Spirit, and He prepared for us a spirit so that we may worship Him, contact Him, receive Him, and even contain Him as our life and our everything. We Christians are no longer persons without God. Today we have God in our spirit. Therefore, we are not lifeless but are lively, full of life. We are organic. In this organic life God and we, we and God, have become one.
We need to realize how important and crucial our spirit is. The spirit of man is ranked with the heavens and the earth in the holy Word of God. In Zechariah 12:1 the prophet Zechariah says that God stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him. According to this verse, three things in the universe are crucial: the heavens, the earth, and our spirit. The heavens are for the earth; the earth is for man to exist; and the spirit of man is for God, to worship God (John 4:24), to be regenerated by God (3:6b), and to be joined to God (1 Cor. 6:17) so that man may walk and live in the organic union with God (Gal. 5:16; Rom. 8:4b).
Although in the past we have received much teaching concerning our spirit, I am burdened about this matter again because I realize that out of one hundred saints, it is difficult to find one who lives in the spirit and walks according to the spirit. In Galatians 5:25 Paul says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,” and in 5:16 he says, “Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.” In Romans 8:4 Paul says that the believers should not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. According to these verses, we all should walk by and according to the Spirit to the extent that we do everything according to the Spirit. Although this is clearly written in the Bible, we do not practice what the Bible says.
Through the years of my ministry I have contacted many different kinds of people. Out of one hundred I have not found one brother or sister who does everything according to the Spirit. In doing their shopping, the sisters may shop mainly according to the sales advertised in the newspapers, not according to the Spirit. They may forget the heavens and the earth and not care for the Spirit within them. After they buy certain items, they may turn from their mind to their spirit and regret and even repent for what they have done. Nevertheless, the next week they may do the same thing again, forgetting the Spirit as they do their shopping.
The husbands all love their wife, but when they lose their temper toward their wife, they forget everything. Temper is aroused mainly by the exchanging of words. If the husband and the wife do not exchange words, there will be no temper. A little word from the wife to the husband may ignite the fire of temper within the husband. Our attempts to limit, restrict, and exercise self-control over our temper do not work. Therefore, the best way to avoid our temper is not to speak. The way to shut off our speaking is to do everything according to the Spirit. After a wife speaks an unpleasant word to her husband, the Spirit within him may tell him to be silent and not to do anything until the tempest has subsided and the Spirit gives him the liberty to act.
We all need to ask ourselves whether we live a life that is according to the Spirit or not. Because I do not live fully according to the Spirit, again and again I must confess to the Lord and ask Him to forgive me for doing something not according to my spirit. We are not used to living according to the Spirit. Instead, we are very accustomed to living according to our mind, our emotion, or our will. In the meetings of the church we may behave somewhat according to the Spirit, but after the meeting is dismissed, we may forget the Spirit again and not live according to Him. This is the real situation in the church life.
The spirit prepared by God for us is the highest part of our being. The highest part of our being is not the flesh, not the body, but the spirit. Whatever we do according to our body is low and even mean. If we do everything according to our spirit, we are honorable and are living on the highest level. When a wife says something to her husband, the husband should not answer quickly but should answer according to his spirit. He should respond according to the Spirit. Likewise, in dealing with their children, the parents should do it according to the Spirit. In Ephesians 6:4 Paul says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.” The only way for parents to rebuke their children without provoking them is to do it in their spirit. When parents are going to rebuke their children, they should prepare themselves to do it according to the Spirit. Then, their rebuking will be a pleasant thing to the children. Otherwise, if the rebuking is administered out of the parents’ flesh, it will provoke the children. The Bible tells us that parents should chastise and discipline their children (Prov. 19:18; 22:15; 23:13-14; 29:15). The unique way for the parents to do this without provoking their children is to do it according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:4 speaks of the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled in those who walk according to the spirit, that is, the regenerated human spirit indwelt by and mingled with the Spirit, who is the consummation of the Triune God. This verse indicates that we can be justified by God in His presence only if we do everything according to the spirit. If we do not conduct ourselves according to the spirit, we cannot be justified before God. Many believers who hold to the so-called Reformed theology do not care for the subjective experiences of Christ; they care only for the objective side of Christian experience. They say that since Christ is our righteousness, we are justified by God. Although this is true, it is only a part of the proper theology. The Bible tells us that justification is first objective (Rom. 3:24, 26) and then subjective (4:25 and footnote; Rev. 19:8 and footnote 2, Recovery Version). First, Christ is our righteousness objectively for us to be justified by God so that we may be saved. However, if we are going on to live as a child of God and a member of Christ, we must live Christ (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:19-21), making Christ also our subjective righteousness (3:9). In Galatians 2:20 the apostle Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Then, in Philippians 2:12-13 Paul tells the believers to work out their own salvation, for it is God who operates in them both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. God not only lives in us, but He even operates in us.
In His creation of man God produced a spirit for man. According to Genesis 2:7, the issue of God’s breathing the breath of life into man’s body of dust was that man became a living soul. Thus, man is a tripartite being of body, soul, and spirit. Man’s body is his outer frame, his spirit is his inmost organ, and his soul is his inner being, his person. In the New Testament Paul says, “The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 5:23), confirming that man is tripartite.
Although the details of God’s creation of man may be familiar to us, we need to be reminded that day by day we should live Christ, doing everything according to the inner spirit. In 2 Timothy 4:22 Paul says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” Christ is with our spirit. This is all that we need. We need Christ within our spirit so that we may live Him. We should not live a Chinese, an American, a German, or a Frenchman; we should live Christ by doing everything according to our spirit. In doing everything we should not do it by our self but by Christ according to our spirit. Then we will live Christ.
We have not been fully faithful to what we have heard of the Lord through the years. In this one thing we have all offended the Lord — in our not living Him by doing everything according to the Spirit. In God’s creation of man God purposely breathed the breath of life into man so that man might have an inmost organ to contact God, to make man himself a God-man. This is to be a human being by exercising our spirit in everything. We need to practice this; otherwise, we can never be a proper Christian. We may speak, teach, preach, and expound the Bible to others, but if we do not do everything according to the Spirit, we are practicing hypocrisy and falsehood. We may claim that we are loving the Lord and seeking Him and that we are in His recovery for His testimony, yet we may be persons who do things not according to the Spirit. Instead, we may do things according to right and wrong, by avoiding what is wrong and doing our best to do what is right. However, it is possible to do many right things without doing them according to the Spirit. To do things according to right and wrong is based on the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; to do everything according to the Spirit is based on the principle of the tree of life.
The third striking point in God’s creation of man is that after God created man, He put man before the tree of life (Gen. 2:8-9). The man created by God was complete and perfect, having a body and a spirit with a soul. God put this complete and perfect man in front of the tree of life.
The figure of the tree of life in the Bible has puzzled nearly all the Bible teachers. In the Bible the tree of life is mentioned first in Genesis 2, and it proceeds through the Bible to the end, to Revelation 22. Between the two ends of the Bible, in Revelation 2:7 the Lord promised the overcomers that He will give them to eat of the tree of life. In order to discover what the tree of life is, we need to read through the Bible, beginning from Genesis 2. Eventually, we will reach Psalm 36:9, which says, “With You is the fountain of life.” According to this verse, with God is the fountain of life. The tree of life must be something that is related to life. Where is life? Life is in God. With God there is the fountain of life. Thus, God is the fountain, the source, of life. After reading further, we come to the New Testament. In John 1:4 we read, “In Him was life.” The word Him in this verse refers to the Word in verse 1, who is God Himself. In the Word, who is God, is life. In John 14:6 this One came and told us, “I am...the life,” and in John 15:1 He said, “I am the true vine.” Besides Christ, every vine is a false one. Only He is the true vine. A vine is a tree. If we put these two matters, life and the tree, together, we have the tree of life. Who is the tree of life? The tree of life is the Triune God, who embodied Himself in Christ. Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is the life in the vine tree. Therefore, Christ is the tree of life.
The tree of life is a vine tree, not a pine tree. A pine grows by shooting upward, into the heavens, but a vine grows by stretching forth to reach people. Since Christ is a vine, everyone can partake of His fruit. If He were a pine, it would be difficult for us to touch Him. Ultimately, the tree of life is described in Revelation 22:2: “On this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” From this verse we can see that the tree of life does not grow by shooting upward; rather, it grows along the river of water of life, on the two sides of the river. A tree that grows along the two sides of a river surely must be a vine.
A vine tree is not for producing material for the construction of a building; a vine tree is good only for producing fruit. The fruit of the vine is for two purposes. First, the fruit is for the propagation and multiplication of the vine. Second, it is for food to provide nourishment to the eaters. Christ today is just such a vine, bearing fruit for His propagation and multiplication and for our nourishment.
In brief, the tree of life in the Bible is a figure of the Triune God embodied in Christ to be the very substance of the divine life. This tree is good for man to take and eat (Gen. 2:16; John 6:57b) so that man may be constituted with God as the constituent of life. Thus, man and God become organically united and live together as one person (15:5; Phil. 1:20-21a). Colossians 3:4 says that Christ is our life. Therefore, we need to take Him as our supply, as the very substance of the divine life, in which life we can be victorious and overcoming and can be so high that we can even reign in His eternal life (Rom. 5:17). We can be kings in the eternal life. Eventually, we will be co-kings with Christ in the thousand-year kingdom (Rev. 3:21; 20:4).
However, according to my observation, I have not been able to find one dear saint through the years who truly lives not himself but Christ. We all have two lives. We have the natural life, the human life, and we have the spiritual life, the divine life. The natural life is just us, ourselves; and the divine life is also a person, Christ. Each one of us is two persons, one person being our self and the other being Christ in us. As two persons, we have two lives, our natural life and the divine life. We have the life from Adam, and we have the life that is Christ Himself in us.
The problem is, by what life will we live? By the first life or the second life? By the natural life or the divine life? By our self or by Christ? I say again that I have not found anyone, even one who is very much in the church life, who lives Christ day by day and hour after hour and does not live himself. Hymns, #841, #499, and #501 speak of living Christ and not ourselves. We need to check to see if our life matches the standard expressed in these hymns. We need to realize that we were created to be like God, even to be one with God. Furthermore, we have been saved into God to be regenerated by Him so that we may be His children and may be members of Christ to constitute the Body of Christ. However, we need to ask ourselves whether we live God or not. We do have a marvelous provision. God has provided us with a body and with a spirit, which are very sufficient for us to live as a man to worship God, to receive God, and to contain God in order that we may live God and express Him.
Even after being saved by God, we may not live Him. We may be gentlemen, men who are right, but we may not be able to say, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20a). We may not be able to apply this holy word to ourselves. We need to realize the organic union between us and God. We need to behave ourselves, to walk, to live, to do everything, in this organic union. It should not be I but Christ; it should not be I by myself but I with God, united, mingled, and blended to be one person, a God-man.
