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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:1, 26-28; 2:7-25
It is very hard to receive revelation and even harder to see a vision from Genesis 1 and 2, the first two chapters of the Bible. But the Lord in His mercy has opened up this part of His Word to us for many years. The vision in these two chapters is the greatest and highest vision. No vision is greater or higher than this vision, which covers the entire economy of God.
God’s creation is for Him to be one with man. This is the first item of God’s economy strongly revealed in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is a long chapter telling us how God created many things. Eventually, He created man in His own image and according to His own likeness (v. 26). This indicates that God, in His economy, through creation, wants to be one with man. This is the first point of the greatest and highest vision. Genesis 1 contains only one major point; that is, in God’s creation His intention is to be one with man.
In the first section of His creation God created man only in His image and according to His likeness outwardly, without the life of God inwardly.
The second section of God’s creation begins with His making a spirit for man and putting man in front of the tree of life (2:7-9). This second section is a picture of God’s new creation, which starts with man’s spirit and with the tree of life, signifying that God is to be taken by man through man’s spirit, that man may have God’s divine life. At the end of the first section of God’s creation, there was a repose, a Sabbath. Then the second section of God’s creation, which becomes God’s new creation, begins with two things: man’s spirit and God as life to be received by man through his spirit.
God’s making a spirit for man and putting man in front of the tree of life indicate that God wanted man to receive Him as the tree of life to be man’s life and everything.
From the place of the tree of life, a river is flowing and producing gold, bdellium, and onyx stone (vv. 10-12). This indicates that the flow of the life of God in the believers transforms them to be the three kinds of precious materials for the building of the Body of Christ as God’s eternal goal (1 Cor. 3:12; Rev. 21:18-21).
There are only three places in the Bible that mention three kinds of materials: Genesis 2, 1 Corinthians 3, and Revelation 21. Genesis 2 speaks of gold, bdellium (pearl), and onyx stone, a precious stone. First Corinthians 3 says that we must be careful how we build up God’s building. We have to build it with gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12). Eventually, at the end of the Bible, the consummation of God’s building is the New Jerusalem built with gold, pearl, and precious stones.
This is a great vision to show that after man receives God’s life, this life flows in and out of man as a river of living water to produce transformed material. Man has been regenerated in his spirit by receiving God as life, but his soul remains in the old creation of God. This soul has to be transformed into precious material. Gold signifies God’s divine nature, pearl signifies Christ’s redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-imparting resurrection, and precious stones signify the work of the transforming Spirit.
The New Testament stresses transformation. First, the New Testament shows the regeneration of man’s spirit to receive God as life. Then following this the New Testament stresses that we need to be transformed in our mind (Rom. 12:2). This indicates that transformation transpires in our soul to make us a new man. Our soul was an old man of the old creation, but after our spirit has been regenerated, our soul is then transformed from the old creation into the new creation to be a new man.
None of the living creatures was qualified to be Adam’s counterpart (Gen. 2:20), indicating that no natural life is qualified to match Christ as His counterpart. The man of the old creation has nothing to do with Christ, especially to be Christ’s counterpart, Christ’s wife.
God caused Adam to sleep, opened his side, took one of his ribs out of him, and built it into a woman who was fully qualified to be Adam’s counterpart (vv. 21-22). This indicates that God put Christ to death and from His pierced side flowed blood for redemption and water for the dispensing of life to produce the church to match Christ as His counterpart (John 19:34). This is a very crucial point and a great type. Adam did not find anyone to match him to be his counterpart, so God caused Adam to sleep, opened up his side, took out one of his ribs, and built this rib into a woman. Genesis 2:22 in the Hebrew does not say that God made a woman from this rib but that He built this rib into a woman. This woman is fully described in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be Christ’s wife, Christ’s counterpart.
This wife came from Christ’s side, which was pierced to flow out blood and water. The living water typifies Christ’s resurrection life, which is also typified by the bone, the rib, in Genesis 2. Nothing can break the Lord’s resurrection life. The Lord’s side was pierced on the cross, but not one of His bones was broken (John 19:33, 36). Only Christ’s life is unbreakable, just as His bones were not broken. All other lives are breakable. The rib of Adam taken out of him signifies the unbreakable life of Christ, which flows as the living water of life.
This greatest and highest vision unveils God’s new creation as the second section of His creation in resurrection, out of His old creation as the first section of His creation in nature. The first section is the old creation, so it is in nature, natural. But the second section refers to the new creation of God in resurrection. Everything in the new creation has passed through death and resurrection. Eve was produced through Adam’s sleep, signifying death, and through Adam’s rib, signifying resurrection. This shows that the church comes out of Christ’s death plus Christ’s resurrection.
The greatest and highest vision equals the entire revelation of the entire Bible, from God’s creation (Gen. 1) through His incarnation to present Himself as the tree of life to all the fallen people for the producing of the church, through His death, resurrection, and transforming work for the building up of His organic Body to match Christ as His counterpart, unto the consummation in the New Jerusalem as a couple of the redeeming God and the redeemed people for God’s enlarged expression for eternity with the divine glory manifested in humanity. We should notice that in the previous long sentence, there are the words from, through, and unto. The Bible’s record begins from God’s creation. Then the record of the Bible goes on through God’s incarnation, death, resurrection, and transforming work for the building up of Christ’s Body. This is unto the New Jerusalem.
The Old Testament in Genesis speaks of God’s creation. The following thirty-eight books of the Old Testament are full of types and prophecies of Christ and the church. The main prophecies concerning Christ are in Isaiah, which says that a virgin will bear a son whose name will be called Immanuel (7:14). This is a prophecy of Christ’s incarnation. Isaiah 53 gives us a clear, detailed record of Christ’s death. At the end of Isaiah 53 there is a short section referring to Christ’s resurrection (vv. 10-12). Isaiah also refers to the new heaven and new earth where the New Jerusalem will be (65:17; 66:22). Eventually, all the types and prophecies are fulfilled through the coming of Christ in the New Testament to carry out His eternal economy.
Genesis 1 and 2 present not just the facts of God’s creation, not just revelations from God’s creation, but a big vision, the unique vision, the greatest and the highest vision of God’s entire economy. God’s entire economy comprises two parts: God’s old creation and God’s new creation. The old creation occupies only Genesis 1. The picture of God’s new creation starts from Genesis 2 with God making a spirit for man and putting man in front of the tree of life. Then the life of God flows out of the regenerated believers to transform them into precious materials for the building of God. The building of God is of two parts. First, there is the Body of Christ as the origin, and second, the New Jerusalem as the ultimate consummation.
According to Genesis 1 and 2, God’s economy comprises only four main things. The first is God’s creation, the old creation. The second is God’s making man a spirit with which man can receive Him as the tree of life to be man’s life. The third is the flowing river, which signifies that the life of God flows out of the believers to produce three kinds of precious materials for God’s building as God’s goal. The fourth is that nothing natural is qualified to be Christ’s counterpart. Only the life that comes out of Christ is built into a wife to match Christ as His counterpart. This building is a woman, built with Christ’s unbreakable resurrection life for God’s eternal enlargement and expression. Eventually, the building of God is the New Jerusalem. On the one hand, the New Jerusalem is built with the precious materials in the flow of God’s life. On the other hand, the New Jerusalem is built with Christ’s unbreakable resurrection life. This is the greatest and highest vision in the Bible, and this is God’s economy.
God’s moves in all the ages are motivated by all the contents of this greatest and highest vision.
God made Adam out of the dust of the ground and made a spirit for him on the sixth day. Genesis 1 also says that on the sixth day God created man and woman. But we also need to see that the Bible is a particular book even in the way that it records things. The facts are one thing in the Bible, whereas the record is another thing. Quite often God counts on the record, not just on the facts, to unveil something.
As an illustration of this, let us consider the case of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7. This chapter says that he was without father, without mother, and without genealogy (v. 3). Surely, the Melchizedek in Genesis 14 had a father and mother, but in God’s record nothing is mentioned about his father, his mother, or his genealogy. This is because God wanted to use him to typify Christ as the One from eternity. The record in Genesis 1 and 2 is similar to this because God wanted to use the two sections of the record of His creation to show us something. The creation of Adam’s spirit and the building of Eve were recorded not in the first section of the old creation but in the second section, which displays the new creation. This is very meaningful.
