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The first group of historical figures in the Old Testament also forms the first group of figures in the Bible, God’s entire holy Word. The significance of this first group of historical figures is the essential significance of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The book of Genesis is the garden where every kind of seed of the divine revelation is sown. In this book the principal figures and historical events, whether positive or negative, all represent certain principles and pathways or have certain significances. Therefore, they all have become allegories that have figurative meanings. The first two figures are Adam and Eve. They were created by God as the first couple among the human race and as the first ancestors of all mankind; hence, in them the implications and significances are very profound and far-reaching.
Adam was created according to God’s inward image and outward likeness (Gen. 1:26). Therefore, he was God’s image for the purpose of declaring God. God’s image refers to the characteristics in His intrinsic nature. The most prominent of the characteristics that are manifested in man are love, light, holiness, and righteousness. God created Adam according to His image, according to these virtues in His nature, that Adam might declare and express God through these virtues. God’s likeness is the outward form in which He expressed Himself and was seen by men. Even before God became flesh, He appeared to Abraham and to many others with such an outward form (Gen. 18:1-5; 32:24, 28-30; Josh. 5:13-15; Judg. 6:12, 14, 16-24; 13:9-10, 17-20). God created Adam’s inward nature and outward body according to His own image and likeness, that Adam might have God’s image and likeness. God did this in order that Adam might declare and express Him. However, what Adam had was only God’s image and likeness; it was not God’s intrinsic being. Adam did not have God’s life and nature within him. He was just like a man’s photograph, which bears the image and likeness of a man but is without the life and nature of that man. Therefore, Adam needed to receive God as his life and content so that his virtues could be filled with the very substance of God’s love, light, holiness, and righteousness. In this way he would be able to reach the goal for which God created man; that is, he would be able to declare and express God.
After God created Adam, He authorized Adam to have dominion over all creatures in the seas, in the air, and on the earth (Gen. 1:26, 28). That is, He established Adam as His deputy, one who would exercise His authority to rule on the earth for Him, especially to have dominion over the earth in order to deal with His enemy, Satan, typified by the serpent, the chief among the creeping things (Gen. 1:26; 3:1; Rev. 12:9), and to restrict Satan’s movement on earth. Because the earth was seized and usurped by Satan and became the place of his activities (Luke 4:5-6; 1 John 5:19), it became a strategic place. If God would have His kingdom come on earth, have His will done on earth, and have His glory manifested on earth (Matt. 6:10, 13), His authority must be brought in through man that His enemy might be dealt with and that man might represent Him in ruling on the earth, thus fulfilling God’s economy.
Adam was created as the head of mankind. Mankind is the center of God’s creation. As the head of mankind, Adam was also the head of all creatures. All his actions, whether successes or failures, gains or losses, are related to and represent mankind and all things. Adam, as the head of mankind and all things, is a type of Christ as the Head over all things (Eph. 1:22; 1 Cor. 11:3; Rom. 5:14b). Adam was the first man; Christ is the second Man. Adam was the first Adam; Christ is the last Adam (45, 1 Cor. 15:47). Adam was the head of the old collective man (mankind); whatever he did and whatever happened to him is participated in by all mankind. Christ is the Head of the new corporate man (the church—Eph. 2:15-16); whatever He did and whatever happened to Him is participated in by all the members of His Body, the church (Eph. 1:22-23).
When Adam, the father of all mankind, was created by God, all his descendants were included in him. God did not create Adam as only a single person; He created mankind collectively in Adam. In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let us make man...and let them....” Man is singular, but the pronoun used is them. This proves that this man is a corporate man, a collective man. When Adam was created, all mankind, being included in him, was created as God’s vessel (Rom. 9:21, 23) to contain God and to express God’s glory. Therefore, Adam and all his descendants should receive God as their life and content that they may be God’s expression. Otherwise, man is but an empty shell, and with him everything is vain and limited. Man’s mind, emotion, and will are empty, and so are man’s wisdom, prudence, good works, and virtues. Only when God enters into this man, this vessel, can all these items have reality and content and thus become God’s expression and manifestation.
Adam listened to his wife and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which signifies Satan as the source of sin and death. Thus, he entered into an illegal union with Satan and received the evil nature of Satan, the nature that rebelled against God. Satan’s evil nature became the sinful nature within Adam, and Adam was thus constituted a sinner condemned by God. Since he was a corporate man who included all mankind, in his one act of disobedience he included all his descendants, all who would later be born of him, in his sinning and becoming fallen. Thus, Satan and the sinful nature entered all mankind, and all men were constituted sinners (Rom. 5:12, 19) and were subjected under God’s condemnation.
When Adam sinned and fell, we all, being included in him, participated in his sinning and becoming fallen. In him we also participated in the consequences of his sin. We came out of him, and since his life and nature became sinful, the life and nature that we received from him also are sinful.
In His administration in the universe, God established Adam as the head of the woman. Since Adam was the head of the woman, his wife, Eve, should have listened to him, and he ought to have stood in his position as the head. However, he not only failed to keep his position as the head, but he also followed his wife and acted contrary to God’s ordination, causing all mankind to fall into sin and to be constituted sinners. This should serve as a warning to all his descendants, to all men and women, in their married life as husbands and wives.
After Adam sinned and fell, he was in fear and trembling, and he hid from the face of God and awaited death. However, God came to seek him and to call him. God did not put him to death; rather, He gave him the promise of redemption. He promised that Christ would be the seed of the woman, who would bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15) and thus cause the serpent’s death; that is, that Christ would destroy Satan, who deceived man and poisoned man with sin (Heb. 2:14). Furthermore, according to this promise, Christ would become the sacrifice for redemption and would shed His blood to accomplish propitiation (Gen. 3:21; John 1:29) in order to save and bring back fallen man that he might receive God’s life and become God’s expression. Adam believed and received this promise and gave his wife the name Eve, which means “living” or “life” (Gen. 3:20). God then used skins from the sacrifice to make coats for the man and his wife that they might be clothed. The skins from the sacrifice typify Christ as righteousness to those who believe (1 Cor. 1:30). Such righteousness makes it possible for fallen sinners to be justified by God (Rom. 3:24), to become acceptable to God, and thereby to be able to fellowship with God. Therefore, through the substitution by the bleeding sacrifice and through the union with the covering coat of skin, Adam received the anticipated redemption of God. Adam and Eve were then able to continue to live on the earth, and through Eve, whom Adam considered as one who was qualified to have life and live, they were able to beget generation after generation of descendants.
Although Adam believed and received the promise of God’s redemption and also experienced God’s anticipated redemption, he, including all the descendants who were to be born of him, was driven by God out of the garden of Eden and was separated from the tree of life in accordance with God’s economical arrangement. God would not allow a fallen sinner with a sinful nature to contact Him and to receive Him as life. Not until Christ came to accomplish God’s redemption and thereby deal with the fallen sinner and his sinful nature, thus fulfilling the requirements of God’s glory, holiness, and righteousness, did God open anew for man the way to the tree of life. By so doing He caused all fallen sinners in Adam to be justified by faith and to be accepted by God through the redemption of Jesus Christ, that they might be able to come forward to God, who is signified by the tree of life, to enjoy God as life and the life supply for the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan.
In the process of creation, God created Adam and then took a rib from him to make a woman, Eve. They, Adam and Eve, typify different things. Adam typifies Christ (1 Cor. 15:45, 47) and is a prefigure of Christ (Rom. 5:14b), whereas Eve represents the church. In Genesis 2 the Bible speaks in detail concerning the creation of the woman, and in Ephesians 5 it tells us that Eve refers to the church (vv. 31-32).
Eve came out of Adam and was unto Adam, signifying that the church comes out of Christ and is unto Christ. Genesis 2:18-24 shows us that Eve was made from a rib taken from Adam. Before she was made, God saw that it was not good that man should be alone, so He brought every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, and all cattle to Adam. When Adam saw them, he gave each one a name, but he did not find a helpmeet among them. God then caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and took one of his ribs, and from it He made Eve. When Adam saw her, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”; and he was joined to her, becoming one flesh with her, and he took her as his counterpart. This signifies that among all the living creatures that God created, there is not one that can be Christ’s counterpart. Only the church, which is produced out of Christ through His death, can be unto Christ as Christ’s counterpart and can be one with Christ.
The church comes out of Christ and is created by God with the essence of Christ, not with the earthly essence of man. Just as God took a rib from the sleeping Adam to make Eve, He also caused blood and water to issue forth from the side of Christ at the time of His death (John 19:34). The blood is for redemption (Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:18-19); the water, typified by Adam’s rib, is for the imparting of God’s life (John 12:24) as the essence that produces the church. Eve received her life from Adam and had the same life and the same nature as Adam. Likewise, the church comes out of Christ and has the same life and the same nature as Christ. Eve was unto Adam that Adam might have a counterpart as his bride. In like manner, the church is unto Christ as His counterpart and His bride. Only Eve, who came out of Adam, could be unto Adam as his counterpart. Likewise, only the church, which comes out of Christ, can be unto Christ as His counterpart. Only that which comes out of Christ is worthy to be unto Christ. The church must be something that comes out of Christ, and it must be unto Christ.
Since Eve came out of Adam (1 Cor. 11:8), she was part of Adam; she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. Moreover, she was the overflow of Adam as Adam’s increase. This signifies that the church, being part of Christ, is Christ’s increase, which becomes His Body as His fullness (Eph. 1:22, 23) for His expression.
Under the arrangement in God’s creation, Eve was not an independent person, but was one who was subordinate to her husband and who was part of her husband. First Corinthians 11:8-9 says, “For man is not out of woman, but woman out of man; for also man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man.” Furthermore, according to the arrangement in God’s governmental administration in the universe, man is the head of the woman (1 Cor. 11:3). Therefore, Eve, a woman, was to take her husband as her head and was not to be her own head or to make her own decisions, but was to submit completely to her husband. However, the cunning old serpent, the devil, the rebellious Satan, tempted and deceived Eve concerning this very point (1 Tim. 2:14). He caused her to assume the headship and to put her husband aside, thus making herself an independent unit in making decisions. She fell into the devil’s scheme, violated God’s prohibition, and made her own decision. She even seduced her husband to follow her in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which resulted in death. Thus, Adam received the poison of sin, and there was also a charge of sin against him before God. Consequently, all mankind was brought into sin and death.
In her fall Eve failed to keep her position but became one who assumed the headship. However, she kept her position in receiving the promise of God’s redemption; she followed Adam, her head, and received God’s promise. God promised that the seed of woman would come. Adam believed this promise, and Eve followed him and believed it also. After giving birth to Cain, Eve said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord” (Gen. 4:1), for she considered the child the seed of woman promised by God. This proves that she followed her husband and received the promise of God’s redemption.
By following her husband and receiving the promise of God’s redemption, Eve returned to the position in which she was created. In this way she was delivered from the position of death and became the mother of all living (Gen. 3:20), the begetter of all those who have life and are living. Out of her, millions of descendants have been produced. Hence, the human race has been able to multiply endlessly to replenish the earth. This has made it possible for God to continue to carry out His purpose in creating man and to thereby fulfill His eternal plan.
Adam and Eve were created by God as the first couple among the human race and as the first ancestors of all mankind. Adam was created according to God’s inward image and outward likeness. He was God’s image for the purpose of declaring God. God established Adam as His deputy, one who would exercise His authority, especially to have dominion over the earth in order to deal with His enemy, Satan, and restrict Satan’s movement on earth. Adam, who was created as the head of mankind, is a type of Christ as the Head over all things. Adam was the first man; Christ is the second Man and also the last Adam. When Adam was created, all mankind, being included in him, was created as God’s vessel that man might receive God as his life and content and become God’s expression. However, Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and thereby included all his descendants in his sinning and becoming fallen. Thus, Satan and the sinful nature entered into all mankind, and all men were constituted sinners. Immediately after Adam sinned and fell, God came to seek him and to give him the promise of redemption. Adam believed and received this promise and was then able to continue to live on the earth. Through Eve, whom he considered as one who was qualified to have life and live, Adam begot generation after generation of descendants. However, he, including all his descendants, was driven by God out of the garden of Eden and was separated from the tree of life, until Christ came to accomplish God’s redemption.
Eve was made out of a rib taken from Adam’s body and was unto Adam to be Adam’s counterpart and to be one flesh with Adam. This signifies that the church comes out of Christ and is unto Christ, and that the church is the counterpart of Christ and is one with Christ. Since Eve came out of Adam, she was part of Adam; she was the overflow of Adam as Adam’s increase. This signifies that the church is part of Christ as Christ’s increase. However, Eve did not keep her position in God’s creation and did not take her husband as her head. Thus, she fell into the devil’s scheme and violated God’s prohibition. Moreover, she seduced her husband to follow her in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thus, all mankind was brought into sin and death. However, Eve kept her position in receiving the promise of God’s redemption; she followed Adam, her head, and received God’s promise. In this way she was delivered from the position of death and became the mother of all living.
