Through Christ’s death and resurrection, God produced and built the church as the counterpart of Christ. Adam and Eve are a picture, a type, of Christ and the church; when Adam was created, he was a type of Christ, and his need for a wife shows the need Christ has for the church.
In God’s eyes, Adam and Eve are a complete unit, a corporate man, whom God created in His image and according to His likeness, so that man would express God and represent Him with His dominion.
Adam typifies God in Christ as the real Husband – He is the universal Husband seeking a wife for Himself. Adam’s need for a wife typifies God’s need, in His economy, to have the church as His counterpart, His complement.
In Himself God has no need, and as an eternal and almighty being, God is perfect; however, in His economy, God created man in His image and likeness so that He may obtain a counterpart, a corporate person who would match Him to fulfill God’s purpose.
God desires to have both Adam and Eve to fulfill His purpose – He desires that Christ and the church would be one entity that fulfills His eternal purpose.
Actually, just as the Bible begins with a couple that God created in His image to fulfill His purpose, so the Bible ends with a couple, Christ and the church, who are fully one for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. God will gain what He is after, and the Bible confirms it.
However, now and today, we are in the process of being produced and built up as the church, the counterpart of Christ, so that we may match Him in every possible way.
In order for us to see how to build up the church and how to be the counterpart of Christ, we first need to see what did God do in order to produce a counterpart for Himself.
First of all, God created all things: the heavens, the earth, every animal of the field, and every bird of heaven, and then He made man in His image and likeness. But for man there was no helper found as his counterpart among all the creation, so God did something very significant to produce a counterpart for man.
The type of how Eve was produced out of Adam is very significant, for it shows how the church was produced as an entity that is constituted with the element of Christ, returning to Christ to be one with Christ for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Through Christ’s death and resurrection, God produced the church and built it up to be Christ’s counterpart.
Christ’s Death on the Cross was for the Producing of the Church as His Counterpart
Adam’s sleep for the producing of Eve as his wife typifies Christ’s death on the cross for the producing of the church as His counterpart, His wife (Eph. 5:25-27). Christ died on the cross not only for our sins, to redeem us, but He died to obtain the church, to produce the church.
Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14) and his sleep is a type of Christ’s death, for in the Bible sleep many times refers to death (see 1 Cor. 15:18; 1 Thes. 4:13-16; John 11:11-1).
Adam was put to sleep by God, and God took a rib out of his side, built it into a woman, and brought the woman to him. One day the real Adam – Christ Himself – was put to sleep on the cross (see Mark. 15:25, 33); Christ died on the cross for the producing of the church.
Adam’s sleep in Gen. 2:21 was a type of Christ’s death on the cross for the producing of the church. Something of Adam was taken by God to produce and build up a woman, who returned to Adam to be his counterpart, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.
Similarly, Christ’s death on he cross released His divine life and imparted it into His believers, for the shell of His humanity was broken; the divine life within Christ was propagated, multiplied, and reproduced through the death of Christ, just as the life contained in the grain of wheat is reproduced through its death (John 12:24).
The Lord Jesus prophesied concerning His death, saying that, when He as a unique grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, there will be a great multiplication in His resurrection.
We as the many believers in Christ were produced to be the church in Christ’s death on the cross, and as the many grains we are now being blended, built up, and knit together to be the one loaf, which is the Body, the church (1 Cor. 10:17).
By producing the church in this way, God in Christ has been wrought into man as life.
First, God became a man, then this man with the divine life and nature was reproduced and multiplied through His death and resurrection into many believers to compose the real Eve, the church, to complement Christ and match Him. Wow!
Through Christ’s death on the cross, God in Christ has been wrought into us, His believers, with His life and nature, so that we – regenerated human beings with God’s life in us – would be the same as Christ in life and nature to match Him as His counterpart! Hallelujah!
Through His death on the cross Christ was glorified; to us, death is ugly, terrible, and sad, but Christ’s death is wonderful and glorious, for in His death He fell as a grain of wheat into the ground, released His divine life and imparted it into His believers, to produce the church! Hallelujah for Christ’s death on the cross!
Thank You Lord for dying on the cross to produce us as the church, Your counterpart. Hallelujah for the life-releasing, life-imparting, life-propagating, life-multiplying, and life-reproducing death of Christ! Thank You Lord for dying as a unique grain of wheat to grow up and produce us as the many grains, the many sons of God, to be blended and built as the loaf, the Body of Christ, the church! Hallelujah, we are now the church of God, the counterpart of Christ, produced through Christ’s death on the cross!
God Built the Church in Christ’s Resurrection through His Judicial Redemption and His Organic Salvation
Praise the Lord for Christ’s death and resurrection! In His resurrection, God built the church as Christ’s counterpart through His judicial redemption and His organic salvation.
In Gen. 2:2 we are told that Jehovah God built the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman, and brought her to the man. This rib is a piece of bone, something strong, and it refers to Christ’s unbreakable divine life, His resurrection life.
At the end of Christ’s crucifixion, none of His bones were broken – the other ones crucified with Him had to have their legs broken to die, but Christ died, and none of His bones were broken, to fulfill the prophecy (see John 19:36, 32-33; Exo. 12:46; Num. 9:12; Psa. 34:20).
Christ’s resurrection life is unbreakable, and it is with this life that God built the church in Christ’s resurrection.
The rib taken from Adam’s opened side typifies the unbreakable, indestructible eternal life of Christ (Heb. 7:16; John 19:32-33, 36; Exo. 12:46; Psa. 34:20), which flowed out of His pierced side (John 19:34) to impart life to His believers for the producing and building up of the church as His counterpart.
One of the soldiers pierced the Lord’s side and out of it flowed blood and water; out of Christ’s side came both blood and water, but out of Adam’s side came only a rib, without any blood.
This is because at Adam’s time there was no need for redemption through the blood, because there was no sin; but at Christ’s time, the blood was needed to deal with the problem of sin.
By the time Christ was “sleeping” on the cross, there was the problem of sin; therefore, the blood that came out of Christ’s side was for our judicial redemption. These two elements, blood and water, are the cure to all the problems in the universe, and they are also the way that God builds up the church in the resurrection of Christ.
Blood is for judicial redemption, through which we are saved from the guilt of sin; water is for His organic salvation in His life, which saves us from the power of sin. Through the judicial redemption we are saved from our sin, we are justified by God, we are reconciled to God, and we are sanctified unto God positionally.
Judicial redemption is the base for God to get us into the right position so that He may save us organically; it is like an escalator bringing us to the top floor of God’s salvation – His organic salvation.
Following the blood, the water came out, which is the flowing life of God for our organic salvation (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4; Num. 20:8); this divine, flowing, uncreated life is typified by the rib taken out of Adam’s side (Rom. 5:10).
God’s organic salvation is the purpose of God’s salvation, for it saves us from the power of sin in the life of Christ. In His organic salvation we pass through the process of regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification to be saved in the life of Christ and be fully Christified in our spirit, soul, and body.
This is how God builds up the church in Christ’s resurrection through His judicial redemption and His organic salvation.
Thank You Lord for Your judicial redemption which saves us from the guilt of sin and for Your organic salvation which saves us from the power of sin. Keep us in the process of God’s organic salvation to be saved in the divine, flowing, uncreated, eternal, resurrection life of Christ. Lord, go on in us and sanctify us, renew us, transform us, conform us, and glorify us so that we may be saved in Your life and be fully Christified in our spirit, our soul, and our body! Amen, Lord, gain Your built-up church, Your glorious church, Your counterpart!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis, pp. 219-220 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Church (2017 fall ITERO), week 9, The Status of the Church – the Counterpart of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Through shadows, types and figures, / God’s deepest thought is known; / As typified by Adam, / The Husband, Christ, is shown. / A rib brought forth from Adam / Reveals the source of life / By which God built a woman: / Eve, as the church, His wife. (Song on the Bible as a romance)
# E’en as Eve is part of Adam, / Taken out of him, / So the church is Christ’s own increase, / With Himself within. (Hymns #819)
# Regeneration, / Sanctification, / Then renewing, / Transformation, / Conformation, / Glorification — we / Become God in life / And nature, not in Godhead / Through His organic salvation. / We are processed thus: / Oh, how glorious / To express the processed Triune God. (Song on organic salvation)
This life was typified by the rib, a piece of bone taken out of Adam’s opened side, of which Eve was produced and built. Hence, the bone typifies the divine life that is signified by the water flowing out of Christ’s side. None of His bones was broken. This signifies that His divine life cannot be broken. His physical life was killed, but nothing could break His divine life which flows out to produce the church.
After God finished the work of producing Eve during Adam’s sleep, Adam awoke from his sleep. As Adam’s sleep typifies the death of Christ, so his waking signifies the resurrection of Christ. After waking, Adam became another person with Eve produced out of him. After His resurrection Christ also became another person with the church brought forth out of Him. As Adam eventually awoke from his sleep to take Eve as his counterpart, so Christ was also resurrected from the dead to take the church as His complement. (Life-study of Genesis, pp. 219-220, by Witness Lee)
Praise the Lord ! Through death and resurrection the process to produce the Church ! Amen
Praise the Lord for His life-releasing, life-imparting, life-propagating, life-multiplying and life-reproducing death as the grain of wheat to produce many grains for the making of a loaf which is the Body, the church. After His resurrection Christ became another person with the church brought forth out of Him! Thank You Lord for resurrecting from the dead to take the church as Your complement. Thank You for cleaving to the church. O Lord keep us cleaving to You!