The final organic aspect and the consummation of God’s work in and with man is the wife, the counterpart. The final step of God’s procedure to obtain His goal is to work Himself into man to make man His counterpart and complement.
God desires to have a wife, a counterpart, to match Him in every possible way. Such a counterpart needs to be the same as He is in life and nature so that she may match Him.
To obtain her, God Himself became a man, loved man, died for man and as a man, and He redeemed man back to Himself. In His death His divine life was released, and in His resurrection His divine life was imparted into His believers to regenerate them and make them His counterpart, His Body, His Bride (1 Pet. 1:3).
Today Christ is the Head of the Body and He sanctifies the church by the washing of the water in the Word (Eph. 5:25-27). In the end of the Bible we see that the church is consummated to be the New Jerusalem, the wife of the Lamb, fully one with God, expressing God and matching Him in every possible way (see Rev. 21:2, 9-10).
All the believers in Christ today are produced through the resurrection life of Christ to be the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead so that together, as the church, they may be the counterpart of Christ, His wife.
God Became a Man to make Man God in Life and Nature to Match Him
Every human being desires a counterpart – every man desires to get married, to have a woman who matches him, loves him, and lives with him. Man would even do all kinds of crazy and out-of-ordinary things to obtain his chosen one, his beloved one.
Man’s desire to have a counterpart points to God’s desire to have a wife. God wants a wife. God wants to get married. And for this, He did “all kinds of crazy things”.
God became a man (John 1:14) (which was typified by God’s creation of Adam – Rom. 5:14) and He died on the cross to produce the church (typified by Adam being put to sleep so that God would take out a rib from man and build a woman – Gen. 2:22).
Through Christ’s death, His divine life was released, and in His resurrection, His life was imparted into His believers to constitute them into the church (see John 19:34, note 1). Something wonderful happened here: God became a man (through Christ’s incarnation) to make man God in life and nature but not in the Godhead (through Christ’s death and resurrection).
Now we, the many believers in Christ, have God’s life in us and are the same as God in life, nature, and expression, but not in His Godhead, so that we may match God in every possible way.
The church matches Christ because the church comes out of Christ. The unbreakable, indestructible life of Christ flowed out of Him (Heb. 7:16) to impart life into His believers for the producing of the church.
Man can marry a woman, someone who matches him in life and nature; God can marry only someone who is God in life and nature. Hallelujah, God became a man so that man may become God in life and nature (but not in the Godhead) to match God and be His counterpart!
Only what Comes out of Christ can Match Christ to be His Counterpart
Only what comes out of Christ can match Christ to be His counterpart, just as only what came out of Adam could match Adam to be his counterpart. All the animals were brought to Adam, and he named them all, but none among them was found to be his counterpart.
Therefore, God put man to sleep and took a rib out of his side, built a woman, and brought her to the man. In a similar way, God put Christ to sleep on the cross and through His death and resurrection He built the church with Christ’s unbreakable and indestructible divine life, and then He brought the church to Christ.
Gen. 2:22 doesn’t say that Eve was created but that she was built – this shows that the church was not created but she was built with the resurrection life released from Christ through His death on the cross and imparted into His believers in His resurrection (see John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3).
Eve was brought to Adam and she became one flesh with him (Gen. 2:24), and the church will be presented to Christ pure, blameless, fully prepared, to be one spirit with Him (see Eph. 5:27; Rev. 19:7; 1 Cor. 6:17). The church is a pure product of Christ, built with the life of Christ, coming to Christ to match Him as His counterpart.
The church is the totality of Christ in all the believers; the sum total of the Christ in us is the church. Only that which comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 5:28-30).
Some may even do great works for Christ or in His name, but if they are not one with Him and they don’t do things in Christ’s resurrection life, they are not His counterpart, and Christ doesn’t recognize them as His complement.
He identified Himself with the persecuted believers in the time when Saul was “breathing murder against the church” (Acts 9:1, 4). Christ will marry only that which comes out from Him, which is bone of His bones (in His resurrection life) and flesh of His flesh.
The Consummation of God’s Purpose – the New Jerusalem as His Counterpart
God’s purpose is to have a corporate man in His image to express Him and to represent Him. The way God accomplishes His purpose is by life. He uses four organic means or procedures to fulfill His purpose.
Firstly, God in Christ is the tree of life for man to enjoy, partake of, eat, and be constituted with. Secondly, God in Christ as the Spirit is the river of water of life flowing to quench man’s thirst and fill man with God’s life for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Thirdly, through the flow of the divine life in us we are being transformed to become precious materials fit for God’s building. Fourthly, the final step of God’s procedure in fulfilling His purpose is to work Himself into man to make man His counterpart, His complement, His wife.
The consummation of God’s purpose is to have a wife, a bride, a counterpart to match Him. At the end of the Bible we see a city, the New Jerusalem, which is the wife, the Bride of the Lamb, the ultimate and eternal woman. This city is built with three precious materials, fulfilling for eternity the type shown in Genesis 2.
God will fulfill His purpose – He will obtain a counterpart, a wife for Himself in love. Today God is working Himself into the believers in Christ to make them His counterpart, His wife, to match Him.
In the church life we need to realize that only what comes out of Christ in us builds up the church. For this, we need to exercise our spirit and live Christ and minister Christ for the building up of the church. What comes out of ourselves is NOT the church, but what comes out of our exercise of the spirit to be one with the Lord builds up the church.
Thank You Lord for regenerating us with Your divine life for the church, Your counterpart. We love You. We just want to open to You, Lord, that You may dispense Yourself into us and work Yourself into us to make us Your counterpart, Your Bride. Thank You for becoming a man to bring man into God and make man God in life and in nature. Lord, may we be those who continually exercise our spirit to be one with You and do everything with You and in You for the building up of the church, Your Bride!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration: bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message and portions in, Life-study of Genesis (msg. 17), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 1, The Central Thought of God.
- Further reading:
# Gen. 2:21 (footnotes 2 and 3) and Gen. 2:22 notes 1 and 3.
# Rev. 21:2 (footnotes 2 and 3) and Rev. 21:9 (footnote 2). - Hymns on this topic:
# It was for her the church—His bride / It was for her, willingly He died / She is the joy deep in His heart / His masterpiece— / His counterpart.
# God fell in love with man; / For only God’s love can / Make man just the same as He / In life and in nature. / We are His expression, / His bride, His enlargement; / Forever, together, / As living, insep’rable as one couple / Eternally.
# Christ is our coming Bridegroom; / We are the Church, His Bride, / Redeemed, regenerated, / The issue of His side, / In source, in life, in nature / And person fully one, / His counterpart forever, / The New Jerusalem.
