Genesis is a book of seeds, and throughout this book there are many seeds that are sown and later developed in the rest of the Bible, consummating in the book of Revelation where we see the harvest.
The matters of image and dominion, the heart of Genesis, are sown as seeds in Genesis and then developed in the New Testament, consummating in the New Jerusalem at the end of Revelation.
God created man with the purpose of having a corporate man to express Him in His image and represent Him with His authority so that the kingdom of God may be brought in on earth. This is sown as a seed in Genesis and is developed in the New Testament, beginning with the Lord Jesus and ending with the New Jerusalem.
When the Lord Jesus came, His incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in His creation of man. Christ is the image of God, expressing God in all His living, work, words, attitude, and deeds. He expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues, and God was fully expressed in this individual man, Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, when Christ came, the kingdom of God came with Him; He was the kingdom of God, and He came to bring in the kingdom of God to deal with Satan, subdue rebellion, cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. Christ represented God with His authority on earth, and the ruler of this world had nothing in Him.
Today we as believers in Christ are His continuation, His reproduction, and His many brothers in the divine life, and we need to preach the gospel of the kingdom in the whole inhabited earth (Matt. 24:14).
Our gospel today is both the gospel of grace and the gospel of the kingdom. Due to man’s rebellion through the fall, we need to first repent and believe into the Lord, submitting ourselves to God’s authority, and then we can enjoy Him as life and express Him.
As believers in Christ, we all have been regenerated by God to enter into God’s kingdom as the realm of the divine species to live under the rule of God in life. We are saved by God to first be under His rule and then express Him with His image corporately.
Christ’s Incarnation and God-man Living Fulfilled God’s Intention in His Creation of Man
When God created the first man, Adam, He was satisfied: this man was to fulfill God’s purpose of expressing Him with His image and exercising His authority over all the earth and over Satan, God’s enemy. However, the first man failed, and he joined Satan in his rebellion against God.
Christ, the second man, is the real man in God’s plan, the man who fulfilled God’s intention in creating man. In Christ’s living and ministry we see the expression of God and the authority of God being exercised in dealing with God’s enemy.
Jesus Christ is the individual living realization and fulfillment of Genesis 1:26.
When God created man He intended that man would receive Him in as life and live by him (see Gen. 1:26; 2:9); Christ in His incarnation and God-man living took the Father as His everything and lived by the Father (John 6:57).
The Lord Jesus did not do His own will but the Father’s will, He did not live by His own life but by the Father’s life, He did not seek His own glory but sought the Father’s glory, He did not express Himself but expressed the Father, and He didn’t speak His own words but what the Father told Him to speak.
He had the highest human living ever seen by man, and in His God-man living the bountiful God was expressed through His aromatic virtues. Christ didn’t just live a moral, ethical, or even Scriptural life; He lived a God-man life, a life of God mingled with man, the full expression of God.
Also, when Christ came, He brought the kingdom of God with Him; wherever He was, the kingdom of God was there, and when He spoke, He spoke of the kingdom of God (see Luke 17:21; Matt. 12:28; Mark 4:35—5:43).
The kingdom of God brought in by the Lord Jesus subdues any rebellion, casts out the demons, heals the sick, and raises the dead.
In the human society at the Lord’s time there was rebellion, demons, unclean industries, sicknesses and diseases, and death. But when the Lord Jesus came, He subdued rebellion, cast out the demons, cleared up the unclean industry, healed the sick, and raised the dead.
The kingdom of God is the answer to the condition of the fallen man, and Christ brought in the kingdom of God.
Through His incarnation and God-man living, Christ fulfilled God’s original intention in creating man: He fully expressed God in His living and He represented God with His authority to deal with God’s enemy and bring in the kingdom of God on earth.
Now whoever believers into Christ comes back under God’s authority and has the right to express God, and the kingdom of God has been enlarged into the church (Matt. 16:18-19) which will accomplish the establishing of the kingdom of God on the whole earth!
Praise You, Lord Jesus, for Your incarnation and Your God-man living! What an excellent human living You had, expressing the bountiful God in His rich attributes through Your aromatic human virtues. Lord, reproduce Your life in us today. We eat You and live because of You. We depend on You as life, and we take You as our life supply. Lord Jesus, live in us the same kind of life that You lived while on earth so that we may fulfill God’s purpose in creating man: image and dominion!
The Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of the Glory of Christ: Dominion and Image
In Genesis 1 we see that God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that man would express Him in His image and represent Him with His dominion. Image is first, dominion is second.
But in the gospel the order is reversed: dominion comes before image because man has fallen from God’s dominion and must repent. When the Lord Jesus preached the gospel, He announced the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the heavens (see Mark 1:1, 14-15; Matt. 4:17).
The fundamental problem of fallen human beings is being rebellious against God; therefore, the gospel first speaks of repenting and coming back under God’s authority, and there we can enjoy God as life and grace.
On the one hand, the gospel is the gospel of grace: we become believers through faith in Christ to enjoy the grace of God. On the other hand, the Bible clearly says that the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom, which is for us to become the Lord’s disciples, those who are being trained, ruled, disciplined, and dealt with by the Lord’s authority.
Because we are fallen human beings, we need to be brought back under God’s authority through the gospel. Through the gospel of the kingdom, God brings us, rebellious people, under the ruling of His authority so that we may become His kingdom (the church today) and be ruled by God’s authority (Matt. 24:14; Rev. 1:5-6).
Whether we like to submit to authority or not, we all are rebellious against God in our fallen human nature, and we need the gospel of the kingdom to be preached to us so that we might be saved, qualified, and equipped to enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 8:12).
As believers in Christ we are now under the rule of the heavenly King and we have the right and responsibility to speak the gospel of the kingdom to those around us so that they would repent, be saved, and be qualified and equipped to enter into the kingdom of God.
All the believers in Christ have been regenerated by God to enter into the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species to live under the rule of God in life (John 3:3, 5, 15-16). Today we are being trained by the Lord to live in the kingdom as the realm of the divine life and to be under the rule of God in life.
The gospel of the glory of Christ is the shining reality of Christ (who is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God) as the treasure within us. Christ is the image of God, the effulgence of His glory, and the gospel of Christ is the gospel of His glory that illuminates and shines forth (see 2 Cor. 4:3-4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3).
After we receive the gospel of the kingdom, repent, and are brought back under God’s authority, we now have the privilege of enjoying God’s shining on the face of Christ as the treasure in our earthen vessel.
Through the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of the glory of Christ, the first God-man can no be reproduced in millions of human beings on earth to compose the church, the kingdom of God today.
When we repent and are baptised, we receive the shining of the glory of the resurrected Christ into our being, and God’s kingdom comes in us.
We are born of God, brought into God’s kingdom, have the life and nature of God, and we begin to become the reproduction of the first God-man to express God in His image and represent Him with His dominion.
Lord Jesus, may the gospel of the kingdom be preached in the whole inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations. Save many rebellious sinners all around the world and bring them into the kingdom of God. Lord Jesus, may the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom have a tremendous impact in these last days as it is being propagated and spread all over the earth. May many rebellious sinners be regenerated by to enter into the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species and live under the rule of God in life! Lord, make us a part of the reproduction of Christ on earth today to express You in Your image and represent You with Your dominion!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (msg. 35), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (3), week 12 / msg 12, Image and Dominion – the Heart of Genesis.
- Further reading: see msg. 13 in the life-study of Mark (by Witness Lee).
- Picture credit for Matt. 4:17 and more ministry quotes via, Christian Pictures Blog.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Jesus lived the God-man pattern, / Set the way for us to follow, / He denied His natural man and / Was obedient unto death, / Once He was the only God-man; / Now we are His duplication. / As the many grains we’re blended / As His corporate reproduction. (Song on Christ having a God-man Living)
# Come let us speak till the kingdom of the Lord comes down. / Yes, let us speak till the kingdom of the Lord comes down. / Why hold your peace? / The Word release. / Let us speak until the kingdom of the Lord comes down. (Hymns #1294)
# Today we must learn to submit to His throne, / How to have a strict life and His government own; / His authority then we’ll be able to share, / o’er the nations to rule with God’s Son as the heir. (Hymns #947)
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On one hand, the Bible reveals the gospel as the gospel of grace, which is for us to become believers through faith. On the other hand, the Bible says that the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom, which is for us to become the Lord’s disciples, those who are trained, ruled, disciplined, and dealt with by the Lord’s authority. According to the gospel of grace, God is pleased to freely grant us grace, and we can receive this grace simply by believing. However, this gospel is also the gospel of the kingdom through which God desires to bring us under the ruling of the heavenly authority so that we may become His kingdom, those who are ruled by God’s authority. (Witness Lee, What the Kingdom Is to the Believers, p. 88)
I enjoyed the paragraph,“On the one hand, the gospel is the gospel of grace: we become believers through faith in Christ to enjoy the grace of God. On the other hand, the Bible clearly says that the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom, which is for us to become the Lord’s disciples, those who are being trained, ruled, disciplined, and dealt with by the Lord’s authority”. In Mathew 24:14 The Lord said to the disciples who are trained, ruled, disciplined and dealt with and now living under his heavenly ruling to preach the gospel of the kingdom unto all nations. I am glad that today we have not only received the gospel of grace but have been taught the way to live under the heavenly rule of the Lord who arbitrates in our heart to keep us living in the reality of the Kingdom. As we live and are willing to be ruled by the anointing within and walk according to the Spirit, the anointed one within we are truly living in the reality of the Kingdom and qualified to tell others of the blessing that we daily receive and partake off. Eventually all the nations will be under this heavenly ruling and then the end will come! Thank you brother for spreading the good news of the gospel of Grace and the Kingdom. Let those who have ear, hear what the Spirit is saying in the churches. (Rev. 2:29)