«　WEEK 11　DAY 1　»

　　1 Cor. 10:1 For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.

　　6 Now these things occurred as examples to us, that we should not be ones who lust after evil things, even as they also lusted.

　　In His old administrative arrangement God chose the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, and made them His people as a type of the church (Rom. 9:11-13; Acts 7:38). In the Old Testament the church is not mentioned in plain words. However, there are types that portray the church. The children of Israel, as the chosen people of God, are the greatest, collective type of the church, in which we can see that the church is chosen and redeemed by God, enjoys Christ and the Spirit as the life supply, builds God’s habitation, inherits Christ as its portion, degrades and is captured, is recovered, and awaits Christ’s coming. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 156)

　　In Hebrews and 1 Corinthians Paul points out clearly that what happened to the children of Israel is a type of us (1 Cor. 10:6). The entire history of Israel is a story of the church. The Bible, then, contains two histories—the history of Israel and the history of the church. The history of the children of Israel is a type, and the history of the church is the fulfillment of the type. Thus, the entire Bible gives us one revelation, the revelation of God’s economy concerning the church. In the Old Testament we have a type, a picture, of God’s economy concerning the church, whereas in the New Testament God’s economy concerning the church is fulfilled. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 156)

　　Before the New Testament age, that is, before the Lord’s incarnation, God had chosen a people on this earth called Israel….Their forefather was Abraham. Then by Moses’ time, at their exodus from Egypt, they became a race that had at least two million people. Since then, they have become a type of the church as God’s elect in the New Testament. Thus, the Old Testament has a people, and the New Testament has a people….These two peoples are a description of one thing that God has done, and this one thing is the accomplishment of God’s economy. Before God came to accomplish this economy, He first put out a type, a figure, a shadow. In God’s economy the people of Israel are just a type, a figure, a shadow.

　　Some verses from the New Testament…show that the people of Israel are a type of the church. In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul says, “Our Passover, Christ, also has been sacrificed” (v. 7b). After the descendants of Abraham became a people, they eventually fell into the hand of Egypt and its king, Pharaoh. Pharaoh typifies Satan, and Egypt typifies the world. This means that God’s chosen people fell into the hand of Satan and Satan’s world, so there was the need of God’s salvation to save them.

　　God exercised His salvation to save Israel out of Pharaoh’s hand, out of Egypt, and bring them into the wilderness. In the wilderness God came to be a “tabernacle,” indicating how He would come to dwell with His people to save them further and further so that they might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

　　At the end of the New Testament, the Lord Jesus called the degraded church…the great Babylon, the mystery (Rev. 17:5). Eventually, the outcome of the church is the same as that of Israel. Israel’s outcome was to be captured to Babylon.…In Revelation 17 the Lord called the degraded church the great harlot, the great Babylon, and the mother of harlots (vv. 1, 5). This shows that the church is a fulfillment of the type of Israel. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Living a Life according to the High Peak of God’s Revelation,” pp. 179-181)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of 1 Corinthians, msgs. 47-48; Truth Lessons—Level Three, vol. 2, lsn. 29; CWWL, 1982, vol. 1, “Experiencing Christ as the Offerings for the Church Meetings,” ch. 3