Scripture Reading: Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45, 47; Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7, 9; 3:22-24; Eph. 4:17-18
Ⅰ
Adam is a type of Christ producing the church as His counterpart—Gen. 2:21-23; Eph. 5:28-32:
A
In Romans 5:14 we are told that Adam was "a type of Him who was to come," Christ:
１
Adam was the head of the old collective man (mankind); whatever he did and whatever happened to him is participated in by all mankind—v. 12.
２
Christ is the Head of the corporate new man, the church; whatever He did and whatever happened to Him is participated in by all the members of His Body—vv. 17-21; Eph. 2:15-16; 1:22-23.
B
The rib taken from Adam's opened side typifies the unbreakable, indestructible, eternal life of Christ, which flowed out of His pierced side to impart life to His believers for the producing and building up of the church—Gen. 2:21-22; Heb. 7:16; John 19:34.
C
The building of Eve with the rib taken from Adam's side typifies the building of the church with the resurrection life released from Christ through His death on the cross and imparted into His believers in His resurrection—Gen. 2:21-23; 1 Pet. 1:3:
１
The church as the real Eve is the totality of Christ in all His believers— 1 Cor. 12:12.
２
Only that which comes out of the resurrection life of Christ can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ—Eph. 5:28-30.
Ⅱ
Adam was a vessel created in the image of God to receive God and to contain God for the reproduction of God—Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7, 9:
A
The creation of man was God's preliminary preparation for the dispensing of Himself as the Triune God into the tripartite man according to His economy—2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-17a.
B
The basic teaching of the Scriptures is that we are vessels to receive and contain God as the unique content—Gen. 2:7; 2 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 9:21, 23:
１
Man is a vessel created in the image of God for the purpose of containing God.
２
"If we do not contain God and know God as our content, we are a senseless contradiction" (The Economy of God, p. 44).
３
If the vessel is open, God can fulfill His purpose, but if the vessel is closed, God's purpose is frustrated.
４
We need to love the Lord and keep ourselves open to Him, giving Him every opportunity to do everything He wants to do—Mark 12:30; 1 Cor. 2:9; Eph. 3:16-17a.
C
God's purpose in the creation of man in His image and after His likeness was that man would receive Him as life and express Him in all His attributes—Gen. 1:26-27; 2:9:
１
God created man in His image and after His likeness because His intention is to come into man and to be one with man—Eph. 3:17a.
２
God created man in His own image in such a way that man has the capacity to contain God's love, light, righteousness, and holiness—1 John 1:5; 4:8; Eph. 4:24; 5:2, 8-9.
３
Because we were created according to God's kind, our human virtues have the capacity to contain the divine attributes—2 Cor. 10:1; 11:10.
D
For God to create man in His image means that God created man with the intention that man would become a duplicate of God, the reproduction of God—John 12:24:
１
The first grain—the first God-man—was a prototype, and the many grains—the many God-men—produced by this one grain are the mass reproduction; this is the reproduction of God.
２
God's "hobby" is to have His reproduction throughout the earth; this reproduction makes God happy because it looks like Him, speaks like Him, and lives like Him—Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10; 1 John 3:1.
E
If Adam had eaten of the tree of life and thereby had taken God into him as life, he would have become not only a man made by God in His image but also a God-man—a man filled with God as his life and with the divine attributes filling his human virtues.
Ⅲ
As a fallen man, Adam was separated from the life of God and was not permitted to contact God as the tree of life—Gen. 3:1-6, 11-13, 22-24:
A
Satan's tempting of man to take the tree of knowledge indicates that Satan wants to keep man from taking God as his life—vv. 1-6.
B
The significance of man's fall is that man was estranged from the life of God—Eph. 4:17-18.
C
God's prohibiting of man by the cherubim and the flaming sword from taking the tree of life indicates that God's glory (signified by the cherubim), holiness (signified by the flame), and righteousness (signified by the sword) do not allow sinful man to abuse the life of God—Heb. 9:5; 12:29; Rom. 2:5.