Scripture Reading: Gen. 5:22-24; 6:8; Acts 7:2; Rom. 4:12; Gen. 26:12-13; 28:10-22; 45:5; 50:20
Ⅲ
In the book of Genesis, the constituents of the church are typified by Adam, Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph—Gal. 6:16:
D
Enoch walked with God by faith to escape death and to obtain the testimony that he was well pleasing to God—Gen. 5:22-24; Heb. 11:5-6:
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To walk with God is to take Him as our center and everything and do everything according to His revelation and leading—Rom. 8:4, 13-14; Gal. 2:2a; 2 Cor. 5:14-15.
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To walk with God is to walk by faith; faith means that we believe that God is and we are not—v. 7; Heb. 11:5-6, 1-2; 2 Cor. 4:13, 18; Josh. 9:14b.
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Faith means that we believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him—Heb. 11:6; Gen. 15:1; Phil. 3:8, 14; Psa. 27:4, 8; 42:1-2; 43:4; 73:25; 119:2, 10.
E
Noah's life was a life that changed the age—Phil. 1:19-21a:
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God showed Noah the true situation of the corrupt age in which he lived; "but Noah found favor [grace] in the sight of Jehovah"; grace is God coming to us to be our life supply, our strength, and our everything; such grace enabled Noah to overcome the flesh and to live a righteous life—Gen. 6:8, 3, 5, 11, 13; Matt. 24:37-39; 2 Pet. 2:5.
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The ark that Noah built is a type of the practical and present Christ as God's salvation, and to build the ark is to build up the practical and present Christ as God's salvation in our experience for the building up of the Body of Christ as the corporate Christ; this is to work out our own salvation—Phil. 2:12-13:
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To build the ark is to work out our own salvation, which is to build up Christ in our experience for the building up of the Body of Christ, the corporate Christ.
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What Noah worked on and entered into was God's salvation, the ark; we should have a practical and present Christ into whom we can enter as God's salvation.
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The very Christ whom we are building up in our experience today will become our future salvation; one day, under God's sovereignty we will enter into the very Christ whom we have built up—cf. Gen. 7:7.
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Even today, if we build up Christ in our experience, we will be able to abide in Christ, to dwell in Christ (John 15:5); to build up Christ in our experience is to love the Lord, to talk to Him by calling on His name, and to fellowship with Him, living by Him and walking together with Him day after day and hour after hour to be a "co-walker" with God so that we can be a co-worker with God (Gen. 5:22-24; 6:9).
F
Abraham obeyed God's calling by faith and lived a life of the altar and the tent—Heb. 11:8-9; Rom. 4:1, 12; Gal. 3:7; Gen. 12:1-3, 7-8; 13:3-4, 18:
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God called Abraham by appearing to him as the God of glory, the One who trans-fused His essence into him; God's glory was a great attraction to him; it separated him from the world unto God, and it was a great encouragement and strength that enabled him to follow God; in the same principle, God calls the New Testament believ-ers by His invisible glory—Acts 7:2; Exo. 29:43; Gen. 12:1, 4; 2 Pet. 1:3; Gen. 15:1.
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Abraham's faith did not originate with himself; rather, his believing in God was a reaction to the transfusion of God's element into his being—Acts 7:2; Heb. 12:1-2.
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Abraham lived the life of the altar and the tent; if we would walk in the steps of Abraham's faith, we must build an altar, signifying that our life on earth is for God, and then pitch a tent, indicating that we do not belong to the world—11:8-9; Gen. 12:7-8; 13:3-4, 18; Rom. 4:12:
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Building an altar means that we offer everything we are and have to God; this is the real worship of God; an altar means that our life is for God, that God is our life, and that the meaning of our life is God—Gen. 8:20; Psa. 43:4a.
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Abraham's dwelling in a tent testified that he did not belong to the world but lived the life of a sojourner on earth; erecting a tent is an expression, a declaration, that we do not belong to this world, that we belong to another country, the New Jerusalem—Heb. 11:9-10, 15-16; Gen. 12:7-8.
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To live by faith, as Abraham did, is to cooperate with Christ in His heavenly ministry, not only by living a life of the altar and the tent but also by fighting for the brother—Gen. 12:7-8; 14:1-24:
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Because the land around Sodom was rich, Lot journeyed toward Sodom; eventually, he moved into the city, lived there, and settled there; under God's sovereignty Sodom was conquered, and Lot was taken captive—v. 12.
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Abraham did not count the weak point of his brother and did not take pleasure in Lot's suffering and calamity; as far as Abraham was concerned, it was a shame for him to see that his brother had been captured—1 John 5:16a; Isa. 58:6-7; Prov. 10:12; James 5:19-20.
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When Abraham received the information about Lot's capture, he made a strong decision to fight for Lot; also before Abraham went out to war, he prayed, lifting up his hand to Jehovah, God the Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth— Gen. 14:14, 22; 1 Tim. 2:8.
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Abraham decided to take his three hundred eighteen men and fight against the four kings and their armies due to the fact that behind the scene Melchizedek was interceding for Lot, Abraham, and Abraham's fighting—Gen. 14:18-20; Heb. 7:1-4, 25-26; 4:14-16; 5:6, 10; 8:2; Rom. 8:26-29, 34.
G
Isaac was a model, a pattern, of the enjoyment of God's grace for God's good pleasure— Gen. 24:36; 25:5; 26:3-4, 12-13; Rom. 5:1-2; Acts 4:33; 11:23:
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After Abraham's natural strength and self-effort were dealt with by God, Isaac was born (Gen. 17:15-19; 18:10-14; 21:1-7); this implies that Isaac was born of grace, which is represented by Sarah (Gal. 4:23-28, 31; 1 Pet. 3:7).
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Grace is God in Christ as the Spirit wrought into our being for our enjoyment to be everything to us and do everything in us, through us, and for us so that He can become the constituent of our being for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem—John 1:16-17; Heb. 10:29b; 1 Cor. 15:10.
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It is our destiny to enjoy the grace of God; this destiny was preordained before the foundation of the world—Eph. 1:3-6; 2:7.
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Isaac was grown up in grace; to grow in grace is to grow in the enjoyment of all that Christ is to us as our spiritual food and living water—Gen. 21:8; 17:1; 26:3; 1 Pet. 2:2; 1 Cor. 3:2, 6; Eph. 3:8; 4:15.
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The Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29) is the grace of life (1 Pet. 3:7), the varied grace of God (4:10), the God of all grace (5:10), and the all-sufficient grace (2 Cor. 12:9); this grace is now with our spirit (Gal. 6:18; cf. 1 Cor. 15:10).
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The way to daily receive and enjoy grace is to turn to the spirit, exercise the spirit, and enthrone the Lord—Heb. 4:16; Rom. 5:17, 21; Acts 20:32; cf. Rev. 4:2:
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God's throne is the source of the flowing grace; whenever we fail to enthrone the Lord, dethroning Him, the flow of grace stops—22:1; Col. 1:18b; Rev. 2:4.
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If we enthrone the Lord Jesus within us, the Spirit as the river of water of life will flow out from the throne of grace to supply us; in this way we shall receive grace and enjoy grace—22:1; Hymns, #770.
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Through our enjoyment of grace, the kingdom of God will be realized and God in Christ will be fully expressed for eternity—Rev. 22:21; Rom. 5:1-2; 14:17; Eph. 2:10.
H
The experience of Jacob was governed by his dream of Bethel, the house of God—Gen. 28:10-22:
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Jacob's dream was a dream of God's goal, a dream of Bethel, a dream of the house of God, which is the church today (1 Tim. 3:15) and which will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal dwelling place of God and His redeemed elect (Rev. 21:3, 22).
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In His humanity Christ became a joining ladder to join heaven (God) and earth (man) into one—Gen. 28:12-17; John 1:1, 51.
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Our human spirit is also the dwelling place of God; whenever we turn to our spirit, we sense Christ bringing God (heaven) to us and joining us to God (heaven); thus, Christ as the heavenly ladder is the stairway to bring God to us and join us to God—14:6; Eph. 2:22.
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Israel means "one who struggles with God" (Gen. 32:28, 31-32) and "the prince of God"; the Christian life is a life of struggling with God to be transformed by God into a prince of God (cf. Phil. 4:5-7, 11-13):
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Transformation is the metabolic function of the life of God in the believers by the addition of the element of the divine life of Christ into our being, to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2.
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Isaac, Rebekah, and Esau were used by God to put Jacob into the "oven" of trans-formation, and Laban and Jacob's wives were the "fire" burning in that oven; Jacob's history shows that God sovereignly arranges each aspect of the environ-ment of His chosen ones so that He may carry out His work of transformation within them—8:28-30.
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Through the process of transformation, Jacob became mature in the divine life to reign in life, his supplanting hands became blessing hands, and his speaking became God's speaking—vv. 28-29; Luke 18:19; Psa. 68:19; cf. Rom. 5:17:
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To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life; to be mature is to be filled with the divine life that changes us—Heb. 6:1.
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Jacob's supplanting hands became blessing hands; blessing is the overflow of life—Gen. 47:7; 48:14-16; Num. 6:23-27; 2 Cor. 13:14.
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As a God-constituted person, Jacob was saturated with God; thus, his speaking was God's speaking and his word was God's word—Gen. 49:1; cf. 1 Cor. 14:31.
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Joseph overcame his sufferings because he was strengthened by God, the Mighty One of Jacob and the All-sufficient One, and because he saw that everything was arranged by God to be a blessing to him—Gen. 49:24-25; 45:5; 50:20; 1 Cor. 3:21-22; Rom. 8:28; Eph. 5:20; 1 Thes. 5:18.