Verses 30 through 32 say, “Because we are members of His Body. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church.” Genesis 2:24 indicates that a man and his wife are one flesh. We should regard a husband and wife not as two separate persons but as one complete person, as two halves of a whole unit. A husband and a wife as a complete unit are a marvelous picture of Christ and the church as one entity. Christ and the church as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), typified by a husband and wife as one flesh, are the great mystery.
The mysterious life union of Christ and His Body, the church, is the great mystery in the universe (Eph. 5:32). This mystery is the processed Triune God being joined and mingled with the regenerated and transformed tripartite man to become a universal couple; this is the ultimate point of the mingling of God and man. God is the principal character, and man is His counterpart. Through regeneration, the two share the same life and nature; they live and walk together. In other words, divinity is living in humanity to become the reality of humanity, and the human virtues are living out the divine glory and beauty to become the expression of divinity. Divinity and humanity are mingled as one. Divinity is the content and the reality within; the humanity is the manifestation and the beauty without.
The first couple in the Bible, Adam and Eve, presents a significant and complete picture of Christ and the church. According to the book of Genesis, God did not create man and woman at the same time and in the same way. First, God formed man’s body from the dust of the ground. Then He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). After God created man, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper as his counterpart.” (v. 18). The animals and the birds were brought to Adam, and Adam named them, but for Adam “there was not found a helper as his counterpart.” (v. 20). Within Adam there was the desire to have a counterpart, to have someone to match him. Among the cattle, the animals, and the birds, there was no counterpart for Adam. In order to produce such a counterpart, “God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man” (v. 21). While Adam slept, the Lord took one of Adam’s ribs and used it for the building of a woman (v. 22). In life, nature, and form the woman was the same as the man. Therefore, when God brought the woman to Adam, Adam exclaimed, “This time this is bone of my bones / And flesh of my flesh” (v. 23). Adam knew that at last he had found his counterpart.
Because there was no counterpart for Christ in the created universe, God caused Christ to die on the cross. As He slept there, His side was opened, and blood and water came forth (John 19:34). The blood takes care of the problem of sin. (In Genesis 2 the problem of sin had not come in. Therefore, that chapter mentions only the rib that was taken out of Adam; it says nothing about blood.) The water signifies the flowing life of Christ, the eternal life, which produces the church. This life is also typified by the rib. According to John 19, not one of the Lord’s bones was broken when He was on the cross. This was a fulfillment of the Scripture, which says, “He keeps all his bones; / Not one of them is broken” (Psa. 34:20). The unbroken bone of Christ signifies Christ’s unbreakable eternal life. Hence, Adam’s rib typifies the unbreakable eternal life of Christ. It is with this eternal life that the church is built up as the bride, the counterpart prepared for Christ. In this building up of the bride, Christ gains the church as a match for Himself. Just as Eve had the same life and nature as Adam, the church has the same life and nature as Christ.
In the church there is no place for our natural life and fallen human nature. The human life and nature are not adequate to match Christ. In order to be His counterpart, we need to be one with Christ in life and in nature. This means that Christ and the church as one unit have the same life and nature. Furthermore, Christ and the church have the same image and stature. We should not merely know this as a doctrine but see it as a heavenly vision. We need to see that we must receive Christ as our life and partake of His divine nature. Moreover, we need to see that we must be transformed into His image from glory to glory and attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ because we are to be Christ’s counterpart (Eph. 4:13). If we see this vision, we will not only understand the type of Christ and the church but also enjoy Christ as the Husband of the church.