Prayer: Lord, You know that this meeting is both critical and crucial, so we need Your presence. We pray that You would lead us into Your fellowship. O Lord, we pray that You would give us the accurate feeling and best judgment concerning these spiritual matters. Save us from making mistakes. Amen!
In this chapter we will still speak concerning the cross and the Spirit. The cross denotes death, whereas the Spirit denotes resurrection. The life we God-men live in the Body of Christ should be a life of death and resurrection. Death brings us out of Adam, out of the old creation. Christ’s death terminated the old creation, which includes us; we are the major constituents of the old creation. Today the life that we live in the Body of Christ is a life of being delivered out of Adam and the termination of the old creation. However, this is merely the negative side. We do not stop here. We still have the positive side of entering into Christ and the new creation. According to the principle of the New Testament, the cross issues in resurrection. On the cross Christ terminated the old creation for us that we might be delivered out of the realm of Adam; in resurrection He has made us alive and has brought us into His new creation. It is in the new creation that we can accomplish God’s economy.
The five major steps of God’s economy are incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. According to the New Testament principle, resurrection is joined with ascension and vice versa. When resurrection is mentioned, it includes ascension. Of these five major steps of God’s economy, only His crucifixion and resurrection are real and practical in us. We cannot experience His incarnation; Christ alone carried it out. Neither, in a certain sense, do we need to experience His human living. However, in our living in the Body of Christ we need to experience the cross ceaselessly and experience death continually, because if there is no death, there is no life. Death is not the end; rather, only when there is death can there be life. Actually, death and life are two sides of one thing. When a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, there is death outwardly, but there is actually life inwardly (John 12:24). When the grain undergoes a transformation in the soil, there is death without but life within. Hence, if there is no death, there is no life; once there is death, there is life.
In the preceding chapter we saw the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the bride of Christ. These are the five aspects of one issue. This issue with five aspects is produced out of death and resurrection. If Christ had not died and resurrected, He could not produce the church, and therefore there could not be the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the bride of Christ. This is the fact and the truth, but it is still not the experience. The church is definitely produced by Christ, but without our experience there is no reality. This fact, this truth, must be carried out in us; then it becomes our experience. Let us use regeneration as an example. We were regenerated in the Lord’s resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3); however, unless we believe into Christ and receive Him in time, we cannot experience regeneration. Hence, the fact, the truth, must be experienced and carried out by us. Then it becomes a real, practical matter to us.
Before the ages, in eternity past, God chose millions of people, including you and me. Then in time He created Adam. He did not create us directly. Genesis tells us that God created only one man; then He took a rib out of Adam’s side and made it into a woman. Hence, out of the one man Adam, men proliferated. They became fruitful and they multiplied, replenishing the whole earth (Gen. 1:27-28).
Before the woman was built, Adam might have felt lonely and bored. He was seeking a counterpart. Therefore, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him” (2:18). Then God brought every living thing that He had created to Adam. Adam had not studied biology, yet he gave names to all the living creatures. However, he did not find his counterpart. When he finished his seeking, God caused him to have a deep sleep and operated on him by taking a rib out of him. Adam’s being in a deep sleep with his side opened indicates death. The bone, which is a type of resurrection, signifies death and resurrection. God enlarged that rib and built it into a woman who was like Adam, and God brought her to Adam (vv. 19-22). When Adam saw her, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (v. 23). Verse 24 continues, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This is a clear picture portraying the bringing forth and building of the church and the practical living of the church.