Recently I have had a heavy burden: Even though the number of brothers and sisters is increasing, I wonder how much the measure of the stature of Christ is increasing in the church. Therefore, I have a strong feeling that we should help the brothers and sisters know life and the church.
Life and the church go together because there would be no church without life. Life produces the church. The church is the result of life, and life is the content of the church. According to God’s Word, salvation is completely a matter of the life in us. Although man’s natural mind cannot understand, from the beginning to the end of the Bible God cares only about the matter of life.
The Old Testament speaks of creation, and the New Testament speaks of redemption. Both in creation and redemption God’s purpose and center is life. If we look at the first two chapters of Genesis under God’s light, we can clearly see that life is the goal of His creation. Although God created many things of such diversity and variety, His purpose and final goal are simply life. If we read the first two chapters of Genesis and meditate quietly before God on His creation, we will see that God’s creation involves life and produces life. Life is the center and goal of God’s creation. In the beginning God created all things out of nothing.
In the orderly process of His creation, God first created inanimate objects, and then He created organic things. Furthermore, the creation of living beings started at the lowest level of life and advanced step by step to higher levels of life. Ultimately, the highest level of life created by God was man. Man is the highest life in God’s creation, because the Bible says that God created man in His own image and according to His own likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). Man has God’s image and likeness. Furthermore, God also gave man the authority to have dominion over all things (vv. 26, 28). Thus, among all created things, man is like God because he has God’s image; he also represents God because he has God’s authority. God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good (v. 31). In this vast universe, among all the myriads of created things, God obtained a man with His image and authority, who could express His glory and represent His authority. This satisfied God!
God rested on the seventh day after He finished His work of creation (2:2). Many people think that God was at rest and satisfied because everything was finished at this point. However, even at this point God had not reached the purpose of His creation. If we continue reading, we will see that there were still many considerations. After God created man, He put him in the garden of Eden (v. 8). In the center of the garden was the tree of life (v. 9). The tree of life is very special. The first time life is spoken of in the Bible is in relation to the tree of life. This shows that God was still not satisfied, because He had not yet reached His goal, even though He had created everything and even though man had been prepared to express and represent God. What is God’s goal? God’s goal is life. God brought the man that He created to the tree of life and put him in front of life.
We all need to be calm and consider the reasons God exerted so much effort to create everything, the reasons He created man with His likeness to represent Him, and the reasons He guided and directed man to the tree of life, hoping that man would contact the tree so that life could be imparted into him. God did these things in order to show that life is the goal and purpose of His creation. If man does not come to life and life does not come into man, God’s creation of man would have no meaning, purpose, or result.
Since the goal of God’s creation is life and God desires His creation to attain to life, Satan, His adversary, came to damage and hinder the matter of life. In the universe Satan, the evil one, opposes God, hinders God, and damages God’s plan. Satan always tries to damage the most crucial matter and jeopardize the most important place. Therefore, when God put man in front of the tree of life, Satan came to lure man away from life and to turn him to another goal: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s goal is life, but Satan caused man to pay attention to good and evil. Satan interrupted God’s plan and took man away from God’s goal. As a result, man fell into Satan’s scheme and did not pay attention to God’s goal. Instead, man paid attention to the goal upon which Satan’s temptation was based. Consequently, man did not contact the tree of life but ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (3:1-7). God cares about life, but Satan’s temptation leads man toward the goal of good and evil. Thereafter, man’s goal before God changed. From that day forward, man lost his way before God.
God pays attention to life, but Satan focuses on good and evil. From the time that man was tempted and fell, he has paid attention only to the matter of good and evil. God was forced to give the law because man was concerned only with good and evil. God uses the law to test and prove man so that man will realize that he can do nothing. God gave the law to expose man (Rom. 7:7), and even though man earnestly desires to keep the law, he fails utterly. Although man knows that he should forsake evil and do good, he does not have the ability or the means to work out the good (vv. 18-19). He can only bow his head before the law and admit his inability to work out the good.