We have clearly said that the first two chapters of the Bible describe a picture and that the last two chapters also describe a picture. These two pictures placed at the beginning and at the end of the Bible correspond with each other from afar. In this message I would like to review this point with you once more.
We have seen that the first two chapters of Genesis show us how God created the heavens and the earth as the realm, all the creatures in it as the means, and man as the center among all the creatures. God created man so that man would be His image to express Him and have His authority to represent Him. Image and dominion are God’s two goals regarding man in the universe. However, although God’s intention is for man to express Him and represent Him, He does not want man to do it individually in a scattered and independent manner. Rather, He wants all those who have been saved by grace to gather together so that they would all become one man. He wants many people to become a corporate, great, and universal man to be God’s one corporate image, God’s one universal expression, and God’s one universal representative.
We have also seen that God’s image is Christ (Col. 1:15) and that God’s authority is vested in Christ (Matt. 28:18). God’s image and God’s authority converge in our glorious Lord Christ. No one has ever seen God. However, this Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him (John 1:18). He is the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of God’s substance (Heb. 1:3a). As such, He expresses all that God is in a complete way. He is also truly God’s representative in the universe, all of God’s authority having been vested in Him, laid upon His shoulders, and placed in His hand. Thank and praise God that now Christ has been enlarged. Through death and resurrection Christ enlarged and spread Himself into us who have believed and received Him. Today every one of us has Christ within. Today this Christ is an enlarged Christ. Everyone who has received Christ as life bears the image of Christ, which is the image of God. At the same time, everyone also has the authority of Christ, which is the authority of God. Furthermore, we who have Christ neither bear Christ’s image nor exercise Christ’s authority in a scattered, independent, or individual way. Rather, we all have become members that have been aggregated together into one Body bearing Christ’s image and exercising Christ’s authority.
This Body is the mystical Body of Christ, and the Head is Christ Himself. This mystical Body with the mystical Head becomes a mystical, universal great man as described in Ephesians 5:32, which says, “This mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church.” God Himself dwells in this mystical man, and all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in this mystical man. This mystical man is a vessel for God’s expression, a living image of God expressing God in the universe. At the same time, this mystical man, having been joined to Christ and having Christ as the Head, has the authority that God committed to Christ and can therefore represent God on the earth to deal with the power of darkness and subdue all the forces that rebel against God. Therefore, the church is the Body of Christ, joined to Christ as one, with a glorious commission to be God’s image to express God on the one hand and to have God’s authority to represent God on the other. This is the glorious goal of God shown in the first two chapters of Genesis.