3. Christ and the Church.
TO such as profess to believe that what the Lord Jesus said is true, and yet are inclined to toy with evolutionism, and its ideas as to the origin of the human species, we commend these words of His: “Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” (Matt. 19:4-54And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (Matthew 19:4‑5), and see Gen. 2:2424Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24).) The lowly Man, who thus spake of the beginning, and of the creation of man, was none less than the Creator, for by Him, “all things were made; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:33All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3).)
We turn from the inspired gospels to the inspired epistles. Jesus had died and risen again, since His words recorded by Matthew were uttered. He was no longer the lowly Man on earth, but the exalted Man in glory. Speaking of Him, the Christ on high, and His church, Paul writes, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:29-3229For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:29‑32).)
Let us look for a moment at this great but unveiled mystery, Christ and the church, as it shines out upon us in the book of Genesis. Man was made a perfect being by God, perfect in form and in wisdom, with the creation on the earth as his dominion. Of this creation God constituted him the head. All cattle, and fowl of the air, and every beast of the field he named, such was his wisdom. But in that creation there was none with intelligence or affection, who could be a help meet for its head; “for Adam there was not found an help meet for him,” and such being the case, “the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.’”
The Scripture shows us the man and the woman supreme over all living things on the earth (Gen. 1:2828And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28).), in the Sabbath of the creation, enjoying all that the Lord God had made, and God Himself resting in His own Sabbath. (2:3.)
As we consider God’s creation, and His purpose in it, we find from the epistle to the Ephesians the “great mystery concerning Christ and the church” shining before us. Christ is “the beginning of the creation of God” (Rev. 3:1414And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)), and of Him Adam is a type― “the figure of Him that was to come.” (Rom. 5:1414Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:14).) Christ, “the second man,” “the last Adam,” (1 Cor. 15) is now presented to our faith, no longer the humbled Man on earth, but the exalted Man in glory, supreme not only in this creation, but in the creation of God, enthroned “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.” (Eph. 1:2121Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: (Ephesians 1:21).)
As the eternal Son, equal with God, all things are His, for He made them, but His present exaltation on high as Man, refers to His humbling Himself to the creature’s place on earth, to His death of shame, and to His being raised up from the dead. The “deep sleep” of death fell on the Son of man, and He died. Such was the purpose of God; and from Him risen out of death, opens out the new creation, of which He is the beginning, while those who are His are a new creation in Him.
It is a vain hope and a fruitless task to seek a restoration of man to his state prior to the fall; the Christian’s hopes spring up out of Christ’s death, and are secured in Christ Himself risen from the dead. We have new life through His death; we have life together with Him risen from the dead. Had the deep sleep of death not fallen on Jesus, we must have remained dead in trespasses and sins. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ” (chs. 2:4, 5). The same working of God’s mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raises Him from the dead, has been exercised toward us in giving us life with Christ in the power of His resurrection. The Word became incarnate, in order that He might die, and that, rising again, He might connect redeemed man with Himself. (John 12:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24).)
“The Church, which is His body” (Eph. 1:2222And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, (Ephesians 1:22)), is composed of His people, who are “members of His body, of His flesh, and His bones,” connected with Him, yes, united to Him by the Holy Ghost. This, the apostle tells us, is a “great mystery,” “the mystery which from the beginning, of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ” (3:9). In the, light of such a Scripture, showing us God’s secrets, the Christian can afford to cast contempt on the fashionable ignorance, which sees but myth in the early part of the divine word. God’s secret, shadowed by the picture of Genesis in Adam’s deep sleep, and in Eve being formed from him, and given to him as a helpmeet, was that through the death of His Son, Christ should have a church to be His forever, which should be “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” The facts of Genesis are often pictures containing God’s secrets, which the New Testament reveals. The mysteries are now laid open, and we perceive in the ancient pictures the manifold wisdom of God.
Adam and Eve enjoyed Paradise together. He was head, and we may say, having her, was head over all to her; she was bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and was his complement, his fullness; and to them the dominion was given. The church will be glorified together with Christ, and will share His honors and reign with Him, and will be His fullness. Herein is grace and glory, the consideration of which is overwhelming. For what are we by nature? Sinners dead in trespasses and sins, nevertheless God has made our portion not simply everlasting felicity, nor even glory with Christ, but that the church should be His fullness!
In His own glory, Christ will ever fill all in all; He is but shadowed by Adam, and that only so far as the finite can figure the infinite; Adam could not fill all things, he was but a creature. Christ fills all in all, for He is divine, and whether angels or men, He fills out of His fullness all their needs. Adam was head of the creation, but Christ is never called head of the new creation, He is the beginning of the creation of God, His glory is that of the Creator. He is the beginning in His own right and glory.
If the Christian would know the greatness of God’s power, he must dwell upon Christ’s resurrection and his own part with Christ risen; if he would find the true sphere of glory, he must look for it in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; and the more such considerations fill his soul, the more glorious will the truth of God become to him, and the more insignificant, present infidelity.
The truths we have thus touched upon teach us how absolutely secure are the saints of God. What can express their oneness with Christ more marvelously than these words, “We are members of His body, of His flesh, and His bones”? We owe our all to God and His grace. No works of ours could have put us in Christ, or produced oneness with Him. Further, such is the oneness of Christ and His people that they are spoken of as one. “For as the body is one, and hath many members...so also is Christ”―or the Christ. (1 Cor. 12:1212For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12)) “Is Christ”―or the Christ― “divided?” (ch. 1:13.)