PARENTHOOD
a divine stewardship

Exodus reveals that gold was the base of the breastplate of the high priest, and this breastplate was full of precious stones (28:15-21). In Matthew 13 we can see precious material once again. In this chapter the Lord Jesus first spoke of the wheat that produces the meal, the fine flour. This is good for the making of a loaf, which signifies the church, the Body of Christ. But that meal was leavened (v. 33), so the Lord followed in Matthew 13 to speak of the treasure (v. 44) and the pearls (w. 45-46). This treasure must consist of gold or precious stones, the materials for the building of the church and the New Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 3:12; Revelation 21:18-20). Pearls are also material for the building of the New Jerusalem (v. 21a).

In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul said, "You are God's cultivated land, God's building" (v. 9). The cultivated land, the farm, becomes the building through transformation. The believers, who have been regenerated in Christ with God's life, are God's cultivated land, a farm in God's new creation to grow Christ that precious materials may be produced for God's building. As God's farm we need the watering (v. 6). This watering causes us to grow and be transformed into precious materials. Paul also said that God's building should be built with gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12).

In his first Epistle, Peter said that the Lord is a living stone and that we are the living stones who are built up as a spiritual house (2:4-5). Eventually, at the end of the book of Revelation, the three materials-gold, pearls, and precious stones-are built up into a city. In the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 2, the materials are only existing there, but at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21, the materials have become a building.

The Producing of a Couple

Merely to have a tree with a river flowing issuing in three kinds of materials to illustrate God's purpose in creating man is not adequate. Following this the divine record speaks of God's producing a couple (Genesis 2:18-24). For the reproduction and continuation of man, there is the need of the female. God produced the female in a different way. He did not form a female person from the dust of the ground as He did with Adam. God put Adam to sleep, opened up his side, took a rib, and built a woman with that rib (w. 21-22). When Adam awoke and saw the woman, he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (v. 23). She was one with Adam as his counterpart, his match, his mate. Jehovah God built a woman with the rib of Adam as his wife to match him as his counterpart, signifying that the church was constituted with the resurrection life of Christ to be His counterpart (Ephesians 5:23-32). This is the completion of God's creation of man. Is this the story of man or of God? We may have the concept that this is the story of man. But actually this is not merely man's story of how he was created, but God's story of how He created man. This is God's history in creating man.

This short part of the history of God in Genesis 1 and 2 is a miniature of the entire Bible. In Genesis 2 there are three materials to be built up into something. Then there is a couple, a husband and a wife. At the end of the Bible, there is a built-up city with three precious materials-gold, pearls, and precious stones. This building is the wife (Revelation 21:2), and the Builder is the Husband (Hebrews 11:10). This built-up city at the conclusion of the divine revelation is not a material, lifeless city but a corporate living person as the wife, having Christ, such a wonderful person, as her Husband.

Witness Lee, The History of God in His Union with Man, pp. 44-49.

APPLICATION

1. Can you give a definite and accurate definition of God's image and God's likeness in which man was created?

2. What is the meaning of the breath of life which God breathed into the man that He had formed of the dust of the earth?

3. Explain the significance of the fact that Jehovah God built a woman with the rib of Adam to be his wife to match him as his counterpart.