GENESIS TWO TO FOUR
GENESIS TWO [p. 267] TO FOUR
Following the course of the days in chapter 1, viewing them as indicating the order in which God works in men’s souls so as to lead them into His sabbath, it is evident that the sixth day brings the work to an end; for on this day man is created so as to exercise dominion over all that had been made. This was the completion, or top-stone, of what God had designed. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”, Genesis 1:27. In type this is Christ and the church as seen in Ephesians 1.
When this shall have been literally accomplished, when Christ and the church are set over all things, God’s rest shall ensue. God will “rest in his love”, (Zephaniah 3:17) but He shall rest because His work is completed. The sabbath is cessation from labour, Genesis 2:2,3. On our side, on the side of human desire prompted by the Spirit, there is nothing more to be prayed for when the King’s Son is recognised as on the throne. “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended”, Psalm 72:20.
We learn from Exodus 31:17 that on the seventh day God “rested and was refreshed”. This may be applied to Christ as Man here on earth, for in Him God rested. There was the expression of the Father’s delight, and the Spirit descended and abode upon Him. But in the full thought of it, the sabbath refers to the period when God shall rest (all His counsels accomplished) in a renewed creation headed up in Christ.
Chapter 2 deals specially with man, his origin and nature: the scene of delight designed by God for him; the law by which he was to be governed there; his intelligence as indicated in his naming the animals, etc. and finally the origin and nature of her who was to be his companion. It is Christ and the church [p. 268] brought very close to our eyes. Chapter 1:26, 27 foreshadows Christ as man according to God’s counsels, but chapter 2 presents the historical side. Viewed in this light, the church is derived from Him. Adam’s intelligence is particularly seen in the name he gives the woman: “This time”, he says, “it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called woman, because this was taken out of man”. Genesis 2:23. He recognised himself in her. The source whence she is derived is that view of the church which this type furnishes.
Chapters 3 and 4 go together. The third sets forth sin in man as active against God; the fourth shows it as working out in man against his brother. The presence of Christ here on earth brought fully to light, in all its depths, the working of sin in this double character. In testimony the Lord was here on the part of God, and man’s hostility to Him was hostility against God; but Christ was, personally, the righteous Man here, and on account of this He suffered also.
Adam’s responsibility in the garden was entirely negative, but he typifies Israel as placed under the law. Compare Hosea 6:7 — read “Adam” instead of “men”. Israel not only broke the commandment, but when Christ was given as a covenant to them (Isaiah 42:6), they refused Him. Sin against God was thus consummated. In the presence of all this breakdown of man as in responsibility, everything centres in Christ; the seed of the woman. As coming to earth, He should be attacked by Satan, for it is as walking here that His heel was exposed; but the serpent should be utterly overcome. There is then light in regard to life; Adam calls his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Doubtless this is based on what God had said of her seed. Then Adam and his wife are clothed with that which necessitated the death of another. There is light in [p. 269] all this, and thus we can account for the character of Abel’s offering.
Abel is Christ as the righteous man here on earth. He is not only a figure of Christ — the substance was there; that is, Abel was personally righteous. When lawlessness prevails on earth God brings in a testimony to righteousness. This is not only a written record, but righteousness expressed livingly in a Man among men. This righteousness is not inherent in a son of Adam; it is to be found in Christ only, and hence Abel was derived morally from Christ. Since Adam broke down, there can be no testimony for God in man save Christ, and so each of the men of faith mentioned in the Old Testament represents Christ in some given aspect. Abel, as we have been saying, is typical of and expresses Christ as the righteous man; Enoch, Christ as walking here under the eye of God for His pleasure; Noah presents Christ as a preacher of righteousness; Abraham, Christ as utterly apart from man’s world and so the depository of God’s counsels; Isaac shows us Christ risen, He through whom the blessing is made effective; Jacob, Christ in relation to Israel; Joseph brings before us Christ rejected by Israel, but glorified among the Gentiles while Moses presents Christ as ordering and governing the house of God.
Cain is, figuratively, the Jew, viewed as murdering Christ. Sin, as we have been saying, works out in two directions — against God, and against man’s neighbour. Christ, becoming Man was man’s neighbour; but man, as represented in the Jews, slew Him. The Spirit of God, in the New Testament, lays bare the cause of Abel’s death: “Wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous”, 1 John 3:12.
Genesis 4, therefore, is an outline of Jewish history as seen in Cain and his posterity. Cain typifies the Jew as we may see him in the different countries of [p. 270] the world at the present day. But although driven out from the presence of God, and a fugitive and a vagabond, yet God sets a mark upon him; and woe be to the person or nation who slays him. Lamech ends the line of Cain, and he acknowledges that he had slain a man to his hurt. “I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt”. Genesis 4:23. This acknowledgment shall be found with the Jews in the latter days. Then Seth (Christ) is introduced, and “men call on the name of the Lord”. Genesis 4:26. This suggests the introduction of the millennial state of things.