The Body life“I delight in…the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6): God delights in our knowing Him; therefore, He wants us to “pursue knowing Jehovah”. Our knowledge of God is more important than our service to God: We should not merely serve God without pursuing knowledge of Him. Our service […]
In Exodus the Ten Commandments are called the tablets of the Testimony; the commandments testify of God in two ways (32:15): First, they testify that God is the unique God. Second, they testify that God is a God of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. The law and its ordinances were decreed by […]
The book of Genesis begins and ends with image and dominion (1:26-28): The subject of Genesis is man bearing the image of God and exercising God’s dominion over all things: For God to create man in His image means that God created man with the intention that man would become a duplication of God, the […]
The prophecy concerning the apostasy with Dan indicates Jacob’s concern about the setting up of a divisive center of worship: Dan fought as a young lion to gain more land (signifying Christ), but after being successful and victorious, he became a serpent —proud, individualistic, and independent; he acted in his pride to set up an […]
Jacob’s twelve sons eventually became the twelve tribes of Israel, a type of the church as God’s house, the Israel of God, composed of all the believers: Jacob’s maturity in life, the zenith of his life, issued in the overflow of life, his prophesying with blessing for the building up of God’s house. Whatever was […]
To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life, to be mature is to be filled with the divine life that changes us, and blessing is the overflow of life: As Jacob was about to bless the two sons of Joseph, he spoke of the Triune God in his experience: The God […]
According to spiritual experience, Jacob and Joseph are one person; Joseph represents the reigning aspect of the mature Israel, the constitution of Christ in Jacob’s mature nature; as a mature saint constituted of Christ, the perfect One, Jacob reigned through Joseph: The reigning aspect typified by Joseph is Christ constituted into our being. The reigning […]
Joseph’s life was a copy of the life of Christ in the following aspects: In his being a shepherd. In his being his father’s beloved. In his being sent by his father to minister to his brothers according to his father’s will. In his being hated, persecuted, and betrayed (sold) by his brothers. In his […]
Genesis 37—45 is a record of the process of Jacob’s maturity: In Genesis 27 we see a supplanter; in chapter 37, a transformed man; and at the end of chapter 45, a mature person. To be transformed is to be metabolically changed in our natural life, whereas to be matured is to be filled with […]
Since God created man to express Him with His image and to represent Him by exercising His dominion over all things, by birth every human being has a birthright —the right by birth to express God and represent Him; however, every fallen person has sold this birthright by being independent of God. In the Bible […]
