EXCERPTS FROM THE MINISTRY

LIFE-STUDY OF ROMANS

MESSAGE ONE

A FOREWORD

How we thank the Lord that He has afforded us this training, a training that will cover the normal Christian life with the proper church life. We will pay our full attention to this matter of life—the Christian life and the church life. This means that our purpose is not to have a training in doctrines, although we still need to know the basic truths and the principles from the divine Word. The entire training will be devoted to the book of Romans. We need to study the Recovery Version of Romans thoroughly. This message serves as a foreword to the book of Romans.

I. THE POSITION OF ROMANS
IN THE BIBLE

Firstly, we need to know the position of the book of Romans in the Bible. In order to know this, we need to consider the Bible as a whole.

A. The Bible—a Romance
of a Universal Couple

The Bible is a romance. Have you ever heard this before? It may sound secular and unreligious. However, if you have entered into the deep thought of the Bible, you will realize that the Bible is a romance, in the most pure and the most holy sense, of a universal couple.

1. God in Christ as the Bridegroom

The male of this couple is God Himself. Although He is a divine Person, He desires to be the male of this universal couple. This very God, after a long process, has resulted in Christ as the Bridegroom.

2. God’s Redeemed People as the Bride

The female of this couple is a corporate human being, God’s redeemed people, including all the saints of the Old Testament and the New Testament. After a long process this corporate person results in the New Jerusalem as the Bride.

3. This Romance in the Old Testament

This holy romance is repeatedly revealed throughout the Old Testament.

a. The Story of a Marriage

Immediately after the record of God’s creation, we find the story of a marriage (Gen. 2:21-25). In this marriage Adam is the type of Christ as the husband, and Eve is the type of the church as the wife. In Ephesians 5 we see the couple typified by Adam and Eve—Christ and the church. The type of Adam and Eve reveals that the persons of this universal couple must be of the same source. God created one person, Adam, and out from this person a wife came. Eve was not created separately by God; she came out of Adam. Eve was made out of a rib, a piece of bone, that came from Adam, indicating that both Adam and Eve proceeded out of the same source. In this universal couple the wife must come out of the husband. Likewise, the church must come out of Christ. The two persons of this couple must be of the same source. They also must be of one nature. Furthermore they must share one common life. Adam’s nature and life were also Eve’s. Eve had the same nature and life as Adam. The two persons of this couple were of one source, of one nature, and had the same one life. Without doubt, they also had one living. They lived together. Eve lived by Adam and with Adam, and Adam lived by Eve and with Eve.

This couple is the secret of the universe. The secret of the whole universe is that God and His chosen ones are to be one couple. Hallelujah! We, God’s chosen ones, and God are of one source, of one nature, and have one life. Now we also need to have one living. We are not living by ourselves or for ourselves; we are living with God and for God, and God is living with us and for us. Hallelujah!