I.　God's desire and purpose is to have a corporate man to express Him in His image and to represent Him with His authority; in order for man to express God and represent God, he must have God as his life, signified by the tree of life—Gen. 1:26; 2:8-9; Rom. 8:28-29; 2 Cor. 3:16-18; Rom. 5:10,17, 21; 16:20.

II.　The revelation concerning the garden of Eden, as the beginning of the divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures, and the revelation concerning the New Jerusalem, as the ending of the divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures, reflect each other; what is revealed in these two parts of the Scriptures is the central thought of God, the central line of the divine revelation, and a controlling principle of the interpreting and understanding of the Holy Scriptures:

A.　Genesis 1 and 2 are the blueprint of God's organic architectural plan to have His divine building—Heb. 11:10; 1 Cor. 3:9.

B.　Genesis 3 through Revelation 20 are the building process.

C.　Revelation 21 and 22 are the photograph of the finished building, the corporate expression of the Triune God.

III.　Genesis 1—2 and Revelation 21—22 both contain four organic items, showing the procedures God takes to fulfill His purpose:

A.　The tree of life as the center of God's eternal economy typifies Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, to be life and the life supply to the tripartite man as a vessel for the corporate expression of God—this is the central thought of God—Gen.2:7-9; Rev. 22:2; cf. Gen. 3:24; Ezek. 1:28; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 3:10; Rev. 21:19-20:

1.　"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it"—John 1:4-5.

2.　"I am…the life"—14:6; cf. 15:5.

3.　"I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly"—10:10b.

4.　"Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit"—12:24.

5.　"If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water...The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life"—4:10, 14.

6.　"I am the bread of life...He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me...It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life"—6:35, 57, 63.

7.　"The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit"—1 Cor. 15:45b.

8.　"The law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death"—Rom. 8:2.

9.　"If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness"—v. 10.

10.　"The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace"—v. 6; cf. 1 Cor. 6:17.

11.　"If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you"—Rom. 8:11.

12.　"Blessed arethose who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city"—Rev. 22:14; cf. Psa. 51:2, 7, 10, 12.

13.　"To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God"—Rev. 2:7; cf. John6:57, 63; Jer. 15:16; John 15:1, 5, 7; 8:31.

14.　"[God] has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for theletter kills, but theSpirit gives life"—2 Cor. 3:6, cf. vv. 8-9; 5:20.

15.　"If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask and he will give life to him"—1 John 5:16.

B.　The river flowing to reach the four directions of the earth signifies the river of water of life as the abundance of life in itsflow, flowing out of the unique God as the source and center to reach man in every direction—Gen. 2:10:

1.　The river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb depicts how the Triune God—God, the Lamb, and the Spirit, who is symbolized by the water of life—dispenses Himself to His redeemed under His headship—Rev. 22:1.

2.　That the river of water of life proceeds "in the middle of its street" (v. 1), which is pure gold (21:21), signifies that the divine life flows in the divine nature as the unique way for the daily life of God's redeemed people (2 Pet. 1:4; John4:24; 1 John 4:8, 16; 1:5).

3.　The fellowship of the eternal life (v. 3) is the flow of the eternal life within all the believers and is depicted by the flow of the water of life in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:1).

4.　The following verses show how we must enjoy the flowing Triune God—Jer. 2:13; Psa. 36:8-9; John 7:37-39; Exo. 17:6; Num. 20:7-8; 1 Cor. 12:3b, 13; Ezek. 47:1-9.

C.　The flow of the river issues in three precious materials: gold, bdellium, and onyx stone—Gen. 2:10-12:

1.　These materials typify the Triune God as the basic elements of the structure of God's eternal building; the New Jerusalem is constructed of these three categories of materials—Rev. 21:18-21:

a.　Gold typifies God the Father with His divine nature, which man may partake of through God's calling, as the base of God's eternal building—2 Pet. 1:3-4.

b.　Bdellium, apearl-like materialproduced fromthe resin of a tree, typifies the produce of God the Son in His redeeming andlife-releasing death andHis life-dispensing resurrection as the entry into God's eternal building—John 19:34; 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3; Rev. 21:21.

c.　Onyx, a precious stone, typifies the produce of God the Spirit with His transforming work for the building up of God's eternal building—2 Cor. 3:18.

2.　The flowingof thedivine life in man brings thedivine nature into man (2 Pet. 1:4), regenerates man (1 Pet. 1:3), and transforms man into the glorious image of Christ (2 Cor.3:18); thus, the man who was created of dust (Gen. 2:7) becomes transformed precious materials for God's building, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem.

3.　By our transformation in life, we are becoming gold, silver, and precious stones for God's building—1 Cor. 3:12:

a.　In order to build with these materials, we ourselves must be constituted with them; we needthegrowth in the nature of God the Father, the redemption of God the Son, and the transformation of God the Spirit; this growth makes us gold, silver, andprecious stones for God's building—vv. 12, 16-17.

b.　Through our eating of Christ, along with our spiritual digestion, assimilation, and metabolism, Christ becomes us, and we become Him; then we become the precious materials for God's building—John 6:57; Eph. 3:17; Gal.4:19.

4.　God's eternal goal is the building—the temple built with precious materials on Christ as the unique foundation—1 Cor. 3:11-12, 16-17:

a.　The growth in the divine life produces materials for the building of God's habitation; this habitation, the church, is the increase, the enlargement, of the unlimited Christ—Eph. 2:21-22; John 3:29-34.

b.　First, we have the farm for the growth in life; then we have the building for God's eternal purpose—1 Cor. 3:9; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:20-22; 4:16.

5.　The actual building of the church as the house of God is by the growth in life of the believers—1 Cor. 3:6-7, 16-17; Eph.2:20-21; 1 Pet. 2:2-5:

a.　True building is the growth in life; the extent to which we have been built up is the extent to which we have grown.

b.　In order to have the genuine building, we need to grow by having ourselves reduced and by having Christ increased within us—Matt. 16:24; Eph. 3:17.

D.　The final step of God's procedure in fulfilling His purpose is to work Himself into man to make man His counterpart, or complement—Gen. 2:18-25; Rev. 21:2, 9-10:

1.　In order to produce a complement for Himself, God first became a man, as typified by God's creation of Adam—John 1:14; Rom. 5:14.

2.　Adam's deep sleep for the producing of Eve as his wife typifies Christ's death on the cross for the producing of the church as His counterpart—Eph. 5:25-27.

3.　The rib taken from Adam's opened side typifies the unbreakable, indestructible, eternal lifeof Christ, which flowed out of His pierced side to impart life to His believers for the building up of the church as His complement—Heb. 7:16; John 19:34.

4.　Genesis 2:22 does not say that Eve was created but that she was built; the building of Eve with the rib taken from Adam's side typifies the building of the church with the resurrection life released from Christ through His death on the cross and imparted into His believers in His resurrection—John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3.

5.　Through such a process God in Christ has been wrought into man with His life and nature so that man can be the same as God in life and nature in order to match Him as His complement, His bride, His wife—Rev. 21:2, 9-10.

6.　The church as the real Eve is the totality of Christ in all His believers; only that which comes out of Christ with His resurrection life can be His complement and counterpart, the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 5:28-30.

7.　At the end of the Bible is a city, New Jerusalem, the ultimate and eternal woman, the corporate bride, the wife of the Lamb, built with three precious materials, fulfilling for eternity the type shown in Genesis 2; thus, in type all the precious materials mentioned in verses 11 and 12 are for the building of the woman.