No Other Rib

The following word came to me around the turn of the millennium...until the day that Eve was made and the two could play the game together. The song talked about peace reigning where once there was disorder confusion having lost her grip. Reading those words once again the other day I am quite suddenly gripped with the church made from the rib of Christ and no other rib.

Eve in our language means a beginning time but in Genesis the title means to breathe or live. The name is built into our faith as we believe but even though it sounds the same it's not in deceive. God said in the creation account there was a new event which was evening and afterwards morning and this was a new day. But enough of this lets get down to the issue of the bride (Eve) being made from the rib of Christ and our Father put Adam to sleep for the making of Eve.

Watchman Nee related Christ's crucifixion to the creation events saying that Adam’s sleep was not for Eve’s redemption; it was so that a rib could be taken out for her creation. (Sin had not yet entered the scene—that account is in Genesis 3.) Eve came into existence through Adam. Eve was able to receive life because Adam slept. In the same manner an aspect of the death of Christ is for the imparting of life to the church..

One of our greatest desires is to see the bride (church) adorned and ready to receive her awakening husband but how does adorned actually look within the concept of oneness in Christ. It would seem adorned is in the original conversation "Let Us make man (mankind) after our likeness." What then is our likeness, our likeness is in the image of the fruit and works of the Spirit; is heavenly, creative, loving, peaceful, otherworldly.  Before the fall in paradise Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed, afterward they adorned themselves with fig leaves before God gave skins to cover them. 

Isaiah 61:10 says; I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Isaiah 54:11-13 says "O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, Behold, I will set your stones in antimony, And your foundations I will lay in sapphires. Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies, And your gates of crystal, And your entire wall of precious stones…

Rev 21:2. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away.…

How literally do we take our wardrobe; the cloak of salvation, robe of righteousness and jewels. I'm sure many will attest to a their own salvation now clothing them and the concept of Christ's gift of redemption as a spiritual robe. In one of my early writings the Lord spoke of His word as polished stones around the neck. It would seem that the adorned bride may be associated with one hearing in the midst of the presence of God. There is no other rib.

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