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(Eph. 4: 13) where the word translated `man' is not anthropos as in the passages already
examined but aner `an adult male', `a man not a woman', `a husband'.
The word occurs two hundred and thirteen times in the N.T., fifty of which
occurrences are translated `husband', and of these seven are found in Ephesians and
Colossians. The perfect man is the `husband' seen alone and to the exclusion of the wife.
A husband however is a contradiction in terms if there be not also either in fact or in
prospect a wife. Gen. 2: 24 foreshadows the state of affairs when paradise is restored;
there will then be two redeemed companies, not one. The church of the One Body then
complete will be the perfect husband; the Bride of the Lamb will be the perfect wife, and
Christ will be the Head of both. There was a period in Adam's experience when he was
alone. We are living in a period during which there is no `Bride'--the advent and
presentation of the Bride is future. Some have objected to the idea that the husband, i.e.
the church of the Mystery, should be blessed in one sphere, while the wife, i.e. the bride
of Rev. 19: should be blessed in another. Yet with all their protestations, the most
loving and loyal of husbands necessarily have some spheres of activity into which their
wives do not and should not enter. Husbands may be ministers of State, they may be
financiers, merchants, scientists or soldiers; they may be the many who earn their bread
by manual labour, but there has never been an outcry of disloyalty or lack of affection
because a minister of State does not insist that his wife be co-elected with him to
Parliament, or that a miner is disloyal and without natural affection because he does not
insist that his wife shall work with him at the coal face! These objections confuse
distinctive calling with basic salvation and are valueless, and those who make them do
not attempt to put their objections into operation so far as they themselves and their own
domestic economy are concerned. Gen. 2: 24 is to be attained, but it is not in operation
yet; the new man created of the twain is the husband, the formation of the bride awaits
the Day of the Lord.
In Volume XXIX we opened our pages to a contributor who taught that the creation
of the new man `refers to a future creation, when two bodies or assemblies, one mainly
Jewish and the other mainly Gentile, are made one in Christ'. In Volume XXX we
wrote:
"The statements we have quoted from Genesis are all associated with Paradise, before
the entry of the Serpent and before the Fall."
"The perfect man (or husband) and the perfect bride will, while retaining the
distinctive peculiarities of their respective callings, become in the future `one new man'
even as Adam was in the beginning the covering name of both male and female."
There is no need to obtrude into the constitution of the Mystery now, that which is
only to be realized in the future; but it illuminates many features of the present
dispensation when we not only recognize that they are peculiar and distinct, but that they
are destined to fall into their respective place when the goal of the ages is attained. The
church which is the Body of Christ is now being fashioned into the perfect `husband' and
when the dispensation of the Mystery ends, the dispensation which follows will complete
another company who will constitute `The bride', the union of which will form an
integral part of that blessed purpose when God shall be all in all.