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Jun 01st 1988

Winona Conference Part 3 – The Great Mystery of Christ and the Church – Two Kinds of Christians

Before the Beginning Eternal Purpose Old Testament Organic Church The Gospels

In this profound and deeply theological message, Gene Edwards explores the mystery revealed in Ephesians 5 — the eternal relationship between Christ and His Church. Drawing from Scripture, creation, Eden, the fall, the cross, and the New Jerusalem, we unfold one of the deepest spiritual themes in the Bible: the Bride of Christ hidden within the heart of God from before creation itself.

Beginning with Ephesians 5:30–32, Gene traces the story of humanity back before creation, before angels, before the visible universe existed. He presents the breathtaking biblical picture of Adam and Eve as a prophetic foreshadowing of Christ and the Church — a mystery hidden in God from eternity.

This teaching explores:

  • The spiritual nature of mankind before the fall
  • The relationship between the visible and invisible realms
  • The meaning of the Garden of Eden as a meeting place of heaven and earth
  • Christ as the Second Adam
  • The Church as the Bride hidden within Christ
  • The believer’s participation in the divine nature
  • The New Jerusalem as the ultimate habitation of God and His people

Throughout the message, the Church is not presented merely as an institution or organization, but as a living spiritual community — a foretaste of the eternal union between Christ and His redeemed people. The teaching moves from Genesis to Revelation, revealing how the entire biblical narrative points toward God’s eternal purpose: union with His Son.

This message is especially meaningful for believers seeking deeper insight into:

  • The Body of Christ
  • Spiritual union with Jesus Christ
  • The Bride of Christ
  • Eternal purpose and divine fellowship
  • The heavenly calling of the Church

If you are hungry for deeper spiritual reality beyond religion, structure, or outward Christianity, this message offers a powerful vision of the believer’s identity and inheritance in Christ.

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Good. Thank God, and that’s your inheritance. And that’s what you taste sometimes in Chicago. And that’s what your innards are hungering for. The foretaste.

200 Pills and 199 of them are cyanide…but one of them just may be the foretaste of glory. Hunger for her. You are part of her, and you have become partakers of this nature, and this is where you’re headed, and the Lord has not left you comfortless. He has given you His Spirit, His nature, and He has sent this colony out of the other realm. You and I are here waiting in this community of the redeemed, waiting until the foretaste becomes the total reality. Brothers and sisters, the ball is in your court. Don’t you ever settle for anything less than her?

Now, I’m going to close. I have a dream. I have a dream. I see a day somewhere henceforth, like the cathedrals in Europe that have been turned into museums. I see a day somewhere down the road, maybe a couple of hundred years from now, when church buildings have been turned into restaurants. All of them. And the rest are museums, civic auditoriums, and libraries. And frankly, I don’t care – dance halls. They are not sacred. They are brick, the same thing the Tower of Babylon was built out of. They are brick. They are not living stones. I see a day when the seminaries have become places where Christian brothers can go, and live around, and walk in, and sit around, and read the books. Turn on Video Crystals. Believe me, it will be Video Crystals. Watch and listen and study and do research. Seminaries will be gone.

The day people will puzzle and scratch their heads and wonder how anybody ever came up with anything so outrageous as the pastoral concept. Across this land and around the world, an experiential community of believers is waiting for our Lord to come back to get His bride in all of her glory. I wait for that day. I see that day out there, but I’m telling you that you’ve got a responsibility today to be that girl and to be in that community.

We are not in the church for ourselves. We’re in the church for Him and for His satisfaction. I see the day when that fellowship is in harmony with one another, with Him. We have laid down our doctrines. We have learned to love and care for one another because we have learned to live in both realms. We are today the marriage of those two realms, and the church of the living God is our one and only habitat. This species has but one place to live, that’s in the bride of Christ.

You don’t belong anywhere else. Praise the Lord.

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