THE FOURTH PART: THE PATHWAY OF THE LORD’S RECOVERY
God-ordained Way
Message Two—Living a Corporate God-man Living and Producing
the Reproduction of the God-man Living
Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:29; John 12:24; 1 Pet. 2:21; Phil. 3:10; 1 Cor. 6:17; Gal. 5:16, 25; 1 Thes. 5:16-18
I. God needs a corporate people to be raised up by His grace through the high peak of the divine revelation to live a life according to this revelation—Acts 26:16, 19:
A. There is the urgent need that we enter into a new realm and come up to a new level, that is, to live a God-man life.
B. We need to see that we are God-men, born of God and belonging to the species of God; this is the beginning of the God-man living—John 3:3-6.
C. When we think of ourselves as God-men, this thinking, this realization, revolutionizes us in our daily experience, making us God-men, one kind with God; this is the highest point of God’s gospel—Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17.
D. We need to become a corporate model, the reality of the Body, a people who live the life of a God-man.
II. The disciples of Christ are discipled through Christ’s human living on the earth, as the model of a God-man—living God by denying Himself in humanity, revolutionizing their concept concerning man—Matt. 5:1; 28:19; John 5:19, 30; Phil. 3:10; 1:21a:
A. Our life should be a copy, a reproduction, of the model of the life of Christ, the first God-man—1 Pet. 2:21; Matt. 11:28-29; Eph. 4:20-22; John 10:30; 5:19, 30; 7:6, 8, 18.
B. The Spirit of life and reality who was breathed into the disciples would guide them into the reality of what they had observed of the Lord when they were with Him for three and a half years—16:13; 20:22.
C. We are also discipled to live a God-man life by observing the intrinsic pattern of Christ’s sent ones, His slaves, who are His duplication. (“I was in the recovery observing how Brother Watchman Nee acted for eighteen years. All that I observed in him became things discipling me”—The Vital Groups, p. 18.)—1 Cor. 4:17; Heb. 13:7; Phil. 3:17; 1 Tim. 4:12.
D. The only way to live the life of a God-man according to the Lord’s model is to set our entire being on the mingled spirit, walking, living, and having our being according to the mingled spirit—Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 16; 1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 10:12; Eph. 6:17-18; 1 Thes. 5:16-20.
III. The New Testament reveals that Christ as the first God-man made Himself a prototype for the mass reproduction of many brothers—the many God-men—Rom. 8:29; John 12:24:
A. The first grain—the first God-man—was a prototype, and the many grains—the many God-men—produced by this one grain are the mass reproduction—John 12:24.
B. The believers in Christ as His brothers, the many God-men, need to live a life as a copy of the life of Christ, the first God-man—1 Pet. 2:21:
1. A life bearing the cross to follow the footsteps of Christ—Matt. 16:24; 1 Pet. 2:21b.
2. A life dying to themselves and living to God—2 Cor. 5:15; Gal. 2:19.
3. A life being crucified with Christ to be conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection—Phil. 3:10.
4. A life for Christ, the first God-man, to be formed in His many brothers.
C. The only life that is pleasing to God is the life that is a repetition of the life Christ lived on the earth—John 8:29; 2 Cor. 5:9:
1. We need to follow the pattern of the Lord Jesus, bearing the brands, the characteristics of His life—Gal. 6:17.
2. To follow Jesus is to live the life of a God-man, not by the human life but by the divine life, so that God may be expressed, or manifested, in the flesh in all His divine attributes becoming the human virtues—1 Tim. 3:15-16.
IV. We should be the same as Christ, and our Christian life should be a duplication of the life of Christ—1 Pet. 2:21; Phil. 1:21a; 3:10:
A. Christ’s human living was the living of a man who lived God to express the divine attributes in the human virtues—Luke 7:11-17; 10:25-37; 19:1-10.
B. Christ’s humanity is fine, perfect, balanced, and right in every way, lacking nothing, having no fault, and not having anything in excess—23:1-4, 14.
C. There is no natural life with the Lord Jesus; He lived a crucified life daily, emanating the fragrance of His resurrection through His sufferings—1 Cor. 5:7-8; Matt. 12:46-50; Luke 9:23-24; Matt. 2:11; John 11:25.
D. In the human living of the Lord Jesus, He was a man of prayer—Luke 3:21-22; 6:12; 9:29; 11:1-2.
V. All of the God-man living is related to the Spirit, so we must be a man of the spirit that we may have a proper God-man living—1 Cor. 6:17; Gal. 5:16, 25; 1 Thes. 5:16-18:
A. If we would become a reproduction of the first God-man and live Christ as the God-man, we must be reborn of the pneumatic Christ in our spirit and be transformed by the pneumatic Christ in our soul—John 3:3, 6; 2 Cor. 3:18.
B. We live the divine life, the spiritual life in our spirit, by the exercise of faith, which is stimulated by the presence of the life-giving Spirit—Gal. 2:20 and note 5.
C. When we love the Lord, pursue Him, and fellowship with Him, we spontaneously live in a condition that is beyond human description; we live not according to the environment but according to the Lord’s moving and leading within us—Phil. 2:12-13; 4:11-13.
D. When we open ourselves to the Lord, love Him, and desire to be joined to Him as one, we are filled and possessed by Him and live out the glory of divinity and the virtues of humanity—1 Cor. 2:9; 6:17; Phil. 4:4-9.
E. We should live by the Spirit, have our life dependent on and regulated by the Spirit, live in the new creation, pursue Christ in order to gain Him, and practice the church life—Gal. 5:16, 25 and notes 1 and 2.
F. We must live a rejoicing, praying, and thanking life; such a life is a glory to God—1 Thes. 5:16-18; note 2 on 5:18.
G. The One who lives the life of a God-man is now the Spirit living in us and through us; we must reject self-cultivation and the building up of our natural man and allow nothing other than this One to fill us and occupy us so that we may live Him and express Him personally and corporately in the church, which is His Body—Eph. 3:16-19; 1:22-23.
Ministry Excerpts:
THE NEED FOR A GENUINE REVIVAL AND A CORPORATE MODEL
I recently fellowshipped with the co-workers and elders by speaking a very frank word to them. I said, “Brothers, many of you still work for the Lord by doing affairs. Your kind of taking the lead among the saints is not according to the spirit, but according to your kind of realization. So you made a number of formalities, asking others to perform your formalities. This often causes opinions and even divisions.” All the co-workers and elders from today onward should have a change. You have not been called by the Lord as a co-worker or an elder to carry out formalities. You have been called and assigned by the Lord to carry out God’s economy, and God’s economy is altogether centered on Christ, taking Christ as its reality. Without Christ, there is no economy of God. We may be very busy every day in the Lord’s recovery in the church, and we may be very diligent and faithful, yet we do things which are not the contents, the reality, and the center of God’s economy. So we need a turn.
I pray to the Lord, “Lord, grant us in Your recovery to have a genuine, real revival.” We do not want a revival, however, like the many revivals which went on in the past. One famous revival took place in Wales from 1904 to 1906 under the leadership of Evan Roberts, who was a coal miner. In a short time, this revival became so prevailing that when people would go to Wales to preach the gospel, no one would be saved. This is because nearly everybody in Wales had been saved. When I came into the work of the recovery in 1932, only about twenty-six years later, I heard about that revival. By then it had become not as prevailing as it should have been. The issue of that revival in Wales did not last long.
Evan Roberts stressed spiritual warfare, how to fight against Satan. But today what we have seen of the Lord is not in that category. What we have seen of the Lord is in God’s central lane, the economy of God, with Christ as its centrality and universality, with Christ as its center, reality, and everything. This Christ is now the life-giving Spirit indwelling our regenerated spirit to be one with our spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 1 Cor. 6:17).
For such a revelation which is so high, deep, and profound, the Lord needs a model. He needs a corporate people to be raised up by His grace through this high peak of the divine revelation to live a life according to this revelation. Then they will be the model. Even for pray-reading, we did not set up a strong and proper model. Where is the model of living a crucified life that we may live Christ? Even among us, this is not too prevailing. Where is the model of living Christ and magnifying Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ? Where is this life? We have these revelations released as messages printed in books, but where is the model?
My burden is that my fellowship could affect you to be burdened with me for the same thing. We have the local churches, but no model. For all the things the Lord has shown us, there is no model. With calling on the name of the Lord, there is no model. With praying unceasingly, there is no model. The Lord is rich unto all who call on Him, but there is no model of this. We are not that rich in the Lord’s recovery because we do not have the genuine, living practice of calling on the Lord. If we have this model, we will be enriched by the Lord through our calling on Him.
Paul even tells us that we should pursue Christ not only by our own individual calling but also by our corporate calling with others who call on the Lord from their sincere and pure heart. This indicates that we do not only need to call on the Lord and pray-read the word of the Lord as the Spirit individually. We also need this corporately. In all the churches there should be groups of ten or fifteen saints who come together often to call on the Lord.
Calling on the Lord implies a lot. When you open your mouth with the exercise of your spirit to call on the Lord, right away you are under His shining. You are enlightened and exposed. Then you see all your defects, shortcomings, and mistakes. As a wife, you see your mistakes in dealing with your husband. As a husband, you see that the way you deal with your wife is altogether not in the spirit. Then you make a thorough confession of your sins, failures, mistakes, defects, trespasses, transgressions, and wrongdoings. You cannot make such a thorough confession unless you are enlightened in the light of the Lord. Who can be enlightened in the light of the Lord? Only those who call on Him from a sincere and pure heart. This is the initial experience of Christ in calling on His name. Then the Lord will continue to transfuse all His particular riches into your spirit and even into your mind. In this way you will participate in and enjoy the Lord’s riches.
All the messages I have passed on to you came to me in this way. If you do not touch the Lord, how can you see His light and receive His revelation? Do not think that all these revelations have come to us just because we studied the Bible thoroughly. I know some who have studied the Bible very diligently, but they only know the Bible according to the letter. In my home town, about sixty years ago, there was a brother who was a Chinese scholar in the Ch’ing dynasty. He was put into prison by the Ch’ing dynasty, and it was there that he got saved. After he was released from prison, he studied the Bible. Eventually he remembered every verse of the Bible, so we called him “the living concordance.” If you wanted to know a verse of the Bible, you could ask him instead of going to the concordance. I knew him. But I can testify before the Lord that this brother who was a living concordance did not have much light. He could not tell you the truth concerning regeneration or the church. If you know the black and white, this does not mean that you know the Bible. The Bible is not just the black and white. The black and white is a conveyer to convey the spiritual, divine, intrinsic reality to us.
Paul in Ephesians 6 said that the Spirit today is the word. The Bible must become the word as the Spirit. This means your Bible must be one with the Spirit. Your Bible is the Spirit, and the Spirit is your Bible. How can we get this? There is no other way except by calling on the Lord, by touching the Lord daily and moment by moment. If we are all such persons living in the presence of the Lord by calling on Him, by praying to Him unceasingly day after day and hour after hour, we will be the reality of the fulfillment of the typology in 1 and 2 Kings.
This is my strong burden I would fellowship with the elders. Every local church needs this. Do not invent many formalities. You yourself should practice calling on the Lord. You yourself should practice pray-reading the word as the Spirit. You need to practice the unceasing prayer. You need to practice never quenching the Spirit, but rather, fanning the Spirit all the time into flame. You need to practice not despising any prophesying. You elders should take the lead to practice this. First, you be the model. Then your practice in such an intimate way with the Lord will influence the saints in your church. Especially as elders, you can exercise much influence over the members of the church.
Probably after about one year, your church will become a model. When we talk to people about the vision we have seen, they will say, “Where is such a church?” Then we can say, “I’ll bring you to one so you can see the model.” This is what we need now. I do not believe that we need further revelations. We have seen enough. The urgent need today is the practice of a kind of living that belongs to God-men, and the God-men are the very components of God’s economy.
All the elders and co-workers should pursue this reality so that they will be made into a model by the Lord, a model living in the economy of God. Then they and their churches will become such a model. In my prayer, this is what I call the genuine revival. There are over two hundred churches in the United States. Just in Southern California alone, there are fifty churches. If all these churches would be such a model, that would be a prevailing testimony. (The Living a Life According to the High Peak of God’s Revelation, msg. 4)
MAKING HIMSELF, THE FIRST GOD-MAN,
A PROTOTYPE FOR THE MASS REPRODUCTION OF
MANY BROTHERS—MANY GOD-MEN
Christ made Himself, the first God-man, a prototype for the mass reproduction of many brothers—the many God-men (Rom. 8:29). I have been a Christian for about sixty-nine years. After so many years, I have been made by God to know only one thing—God became man so that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. This is my unique burden, my unique message. God and man will become one entity, and that one entity is the mingling of divinity with humanity. This mingling will consummate in the New Jerusalem, which is the conclusion of the entire Bible.
First Peter 2:21 says that Christ as the first God-man was a model for us. We need to live a life which is a copy, a reproduction, of the life of Christ.
In Matthew 16:24 the Lord said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” This is to live a life of bearing the cross in the steps of Christ (1 Pet. 2:21b).
Both 2 Corinthians 5:15 and Galatians 2:19 show that the believers in Christ should die to themselves and live to God.
Paul said that he was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20) to be conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10).
Romans 8:13 says, “For if you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.” You have to put to death by the Spirit in His resurrection whatever your body does. This is to be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection. No one in his natural life can put everything that his body does to death. But we, the God-men, who are the reproduction of the prototype, can. We can know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
Such a life of dying to ourselves and living to God is for Christ, the first God-man, to be formed in His many brothers, the many God-men, for the building up of His organic Body that the eternal economy of God might be carried out. The Christian life is not a matter of outwardly loving people or of being meek or patient in our human ethics. We need to die every day (1 Cor. 15:31). The married saints need to die to their spouse. The students need to die to their classmates and teachers. We need to die to live so that the many God-men can become the building material for the building up of the Body of Christ to carry out God’s eternal economy.
Thus, a number (not all) of His brothers, the many God-men, through His death and in His resurrection may be constituted to be His overcomers to close this age and to bring in His kingdom age. This is the real meaning of our being a Christian. It is a life of dying every day. We must admit that we have not been that absolute or faithful in practicing this dying-to-live life. God has opened up to us the high peak of His divine revelation. He also puts us in an environment of sufferings to force us to die to live. I hope we all would be brought into the reality of Philippians 3:10: “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (The Practical Way to Live a Life According to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, msg. 2)