THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE

The God-man Living

Message Five
God-man Living and the Reality of the Body of Christ
Bringing in a New Revival

Scripture Reading: Phil. 1:20b-21a; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 1:4-5; Rev. 11:15; Hab. 3:2a

I. God’s economy is God becoming man that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead to produce the Body of Christ, which will consummate the New Jerusalem—Rom. 12:4-5; Rev. 212: 

A. God’s intention in His economy is to make Himself man that man may become God; then God and man will be united and mingled together to live a corporate life—Eph. 1:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12.

B. The economy of God is the Triune God working Himself into the tripartite men that they may become the members of Christ to be constituted the Body of Christ—Eph. 3:16-19; 4:4-6.

C. God’s economy is His arrangement to gain a Body for Christ, built up with human beings mingled with the divinity of God—v. 16; Rev. 19:7.

II. In His human living, Christ set up a model of what a God-man is—1 Pet. 2:21; Matt. 11:29:

A. Christ always rejected Himself and died to Himself but lived to the Father—John 5:30; 6:38, 57a; 8:28.

B. Christ never did anything by Himself but did everything by the Father—4:34; 5:19; 6:38; 12:49-50; 14:10, 24.

C. In His human living, the Lord Jesus expressed the divine attributes in His human virtues; this was the life of the first God-man as a prototype—v. 9.

III. The Lord’s God-man living constituted a prototype to His believers; this prototype is for the reproduction of the God-man in the believers—Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 2:21:

A. Originally, such a life was in an individual man, Jesus Christ; now this life is being repeated in many men who have been redeemed and regenerated and who possess the divine life—1 Pet. 1:18, 23; 1 John 5:11-12.

B. The only life that is pleasing to God is the life that is a repetition of the life Christ lived on earth—2 Cor. 5:9; Heb. 13:21; 1 John 3:22.

C. To follow Jesus is to be a Xerox copy of the first God-man—1 Pet. 2:21; John 13:15.

D. As God-men, we should live as divine and mystical persons; everything in our living should be divine and mystical—1 John 2:6; 3:1; 4:6a, 15, 17b.

E. Our practice in the recovery is not to live the life of a natural man but to live the life of a God-man—Phil. 1:20b-21a:

1. A God-man is a man who is regenerated and transformed to be one with God, taking God as his life, his person, and his everything and eventually becoming God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead—2 Cor. 3:18.

2. The God-man living—a life in which we and Christ live together in the way of mingling—is the life of the church and the life of the Body of Christ; such a life is the reality of the Body of Christ—John 14:19b.

IV. The reality of the Body of Christ is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but do not live by their life, but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes are expressed through their virtues—Rom. 12:4-5; 8:4, 14:

A. A person who touches God’s heart and who is an overcomer in the eyes of God is one who is living in the Body and practicing the Body life—Eph. 4:1-6.

B. The highest peak of the Lord’s recovery that can really, practically, and actually carry out God’s economy is for God to produce not many local churches in a physical way but an organic Body to be His organism—1:22-23:

1. We must pay more attention to the Body of Christ than to the local churches—4:16; 1 Cor. 12:12, 27.

2. Christ’s Body is an organic unity, and no part of His Body can be autonomous—Eph. 4:4.

C. The strongest proof that we have seen the Body is that we can no longer be individualistic—Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:20.

D. As members of the Body, we should have a feeling for the Body—v. 26:

1. We must take the feeling of the Head as our feeling—Phil. 1:8.

2. As we take the feeling of the Head as our feeling, we should do so in the principle of caring for the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 12:25; Rom. 12:15.

3. If, as members of the Body, we have the feeling of the Head in everything and if we care for the Body, we will take the Body as the rule in our mind, thoughts, words, and actions; then the life we live will fully be the Body life—vv. 2-3; 1 Cor. 14:26b.

E. In the Lord’s recovery there is only one work—the work of the one Body; we should not have the thought that we can do a particular work according to our way—Eph. 4:12.

V. The new revival will be the means for the Lord to end this age and to bring in the kingdom age—Hab. 3:2a; Hosea 6:2; Rom. 8:20-22:

A. The reason that the Lord has not closed this age is that He is still waiting for a group of overcomers to live in His Body in resurrection to be the means for Him to usher in His kingdom age—Rev. 2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-27; 3:5, 12, 21.

B. The corporate living of the God-men—a living that is the reality of the Body of Christ—will end this age and will bring Christ back to the take, possess, and rule over the earth with these God-men in the kingdom age—11:15; 20:6.


 

Ministry Excerpts:

 

THE NEED OF A REVIVAL
IN THE LORD’S RECOVERY TODAY

What kind of revival do we have today? In other words, what kind of model has been raised up among us? As a rule, a revival should always be the practice of the vision we have seen. However, from the time I came into the recovery I have been watching over the situation. From Brother Nee’s time until today, for seventy-two years, our practice has never come up to the standard of our vision that we have received of the Lord. Brother Nee stressed two things: Christ as life to produce the church and the church as the Body of Christ to express Christ. But, sorry to say, it was not only the outsiders who did not know these things; even among Brother Nee’s co-workers, who were my contemporaries, very few fully entered into the realization of these two matters. Not to mention the matter of the Body of Christ, they did not even see the matter of Christ as life to us. They stressed matters such as leaving the denominations, baptism by immersion, head covering, and the way to practice the Lord’s table. In 1934 a letter came to me from Brother Nee saying that our emphasis was not on leaving the denominations, on baptism by immersion, on head covering, or on the practice of the Lord’s table. He added that from that day forward, whoever preached and taught only those four things was not our co-worker. He said that the vision we had received from the Lord concerned Christ as our life to produce the church, not as an organization but as a Body, an organism, to express Christ. This, he said, is what we have seen, and this is what we should preach and teach. Brother Nee wrote these words twelve years after the beginning of the recovery in China in 1922.

From the time that I began my ministry until today, I have put out many books concerning the vision that we have seen. Through all the years, in mainland China, in Taiwan, in Southeast Asia, and in the West today, in our practice we have never come up to the standard of what we have seen.

THE HIGH PEAK OF THE DIVINE REVELATION

In the past ten years the Lord has shown us His economy. According to my study of church history and the biographies of many saints, I would say that before 1984 God’s eternal economy as the very reality and the center of the Bible was never seen by God’s people so fully as it is among us today. To my knowledge, no other book has pointed out that God’s eternal economy has Christ as its center and reality, with His Body, the organic Body of Christ, as the organism of the Triune God.

Today we have come to this high peak of God’s divine revelation. I would even say that we have probably reached the highest peak of the divine revelation in the entire Bible. This is the divine revelation discovered by the believers through the past twenty centuries. According to my knowledge, the first divine revelation discovered by the church fathers was the revelation of the Triune God. In the first part of the Bible, the Old Testament held by the Jews, it is difficult to find out anything concerning the Triune God. The Old Testament uses the divine titles Elohim (Gen. 1:1, 26), Jehovah (2:4; Exo. 3:13-15), and Adonai (Gen. 15:2; Exo. 4:10) in referring to God. The Old Testament also mentions the Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2). Then in the New Testament there is One by the name of Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:1). Who is this One? Is He Jehovah? Is He God? If we say that Jesus Christ is God, the Jews will consider this blasphemy (John 10:33). How could a Nazarene be God? We may say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. However, in the Old Testament we cannot find the divine title the Son of God. Although 2 Samuel 7:14 does say that God has a son, referring to Christ, the Jewish rabbis do not understand this word.

After the New Testament was written, the first group of Bible students after the apostles were the church fathers. They discovered that in the Bible there is such a thing as the Triune God, because in Matthew 28:19 the Lord Jesus told His disciples, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Lord Jesus did not tell His disciples to baptize people into the name of Elohim, or Jehovah, or Adonai, but into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Before that time the Lord could not speak such a word, because before His resurrection the Spirit was not yet (John 7:39); that is, the Spirit was not yet consummated. The Lord spoke the word in Matthew 28:19 after His resurrection, while He stayed with His disciples for forty days prior to His ascension. Before the Lord’s resurrection, not only was the Spirit not yet, but even the firstborn Son of God was not yet (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29). Before His resurrection the Lord Jesus was the only begotten Son (John 1:18; 3:16). Even this the Jews did not know. They had Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6 and no doubt had read these verses again and again, but none of the Jews understood them. Isaiah 7:14 says, “Behold, the virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel,” and 9:6 says, “A Son is given to us; / …And His name will be called / …Mighty God, / Eternal Father.” In Isaiah 9:6 both the Son and the Father are mentioned, but the Jews could not understand this. They could not put the pieces of the puzzle together. When the church fathers read all these things in the Scriptures, they considered them and eventually invented a word in Latin: triune. Tri means “three” and une means “one.” The phrase the Triune God means “the Three-one God.” God is the unique God (1 Cor. 8:4, 6; Rom. 3:30; 1 Tim. 2:5; Deut. 4:35, 39); thus, He is one. Yet He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; therefore, He is three. Hence, God is three-one, triune. The church fathers discovered this fact.

Centuries later, Martin Luther made a further discovery. Luther saw the matter of justification by faith (Rom. 3:28). He discovered that salvation is not by works but by faith. After this, many other students of the Bible made further discoveries. However, before us, no one ever discovered God’s economy with Christ as its centrality and universality and all its reality. It was not until the last ten years that we put all these things together to have a full picture of God’s economy. This is the highest peak of the divine revelation. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Living a Life according to the High Peak of God’s Revelation,” msg. 5)

THE CORPORATE LIVING
BY THE PERFECTED GOD-MEN

Now, what is the reality of the Body of Christ? In brief, the reality of the Body of Christ is a kind of corporate living, not a living by any individual. This corporate living is the aggregate of many saints who have been redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, and transformed by the processed and consummated God within them. By this indwelling consummated God, these redeemed saints have been made actual God-men.

In regeneration a person is made a God-man, but he is not a matured God-man. When some babes are born, they are so small and weak that they have to be put in an incubator. But after much growth these little ones can become tall and husky. We have been regenerated, but many of us are still like these little babes. We need to be nourished and perfected so that we can grow in life and become mature. The procedure in the church work is to beget, to nourish, and then to teach and perfect so that the saints may be mature to be built in the local churches for the building up of the Body of Christ. Thank the Lord that in His recovery a number of seeking ones have been perfected.

The Life of Jesus Being a Life of a God-man

We know that God became a man to be a God-man. That little Jesus in the manger was a God-man, but who could realize this? He lived not only a life of man but also a life of God. Thus, His life was a life of a God-man. He appeared to His disciples and to the people as a genuine man. Many who heard Him were astounded and said, “Where did this man get these things? And what is this wisdom given to this man, and how is it that such works of power take place through His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:2-3). They wondered how a man could do these things, displaying the top virtues among mankind.

Who is He? He is God becoming a man, a real man. Yet this man would not live by Himself, by His own human life. Rather He rejected His human life. He denied Himself. He lived as a man by another life, by the life of God. He told us that whatever He did and whatever He spoke were not of Himself but of the Father who sent Him (John 14:10, 24). He was a real man living there, yet He was dying to His natural life. He was dying to live, dying to His natural man to live by God’s life. That dying to His natural life is the cross, and His living by the divine life is in resurrection.

For thirty-three and a half years this God-man, Jesus, was a genuine man, but He lived not by man’s life but by God’s life. To live such a life He had to be crucified. The crucifixion mentioned in the New Testament transpired on the wooden cross on Mount Calvary. But you have to realize that before Christ was there in the physical crucifixion, He was being crucified every day for thirty-three and a half years. Was not Jesus a human being, a genuine man? Yes. But He did not live by that genuine man. Instead, He kept that genuine man on the cross. Then, in the sense of resurrection, He lived God’s life. God’s life with all its attributes was lived within this God-man Jesus and expressed as this God-man’s virtues.

Such a life was there originally just in an individual man, Jesus Christ. But this life has now been repeated, reproduced, in many men who have been redeemed and regenerated and who now possess the divine life within them. All of them have been nourished, sanctified, transformed, and perfected not just to be matured Christians but to be God-men. The reality of the Body of Christ is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but are not living by their life but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes have been expressed through their virtues.

Being Matured by Continually Exercising
to Reject the Self and Live by Another Life

After my thirty-two years of ministry in the United States, I have the assurance that a number of you have been perfected. What is it to be perfected? It is to be matured by continually exercising to reject the self and live by another life. This is according to what Paul says: “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20a). Paul lived by dying to live. He was dying to his natural man and living by his new man with the divine life. So he said that by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, he lived and magnified Christ (Phil. 1:19-21a).

We should not live by ourselves. According to God’s design in His economy, we were already put on the cross. We should not call ourselves back off the cross. To remain on the cross is to bear the cross and be under the cross. I have been crucified. There is no more I. I am finished. I am through. But there is a new man with me. That is the resurrected God-created man uplifted with God’s divinity in him. That man is actually God Himself. Now I live by that man. But if I do not practice to keep my old man on the cross, I can never live the new man. This is why in the first chapter of Philippians, Paul tells us he lived such a life by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

A Corporate Living of the Conformity to the Death of Christ
through the Power of the Resurrection of Christ

In Philippians 3 Paul says that he lived a life conformed to the death of Christ (v. 10). The death of Christ is a mold, and Paul put himself into that death-mold to be conformed there. On this man, Paul, all men could see the mark and the image of the cross (Gal. 6:14, 17—see footnote 171, Recovery Version). His old life was conformed to the image of the death of Christ by the power of Christ’s resurrection. The power of resurrection strengthened him to live the life of a God-man. The Lord expects that many of us would be such ones.

I do believe that among us there should be some like this, maybe not constantly but at least instantly like this. I can testify to you that I am like this. I dare not say constantly but at least instantly. Many times when I was trying to talk to my wife, something within said, “This is not from your spirit. This is from your old man.” Right away I stopped. Sometimes I would go to her, and then right away I returned. This is because my going was by my natural man. While I was doing that, something within turned me. That was the very life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. The processed Triune God turned me, and that was in resurrection. Such a corporate living is the reality of the Body of Christ, dear saints. This is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ through the power of the resurrection of Christ.

The Mingling Living, in the Eternal Union,
of the Regenerated, Transformed, and Glorified Tripartite God-Men
with the Triune God in the Resurrection of Christ

　The reality of the Body of Christ is not just a corporate living but a mingling living. If we use the word mingled, this means that this living is consummated, completed. Instead, we use the word mingling because this living is not completed; it is still going on. It is the mingling living in the eternal union of the regenerated, transformed, glorified tripartite God-men with the Triune God in the resurrection of Christ. This Triune God is the very pneumatic Christ as the embodiment of the processed and consummated Triune God, who is the all-inclusive Spirit as the reality of the pneumatic Christ and as the consummation of the processed Triune God. Such a mingling living is in the resurrection of Christ, and the reality of this resurrection is the Spirit. This resurrection imparts the consummated God and releases the death-overcoming life into the believers.

Consummating Ultimately
in the New Jerusalem

Dear saints, such a mingling living is the reality of the Body of Christ. If among us there is, if not in full at least in part, such a living, the reality of the Body of Christ is among us. This is the high peak of the recovery in the local churches like Mount Zion in the city of Jerusalem. Such a mingling living as the reality of the Body of Christ will consummate ultimately in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God’s increase and expression for eternity.

Anyone who lives such a mingling life would never be a trouble to anyone. They have been delivered out of themselves and have been transformed and perfected. They would not despise or condemn anyone, nor would they be bothered by others. They would not have anything to do with dissension, rebellion, or division. Instead, they would be here in the recovery as the high peak, Mount Zion, in Jerusalem. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” msg. 4)

LIVING THE LIFE OF A GOD-MAN
ACCORDING TO THE HIGH PEAK
OF THE DIVINE REVELATION

Since we have seen such a high peak of the divine revelation, we need to put into practice what we have seen. Our practice will have a success, and that success will be a new revival—the highest revival and probably the last revival before the Lord’s coming back. As I said in the previous chapter, we need a model. I do not mean that only some individuals should become a model. I mean that we need a corporate model, a Body, a people who live the life of a God-man. From today our practice should be to live the life of a God-man by realizing the power of the resurrection of Christ to take His cross as He did, to be crucified, to be conformed to His death, every day to live another One’s life (Phil. 3:10; 1:21; Gal. 2:20). Our life, our self, our flesh, our natural man, and our everything were already brought to the cross by Him. Now we are living Him, so we should remain in His crucifixion to be conformed to the mold of His death every moment in every part of our life. That will cause us to spontaneously live Him as the resurrection (John 11:25). This is the living of a God-man.

This should be and this must be our church practice from today onward. If not, we are practicing something in vain. Our practice is not merely to have a church life in which everything is according to the Bible, a church life in which we baptize people by immersion, forsake the denominations, practice head covering, and have the Lord’s table, absolutely according to the Bible. Some have come into the recovery because of these practices. They appreciate our family life, the church meetings, and the way we train our young people. However, these things should not be the goal of our practice. The goal of our practice should be to live the life of a God-man. This is the goal we should reach.

Our Practice Being to Live the Life of a God-man

Our practice is not to live the life of any kind of natural man, good or bad. Our practice is to live the life of a God-man. A God-man is a man who is regenerated and transformed to be one with God, taking God as his life, his person, and his everything. Eventually, this one becomes God in His life and His nature but not in His Godhead. This is a God-man. In the recovery today we should practice to live the life of such a God-man. This life is a life of crucifixion by and in and with resurrection. It is a life in which I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but He who lives in me (Gal. 2:20). Yet when He lives in me, He lives with me, with the result that I live with Him (John 14:19). He lives with me, and I live with Him. We two live together in the way of mingling, a mingling of God and man.

Such a Life Being the Reality of the Body of Christ

The highest family life, marriage life, and social life come out of such a life. This life is the life of the church and the life of the Body of Christ. Such a life is the reality of the Body of Christ. Such a life, like that of Jesus Christ in His thirty-three and a half years on the earth, saves us from all negative things, from small things and big things. In our marriage life it saves us from separation and divorce. In the church it saves us from opinion, division, despising, criticizing, and murmuring. In this life there is no criticism, no despising, no partiality, no division, no dissension, no opinion. In such a life we live the life of a God-man. With Him everything is new, everything is heavenly, and everything is divine, divinity mingled with humanity.

Wherever there is division, there is spiritual fornication, idolatry, self-glorification, and self-exaltation. Without self-exaltation there could be no division. Living the life of a God-man saves us from all these negative things. To live such a life is to live Christ (Phil. 1:21), the very model of the God-man life.

Dear saints, this is my burden. We all need to live such a life—the older ones and the young ones, the brothers and the sisters, the elders and the common saints. If we do, we are faithful to what we have heard. Then the Lord will have not a model only by individuals but a model by a group of us. This is the model that the Lord needs to show to today’s Christianity, a model of what His church should be.

If we live such a life, surely we will go out to contact people for the preaching of the gospel. A vital group is a group of this kind of people. The vital groups should not be practiced as a formality; they should be groups of people who live such a life. Our living the life of a God-man will save people, edify others, and build up the local churches even to the building up of the Body of Christ.

If we practice what we have heard, spontaneously a model will be built up. This model will be the greatest revival in the history of the church. I believe that this revival will bring the Lord back.

In conclusion, I would encourage you to try faithfully to practice living a God-man’s life by contacting Him through calling on His name, pray-reading His living word, praying unceasingly, not quenching the Spirit, and not despising prophesying. May the Lord bless us with Himself as the life-giving Spirit that we may touch Him in the mingled spirit by these life practices. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Living a Life according to the High Peak of God’s Revelation,” msg. 5)

BEING REVOLUTIONIZED
BY REALIZING THAT WE ARE GOD-MEN

When we think of ourselves as God-men, this thinking, this realization, revolutionizes us in our daily experience. For example, a brother may be unhappy with his wife. But he remembers that he is a God-man, and immediately his attitude is changed. Then he will desire to be a God-man husband.

We need to understand that to be a part of mankind is to be something negative. In God’s view mankind is a negative term referring to fallen man. As believers in Christ and children of God, we are not mankind—we are God-man kind. To realize this is to be changed, even revolutionized. When we realize that we are God-men, we will say, “Lord, You are the first God-man, and we are the many God-men following You. You lived a human life, not by Your human life but by God’s divine life to express Him. His attributes became Your virtues. You were here on this earth dying every day. You were crucified to live. Lord, You are my life today and You are my person. You are just me. I therefore must die. I need to be conformed to Your death. I have to be crucified to die every day to live a God-man’s life, a human life yet not by my human life but by the divine life, with Your life and Your nature as my constitution to express You in Your divine attributes, which become my human virtues.” This makes us not just a Christian or a believer in Christ but a God-man, one kind with God. This is the highest point of God’s gospel.

PREACHING THE TRUTH THAT GOD BECAME A MAN
THAT MAN MAY BECOME GOD IN LIFE AND IN NATURE
AND LIVING THE LIFE OF A GOD-MAN
TO BRING IN A NEW REVIVAL AND TO END THIS AGE

According to this gospel we were fallen, yet Christ died for us. If we believe in Him and receive Him, we will have the eternal life to be the sons of God. Christians today admit that all the believers in Christ are the sons of God or the children of God, but they do not dare admit that the believers in Christ are God. At the end of this age, we are teaching and preaching the truth that God became a man in order to make man God, the same as He is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. It is a great blessing to hear this truth.

After hearing that God wants a group of God-men, how can you be content to be anything else? What do you want to be? Do you want to be a typical Chinese or a typical American? Do you want to be merely a Christian or a believer in Christ? We should all declare that we want to live the life of a God-man. Eventually, the God-men will be the victors, the overcomers, the Zion within Jerusalem. This will bring in a new revival which has never been seen in history, and this will end this age. (Life-study of Chronicles, msg. 4)