THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
The God-man Living
Message One—The God-man, the God-men, the Corporate God-man,
and the God-man Living
Scripture Reading: Luke 1:35; Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:24; Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10
I. In Christ God and man have become one entity, the God-man—Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Matt. 1:18, 20-23:
A. Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the divine essence and born of the human essence, He was born a God-man; hence, for His being as the God-man He had two essences—the divine essence and the human essence—v. 18.
B. The conception of the Holy Spirit in a human virgin constituted a mingling of the divine nature with the human nature, producing the God-man, the One who is both the complete God and perfect man—Luke 1:35.
C. As a perfect man and the complete God, the God-man has the human nature with its virtues to contain God and express Him with the divine attributes.
II. Initially, the Bible speaks of the God-man; today this God-man has become the God-men—Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29:
A. The Lord Jesus, the first God-man, is the prototype for the producing of the many God-men; the many God-men are His reproduction—1 Pet. 2:21.
B. God became man to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind; this new kind is God-man kind—Rom. 8:3, 29; Heb. 2:10.
C. The Lord Jesus, the God-man, was a grain of wheat falling into the ground in order to produce many grains as His reproduction—John 12:24:
1. The first grain—the first God-man—was the prototype, and the many grains—the many God-men—produced by this one grain through death and resurrection are the reproduction of the first God-man.
2. Such a reproduction makes God happy because they look like Him, speak like Him, and live like Him—1 John 3:2; 4:17b; 2:6.
D. We need to see that we are God-men, born of God, possessing the life and nature of God, and belonging to the species of God—John 1:12-13:
1. As children of God, we are God-men; we are the same as the One of whom we are born—1 John 3:1; 5:1.
2. Since we have been born of God, we may say and even we should say that we are God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
3. To think of ourselves as God-men and to know and realize who we are revolutionizes us in our daily experience—2:20; 3:1-2; 5:13, 20.
E. Eventually, the God-men will be the victors, the overcomers; this will bring in a new revival and will end this age—Rev. 12:11; 14:1; 11:15.
III. The one new man is the corporate God-man—Eph. 2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10-11:
A. The first God-man, the firstborn Son of God, is the Head of this corporate God-man, and the many God-men, the many sons of God, are the Body of this corporate God-man—Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:18; 2:19.
B. The God-men, as the regenerated children of God, constitute the new man—Eph. 5:1; 4:24.
C. In Christ God became man to produce a corporate God-man for the manifestation of God in the flesh as the one new man—1 Tim. 3:16; Col. 3:10-11.
IV. For the one new man as the corporate God-man, we need to live the life of a God-man—Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10:
A. Christ’s human living was man living God to express the attributes of God in the human virtues; His human virtues were filled, mingled, and saturated with the divine attributes—Luke 1:26-35; 7:11-17; 10:25-37; 19:1-10:
1. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, though He was a man, He lived by God—John 6:57; 5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:28; 7:16-17.
2. The Lord Jesus lived God and expressed God in everything; whatever He did was God’s doing from within Him and through Him—14:10.
3. The Gospel of Mark reveals that the life the Lord Jesus lived was absolutely according to and for God’s New Testament economy.
B. As the expansion, increase, reproduction, and continuation of the first God-man, we should live the same kind of life He lived—1 John 2:6.
Ministry Excerpts:
BORN OF GOD TO BE HIS SONS
The first qualification of the God-men is that they are born of God to be His many sons (John 1:12-13; Heb. 2:10). Originally, we were merely created men. After being created, we became fallen sinners. We were not sons of God. But praise Him, according to His eternal economy, four thousand years after He created Adam, God came out of eternity and entered into time, and He became a man. This man is Jesus Christ. In the past two thousand years of human history, Jesus Christ as the God-man has influenced the entire world. Today He is still doing the same thing, but He is doing it not by Himself alone but by thousands and even millions of God-men, who are the mass reproduction of Him as the prototype.
Although we are of different races and nationalities, by His mercy we have all become the same: we are all God-men. A God-man is one who has been born of God. In Christianity there is a theology that tells people that we believers became sons of God not by birth but by adoption. According to this theology, we were not born of God but were merely adopted by God. However, according to the Scriptures, we, the believers in Christ, were all born of God to be His sons. As the sons of God, surely we are God-men. We are the same as the One of whom we were born. It would be impossible to be born of God and not be the sons of God. Since we are the sons of God, we are God-men.
HAVING THE DIVINE LIFE
As sons of God and as God-men, we have the divine life (John 3:15, 36a). Many Christians realize that they have eternal life, yet they do not know what eternal life is. Furthermore, they do not know what the divine life is. They do not know that, as regenerated ones, they have another life in addition to their own human life. We all need to realize that in addition to our natural life, we have another life, the divine life. The natural life makes us a natural man, and the divine life makes us a divine man. We all can boast that we are divine persons because we have been born of the divine life. Since we have been born of the divine life and possess the divine life, surely we are divine persons. We have been born of the divine life; therefore, we are divine. It is a pity that the majority of regenerated people do not know that they have God’s life in addition to their own life. Our own life is a human life; thus, we are all human. But through regeneration we have received another life, which has been added to our natural life. This life is not only holy and heavenly but also divine. Thus, we have all become divine.
HAVING THE DIVINE NATURE
As those who are born of God, the God-men have not only the divine life but also the divine nature. Thank God that in the Bible, among the sixty-six books, there is one verse, 2 Peter 1:4, that says that we are partakers of the divine nature, which is the nature of God. We should mark such a verse in our Bibles so that whenever we open the Bible, that verse will stand out. We are not turtles, because we do not have the turtle nature. We are men, for we do have the human nature. But we have also been born of God; we are God’s sons, God’s children. Thus, we have God’s nature. Since we have God’s nature, are we not God? In fact, we are God in His life and His nature, but not in His Godhead.
HAVING TWO LIVES, HUMAN AND DIVINE,
LIVING TOGETHER AS ONE LIFE
As God-men, we also have two lives, human and divine, living together as one life. We may wonder how two lives could live together as one life. The answer is very simple. In grafting, a branch from one tree is grafted into another tree. The two are joined together, and the two lives live together as one life. In the same principle, we, the believers, have been grafted into Christ (Rom. 11:17-19) and are living in an organic union with Him. In such a union the human life and the divine life are joined as one so that they live together as one mingled life and one living.
HAVING TWO NATURES, HUMANITY AND DIVINITY
The God-men not only have two lives, but they also have two natures, humanity and divinity. This is marvelous. Today’s Christianity makes God’s salvation merely a religion. Religion does not teach people to be God-men by receiving God into them. Religion always cultivates man’s natural capacity in order to build up the self. Education does the same thing; it merely builds up the human being. Apparently, the Bible also does this, but actually it does not. The Bible does not build up the natural man; rather, it builds up a God-man. We are born of God, and we are children of God. The Bible builds us up to be proper God-men.
My burden in the Lord’s ministry is not to build you up to be a nice man, a good man, or a gentle man, but to be a God-man. I have given thousands of messages on how to be a Christ-man, a God-man. In the Lord’s recovery our teaching is not to raise up good men. Our teaching, absolutely according to the Bible, is to raise up God-men.
Eventually, the Bible builds up a corporate man. Ultimately, this corporate man will be enlarged to be its consummation, the New Jerusalem. The issue of the Bible’s teaching is just one entity, the New Jerusalem as the aggregate of all the God-men.
We need to know by seeing that we have God’s life and possess God’s nature. There is such a fact that the divine life is mingled with our human life. Therefore, we must learn how to live not by our human life but by God’s life mingling with our human life to make us divine.
THE HUMAN LIFE (THE OLD MAN) BEING CRUCIFIED
FOR THE LIVING OF THE DIVINE LIFE WITH
THE RESURRECTED HUMAN LIFE (THE NEW MAN)
Our human life (the old man) has been crucified for the living of the divine life with the resurrected human life (the new man) (Gal. 2:20a; Eph. 4:22-24). Our old man, the natural man, should not be cultivated. Rather, it should be cut off; it should be crucified. It has been crucified already with Christ on the cross (Rom. 6:6). Christ has crucified all His believers so that His believers may live not by the crucified life but by the divine life in a humanity that is resurrected. Now the divine life is living not in the natural humanity but in the resurrected humanity. That is the new man. We all need to see such a vision. Because I have seen this, I always hate my own humility. I hate my humility much more than my pride, because both my pride and my humility belong to the old man. We should always be reminded that our old man was crucified. Then, in regeneration our natural humanity was resurrected. Regeneration is a resurrection (cf. Acts 13:33). To be regenerated is to be resurrected with the divine life. Therefore, today we should live a life conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10) that the divine life may have an opportunity to live with our resurrected humanity.
FOR THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD IN THE FLESH
AS THE NEW MAN
This is for the manifestation of God in the flesh as the new man (1 Tim. 3:16; Eph. 2:15). First Timothy 3:16 says, “And confessedly, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh.” According to the context of this verse, godliness here refers not only to piety but also to the living of God in the church, that is, to God as life lived out in the church. Godliness means that God becomes man and man becomes God. This is a great mystery in the universe. God has become man so that man may become God to produce a corporate God-man for the manifestation of God in the flesh as the new man.
GROWING UP FOR THE PURPOSE OF BUILDING UP
THE ORGANIC BODY OF CHRIST FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF THE ETERNAL ECONOMY OF GOD
This corporate God-man grows up for the purpose of building up the organic Body of Christ for the fulfillment of the eternal economy of God (Eph. 4:12-13, 15-16). The manifestation of God is possible by the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is just the manifestation of God for the fulfillment of the eternal economy of God. Regardless of how much our natural self can be built up, and regardless of how much our natural capacity can be cultivated, we can never be the manifestation of God, and we can never be a part of the Body of Christ. This must be the responsibility of the God-men. The God-men are born of God to have God’s life and God’s nature, to live by a mingled life in a mingled nature, to build up the Body of Christ as God’s manifestation. This is the revelation of the Bible. The natural concept we have received from human philosophy and religion is not the revelation of the Bible. The Bible does not teach this. The Bible teaches that a man must be born of God to be a God-man, and this God-man must be raised up, must grow up. Then the God-men know how to build up themselves to be the Body of Christ for the manifestation of God and for the fulfillment of God’s economy. (The God-Men, msg. 1)