As believers in Christ, the goal of our Christian practice and of our Christian living is to live the life of a God-man, the same kind of life that the Lord Jesus lived when He was on earth. Our practice shouldn’t be just something according to the Bible but the God-man living. Being a Christian and living as a Christian is not being a good man and doing good vs not doing evil but living the life of a God-man.
All genuine believers in Christ are God-men, men regenerated by God with His life who are now in the process of being transformed by God into the image of Christ, and who learn to take God as their life, person, and everything, so that they may become one with God and even become the same as Him in life, nature, and expression, but not in the Godhead.
The highest form of the family life, church life, social life, and marriage life is a the living of a God-man life. This life is the life of the church and of the Body of Christ, and this life is the reality of the Body of Christ. Living the life of a God-man is living a life one with Christ in spirit, that is, living a crucified life by the power of Christ’s resurrection so that we may no longer live but Christ would live in us.
We need to follow in the Lord’s footsteps and closely imitate His pattern inwardly by taking God as our source, our life, and our everything, and by living a life no longer by ourselves but by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
If we see that we are God-men and that God desires to live His life in us so that He may have a reproduction of Christ in all His believers, we should open to the Lord and cooperate with Him by enjoying Him, exercising our spirit, and coming to Him in the way of life to breathe Him in, drink Him, eat Him, and live because of Him.
We shouldn’t focus on getting the best teachings from the word of God in the Bible so that we may improve ourselves and be “good Christians” who “do their best to serve God and represent Him on earth”; we should rather focus on contacting the Lord, being one with Him, and allowing Him to fill us, saturate us, and occupy our whole being so that we may live Him and express Him personally and corporately in the church, which is His Body!
As the Reproduction of the First God-man, we should Live the Same Kind of Life as Christ
It is very important for us to realize the main reason for which God became a man and lived 33.5 years on earth; if He came ONLY to accomplish redemption, this could have been accomplished in just a few days, but Christ spent thirty-three and half years to LIVE on earth to establish and show forth the pattern of a God-man living.
Jesus Christ was the first God-man, and as He lived on earth, He died to Himself daily so that He might live because of the Father (John 6:57). He didn’t just die on the cross at the end of His life physically; throughout His life the Lord willingly put Himself on the cross and lived by God, allowing God’s attributes to saturate and be expressed through His human virtues.
Christ lived a God-man life, and He set His life as a pattern, a prototype, for us to copy, follow, and live again. Today we as believers in Christ and as a reproduction of Christ should live the same kind of life that the Lord lived when He was on earth.
The Lord in His human living set us a model, an example, for us to copy (1 Pet. 2:21). We are not called to outwardly imitate Christ and always ask ourselves, What Would Jesus Do? Rather, we are regenerated by God to become the reproduction and continuation of Christ by enjoying Him as grace in our sufferings so that He Himself as the indwelling Spirit, with all the riches of His life, would reproduce Himself in us.
The Lord’s God-man living set up a model for our God-man living – being crucified to live God so that God might be expressed in humanity. The Apostle Paul followed the Lord’s pattern and testified that he was crucified with Christ and it was no longer him who lived but Christ lived in him, and the life he lived in the flesh he lived in faith, the organic union with the Triune God living in him (Gal. 2:20).
How can we as believers live the same kind of life as the Lord Jesus lived? We need to first love the Lord, enjoy Him, and follow Him as loving seekers (see John 21:15-17, 19). We don’t want to merely imitate Christ outwardly but love Him, enjoy Him, and follow Him in His footsteps. This means that we need to pursue Christ and gain Him (Phil. 3:12-15), and we need to be conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection.
In everything we do and say we need to exercise our spirit by contacting the Lord and live a life of “no longer I but Christ” (Gal. 2:20). In ourselves, it is impossible to be conformed to Christ’s death, and by ourselves we don’t even want to be crucified; but in our spirit we have the power of Christ’s resurrection – the resurrected Christ Himself. When we exercise our spirit, touch the Lord, and enjoy the power of His resurrection, we spontaneously are being conformed to His death.
The Lord as a living person speaks to us many times in different situations, exposing us how much we STILL live and how little we live Him…and we repent, turn to Him, and allow Him to apply His cross to our being. Many times the Lord shines on us when we speak to our spouse, when we talk to our workmates, and when we spend time by ourselves, giving us an inner registration that we are not conformed to Christ’s death.
When the Lord in us exposes us, we should repent, turn to Him, and exercise our spirit to allow Him to apply His death to our being so that we may live Him out.
Lord Jesus, we want to follow in Your footsteps to live the same kind of life that You lived on earth. Thank You for setting up a pattern of living the life of a God-man so that we may follow You and organically imitate You. Lord, keep us enjoying You as grace by exercising our spirit so that we may have Your death applied to our being and we would live by the power of Your resurrection! Lord Jesus, we want to live the life of a God-man, a life of no longer I but Christ living in us!
Rejecting Self-Cultivation and Allowing Christ to Fill us and Live a God-man Life in us
We are called to live like Christ, that is, live the same kind of life that He lived when on the earth. But how can we live like Christ? How can we have a God-man living today on earth, a living that is the continuation and reproduction of Christ today?
We need to realize that the One who lives the life of a God-man, Christ Himself, is now the Spirit living in us and through us (Eph. 3:16-19); He came into our spirit through regeneration, and He is constantly making His home in our heart to fill us unto all the fullness of God.
We should 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.
When we come to the word of God in the Bible, we should not merely seek to get knowledge, teachings, exhortations, proverbs, and precepts to cultivate our self and build up our natural man. We should come to the word of God with an exercised spirit and a turned heart to receive God’s enlightenment and His fresh nourishment so that our inner man would be strengthened and we would be supplied to live the life of a God-man.
We should reject any thought of improving ourselves or building up our natural man with the teachings of the Bible and exercise our spirit to touch the Spirit in the word of God so that our self would be torn down, our natural man would be broken, and our inner man would be supplied with the bountiful supply of the Spirit.
When we are inwardly supplied in such a way, we can live a life not by our natural man, our flesh, or our self, but by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit.
May we learn to deny ourselves by exercising our spirit to be filled with Christ, so that Christ will slowly make His home in our heart, we would be bountifully supplied with the all-inclusive Spirit (Phil. 1:19-21), and we would magnify Christ in our daily life and living.
Hallelujah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the first God-man, now lives in us as the Spirit, and we can open to Him, allow Him to fill us and occupy us, and we will live Him and express Him personally and corporately in the church, which is the Body of Christ!
Lord Jesus, we reject any self-cultivation and any building up of our natural man, and we allow Nothing Other than YOU to fill us and occupy us so that we may live Christ and express Him both personally and corporately in the church! Dear Lord Jesus, we love You, we open to You, and we seek to pursue You, know You, contact You, be filled with You, and be occupied by You. Lord, You are our life and our person. Live in us the same kind of life as You lived on earth for the glory of the Father and the building up of the church!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and The God-men, pp. 44-45 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Need for a New Revival, week 4 / msg 4, Living the Life of a God-man (2) Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine Species.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# I am crucified with Christ / And it is no longer I who liveth, / But it is Christ who lives in me; / And the life which I now live / In the flesh, I live in faith— / The faith in the Son of God / Who loved and gave Himself up for me. (Song on Gal. 2:20)
# Oh, what a thought! Oh, what a boast! / Christ shall in me be magnified. / In nothing shall I be ashamed, / For He in all shall be applied. / In woe or blessing, death or life, / Through me shall Christ be testified. (Hymns #499)
# Lord, I give myself to You right now. / I want to be occupied with You. / I leave all else behind / And concentrate my being on You alone. / Lord, You are my focus, / You are my goal, / Lord, I give myself to You right now. (Song on Living Christ)
About aGodMan
In their reading of the Proverbs and even of the entire Bible, many Christians receive only teachings, admonitions, exhortations, proverbs, and precepts to cultivate their self and to build up the natural man, who has been fully condemned by God. We must learn to come to the Word of God as those who are approaching God, not to receive proverbs and teachings but to receive nourishment and enlightenment, so that we may know that, according to God, we should always be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10), which is the consummated Spirit, who is the reality of the resurrection of Christ.
We must reject self-cultivation and condemn the building up of the natural man. We need to turn the Bible from a book that teaches us to cultivate the self and to build up the natural man to a book that is full of life, spirit, spiritual nourishment, and spiritual enlightenment. This will tear down our self, break our natural man, and supply us with the consummated Spirit of the Triune God. Then we will live a life not by our natural man, by our old man, and by our self but by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Proverbs, pp. 28-29)