Hallelujah, Christ as the prototype is being reproduced in us, the believers in Christ, to live a God-man life expressing God in His divine attributes through our human virtues!
What God desires in His intention with the creation of man is not a good man but a God-man; when Christ became a man in His incarnation, a God-man was produced, and in Him, the divine attributes were expressed through His human virtues to express God.
We may think that God wants us to be good people, those who reject evil and do the good and that we may fear God; such a one was Job, but God saw that he had a great lack.
Job was on the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which in his case produced a good man (not an evil man).
Most people on the line of the tree of knowledge are evil, but sometimes a good man is produced, and he thinks “he made it”, that is, he is doing a good job, and God should be pleased with him.
However, what God wants is not a good man but a God-man, one who has the divine life and nature within him to live not according to the natural human life by the divine life and nature.
Even if we are perfect, righteous, upright, and full of integrity according to man, our deeds and being are still not acceptable to God, for only what comes out of the divine life lived out in us can please Him.
Only when the divine attributes fill, enrich, and are expressed through our human virtues can we please God, for such a life expresses God in His attributes through man’s human virtues.
There was such a man – the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the first God-man; He started a new species called, the God-man kind.
We are in the image and likeness of our Creator, but it is not until we have His divine life and nature that we can fulfil the purpose of God in His creation of man.
God’s image and likeness is something outward, like a shell, like a glove; there has to be an inward reality, the inner divine life, that animates and lives within us to express God.
Without God in us, without God being mingled with us, without God in Christ being our life and our everything, there’s no possibility for us to express God by living Christ.
So the Lord Jesus, the second of the Divine Trinity, became a man; the Word of God became flesh.
His incarnation was God coming out of eternity into time and the Divine Being being incarnated to be flesh and blood; such a One was a true man, a real man, yet the complete and perfect God was in Him.
And He lived a life depending on God; He had a God-man living by living not by His own human life – even though it was sinless – but by the life of the Father.
He is the prototype, and we as His many believers are His mass reproduction and duplication to be the members of the Body of Christ, the continuation of Christ on earth.
If we read the Gospels we see the wonderful human living of the first God-man who lived not by His own human life but by taking the Father’s life as his; His life and living of thirty-three and a half years was something this world has never seen, for no one has ever lived in this way.
He was the first God-man having a God-man living, and now He is in us to live the same kind of life in us; as we take Him as our life and life supply, we live because of Him and He can live in us to express God. This fulfils the purpose of God’s creation of man.
The Incarnation of Christ produced a God-man who Expressed God in His Attributes through His Human Virtues
Praise the Lord, God became a man! The incarnation of Christ – who is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God – produced a God-man, Jesus Christ (Luke 1:31-32a; John 1:1, 14, 18, 51).
This One had not only the human life but also the divine life.
In the Gospel of Luke in particular we see a revelation of the God-man who lived a human life filled with the divine life as the content (Luke 1:35; 2:7-16, 34-35, 40, 49, 52).
What people saw was a man, but this man expressed God, and the divine attributes were expressed through the human virtues.
In Christ, God and man have become one entity, the God-man (Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Matt. 1:18, 20-23).
He was conceived not of man but of God, with the divine essence; in His essence, He was God mingled with man, and He had both the divine nature and the human nature.
There is no such being that has ever existed; Jesus Christ is the first and will be the only such God-man that ever lived.
The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us with the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and reality.
He was not merely good and for sure He was not evil; He was God with the glory of God, and He was a man with the virtues of man.
Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in a virgin’s womb; He was born as a holy thing, uncommon, and He was called the Son of God.
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.
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 the perfect man (Luke 1:35).
He lived a life that was both human and divine; in His life, the divine attributes were expressed through His human virtues.
He was the perfect man and the complete God; He was the God-man with the human nature and its virtues, and He also had the divine nature with its attributes.
Christ as the God-man has the human nature with its virtues to contain God and also to express God with the divine attributes.
On one hand, He was a perfect man with the human nature and the human virtues; on the other hand, He was the complete God to contain God with all of God’s divine attributes.
The incarnation of Christ produced a God-man who expressed God in His attributes through His human virtues.
In this man, we had not only the human virtues but even more, these virtues were uplifted and filled with the divine attributes, for He expressed the divine attributes through His human virtues.
When men saw Jesus, they saw a man in flesh and blood, but they actually witnessed God with His divine attributes being expressed through a man in His human virtues.
The virtues that Christ lived out were not just good or upright, they were not just a traditional kind of human kindness, goodness, and excellence, but they were actually God expressed in a man.
This is what God is after; this is His intention in creating man.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for coming as God becoming man to express God in His attributes through Your human virtues. Hallelujah for Jesus Christ, the first God-man, the One in whom we see both the divine life with the divine attributes and the human life with the human virtues. We praise You, Lord, for Your human living; how we appreciate Your God-man living in which You expressed the divine attributes through Your human virtues. Thank You for coming in us to live the same kind of life in us today for the expression of God. We open to You, dear Lord; live in us today. We turn to You; we want to live one spirit with You so that it would no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. Live in us, dear Lord, a life for the expression of God, so that the divine attributes would be expressed through our human virtues!
As the Prototype, Christ is Reproduced in us as He Lives in us a God-man Life to Express the Divine Attributes through our Human Virtues
We may wonder why did the Lord Jesus have to live for thirty-
three and a half years if He came mainly to accomplish redemption, and why is there the need for four books in the Bible to describe mainly His human living.
The answer is simple: Yes, Christ did come to accomplish redemption, but He came for much more than that; He came to accomplish the purpose of God in His creation of man by living a God-man life to express the divine attributes through His human virtues.
He lived a life on earth with the divine attributes expressed in the virtues of man, and He fulfilled the purpose and intention of God in His creation of man.
If He had lived on earth only a short period of time, there would have been only a momentary expression of the divine attributes in His living; however, He lived a full human life for 33.5 years.
In His living, He was proved to be without any defect or imperfection; He had no failure but rather, His virtues were an image for an expression of God’s attributes, and God was expressed in His living.
Four Gospels are needed to describe the kind of person He was and the kind of living He had.
His God-man living established a prototype for the living of a God-man, and through His death and resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit to dispense Himself into us and live the same kind of life in us.
As the prototype, Christ is reproduced in us today as He lives in us a God-man life to express the divine attributes through the human virtues.
The Christ who is dispensed into us and who lives in us is a composition of the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues.
When He was on earth, He lived a God-man life to express the divine attributes through the virtues of man; now, after His resurrection, he lives such a life in us, His believers, His continuation and reproduction.
Today Christ is still living a life that is a composition of the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues.
When we see this, we will say the same as Paul did in Gal. 2:20, It is no longer I who lives but it is Christ who lives in me!
We may try to express God, and we may think that our human virtues can be improved and uplifted by our self-cultivation or self-perfection, but the best we can do is not acceptable to God.
What we need to do is simply turn to this One who lives in us, enjoy Him, live one spirit with Him, and allow Him to live in us.
His God-man living was a prototype; in making a prototype many things are needed, and a long process is required, but once you obtain this prototype, it can be used for mass reproduction.
This is what happened with the Lord Jesus and what is happening with us today; His God-man living constituted Him to be the prototype for the many God-men, and we are His reproduction, His mass reproduction, for Him to live in us and be expressed through us in our daily life.
In this sense, our Christian life is spontaneous and effortless, for it has nothing to do with our trying, striving, and struggling – it has everything to do with our turning to Him, enjoying Him, and taking Him as our life and person.
Lord Jesus, live in us today. We give up all our struggling and striving; we refuse to try to improve ourselves or cultivate our virtues to try to imitate You. Live in us today the same kind of life that You lived when You were on the earth. We take You as our pattern; You are the prototype, and we are Your reproduction on earth. Be reproduced in us, dear Lord. We want to live a life that expresses God in His divine attributes through the virtues of man. Amen, Lord, it is no longer we who live but it is Christ who lives in us. Live in us today; we allow You to live in us the God-man life to express the divine attributes through our human virtues for God to be expressed in us and through us!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 61-62 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 5, God’s Intention with Job – a Good Man Becoming a God-man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– How mysterious! Yet how real! / Such a man now lives in me. / Into all my heart He’s spreading— / He, my human life, to be. / Hallelujah! Hallelujah! / I will praise unceasingly. / Oh, what wonder! Oh, how glorious! / God in flesh is manifest. / We the members of His Body / His humanity express. (Hymns #1174)
– Jesus lived the God-man pattern, / Set the way for us to follow, / He denied His natural man and / Was obedient unto death, / Once He was the only God-man; / Now we are His duplication. / As the many grains we’re blended / As His corporate reproduction. (Song on, God has called us for His purpose)
– Oh! Christ, expression of God, the Great, / Inexhaustible, rich, and sweet! / God mingled with humanity / Lives in me my all to be. (Hymns #501)
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