The Diamond in the Box of the Bible: God was Man-ized so that Man may be God-ized

The “diamond” in the “box” of the Bible is the revelation that in Christ God has become man in order that man might become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem. Wow!

This week we come to a new morning revival book series based on the 2023 July Semi-annual training on the general topic of, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing.

The topic for this first week is, The Ultimate Goal of God’s Economy – God Became Man that Man Might Become God in Life and in Nature but not in the Godhead for the Building up of the Body of Christ to Consummate the New Jerusalem.

As believers in Christ, we are those who pursue Him out of love, for He is our Beloved, and we desire to have His appearing.

Like the seeker in Song of Songs, we desire to hear His voice and have His presence, and we even ask Him to make haste and come like a gazelle or a young hart upon the mountains of spices (Song of Songs 8:14).

We love the Lord Jesus, we love to hear His voice; we love to hear His speaking to us personally and corporately, both in our intimate personal time with the Lord and when we meet with the saints. And we want to prepare ourselves for the Lord’s return.

We want to do everything that is necessary for Him to return and set up His sweet and beautiful kingdom on the earth.

We love the Lord so much that our life depends on His words and our work depends on His commands.

If we don’t have the Lord’s instant speaking, if we do not see His face and hear His voice, we have no life.

If we do not have the Lord’s commands, we don’t have any work for Him, for we do not do what we think we should do for the Lord but rather, we listen to Him and do as we are told.

May we be up-to-date with the Lord in the present truth; may the Lord grant us to have an overview of the central burden and present truth of the Lord’s recovery before His appearing.

2 Pet. 1:12 speaks of the present truth; this truth is the up-to-date truth, the truth that the Lord is speaking right now and that will cause us to hasten the Lord’s return.

As we live a life at the end of this age, we want to bring the Lord back, and our goal is the same goal as God has.

May the Lord have mercy on us and enlighten us to see an overview of the central burden and present truth of the Lord’s recovery today so that we may live a proper life to be the overcomers who bring the Lord back and have His appearing as the morning star.

May we and the Lord be on the same page so that, when He returns, He may take us and we may live in His fresh appearing forever.

The Diamond in the Box of the Bible is God becoming man to make man God in Life and Nature but not in the Godhead

The Bible is the word of God, containing the unique divine revelation given to us by God; if we want to know what God is, what His plan is, and what is His heart’s desire, we need to come to the Bible.

However, many people come to the Bible and see so many things such as history, poetry, teachings, doctrines, and prophecies, but not many see what is the “diamond” in the “box” of the Bible.

When you have a nice box that contains a large diamond, the children would rather play with the box, appreciating the box more than the diamond itself; however, a knowledgeable person appreciates the precious diamond much more than the box.

Many Christians today care for the “box” of the Bible with all the details in it, but they have not seen nor do they appreciate the “diamond” that is in the “box” of the Bible.

There is a content in the Bible, a diamond in the box; however, not many see this diamond and, even worse, they condemn or criticize those who have a proper appreciation of this diamond.

The diamond in the box of the Bible is the revelation that in Christ God has become man in order that man might become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem.

This encompasses the entire Bible and is the diamond in the box of the Bible.

Without this, the Bible in a real sense is an empty book, a book of teachings, doctrines, history, poetry, and prophecies.

When we see the diamond in the box of the Bible, we will give our whole life to have it, live it, and become it.

God, the source of the Bible and the One who wrote the Bible by inspiring so many writers to compose and put in words the books, gospels, and epistles, has an eternal economy.

God has an eternal plan, a heart’s desire.

God’s eternal economy is to make man the same as He is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead and to make Himself one with man and man one with Him, thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression, that all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues (1 Tim. 1:3-4; Eph. 3:9; 1:10).

First, God Himself became man; for the fulfilment of His eternal economy, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (John 1:14).

What is this? God Himself, the One who created all things, who sustains all things, and who is outside of time and space, being almighty, all-knowing, all-powerful, and self-existing, one day became a man.

He became flesh and lived on earth for thirty-three and half years.

Then, this One went to death and died on the cross not only to redeem us (John 1:29) but even more to impart the divine life into us (John 12:24) so that we may be the many sons of God, born of God with His life and nature (John 1:12-13).

We men were created in the image of God and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26) so that God would come into us and become our very life and nature (Gen. 2:7).

God put in us a spirit which only He can fill (Zech. 12:1); He stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth and formed the spirit of man within him.

Man was created in a special way – in His image and according to His likeness, and man has a spirit to contact God and receive Him.

God did not create “mankind”; rather, He created man according to His kind. When man believes into Christ, he is regenerated with the divine life to become a child of God.

When someone becomes a child of God, he enters into a process of becoming the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

We all are in this process of being deified so that God would obtain a corporate expression, the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem.

God became a man in order to have a mass reproduction of Himself, and thereby to produce a new kind – the God-man kind (John 1:1, 14; 12:24; Rom. 8:28).

This is why we’re created in the image of God, so that we may become the God-man kind, the human beings who have the divine life and the human life in them existing simultaneously to be part of God’s corporate expression on the earth consummating in the New Jerusalem.

This is the diamond in the box of the Bible. This is what we should emphasize, pay attention to, and learn to live out.

Lord Jesus, unveil us to see the “diamond” in the “box” of the Bible. Grant us to see the revelation that in Christ God has become man in order that man might become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem! Wow, Amen, Lord, may we know this one thing, the eternal economy of God for the deification of man for God to gain His corporate expression! May we realize that God became man so that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. Thank You, Lord, for being incarnated to be a man; thank You for putting on the flesh, living a perfect life on earth, dying an all-inclusive, all-terminating, and life-imparting death on the cross, and having a wonderful resurrection! Hallelujah, all believers in Christ are now a new kind, the God-man kind, to be members of the Body of Christ for God’s corporate expression consummating in the New Jerusalem!

God’s Economy is to Man-ize Himself so that He may God-ize us for His corporate Expression

When God created man, He made him a vessel; man was an empty vessel, and God’s purpose was to come and fill up this vessel with Himself.

This is why God put man in front of the tree of life. Before God could get into man to be man’s content and life, however, man became corrupted and defiled, because Satan deceived man and man partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So God had to come in and redeem man and bring him back to His original intention.

God’s goal was not man’s redemption and cleansing; it was for man to be filled with God’s life so that man would be God-ized.

God became a man to man-ize Himself, and He wants to God-ize man for Him to gain His corporate expression.

God became a man (John 1:14) so that He would man-ize Himself, and He is taking us through a process of regeneration, renewing, transformation, sanctification, and glorification so that we are God-ized and become the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

We believers in Christ are begotten of God; whoever believes into the Lord Jesus, that is, whoever receives Him, has the authority to be called a child of God (John 1:12-13).

In this sense of being born of God, we are God; we’re not God in His Godhead or in His person but in His life and nature.

We are now a new kind: not just the man-kind but the God-man kind. God’s economy and plan is to make Himself man and to make us, His created beings, God so that He is man-ized and we are God-ized. Wow!

We believers in Christ are born of the great God, so we become God in life and nature but, of course, not in His Godhead (Gal. 4:6; 63:16; 64:8; 66:12-13).

To not believe that we believers in Christ are becoming the same as God in every possible way is to be filled with unbelief.

To believe, however, that we become God in His Godhead, in His quality of being worshipped, is heresy; we should never believe such a thing.

God is our Father; we have His life and nature. We human beings who are parents know that our children have the same life and nature as we do; however, they will never share in the fatherhood.

Let’s say I have three children; these three little ones (or grown-ups if they are older) have the same life and nature as I do, but they will never share in my fatherhood. I am the father, they are the children; in every possible way, they are the same as me, but the fatherhood is mine.

Similarly, God is our Father, and we will never share in His Godhead; however, we share in His life and nature. This is amazing!

God became a God-man so that we can become a man-God; eventually, He and we are in the same category, of the same kind, and on the same level.

We will never share in His Godhead or His person; these are only for Him to have.

But we will share in His life, nature, expression, and function, and we are becoming the same as He is.

This is the diamond in the box of the Bible, that God became a man to man-ize Himself so that we men can become God and be God-ized.

This is so that He may obtain a corporate expression of Himself, the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.

God today is our life and everything to us so that we may be filled with Him, reconstituted with His life and nature, and express Him and live Him out.

His ultimate desire is to enter into us, the men created in His image and according to His likeness, and mingle Himself with us to the extent that we have a God-man living to express Him corporately.

May He gain this among us. May we first see what we are, who we are, and what we are becoming according to God’s eternal economy.

May we cooperate with Him for the fulfilment of His purpose.

Thank You, Lord, for creating us in Your image and according to Your likeness so that we may receive You as life and be mingled with You. Thank You for regenerating us with the divine life for us to be children of God, born of God! Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are begotten of God to become the same as God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead! Wow, amen, Lord, thank You for becoming a man to man-ize Yourself! Thank You for taking us through a process of making us the same as God to God-ize us! We take You as our life and everything today. We want to express You in our daily living. Work Yourself into us a little more today. Mingle us more with Yourself and conform us more to Your image. Amen, Lord, may our living be the God-man living, God living in man and man living in God! Live in us today. Be expressed through us today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1990, vol. 3, “A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing,” pp. 390-391, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 1, entitled, The Ultimate Goal of God’s Economy – God Became Man that Man Might Become God in Life and in Nature but not in the Godhead for the Building up of the Body of Christ to Consummate the New Jerusalem.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Deification by participation in God’s divinity, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The treasure being in earthen vessels, a portion from, The Crucified Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – Practical Points on Bible Reading and Reading for the Central Line, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The reality of the Body of Christ, a portion from, The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of the Body of Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – What Miracle! What Mystery! A hymn on this topic.
  – Deification – becoming God in life and nature but not in the Godhead, a portion from, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Samuel, Chapter 25, by Witness Lee.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – God’s eternal economy / Is to make man the same as He is / In life and nature, / But not in the Godhead / And to make Himself one with man / And man one with Him / Thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression / That all His divine, that all His divine / Attributes may be expressed in human virtues. (Song on, God’s eternal economy)
  – God has called us for His purpose, / His economy so glorious, / For which He was fully processed; / Consummated now is He! / As the Spirit, He indwells us; / As our God allotted portion, / Working out His full salvation, / Making us the same as He is. / Oh, may a clear, controlling vision of / The Lord’s economy direct my heart, / And burn in me until my spirit’s wholly set afire! / With spirit strong and active we’ll press on / To consummate God’s goal— / New Jerusalem, Hallelujah! (Song on, God has called us for His purpose, stanza 1 and chorus)
  – God’s intention in this universe is with humanity, / So the Lord became the Spirit just with man to mingled be. / We rejoice that we can all partake of His economy. / Yes, mingling is the way. (Hymns #1199 stanza 1)