God does not want a good man but a God-man; He doesn’t want a perfect, upright, moral, and ethical man who is full of integrity, one who fears God and turns away from evil, but a God-man filled with Christ to express God and represents Him.
This week we are still on the crystallization-study on the book of Job, and the topic is, God’s Intention with Job – a Good Man becoming a God-man.
What is God’s intention with Job? We may read the book of Job and sympathize with him in his sufferings and affliction, and we may even join the discussion between Job and his friends, trying to prove that Job didn’t do anything wrong to deserve what happened to him.
However, even after doing all this, we may come away dissatisfied, not knowing what was God’s intention with Job.
This book, Job, poses a question of two parts: Why did God make us, and, What is God’s purpose with our lives, especially in the matter of our sufferings?
We all wonder, Why did God make me, why am I here, and what is my meaning and purpose? Also, we may wonder, Why is my life so difficult? Why is there suffering and affliction in the world today, and particularly, why do I have so much suffering and affliction in my life?
Well, if we come to the Word of God and allow the Lord to shine on us, we will see a heavenly vision; under the Lord’s light we see a spiritual revelation from God, and our questions will be answered.
Little by little, the Lord will remove the veil from our eyes to see what is His purpose and intention with us, both in creating us and in our experience of His dealings and sufferings.
We need to have an incremental seeing, little by little, to realize what is God’s intention with us, and what does God want with us and from us; we need to see God’s intention according to His economy and His perfect will.
May the Spirit’s merciful visitation come to us so that He may lead us into a renewed and deep desire that we would not just be good men or upright men but God-men, those who live a God-man life, that is, live Christ, and in so doing, we express Christ.
This is what God wants; He desires to gain an expression of Himself in the man whom He has created us.
Adam, the first man, failed God; he didn’t make it, for he ate a wrong tree – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – and so he didn’t gain God, neither did he become a God-man.
Adam didn’t eat the tree of life, which is God Himself in the form of food; so he fell into a situation of two possibilities: he either becomes a good man or an evil man.
Either one of these is not good, for this is not what God desires, neither is this the purpose of man being created by God in His image.
God doesn’t want a good man or an evil man; both of these are the result of eating from the same tree – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God doesn’t want a perfect man, like Job, who is upright, perfect, and full of human integrity; He wants to gain a God-man who lives by the divine life and expresses Christ for God to be glorified. Amen, may we be such ones today!
God does NOT Want a Perfect man, a Good man, a man full of Integrity, but a God-man who Lives Christ to Express God
If we read the book of Job we will see that he was a good man, expressing himself in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity (John 27:5; 31:6; 32:1).
He was really good – unlike some that are faking goodness and righteousness, he was a genuine good man, a very rare human specimen.
And what he expressed was just himself; he expressed his good self in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity.
And he knew this, he spoke this, and boasted of this; he was a man of great integrity according to the human standard of morality and of good and evil.
Such a one was righteous in his own eyes. Being perfect is related to the inner man, and being upright is related to the outer man (Job 1:1).
Whether within or without, this man Job was perfect; he was without blemish or reproach.
Even Paul said something like that, that before he was saved, he was such a Pharisee – he was a doer of the law almost to perfection according to the law.
It is possible for some to achieve that state or become perfect in that way. Job was a man of integrity; integrity is the totality of being perfect and upright (Job 2:3, 9; 27:5; 31:6).
Even when Satan went to God’s council and when Jehovah said something to Satan, He said, Consider My servant Job, for there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and upright man. Wow, God affirmed this!
Job feared God, turned away from evil, and he held fast to his integrity. Impressive. Integrity was the total expression of what He was.
In a sense, humanly speaking, you couldn’t aspire to something higher than what Job was, to be described as, a man of integrity.
In his character, Job was perfect and upright, and in his ethics, he had a high standard of integrity. He was a moral, upright, and perfect man, and his ethics were according to the highest standard.
Positively, Job feared God, and negatively, he turned away from evil. He wasn’t a godless person; he knew God to a certain degree and feared Him in a positive way.
Today not many people fear God; especially the atheists, the godless people, they don’t fear God, but Job did, and he also turned away from evil.
However, God didn’t create man merely to be upright, perfect, and full of integrity, neither did He create man in His image so that man would merely fear God and not do anything wrong.
God created man in His own image and according to His likeness so that man would take in God as life, become a God-man, and express God.
This is a fundamental view according to the divine revelation: God doesn’t want the man He created to merely fear Him, revere Him, or that he would merely turn away from evil and not commit any wrong or wrongdoing.
This is not God’s intention in creating man, as good as it may seem, as good and laudable and noble as this may be.
God’s intention in creating man according to His image and in His likeness is that man would take God in as life and live Christ to express God.
God doesn’t want man to express himself in his perfection, his goodness, his righteousness, or even in his so-called godliness or spirituality; He wants man to express God in his thinking, speech, actions, doings, life, work, and walk.
God doesn’t want a good man but a God-man who has the divine life and nature lives according to the divine life and lives Christ to express God.
It is good to fear God; it is good to stay away from evil; however, merely fearing God cannot compare with expressing God, and staying away from evil is not being a God-man who expresses God.
God doesn’t want to gain a group of self-righteous people, a group of people who are full of integrity and morality, or a group of people who are afraid of Him and staying away from evil; God wants a group of men who have God’s life and nature to express God.
Lord Jesus, grant us to have the divine revelation to realize that God doesn’t want merely a good man but a God-man who lives Christ to express God. Amen, Lord, save us from building up our own righteousness, perfection, and integrity; save us from being a good and upright man in ourselves. We want to be the God-men that You desire to gain, those who have the divine life and nature and who live Christ to express God! Amen, Lord, may we not just fear God and stay away from evil, but even more, may we come to You, take You in as life, live because of You, and express You as a part of the corporate God-man, the church as the Body of Christ! Save us from our effort and struggle to please God by being an upright or perfect man; cause us to turn to You, take You in as life, and express God by being a God-man in Christ!
Our need is to Gain God and be Filled with God to Express God for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose
We may look at a person like Job, who was perfect, righteous, and moral, full of integrity, and we may think that there’s nothing wrong with him but rather, God should be happy with such a one.
However, in God’s eyes what Job had attained in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity was altogether vanity, for it neither fulfilled God’s purpose neither did it satisfy God’s desire (Job 1:6-8; 2:1-3).
Therefore, God was lovingly concerned for Job.
We may not consider that Job’s attainments were vanity, for we see goodness there, excellence, virtue, and virtuous life – what is wrong with that, and why would we say this is vanity?
Well, under the shining of the divine light with the revelation of God’s economy, we need to realize that God desires not a perfect, upright, or righteous man but a man into whom God is being wrought, a man who gains God and is filled with God to express God for the fulfilment of God’s purpose.
God’s economy is to work Himself into us so that we may become a God-man, even the same as Christ in life and nature to become His extension, His enlargement, His duplication and reproduction to express Him on earth.
The book of Job is in the Bible, even as a necessary book, to show us that God is lovingly concerned for those who seek Him yet try their best to please God and be righteous and upright but without contacting God or being filled with God.
God allows suffering in our life not because He hates us; far from it – He allows suffering because He wants us to be stripped from anything of ourselves, anything of our self-righteousness and self-made perfection, so that we may be filled with God and express God.
Our loving Father would chastise us so that we can bear fruit of righteousness and peace, that is, of Christ Himself wrought into us and living in us to express God.
We may have certain goodness with us, a certain level of morality and integrity; but that is not good enough, neither does this meet God’s need or satisfy His desire.
God wants us to become the same as He is in life and nature (but not in the Godhead) to live Christ and express God, manifesting Him corporately in this universe.
For this to take place, He has to tear down and consume what we have built up in our natural man, so that He may have a way, a base, to build us up again with Himself; He wants us to gain God and be filled with God to express God according to His purpose.
God’s intention in His economy is not to make fallen man whole or to improve them; rather, He wants to tear down anything natural (whether good or evil) and rebuild us with Himself until we become the same as Christ, one with God, to express God.
God’s stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to ear him down so that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself so that Job would be not just a good man but a God-man.
God knows our need; our need is to gain more of God, to be filled with God, for we are so short of God.
We may have our own strength, we may exercise our natural power and live by our natural life to be good persons, full of integrity, but this is all without God, with no element of God.
We are meant to express God and not our own integrity and uprightness; we are meant to live Christ and not live by our natural life. May we all pursue to gain God, possess God more and more, so that we may be gained by God and live Christ to express God!
Lord, work Yourself into us and fill us until we become the same as You are to express God and represent Him. Save us from seeking to be perfect, upright, and righteous in our own eyes and by our own efforts. May we consider anything of our natural man and its efforts as being vanity, and may we seek to enjoy God and be filled with God more and more! Have a way in us, Lord. Expose our efforts of improving ourselves or building up our own integrity and perfection. May we realize our real need to be filled with God and to gain God so that we may be a God-man to express God! Stir in us a fresh desire to gain more of God and be filled with God so that we be rebuilt with God to express only God in our daily living! Amen, Lord, may our life and living count in the fulfilment of Your purpose!
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, Life-Study of Job, msgs. 5 and 23 (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:
– I would give myself, Lord, / Fully unto Thee, / That Thy heart’s desire / Be fulfilled in me. / I no more would struggle / To myself reform, / Thus in me to hinder / What Thou wouldst perform. (Hymns #841)
– God’s intention is for Christ / To be wrought into His chosen people / That they may become the sons of God / For His corporate expression. (Song on, God’s intention is for Christ)
– It is God’s intent and pleasure / To have Christ revealed in me, / Nothing outward as religion, / But His Christ within to be. (Hymns #538)
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