Being Torn Down in our Natural Man and Rebuilt with God to be a God-man Expressing Him

What God desires is not a good and upright man who fears God and abstains from evil but a God-man who is filled with God to express God by living out God’s life. Our concepts need to be changed and renewed according to the word of God so that we may realize and be conscious of the fact that God’s desire is NOT to improve us, reform us, and make us better but to work Himself into us, tear down our natural man and our natural life, and be lived out of us for His expression.

One of the best examples in the Old Testament is the case of Job: he was a righteous man, upright, and staying away from evil while fearing God. This one was “perfect” according to the highest human standard, but in God’s eyes he had a big lack: he lacked God! Somehow Job attained to human perfection and integrity without God being wrought into him, and this was NOT OK with God!

So God had to use the ugly tool of Satan to strip Job from his attainments and possessions, and even to touch his physical body with sickness, so that Job would be emptied of what he has and is and would be OPEN to the Lord to speak to him, infuse him with Himself, and reconstruct him with God.

Job didn’t understand why he had to go through such a suffering and terrible things, and he even admitted that there must be something hidden in God’s heart which He doesn’t reveal to him….this something hidden in God’s heart is God’s eternal economy which today is revealed to us in spirit. In His eternal economy God became man to make man God in life and nature but not in the Godhead so that man would have a God-man living for God’s expression.

In the New Testament we see this with the Apostle Paul who also went through all kinds of persecution and sufferings, but he said, The outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). Hallelujah, though the outer man is stripped, consumed, and decaying, yet our inner man is constantly being renewed by having God added to our being day by day!

Consuming and Tearing Down is Needed for us to be Stripped and Reconstituted with God

Human life is not easy, and many times things are not fair: we have problems, people give us a hard time, some people just don’t like us, we may have a sickness, we have family and work problems, and sometimes all these happen at once. In all these things we may want to do the right thing, not speak evil of others, worship God and accept His sovereign arrangement, and do our best to be good, moral, ethical, and altogether a good Christian.

But what God wants is to use all kinds of things like the consuming of the environment and the stripping off caused in us by the problems and the people around us so that our attainments, achievements, goodness, and anything that’s of our natural man would be stripped off, consumed, and worn out, so that He would come in and work Himself into us.

God doesn’t want us to do good vs not doing evil, neither does He desire a good man who abstains from evil and does what the Bible tells him to do; what God wants is a man of God, a God-man, one who is filled with Christ to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ.

I was encouraged by a few quotes from the life-study of Job which give us some indications on what God’s intention is especially in bringing us through sufferings and tough times:

“God’s intention with Job was to consume this “perfect and upright” person and to strip his attainments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness (Job 1:1).”
“God’s intention was also to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness that He might build up a renewed Job in God’s nature and attributes.”
“God’s intention was not to have a Job in the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but a Job in the line of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9).”
“God’s intention was to make Job a man of God (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17), filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ, not a man of the high standard of ethics in Job’s natural perfection, natural uprightness, and natural integrity, which Job attempted to maintain and hold (Job 2:3, 9a).”
“God’s consuming was exercised over Job to tear him down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself, causing Job to become a God-man expressing God (Eph. 3:16-21).”
“God, through Satan as an ugly tool, was tearing Job down by two ways: stripping and consuming. God’s stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear Job down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself that he might become a God-man.” (Life-study of Job, pp. 29, 34-35)

When speaking of living the Christian life and what kind of life should we live as Christians we need to realize that God doesn’t want us to be merely “good Christians” who have an ethical, moral, and upright living; what He wants is for us to be a man of God filled with Christ to express Him (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17).

But before we can become a God-man in reality the Lord needs to consume our “good” and “upright” outward man through all kinds of pressures, problems, and situations, so that He may have a way and a base to work Himself into us.

The entire Bible talks of the eternal economy of God which is to dispense Himself into us to be our life and our nature so that we may be the same as He is in life and nature in order to express Him. For His economy to be worked out in us, we as fallen and natural men need to be torn down, consumed, and stripped off, so that God would rebuild us with Himself and reconstitute our being with His element to make us God-men.

For this consuming and tearing down God uses Satan as an ugly tool; He allows Satan to bring in people, situations, sufferings, problems, and things, so that our outer man would be consumed and He would renew our inner man with His element for us to be men of God rebuilt with God, God-men who express God!

Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to be reconstituted with You in all our inner being. Keep us open to You as we go through things, situations, sufferings, and pressures; may our inner man be renewed even as our outer man experiences the consuming and the tearing down. Lord, make us God-men, men of God who are filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, and who express God in their daily living. Praise the Lord, as our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day!

Being Torn Down in our Natural Man and Rebuilt with God to be a God-man Expressing Him

May the Lord have mercy on us and unveil us to see His eternal economy and the way He accomplishes it in our life daily. Many Christians think that we as fallen men need help from God; we need God to improve us and correct us, so we need good teachings to obey and put into practice.

But in His economy God doesn’t want to improve our behavior, make us better people, and “make us whole” but He wants to tear us down (since we’re fallen beings) and rebuild us with Himself as our life and nature so that we may be persons who are absolutely ONE with Him!

In order for God to work out His economy in us He needs to tear down our natural man and rebuild us with Himself little by little, day by day, until He fully makes His home in our heart and we become the fullness of God, His corporate expression (Eph. 3:16-21).

The model of such a living was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; if we read the Gospels we see that He lived a life of a man yet God – He was completely man yet He lived out the life of God in humanity (without producing a third nature).

It is not easy to describe how He lived and what kind of person He was, because Jesus Christ was not merely moral, just, righteous, God-fearing, God-worshipping, good, compassionate, and kind….He was a God-man, living in the mingling of God with man. He learned obedience through the things which He suffered (Heb. 5:8); in His divinity He was perfect and omniscient, but in His humanity He emptied Himself, took the form of a man, and died a shameful death on the cross.

This One, Jesus Christ, is our pattern, and He lived a life of suffering from the manger to the cross, daily dying to Himself and being under the consuming work of the cross while at the same time living by God’s life to express Him in His humanity.

We shouldn’t be those who “seek more suffering and more crosses” as the ascetics do; we should simply be open to the Lord and allow Him to operate in us through the environment and people around us to tear down and consume our natural being – and at the same time we should enjoy the Lord and let Him work Himself into us to until we’re rebuilt with God to be a God-man expressing God.

In His way, in His time, and according to His plan, God works in us and on us so that even the difficult, unpleasant, and rough situations and sufferings would work out in us an eternal weight of glory, that is, work God into us until we live God out as God-men in our daily living.

We should just seek the Lord, desiring to be found in Him enjoying Him and experiencing Him day by day, and we should not seek to have our own righteousness and uprightness which is out of the law; then, the Lord will be faithful to tear down our natural man so that we may be rebuilt with God to be a God-man expressing Him.

Lord Jesus, You know what we are and what we need: work out Your economy in us. Lord, work Yourself into us and add Your element to our being. We don’t pray for more suffering: we pray for more God to be added to us! Mingle Yourself with us, and use whatever means necessary to make us God-men filled with God to express God! Have a way in us, and gain a base on which You can rebuild us with Yourself to make us a God-man expressing God. Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You; we love You and we want to allow You to do in us what You need to do to fulfill Your economy!

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 Life-study of Job, msgs. 31, 33 (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 lie upon Thy altar / And dare not move away; / Oh, may Thy flame descending / Consume my all, I pray. / Oh, from myself deliver, / From all its misery; / I’d henceforth be forever / Completely filled with Thee. (Hymns #820)
  # Shining One—how clear the sky above me! / Son of Man, I see Thee on the throne! / Holy One, the flames of God consume me, / Till my being glows with Thee alone. (Hymns #1159)
  # Lord, by Your mercy You consume me. / It’s all according to God’s plan. / By resurrection life renew me, / Day by day, my inner man. (Song on Being Consumed and Renewed)