![A man of God [2 Tim. 3:17] is a God-man, one who partakes of God’s life and nature (John 1:13; 2 Pet. 1:4), thus being one with God in His life and nature (1 Cor. 6:17) and thereby expressing Him. Such a God-man, such a man of God, is produced by God’s breathing out of Himself. God’s breathing produces God-men. Witness Lee, Teacher’s Training, pp. 14-15](https://i0.wp.com/agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/A-man-of-God-is-a-God-man-one-who-partakes-of-God%E2%80%99s-life-and-nature.jpg?resize=600%2C332&ssl=1 "A man of God [2 Tim. 3:17] is a God-man, one who partakes of God’s life and nature (John 1:13; 2 Pet. 1:4), thus being one with God in His life and nature (1 Cor. 6:17) and thereby expressing Him. Such a God-man, such a man of God, is produced by God’s breathing out of Himself. God’s breathing produces God-men. Witness Lee, Teacher’s Training, pp. 14-15")
God’s intention and purpose concerning man is not what we think it is but what the Bible tells us; the entire Bible clearly tells us that God wants to be mingled with man and fill man with Himself until man becomes His expression. This is God’s original intention when He created man and this is what He will obtain at the end with the New Jerusalem.
Because man fell, God Himself became a man and mingled Himself with humanity; the Lord Jesus was the first God-man, a perfect man and a complete God dwelling in one another and living as one. If we read the Gospels we see that the Lord Jesus lived not merely a moral, righteous, upright, and good life before man and God – He lived the life of a God-man, setting up a pattern for us all to follow.
The Lord lived a life in the mingling of God and man; He always fellowshipped with the Father, spent time in prayer before the Father, answered to the Father, did the Father’s work, spoke what He heard from the Father, sought the Father’s glory, and did the Father’s will.
In Christ divinity was mingled with humanity without producing a “third nature” – in Him you could see both God and man living together. His living revolutionized the way people live, because He didn’t live by Himself but by the Father, denying His natural human life (as perfect as it was) so that He might live by the Father’s life (John 6:57).
In Christianity there’s such a thing as “Christology”, the study of Christ’s person and what He is, and “Christian ethics” which studies how we as Christians should live. Christology shows us that Christ was a God-man living the life of a God-man one with the Father, and Christian ethics is based on Christology. Based on what Christ is and has done, we should allow Him in us live the same kind of life today.
We shouldn’t seek to live merely a good, ethical, and spiritual life, but live a life in the mingling of God with man, a mingled life. Today we as believers in Christ are the reproduction of Christ as the first God-man – we are the many God-men, the many sons of God, and we need to live the same kind of life that He lived by denying ourselves and living by God’s life in us, thus living a life in the mingling of God and man.
In Christ God and Man have been Mingled together to be One Entity: the God-man!
According to the highest revelation in the Bible, in Christ God has been constituted into man, man has been constituted into God, and God and man have been mingled together to be one entity, which is called the God-man (Matt. 1:21, 23; Luke 1:35; Titus 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:5).
The Lord’s conception and birth were very mysterious and wonderful, and His person is just amazing: He was not just a Man called Jesus by God and Emmanuel by man, but He was God and man, man and God – He was a God-man.
From eternity to eternity God is God – He is divine, eternal, all-inclusive, all-extensive, Almighty, all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, and He just IS. But two thousand years ago God stepped out from eternity onto the bridge of time and became a man. He brought His divinity into humanity and lived a normal life on earth not merely as a man but as a God-man.
As such a One the Lord lived a God-man life, died an all-inclusive, all-terminating, life-releasing death on the cross, and in His resurrection, He was begotten of God to be the Firstborn Son of God in His humanity and He became the life-giving Spirit.
Now in His resurrection and ascension He is still a God-man, man mingled with God and God mingled with man. The Lord’s resurrection and His entering into glory is the proof that His redemption was accepted and approved by God (Luke 24:26; Rom. 4:25), and now He is in glory as God yet man, man yet God. The result and issue of God becoming man to mingle Himself with man is that Christ is now the God-man, a man in whom God is joined with man and man is joined to God.
Many Christians tend to be confused when they study what the Lord is and how He lived, since His being and His life doesn’t fit in our natural frame of mind. He didn’t just live as a Man, neither did He live merely as God; He lived a life in which God was mingled with man and man was mingled with God to be a God-man.
His person and His living were so wonderful that everyone who met Him, talked to Him, and saw Him was affected and saw God living among man. The Lord lived such a mingled life, and today He is in us as the Spirit to live the same kind of life!
In Him the divine attributes saturated, permeated, and filled the human virtues, and He expressed God in His living by allowing divinity to be expressed through humanity.
The bountiful divine attributes of God were His inward reality, and His aromatic human virtues were the outward appearance. In Christ the virtues of a man were filled, mingled, and saturated with the attributes of God, and He lived a life of fully expressing God in humanity.
Lord, we praise You for being the mingling of God and man: man joined to God and God joined to man to be a God-man! Remove all the veils of opinions, natural understanding, and even natural spiritual concepts that we may have so that we may see the mingling of God with man in the Lord Jesus Christ, the first God-man. Lord, thank You for setting a pattern before us and becoming the prototype for us to live the same way You did, a life of the mingling of God with man!
Christ as the First God-man is being Reproduced in us as the many God-men in Christ
Why did God pass through such a process that took 33.5 years and ended with the Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension? It is because God wanted to gain a God-man, a man in whom God is mingled with man and man is mingled with God.
In Christ God got a God-man who is a man in the flesh but who was designated to be the Son of God in power (Rom. 1:3-4) so that, just as God became a man in Christ, so all those who believe into the Lord Jesus would become sons of God, God-men, the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
Christ is the prototype, and all the believers in Christ are the mass reproduction and duplication of this prototype. Whenever a man repents and calls on the name of the Lord to receive Christ, he becomes a God-man, a son of God, a reproduction of Christ as the first God-man!
Christ as the First God-man is being reproduced now on earth in the many God-men, the many believers in Christ, for God to have many sons, the members of His household. Christ now is still a God-man in His ascension – He still has the divine nature and the human nature – but now He has been enlarged and expanded in humanity to produce many sons of God, the many God-men who are the same as He is in life and nature.
Eventually, in the New Jerusalem God the Father will be there surrounded by His many sons, and He will be very happy to be fully expressed through them! The Father will be the unique One, and we all will be His many sons with Christ as our elder brother and life, center, reality, and supply.
We need to realize that we are God-men, the reproduction of Christ as the first God-man. In Christ God has obtained a prototype, and through the preaching of the gospel He is mass reproducing this prototype in many human beings so that the earth will be filled with God-men.
You could even say that this is God’s hobby, His dream: He dreams and desires to have many sons in humanity, and He regenerates us, He feeds us, He nourishes and cherishes us, He shepherds us, He takes care of us, He transforms us, and He will glorify us to make us the same as Christ in every possible way.
We as the many God-men, the sons of God, are the duplication and continuation of Christ, the first God-man (see John 12:24; Heb. 2:10; Rom. 8:29). A God-man is one who has been born of God and partakes of God’s life and nature, becoming one with God in His life and nature and thereby expressing Him (John 1:12-13; 3:15; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 Cor. 6:17).
Regardless of our nationality, race, background, age, or gender, as long as we are regenerated by God with His life we are God-men – we are all God-men, and each of us is a God-man. We are those who have God as life within us, and this One is growing in us, spreading in us, making His home in us, and eventually He will make us the same as He is (Eph. 3:16-17).
We are not just men: we are God-men, men yet God and God in life and nature yet men. This is now taking place in us as believers in Christ; at this moment it is mysterious, covered, and quite incomprehensible to the human mind, but when we see the Lord, we will be even as He is (1 John 3:2)!
Lord, thank you for regenerating us with the divine life to make us God-men, the reproduction and duplication of Yourself as the first God-man. We now have Your life and partake of Your nature to become one with You in life and nature and thereby express You in humanity. Lord, we want to spend less time living our natural human life and more time exercising our spirit to contact You, enjoy You, and partake of You so that we may be in reality living as God-men to express You! Lord, You are our life and our everything. Make us the same as You are!
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 Redemption in God’s Plan, p. 102 (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:
# Christ is God incarnated, / Born according to God’s plan / To bring divinity, into humanity, / By mingling with man. / Christ is God incarnated, / He became the Son of Man; / A man of flesh yet without sin, / Accomplishing redemption, / He was a perfect man. / And He shall be named Jesus, / And called Emmanuel, / Hallelujah! God with us, / In man He came to dwell. (Song on God mingled with Man)
# 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 being His reproduction)
# We’re Thy total reproduction, / Thy dear Body and Thy Bride, / Thine expression and Thy fulness, / For Thee ever to abide. / We are Thy continuation, / Thy life-increase and Thy spread, / Thy full growth and Thy rich surplus, / One with Thee, our glorious Head. (Hymns #203)
About aGodMan
As the Son of Man, Christ has all the virtues of humanity (Psa. 45:2a). The Lord Jesus possesses both the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues. In Him we see all the attributes of God and all the human virtues, for His constitution is a composition of the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues. Moreover, in Christ the divine attributes strengthen and enrich the human virtues. With Him the divine attributes fill the human virtues, and the human virtues contain the divine attributes. The divine attribute is the inward reality, and the human virtue is the outward appearance. Therefore, the virtues of the man Jesus are filled, mingled, and saturated with the attributes of God. (Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 2773)
“Christ as the First God-man is being Reproduced in us as the many God-men in Christ” So true, today in many local churches all over the earth in many nations Christ the First God-man is being reproduced in many believers in all the local churches. Every day thousands of believers, born again, regenerated believers who have received God’s life and nature are in One Spirit and One Body, daily being sanctified by the washing with the water through the word, (Ephesians 5:26), and are being transformed by the renewing of the mind as they partake of the riches of Christ who bountifully supplies them each day with His riches. Thank God that we not only have seen the vision of God eternal heart’s desire which is to dispense Himself into mankind to restore mankind to become God’s kind in life and nature but not in the God head and to be One Body for His expression on the earth. As we all allow Christ daily to be enthroned into our hearts and behold Him we constantly, corporately enjoy righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit and live in the reality of the Kingdom!. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.(Romans 14:17) Amen.