This is not my utterance – this is a rich utterance in the ministry of the age regarding our wonderful Lord Jesus! The Lord Jesus didn’t just bring God into man and mingled God with man in His incarnation – He also expressed the bountiful God in all His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues!
There was something special about the Lord Jesus as He lived on the earth – and it was NOT His outward appearance! The Lord Jesus was “a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief”, yet wherever He went He comforted people, He shepherded people, and He even attracted and captivated people!
There was an aroma about Him that really attracted everyone to Him! He lived not His human life but lived by the life of the Father, expressing God in all that He did. There was an inward beauty about Christ, a powerful aroma – the divine attributes expressed in His human virtues to make them aromatic! You cannot describe aroma – you need to smell it / taste it to see what it really was…
The Lord Jesus passed by Matthew the tax collector, as recorded in the gospels, and though these two never met, when the Lord Jesus called him to follow Him, Matthew left everything and followed the Lord! He left his job, his old life, everything – to follow Him!
Also, one time some parents brought their children to the Lord that He may bless their children, and the disciples “rebuked the parents” (Matt. 19:13-15) – yet the Lord was indignant with the disciples, saying, Let the little children come to Me! In doing so, the Lord didn’t just bless the children, but He also shepherded the parents. He cherished and nourished the ones around Him by Him living out God and expressing God.
The others were simply attracted to Him, blessed to be in His presence, and they loved to spend time with Him! Peter, though he was rebuked by the Lord several times, didn’t and even couldn’t leave the Lord – he saw the aromatic virtues of Christ expressing the divine attributes, and he realized that the Lord has the words of life!
Even after His resurrection, the Lord still shepherded Peter when He told Mary to go to His brothers, “and Peter”! His whole living and being was just God expressed in man, the rich divine attributes expressed through His aromatic human virtues!
Wow… what a God-man! Human words cannot describe Him or speak adequately about Him! That’s why I just love this utterance from the book, How to Be a Co-worker and an Elder and How to Fulfill Their Obligations, by Witness Lee(chapter 1),
[We need to enjoy Christ] In the first stage, the stage of His incarnation, from His human birth to His death:
1. To bring the infinite God into the finite man.
2. To unite and mingle the Triune God with the tripartite man.
3. To express in His humanity the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues:
a. Christ expressed the bountiful God in His human living.
b. Mainly expressing God in His rich attributes, that is, in the unsearchable riches of what God is.
c. Through Christ’s aromatic virtues by which He attracted and captivated people:
## 1) Not by living His human life in the flesh.
## 2) But by living His divine life in resurrection.
4. To accomplish His all-inclusive judicial redemption:
a. Terminating all things of the old creation.
b. Redeeming all the things created by God and fallen in sin—Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20.
c. Creating (conceiving) the new man with His divine element—Eph. 2:15.
d. Releasing His divine life from the shell of His humanity—John 12:24.
e. Laying a foundation for His organic salvation and setting up the procedure to attain His ministry in the stage of His inclusion.
This is the process He went through in His incarnation – and this is what He accomplished in the stage of His incarnation for God and for us! How we praise Him and we love Him! This One is our enjoyment, our life, and eventually our replacement!
As we spend time with Him, though we don’t see Him or feel Him physically, He is attracting us to Himself and captivating us with His beauty! We see Him in the spirit and we behold Him, we enjoy Him! [enjoyment from the message 5 on the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah(2)]
Lord, we love You! What a rich expression of the Bountiful God in all His attributes in the human virtues! Lord Jesus, You are so wonderful and so aromatic! Keep drawing us to Yourself, Lord, every day! Keep mingling Yourself with us, Lord! Unveil us to see You more and appreciate You more! How we love You, Lord, as the One who lives out God and expresses God! How we love to spend time with You and be infused with You! Lord, You are the One expressing God fully in humanity, and You are so aromatic! We love breathing You in, enjoying You, and being under Your continual dispensing!
