As the first God-man, Christ didn’t live by His natural life but by the Father’s life, He did the Father’s will, and He accomplished the Father’s work; Christ’s God-man living constituted Him as the prototype to be reproduced in us.
If we read the Gospels we see not only the Lord’s incarnation and His work of redemption but even more, we see His God-man living. He was God mingled with man; He was both the complete God and the perfect man, possessing both the divine nature and the human nature distinctly.
As the first God-man, Christ fulfilled the purpose of God in His creation of man, for He expressed God in His attributes through His human virtues, and He represented God with His authority over the enemy.
His source was divine and human; He was the mingling of what God is with what man is, and in Him we see the divine attributes being expressed in His human virtues.
Through this God-man God had a full expression, for the divine attributes enriched, filled, strengthened, and sanctified His human virtues, and thus He expressed God in the human virtues.
He didn’t just love and care for others; He expressed God’s love and care for those around Him. He didn’t just heal others or make miracles; He expressed God’s power and compassion toward others, and whatever He did was an expression of what the Father was doing.
The secret to His God-man living was not living by His human life; Christ had a perfect humanity, a perfect human life, for He was sinless, but He didn’t live by it or according to it.
Rather, He denied Himself and lived by the life of the Father, did the will of the Father, carried out the work of the Father, and sought the glory of the Father.
In all things, whether small or great, the Lord Jesus was one with the Father and did everything out from the Father and seeking the Father’s glory.
Therefore, His living was God’s living, His work was God’s work, His words were God’s words, and His very being was God mingled with man to live on earth. Christ’s God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in creating man, and in Him the Father was delighted and pleased.
This One, this God-man with His incarnation and God-man living, is now living in us to be reproduced in all His believers on earth today.
God doesn’t want anything else except Christ; He wants this first God-man to be duplicated and reproduced in millions of human beings so that they would corporately express Him and represent Him as the one new man.
As the first God-man, Christ Denied His Natural Life and lived by the Father’s Life
Some may say that, since Christ was a God-man, He was perfect and sinless by nature, so it was easy for Him to express God and represent God.
But the Gospels clearly tell us that, even though Christ had a sinless, perfect human nature, He did not live by His human nature and human life; rather, He denied His human life, His natural life, His sinless and perfect life, and lived by the life of God, the life of the Father.
Again and again He testified that He didn’t do anything from Himself, He didn’t judge from Himself, He didn’t speak His own words, and He didn’t seek His own glory, but rather, He did everything according to what He saw the Father doing (see John 5:30).
He came down from heaven not to do His own will but the will of Him who sent Him (John 6:38). He could have just lived out His perfect and sinless life and nature, but He denied Himself, He denied His will, and He lived by the Father’s life.
Our will represents our whole being in action; yes, the mind does represent us in our thoughts and way of thinking, but our will represents our soul in its doings.
We may think about a hundred things, but we only carry out a very few amount of them; we do things because we think about them and we exercise our will to do them.
The Lord Jesus didn’t seek His own will; this indicates that, while He was living as a man, He was not living by His own mind, will, and emotion, but He took the Father’s life as His source.
He lived as a man, but He didn’t live by His own mind, will, and emotion; rather, He denied Himself and lived by the Father’s life.
Christ was a genuine man with a genuine human life and nature, but He lived by God’s mind, God’s will, and God’s emotion; He expressed God’s mind, He carried out God’s will, and He loved and hated as God did.
Christ expressed God’s attributes through His virtues; He didn’t express Himself but He denied Himself to express the Father.
Because of His God-man living on earth in which He didn’t live by man’s life but God’s life, He fulfilled God’s intention in His creation of man.
He lived by God’s will, mind, and emotion, so that He may express God in His attributes through His human virtues. He allowed the divine attributes to fill and be the content of His human virtues, and His human virtues were mingled with the divine attributes.
He did live a genuine human life, but in His life and living we see certain divine factors; He lived as a man, but He didn’t express man but He expressed God, thus living a God-man life with a God-man living.
Man was created in a similar way that a glove was made, to have the shape of a hand and look like a hand, and to receive a hand and express the hand.
Christ was the reality of the “divine hand” entering the “human glove” to be expressed in it; just as the fingers of a glove contain the real fingers, so His mind, will, and emotion contained God’s life and expressed it.
The Lord’s will, mind, and emotion became not His person but organs to contain God’s will, mind, and emotion, so that He may express God in His human living. Hallelujah for such a One!
Because He lived in such a way, He not only changed the course of human history, but He also satisfied God and became the One who fulfills God’s intention in creating man!
Lord Jesus, we praise You for Your God-man living on earth. You denied Yourself with Your perfect and sinless life, and You lived by God’s life to express God and represent God. Thank You Lord for coming to be the real God-man having a genuine living of a man that expresses God by living out God. You lived not by man’s life to express man’s virtues but by God’s life to express God’s attributes through Your human virtues. Amen, Lord, thank You for coming into us to live the same kind of life for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating man!
Christ’s God-man Living Constituted Him as a Prototype to be Reproduced in us today
It is quite amazing to read the Gospels and see how the Lord Jesus in His God-man living never did anything out of Himself (John 5:19), never did His own work (4:34; 17:4), never spoke His own words (14:10, 24), never carried out His own will (5:30), and never sought His own glory (7:18).
He could have done so many things for God by Himself, but He denied Himself; He was perfect, but He still denied His human life, He did not lived by His human life, but He took the Father as His person to live by the divine life.
He was the man that God wants; in His living, the Lord Jesus achieved the greatest thing in the universe – He expressed God in His humanity (Heb. 1:3; John 14:9-10).
The greatest thing in the universe is for a man to express God in his living; this is what the Lord did in His human living.
Therefore, Christ’s God-man living constituted Him to be a prototype so that He may now be reproduced in us and live again in us (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:20-21).
God doesn’t want us to try harder to please Him or fulfill His commandments; He delights in Christ, He is embodied in Christ, Christ fulfilled His purpose, and He wants that Christ would be reproduced in all His believers so that He may live in them again on earth today.
Christ’s God-man living – His denying Himself and living by the life of God to express God’s attributes through His virtues – constituted Him as the prototype. This prototype is for the “mass production”, the reproduction of the God-man in all the believers in Christ.
Christ as the prototype has been produced; He went through a long and hard process, and He lived a perfect and wonderful God-man life.
Now we, the many believers in Christ, are the mass reproduction of Christ for the expression of God in man.
Christ’s God-man living constituted Him a prototype to be reproduced in us, His church, to make us the one new man that fulfills God’s intention in His creation of man. How we praise the Lord for the prototype and for the mass production!
Now we realise what the one new man is; the one new man is the reproduction, duplication, and continuation of the first new man, the unique God-man.
As members of the one new man, we need to live a God-man life on earth today, for only this God-man living can make us and constitute us to be the reproduction of Christ on earth today.
We the many believers in Christ need to live the same way that He did, and He needs to live again in us all day after day. We need to see His pattern without by reading the Bible, and we need to cooperate with Him living in us so that we may become His reproduction on earth today.
Christ’s God-man living constituted Him to be the prototype; He is the model, the pattern, and we are being conformed to Him to be the one new man expressing God and representing Him on earth.
Lord Jesus, thank You for regenerating us with Your life and making us members of the one new man so that we may be part of Your reproduction on earth for God’s corporate expression and representation. Hallelujah, Christ’s God-man living constituted Him to be the prototype for the mass reproduction of Himself into all His believers so that they may be the one new man who expresses God and represents Him corporately! Amen, Lord Jesus, may our daily living be the same as Yours; may we have a God-man living on earth today as You live in us for the Father’s expression on earth!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Luke, msg. 61 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man (2019 fall ITERO), week 2, Christ as the Son of Man, the Second Man, and the Last Adam Fulfilling God’s Intention in Creating Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– 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, God has called us for His purpose)
– Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives. (Hymns #499)
– By the power of His Spirit / In His pattern He transforms; / From His glory to His glory / To His image He conforms. (Hymns #750)
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