Christ’s Incarnation and God-man Living Fulfilled God’s Intention in Creating Man

Christ’s incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in creating man.

God’s intention in His creation of man was fulfilled in Christ’s incarnation and His God-man living, for Christ expressed God in His rich attributes through His aromatic human virtues.

Christ’s incarnation was for the fulfillment of God’s intention, and His human living also was fulfilling God’s intention.

We need to pay attention not only to the incarnation of God to be a man but also to the God-man living of this first God-man, this second man.

Sometimes we may think in a natural way that, if Christ had to come to redeem us, He could have come not from His birth but as a young adult, maybe 30 years old or something like that, and simply accomplish redemption. Why did He have to live on earth for thirty-three and a half years, if He came to redeem us?

The Gospels are full of stories of what Christ did and spoke, and how He lived on earth before He went to the cross; they present a picture of the God-man living that expresses God and represents Him on earth for the fulfillment of His purpose.

Christ’s human living on earth depicts the living of a man who fulfilled God’s intention; every day of His life He was not merely working or speaking, but He was living a certain kind of life, a life that fulfilled God’s purpose.

He became the prototype for us, the model that we need to follow, so that we may be pleasing to God and fulfill His purpose.

His living is how God’s intention is fulfilled, and the way He lived should be the way each one of us lives on earth today, and it is also the way the church of God should live. This is how man in God’s creation originally should have lived – and Christ lived such a life!

He brought God into man, He embodied God, and He was the mingling of God with man; furthermore, in His living He denied His natural human life (which was perfect and good) and lived by the divine life to express God in humanity.

Christ’s incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in His creation of man. He not only mingled God with man and brought God into man, but He also lived a life that was the expression of the divine attributes through and in His human virtues.

When others saw Him, they were marveled, for they saw a man, yet this man expressed God and lived God; what they saw, smelled, tasted, and touched in this One was God being expressed in humanity.

It is good for us to read the Gospels again and again and see our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, with His perfect and uplifted human living; this will infuse us with the model of the God-man which fulfilled God’s intention in creating man.

Christ’s Incarnation and God-man Living Rescued, Restored, Recovered, and Uplifted our Human Virtues

Christ as the Man-Savior was born of the human essence with the human virtues, and He rescued, restored, recovered, and uplifted the human virtues.

Our human virtues, which were created in the image of God’s attributes, are fallen and damaged.

We have love for our wife or husband, but this love has been damaged; this is why we love our spouse very much one day, and the next day we can’t stand him or even want to divorce him.

Similarly, our love for our parents is damaged; we may love our parents one moment, but when they do or say something, our love may easily change and break.

What about our righteousness? We may think we are righteous and live in an upright way, but our righteousness has so many “holes” in it that it can be compared to a beehive.

Our love, brightness, righteousness, and holiness have been damaged by the fall, and they are not suitable to express God.

But praise the Lord, Christ came to be a man to rescue our virtues from the fall, restore them and recover them from the damage of the fall, and even uplift them and bring them to a standard that they can express God.

Our human virtues need to be rescued, restored, recovered, and uplifted, so that they may be filled with the divine attributes and express God in humanity.

May we be saved from our incorrect traditional concept that Christ came to save us from hell and bring us to heaven; if this were the case, merely being saved from hell and being brought to heaven where God is would not change our inner being, and God would still not accept us or want us there with Him.

The way Christ saves us is much higher than this; Christ as the Man-Savior in His incarnation and God-man living rescued, restored, recovered, and uplifted our human virtues.

First, He Himself lived a life with the human virtues filled, strengthened, enriched, and sanctified by the divine attributes; such a living has a saving power, and when He came to us, He comes into us as such a one.

The Lord’s God-man living saves us from within, and He fills our human virtues with Himself to be expressed through us.

The Lord’s life in us saves us from within and uplifts our human virtues; He restores, sanctifies, and transforms us, and He fills our human virtues to uplift them and make them the expression of the divine attributes.

God’s way of saving us is not superficial; rather, He wants to transform us from within to without, by Him coming into us with His humanity and God-man living to live in us a life of the divine attributes being expressed in the human virtues.

After He lived such a life on earth, He went to the cross, died to redeem us, was resurrected, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) to enter into us and bring God into our being, filling our virtues with God’s attributes.

In this way He rescues, restores, recovers, and uplifts our human virtues by transforming us, and He makes us like Him, mysterious people who express the bountiful God in His rich attributes through our human virtues.

Thank You Lord Jesus for coming to rescue, recover, restore, and uplift our human virtues to that the divine attributes may be expressed through us. Thank You for coming not only to save us from hell and rescue us from God’s judgement but also to transform us into Your image and be expressed through us. We love You, Lord, as the God-man who lived the divine attributes in His human virtues. We love You as such a One in us. We open to Your inward working and transforming. Make us the same as You are, a God-man who expresses God in His rich attributes through His aromatic human virtues!

Christ’s Incarnation and God-man Living Fulfilled God’s Intention in Creating Man

The incarnation of Christ is closely related to God’s purpose in the creation of man in His image and according to His likeness – that man would receive God as life and express Him in His divine attributes (see Gen. 1:26; 2:9; Acts 3:14; Eph. 4:24).

On our side we have to receive Him as our life; this is a one-time receiving that causes us to be saved initially.

However, we do not stop there – we need to go on and grow in life and be transformed so that we may express God in His divine attributes through our human virtues; this means that we need to live the same God-man life to express God in our daily living.

We need to study and pray over the details of this first God-man’s living to appreciate how we should live.

Christ as the Man-Savior was born of the human essence with the human virtues in order to uplift these virtues to such a standard that they can match God’s attributes for His expression (Luke 1:35).

We were made like a glove is made in the image of a hand; we are in God’s image for God to come in, and our virtues are made as a reflection of His divine attributes.

But our human virtues were destroyed and damaged; they are not good for expressing God.

But praise the Lord, Christ came as the Man-Savior to uplift our human virtues to such a standard that they absolutely match God’s attributes, and He lived a human life expressing God with His divine attributes in His human virtues.

Christ’s incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in creating man, and the gospels clearly show us this pattern. He rescued, restored, recovered, and uplifted our human virtues, and He brought them to such a standard that they absolutely match and express God’s virtues; He lived a human life expressing God with His divine attributes.

As the One who was conceived of the divine essence with the divine attributes to be the content and reality of His human virtues, Christ fills the empty human virtues (Matt. 1:18, 20).

He first did this as a Man individually when He lived on earth; He had God’s attributes with Him and in Him, and He lived a sinless, perfect life – unlike you and I – a life with the uplifted human virtues filled with the divine attributes.

The divine attributes fill, strengthen, enrich, and sanctify the human virtues for the purpose of expressing God in the human virtues.

For some reason that we do not understand, God doesn’t want to be expressed merely in Himself or by Himself; in His sovereignty and wisdom, He wants to express Himself in His creature man.

So He needs something in man for His expression – He needs the human virtues of man, which were made in the image of His divine attributes.

In this one Man, Jesus, we see not only sinless, perfect, and good human virtues, but human virtues that were recovered, restored, and uplifted to be filled with God’s attributes and thus express God.

Christ’s incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in creating man, for He expressed God in His rich attributes through His uplifted human virtues. In fact, it was those attributes that gave the human virtues the proper expression.

It is not our working to improve or perfect our human virtues that expresses God but rather, it is the divine attributes coming into our human virtues to fill them, restore them, uplift them, and be expressed through them.

When we witness some proper uplifted human virtues in a Christian, we actually see the divine attributes in a very human way. How rich, strong, uplifted, noble, and sanctified were the virtues of Christ!

And He in us wants to live the same kind of life for the expression of God, so that God’s intention in creating man would be fulfilled in the church as the one new man! Amen!

Hallelujah for the God-man Jesus Christ who embodied God and expressed God in His rich attributes through His human virtues! This wonderful One uplifted the human virtues to such a standard that they can match God’s attributes for His expression, and He came into us as such a One to live a God-man life in us. Lord, fill our human virtues with the divine attributes so that You may have a way to be expressed through us. Make us Your reproduction and continuation; make us those who have human virtues that are strengthened, filled, enriched, and sanctified by the divine attributes for the purpose of expressing God in the human virtues! Amen!

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, msgs. 58-60 (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:
  – So men today have found the Savior able, / They could not conquer passion, lust and sin; / Their broken hearts had left them sad and lonely, / Then Jesus came and dwelt, Himself, within. (Hymns #1078)
  – O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee! / Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art; / Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness; / Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart. (Hymns #398)
  – Jesus, I must trust Thee, / Pondering Thy ways; / Full of love and mercy / All Thine earthly days: / Sinners gathered round Thee, / Lepers sought Thy face: / None too vile or loathsome / For a Savior’s grace. (Hymns #1063)