The Lord Jesus as the first God-man lived a particular kind of life; He lived on earth not by His human life but by the divine life, and He denied Himself to live by God and live God in everything.
He as the first God-man has cut the way into having such a living that was fully pleasing to the Father and was approved by God, and we as His disciples, His believers, and the many God-men, we also need to live the same kind of life today.
The Lord Jesus was conceived of the divine essence being mingled with the human essence; His conception was very mysterious yet very real and wonderful, and He was both God and man, both man and God.
He was perfect in every way, and there was no fault or sin found in Him.
His humanity was perfect, yet the Lord chose not to live by His perfect humanity but by the divine life; His whole life He denied Himself and lived out the life of the Father, being one with the Father God in everything that He did.
He was conceived of the divine essence and born of the human essence, so He was born a God-man; His being was mysterious and wonderful, and His living was like no other in the history of the mankind.
Christ was the perfect man and the complete God, and He had the divine attributes filling and being expressed through His human virtues.
He didn’t just live a perfect human life; He lived by the divine life to express God, and He allowed the divine attributes to fill, enrich, and uplift His human virtues, thus expressing God in His human living. What a person He was!
He didn’t have some traditional kind of human kindness, joy, peace, and endurance – He had the divine attributes filling and enriching His human virtues, and He expressed God.
We were made in the image and likeness of God, just as a glove is made in the image of a hand; when the hand gets into the glove, the glove is full of meaning, and it can be useful and full of purpose.
When God gets into us, when the divine attributes fill and enrich our human virtues, there’s something of God being expressed through us; we don’t just express human love or kindness, but God is manifested through us.
Job in the Old Testament expressed and manifested the best of the human virtues without God; he attained a certain level of integrity and righteousness, yet without having God as the source, life, and everything.
Such a living is an imitation of the expression of God, not the real thing; it is a living on the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not a living on the line of the tree of life.
The Lord wants us all to experience a transfer from the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to the line of the tree of life so that we may be filled with God and live a God-man life not by our natural life but by the divine life to express God.
Such a living fulfils the purpose of God’s creation of man, for God is expressed through man as man lives by the divine life in the principle of the tree of life.
The Lord Jesus as the God-man Lived on Earth not by His Human Life but by the Divine Life
The Lord Jesus lived the God-man life as a model, a pattern, for all the ensuing God-men; we – you and I, the believers in Christ – should live the same kind of life, following in His footsteps, living in the same way.
The way He lived was not by His human life and nature but by the divine life and nature (John 5:18-19, 30; 6:57).
He didn’t live His human life, though it was perfect, but by the divine life with the divine nature.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, although He was a man, He lived by God (see John 5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:28; 7:16-18).
He acknowledged that the living Father sent Him, and He lived because of the Father; He could have lived by Himself, for He was good and sinless, but He didn’t – rather, He lived because of the Father and by the Father.
The Lord said that He as the Son of Man could do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing; He did not seek His own will but the will of the Father; He didn’t seek His own glory but the glory of the One who sent Him.
The Lord Jesus didn’t do anything of or by Himself but from the Father, doing all things according to the will of the One who sent Him.
This is how He lived the God-man life; He was a man living, walking, talking, moving, and doing things, but He did everything by the divine life, and it was God being manifested in a man.
Whatever the Lord Jesus did was God’s doing from within Him, for the Lord Jesus lived God and expressed God in everything (John 14:10).
He lived as a God-man by the life of God, not by the life of man.
His human living was not lived out by the human life but by the divine life (John 1:4; 11:25; 14:6); only the divine life can live out the divine attributes, and only those divine attributes can express the divine image, that is, God Himself.
In His living, the Lord Jesus always rejected Himself, His human life, and put Himself under the cross daily; He didn’t die on the cross only at the end of His human life on earth, but He lived a crucified life daily, and He exhorted us to do the same (Matt. 16:21, 24).
Because the Lord Jesus always lived by rejecting His human life, His human living didn’t express humanity but divinity in the divine attributes becoming human virtues.
In His human living, the Lord Jesus always put Himself under the cross; from the beginning to the end of His life and ministry on earth, He constantly denied Himself and lived by the Father.
He lived by the divine life for God to be expressed through Him; therefore, His human living expressed not mere uplifted or perfect humanity but divinity in the divine attributes become human virtues.
Throughout all the days of His life on earth, Christ denied Himself, took up the cross, and lived God to express God in His divine attributes becoming human virtues; such was the life of the first God-man as the prototype (Luke 1:31-32a; 7:11-16; 10:25-37; 13:10-16; Rom. 8:3, 29) and such should be our living on earth today as His reproduction.
If we read the Gospel of Luke we will see many examples of how this God-man lived by the divine life to express the divine attributes through His human virtues.
He spoke concerning the good Samaritan, which is a real picture of Himself; He came to those who are hurt by religion and are in a miserable condition, He was moved with compassion, and in His humanity with His divinity He rendered them tender healing and saving care, meeting their urgent need.
Christ came full of compassion to bind up our wounds, pour oil and wine on these wounds, place us on His beast, bring us to the inn (the church), take care of us and asked that we are taken care of, pay the inn for caring for us, and eventually will repay at His return whatever the church has done to take care of us. What a God-man He is!
He is moved with compassion with others’ troubles and sicknesses, He heals us, He cares for us, He supplies us, and He is filled with compassion, lovingkindness, great sympathy, and even empathy!
He bears the burdens of those who are needy, He seeks to alleviate their affliction and pain, and He does all this not in and of Himself but by the divine life to express God in His rich attributes through His aromatic human virtues.
How we love this One, the first God-man, the prototype, the model, and the pattern for our daily living as the many God-men!
Lord Jesus, we love You and we appreciate You as the first God-man who lived not by the human life but by the divine life to express God in His rich attributes through Your aromatic human virtues. Thank You, Lord, for setting up a model by Your human living of One who lives out God by rejecting His human life, taking up the cross, and living by the divine life to express God! Amen, Lord, we want to learn from You to not live by our human life but by the divine life, taking up our own cross, denying our self, and losing our soul-life, so that You may have a way to live in us and be expressed through us. We love You, dear Lord Jesus, and we allow You to fill us, saturate us, be expressed through us, and live in us the same kind of life that You lived on earth for the glory of God the Father!
We Follow Jesus to Live the Life of a God-man by the Divine Life for God to be expressed through us
Our Christian life is NOT a life of trying our best to fulfil what the Bible says or to outwardly imitate what the Lord Jesus has done; such a living does not please God.
The only living that pleases God is the reproduction of the living of Jesus Christ, the first God-man.
For us to follow Jesus as His disciples and believers today is not for us to imitate Him outwardly, putting on a show, and trying to do what He did.
Rather, it is for us to be a “xerox copy” of the living of that first God-man.
For us to follow Jesus is for us to live the life of a God-man, that is, to live a life not by our human life but by the divine life so that God may be expressed in us and through us.
We all have our human life and nature, and by default, we live out ourselves, we express ourselves, and we do what we think it’s best to do, we go where we think it’s best to go, and we speak what we think we should speak.
As believers in Christ, we have another life, the life of Jesus Christ, the first God-man, in our spirit; our Christian life is a daily learning to live by another life, that is, live by the divine life for God to be expressed through us.
When we live by the divine life, God is manifested in the flesh in all His divine attributes becoming the human virtues.
We must realize, first of all, that we are a God-man; we are men with the divine life, men born of God, and God Himself with His life and nature is in us, in our mingled spirit.
As a God-man, we should not live by ourselves or by improving ourselves, perfecting ourselves, and making ourselves better; rather, we need to live by another One, by the divine life and nature in our spirit.
We need to daily learn to deny ourselves, turn to the Lord in our spirit, and live by the divine life to express not ourselves but God in His divinity in His divine attributes, which all become our human virtues.
In ourselves we can at best express some human virtues – which eventually will end, for we have no substance, no real supply; but when we live by the divine life, our human virtues are enriched, uplifted, resurrected, and filled with the divine attributes to express God.
This means that, just like the Lord Jesus, we are daily dying to live, dying to ourselves and our natural man so that Christ would live in us.
We need to eat the Lord day by day so that we may live because of Him (John 6:57).
Christ made Himself – the first God-man – a prototype for the mass reproduction of many brothers; we as the many God-men are His many brothers, and we are being conformed to His image to be made the same as He is (Rom. 8:29).
The more we grow in the divine life, the more we live the Christian life, and the more we advance with the Lord in our personal life and in the church life, the more we realize that it is only Christ in us who can live the Christian life and the church life, and we need to be one spirit with Him and live because of Him.
God has become man in the person of Jesus Christ, lived a perfect human life on earth by living out God, and He has come into us as the Spirit to live the same kind of life in us by mingling Himself with us.
We today follow Jesus in an intrinsic way by living the life of a God-man not by our human life but by the divine life so that God may be expressed through us. It is good to bring this in prayer to the Lord and honestly tell Him,
Lord Jesus, we want to follow You intrinsically by living the life of a God-man not by our human life but by the divine life in our spirit! Amen, Lord, live in us today. May Christ be expressed through us, and may the divine attributes become our human virtues for the expression of God in man. Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are not just men but God-men who are learning to live not by the human life but by the divine life to express God in man! Amen, Lord, we do not want to express ourselves but express Your divinity in Your divine attributes, which all become our human virtues. We come to You to eat You, Lord Jesus and live because of You. May our daily living be because of You by eating You, being constituted with You, and allowing You to live in us!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures,” pp. 53-55, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 5, God’s Intention with Job – a Good Man Becoming a God-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)
– It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ may live in me; / Nothing as an outward practise, / But Christ working inwardly. (Hymns #538)
– With longing all my heart is filled, / That like Him I may be, / As on the wondrous thought I dwell / That Christ liveth in me. (Hymns #507)
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