God has an economy, a plan, a household arrangement, in which He intends to dispense all that He is in His Divine Trinity into His people who are chosen and redeemed, so that He can be their life and nature and they would be the same as He is for His corporate expression.
God’s economy, the mystery hidden deep in His heart throughout the ages, has been revealed to the apostles and prophets in spirit (Eph. 3:8-9), and it is made real to us in our mingled spirit today. Whenever we exercise our spirit and have a heart turned to the Lord as we read the Bible, we will see that God’s intention, His economy, is to dispense Himself into man to gain a corporate expression of Himself.
In order to accomplish His economy, God made a plan according to His heart’s desire, and in His plan He created the heavens and the earth as a realm for man to live in, and He created man in His image and likeness with a human spirit to contact God, receive God, and contain God.
Then, at one point in time, God Himself became a man: He entered into humanity, being limited and constrained to live as a man; as such a man, Christ lived not by His human life (even though it was perfect) but by the divine life in His spirit, always depending on the Father and taking the Father’s will, way, word, and works as His.
Jesus Christ came to live the life of a God-man and die, resurrect, and become a life-giving Spirit to regenerate us and make us the many members of the Body of Christ who today live the same kind of life that He lived – a God-man life.
Today we as believers in Christ are not only men: we are human beings with the divine life in them – we are God-men, God living in man and man living in God. If we see that God’s economy is that God became man to make man God in life, nature, expression, and function, to produce the Body of Christ where we have a God-man living, our whole daily living will be revolutionized!
God passed through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, and we pass through the processes of regeneration, renewing, transformation, sanctification, and glorification to be made the same as Christ in life, nature, and expression (but not in the Godhead) so that we may have a God-man living for God’s expression in humanity and for the building up of the Body of Christ.
God became Man to make Man God for us to have a God-man Living as the Body of Christ
In all humility and with all respect toward God and His being, we have to be faithful to God’s word and His divine revelation to say that God’s economy, as recorded in the Scriptures, is that God became man to make man God in life, nature, and expression, so that we may have a God-man living and become the Body of Christ (see Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; 8:4, 14, 29; 12:4-5).
First, God became man to live a God-man life and set up a pattern, a model, and become a prototype of His mass reproduction in the many believers in Christ.
When the Lord lived on the earth He didn’t live by His life, according to His thought, and for His purpose; He lived by the Father’s life, He denied Himself, and He spoke the Father’s word, sought the Father’s glory, and did the Father’s work. He lived in the reality of being crucified and resurrected, and at the end of His earthly ministry, He was crucified and resurrected.
Now we, His believers as His continuation and reproduction, need to live the life of a God-man, a crucified and resurrected life. We need to be dying to live, living a crucified life so that Christ may be expressed through us in our God-man living.
Day by day we need to deny the self, apply the cross to our natural life, and live by the divine life in our spirit so that we may have a God-man living for the building up of the Body of Christ.
The New Testament reveals to us a great, mysterious, and universal man, with Jesus Christ as the Head and all the believers as the Body. The Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, reveal to us Christ as the Head; then Acts reveals the Body. In Acts we see Christ acting, living, moving, and working in His Body….Strictly speaking, Acts is the acts of Christ as the Spirit through the apostles, and not only through the apostles but also through all the disciples, through all the believers, through the whole Body. Hence, Acts is the acts of the Head as the Spirit through the Body. Thus, we see the universal, great man—the Head with the Body. (Witness Lee, The Central Thought of God, pp. 76-77)
Hallelujah, we as believers in Christ today are men who learn to live by the divine life to have a God-man living: we are God-men having a God-man living as the reproduction of Christ, the Body of Christ, the continuation of Christ! Our living today as members of the Body of Christ should be the same as Christ’s living, a God-man living.
We need to fully see the revelation that God created us and redeemed us for the purpose of working Himself into us to be our life, our nature, and our everything, so that we may have a God-man living for the building up of the Body of Christ.
God sent His Son to be a man and to live a God-man life by the divine life (see John 3:16; 1:14; 6:57); Christ came not only to die for our redemption but to live a God-man life and be reproduced in many believers who also have the same kind of life that He had.
This God-man living issues in a universal great man that is exactly the same as Christ; we together, the believers in Christ all over the earth, should be the same as Christ having the same kind of living, a corporate God-man living by the divine life for the manifestation of God in the flesh (Eph. 4:24; 1 Tim. 3:15-16).
We are the continuation of the book of Acts, where Christ as the Spirit lives again for God’s expression in all His believers. We are the Lord’s disciples, those learning from Him to live the same kind of life that He lived, a God-man life by living a crucified life for Christ to be expressed through us.
Such a God-man living in a corporate way issues in a corporate God-man, the one new man, the Body of Christ as the organism of the Triune God to express God on earth for His glory. This is God’s economy and His intention as revealed in the Bible.
Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to live a God-man life by the divine life, and thank You for coming into us through regeneration for us to live a God-man life as Your reproduction and continuation today! Lord, we want to learn to live a life not by our human life but by the divine life, being crucified in our natural life to live a God-man life by the divine life within us. May our daily living as Your disciples be the same as Yours, a life of dying to live, a life of death and resurrection, a life to express God in a corporate way for the building up of the Body of Christ!
A Brief History of God and Man: how God and Man are Mingled together as One New Man
It is good to see a brief history of God and man, how God and man are mingled together to be a one new man for God’s corporate expression in the universe.
According to Zech. 12:1 God created or made three main things: God created the heavens, laid the foundation of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him. In God’s eyes the heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man has a spirit to receive God, contain God, and communicate with God.
However, throughout the last six thousand years of human history there were many teachings, religions, philosophies, and ways of living to distract man from God’s purpose. In the Bible God clearly shows us that His desire is to make Himself the same as man so that man would become the same as He is for the two to be united and mingled together into one entity.
For the fulfillment of His economy, God became man: He was God, yet He put on human nature and had a human life to dwell and live together with men so that He would make man – His chosen and redeemed people – the same as He is.
Now we, those who receive and believe into the gospel, have received the divine life and nature; we are human, yet we have the divine life, just as God is divine, yet He has the human life. God is God yet man, and we are men yet God; God has divinity and humanity, and we have humanity and divinity, and by these two natures and two lives God mingles Himself with us so that His divine life would be lived out through humanity among men.
All genuine believers in Christ have the divine life and nature, and God is constantly mingling Himself with them so that He may live out through them the likeness of God through the resurrected and uplifted humanity.
The consummation of this process is that God and man will be completely mingled and alike, and they will be built together to be the one new man in this age and the New Jerusalem for eternity. God builds Himself into us and builds us into Himself; He becomes our intrinsic constitution by working Himself into us, and we are constituted into God to be the framework and outward expression of God to the entire universe. This is amazing!
Again I say, with my utmost respect toward God and in humility toward Him as our Creator and Source, we as believers in Christ are having God wrought into us and built into us, and we are built into God so that together we may become one new man that corporately expresses God in humanity to the whole universe for God’s glory!
Hallelujah! This is a brief history of God and man, how God and man are mingled and built together as one new man!
Lord Jesus, thank You for showing us the great revelation that God wants to make Himself as man to make man the same as Himself so that God and man would be mingled and built together as one new man! Cause us to realize that we are not only men: we are God-men, we have the divine life and nature within, and our living today should not be our human life but by the divine life. Lord, mingle Yourself with us more today for the building up of the Body of Christ. Constitute Yourself into us and build us into Yourself for the one new man, Your corporate expression!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and The Dispensing, Transformation, and Building of the Processed Divine Trinity in the Believers, pp. 37-38 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Church as the Temple of God – The Goal of God’s Eternal Economy (2015 Thanksgiving Conference), week 4 / msg. 4, The Economy of God, the Temple of God, and the High Peak of the Divine Revelation.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# God’s economy and goal / According to His heart’s desire / Are to build Himself into our being / And to build us into His being / In order to mingle His divinity with our humanity / Into one entity (one entity)— / The Body of Christ, / Which consummates the New Jerusalem, / Which consummates the New Jerusalem. (Song on God’s Economy)
# This Spirit shall transform our natural life, / Save us from self, build us in one new man, / Till we’re conformed to be like Jesus Christ, / Thus finishing our God’s eternal plan. (Hymns #1195)
# God would have a group of people / Built together in His plan, / Blended, knit, coordinated / As His vessel—one new man. / God would come into this vessel / With His nature, life and ways, / Mingling Spirit with our spirits / For His joy and to His praise. (Hymns #1325)
About aGodMan
Eventually, this will make God and man alike and mingled together and even built together. Through the steps that were just mentioned, God builds Himself into man and builds man into Himself. He Himself becomes this constitution with Himself as the intrinsic element—the source, element, and essence within—and with His redeemed people built together in the intrinsic element—the source, element, and essence—to become the framework. This is the one new man in the universe. This is what Ephesians 4 shows us. (Witness Lee, The Dispensing, Transformation, and Building of the Processed Divine Trinity in the Believers, pp. 37-38)