The Bible is not a “religious book” with many ethical, moral, and philosophical teachings to show us who God is what He wants from man; the Bible is a book that reveals to us what is in God’s heart, and by reading the Bible we find out what is God’s good pleasure.
Based on what is in His heart, God has a good pleasure, and He devised an economy to show forth and accomplish what is in His heart. From the very first few chapters of the Bible we can see that God created man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26), and when man was created, God was delighted and rested – He was satisfied.
God’s heart’s desire has to do with the man He created in His image. Why did God create man? He didn’t create man merely to “have someone to fellowship with” or even only to “be one with man”. Yes, God wants to fellowship with man and He desires to have man one with Him, but His good pleasure and heart’s desire is that man would become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead so that man would match God in every possible way.
God made man in His image so that man would be God’s duplication, His reproduction, His exact copy on earth expressing God and representing Him in a corporate way.
But man fell and didn’t partake of the tree of life so that he would receive God’s life and live forever with God expressing God; because of the fall, man became mankind – no longer God-kind, man in God’s image, but fallen man, mankind. The man created in God’s image no longer expresses God but expresses himself.
But God became a man and lived a perfect human life on earth to establish the pattern of a new race, the God-man kind; through His death He redeemed man, and in His resurrection He became a life-dispensing Spirit to enter into man and regenerate man and make us God-men! Hallelujah!
All believers in Christ are God-men, and we are in the process of becoming the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function, but NOT in the Godhead. We will be so one with God and so much like God that when others see us in the New Jerusalem, they see God, and when they see God, they see us – we look the same and we are the same in every possible way! Wow, praise the Lord!
God Created man in His Image for man to Become God in Life and Nature but not in the Godhead
When God created all things, He created them according to their kind; the animals, the plants, the fish, and the birds were all created according to their kind. But when God created man, He made him in His image and according to His likeness; man was not created according to man-kind but according to God’s kind (see Gen. 1:26), and man has a spirit to contact God and contain God.
Man was created in a very special way. First, man was made in God’s image; image refers to God’s inner being, the expression of the essence of His attributes (light, love, righteousness, holiness, etc). Also, man was created according to God’s likeness, God’s form, the essence and nature of God’s person.
As such, man bears God’s image and likeness and was created to be the same as God, even God’s duplication on earth. Before man could become God’s duplication, he had to receive God in as life – so God put man in front of the tree of life so that man would take God in as life in the form of food.
But man fell away from the tree of life and partook of the wrong tree, and he became sinful. God’s intention in creating man in His image and according to His likeness is that man would become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
Even though man fell, God Himself became a man in order to redeem man back to Himself and to come into man as life so that man would pass through the process of transformation to become the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
God wants to be enlarged, expanded, and reproduced; in Himself He is universally great and vast, but He needs to be enlarged in us, the finite and limited human beings. Paul experienced Christ to such an extent that even in prison he magnified Christ, making Christ big in his living, and everyone else saw this.
Our destiny as believers in Christ is to be the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead; in the New Jerusalem (our destination and our destiny – we are becoming the New Jerusalem!) the One on the throne has the appearance of jasper (Rev. 4:3), and the whole city has the appearance of jasper (Rev. 21:10-11). We will become the same as God to the extent that we will look like Him and He will look like us, and we will express Him in a corporate way.
God doesn’t want only to be one with us and to make us “like Him”; as Paul said in Phil. 1:21, for him to live was Christ – not just “like Christ” or “one with Christ”. In Gal. 2:20 we see that we no longer live but Christ lives in us. God’s intention is to make us the same as He is in every possible way – we are to become God in life and nature!
It is not a small thing for a human being to receive the Lord as Savior and Redeemer; when He comes into us, He starts a daily process of organic salvation and transformation that will make us the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead, with the result that we become Him and He becomes us.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was one with the Father and He spoke the Father’s words, did the Father’s works, accomplished the Father’s will, and sought the Father’s glory; when others saw Christ, they saw the Father. Hallelujah, in the same way we are becoming the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead!
Lord, thank You for creating us in God’s image and with God’s likeness so that we may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. Oh Lord, cause Your great light to penetrate our being so that we may realize that Your good pleasure and heart’s desire is not only to be one with us but to make us God in every possible way. Lord, be enlarged and magnified in us. Live in us, work in us, speak in us, and be everything to us. You are our life, our person, and our everything. Lord, do to us according to Your heart’s desire: make us the same as You are for the fulfillment of Your economy!
God Became Man to have a Mass Reproduction of Himself and Produce a new God-man Kind
What is the highest purpose of God becoming a man in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ? Most believers know that God became a man so that God would redeem us and save us and bring us back to Himself. But if God wanted to redeem man and save man, He could have done it in just a few days – He didn’t have to live for 33.5 years on earth to do this.
Why did the Lord pass through conception for 9 months, 30 years of normal human life, and 3.5 years of ministry before He died on the cross for us? Christ had to live such a human life in order to establish a prototype of what a God-man living is.
Before Christ came, God was God in the heavens and man was man on earth; in Christ God was mingled with man, God lived in man, and God was expressed through man. In Christ divinity and humanity mingled as one, and Christ lived a particular kind of life doing all sorts of normal human things for thirty years.
Through His death on the cross Christ has redeemed us, and in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit to be imparted into all His believers, and He was reproduced into millions of believers who would become the many God-men, the reproduction of the first God-man.
God became a man in order to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby produce a new kind – the God-man kind (John 1:1, 14; 12:24; Heb. 2:10). Now all the believers in Christ are the many God-men, the reproduction of Christ as the first God-man. All believers in Christ are no longer “mankind” – they are God-man-kind!
Just as there are new words to describe new developments in human culture, so we need new terms and expressions to describe matters in our spiritual culture. God-man kind is such an expression. In Christ God and man have become one entity, the God-man. In God’s creation there was no mankind; there was only man as God’s kind. It was through man’s fall that mankind came into existence. Eventually God became a man to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind. This new kind is neither God’s kind nor mankind—it is God-man kind. Today as believers in Christ, we are God-man kind; we are God-men. (Witness Lee, Life-study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, msg. 4)
We need to see that we are God-men; we are not only believers in Christ and members of the Body of Christ, but we are God-man kind, a new kind that has God living in man and man living in God for the reproduction and duplication of God in man.
When we go to work, eat lunch, travel, speak, and do anything that a normal human being does, we need to realize that we are God-men. Outside we are men, but inside we have God living in us. If we have this realization, our living, doing, working, speaking, and attitude in everything will be changed and uplifted.
We will no longer live by our natural human life but learn from Christ to live by the divine life in our spirit. We will no longer be a typical British, American, Chinese, Romanian, or any kind of person, but we will live the life of a God-man.
We may be unhappy with the train delays or our boss, but when we realize we are God-men our attitude will change. Eventually, we as God-men will become the overcomers, the Zion within Jerusalem, and we will bring the Lord back!
Thank You Lord for becoming a man so that we may be regenerated and become Your reproduction as the many God-men. Lord, You are the first God-man, and we are the many God-men following You. We want to live our human life by the divine life so that we may express You. Lord, may we be those who live a crucified life so that You may live in us in resurrection. May You be expressed through us. Fill our human virtues with Your divine attributes and be fully expressed in us and through us. Praise the Lord, we are God-men!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, msg. 4 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Need for a New Revival, week 2 / msg 2, Reaching the Highest Peak of the Divine Revelation (2) – Becoming God in Life, Nature, and Expression to Produce the Body of Christ Consummating in the New Jerusalem.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# Christ is God incarnated, / He became the first God-man. / Oh! How glorious! / Now He lives inside of us, / Fulfilling God’s great plan. (Song on Christ as the First God-man)
# Did you know that I’m a God-man? / A three-part man mingled with the Triune God, / And I have a spirit / Where the enemy has no way, no hope, no ground… / I am a God-man! (Song on, I am a God-man)
# I’m pressing on the God-man way, / New Christ I’m gaining every day, / Still groaning through this world of strife / I want to live a God-man life! (Song on Living the God-man life)
About aGodMan
In God’s view mankind is a negative term referring to fallen man. As believers in Christ and children of God, we are not mankind—we are God-man kind….When we realize that we are God-men, we will say, “Lord, You are the first God-man, and we are the many God-men following You. You lived a human life, not by Your human life but by God’s divine life to express Him. His attributes became Your virtues. You were here on this earth dying every day. You were crucified to live. Lord, You are my life today and You are my person. You are just me. I therefore must die. I need to be conformed to Your death. I have to be crucified to die every day to live a God-man’s life, a human life yet not by my human life but by the divine life, with Your life and Your nature as my constitution to express You in Your divine attributes, which become my human virtues.” This makes us not just a Christian or a believer in Christ but a God-man, one kind with God. This is the highest point of God’s gospel. (Witness Lee, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, pp. 24-25)