As God-men, we are Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine Species

The kingdom of God is not only the realm of the divine life and of the divine dominion but also the realm of the divine species, in which are all the divine things; we need to live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species in our daily living. Amen!

We need to realize that we are not only redeemed sinners saved by grace; we are such, but we are even more God-men, those born of God with His life and nature to live in the kingdom of God. Amen!

This week we have been enjoying and prayerfully considering the matter of the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine life and of the divine species.

The kingdom of God is not only God’s rule and reign; it is this, but it is even more the realm of the divine life.

We enter into the kingdom of God through regeneration; only through regeneration can we enter into the realm of the divine life.

The unique way to enter into the kingdom of God is to receive God as life and be born again with His life.

No matter how good we may be in our living, how moral our conduct is, and how ethical we are, we cannot enter the kingdom of God unless we are born of God.

When we enter the kingdom of God through regeneration, we obtain the divine life; this life has a particular sense, a feeling, a consciousness, which we can call the sense of life.

We live the Christian life according to the sense of life.

This sense gives us a feeling both of life and of death; we have the feeling of life and peace when we’re in our spirit, but when we live in the natural life or in the flesh, we have a sense of death.

This is what guides and governs us in our Christian life – the sense of life and peace, and the sense of death on the negative side.

As we live our Christian life, we need to live in the mingled spirit so that we may remain in the organic union with the Lord.

In this organic union with Him, we have the consciousness of the divine life.

But when we live in the natural man and just express the self, we have no consciousness of life.

May we be those who grow in the divine life day by day by allowing the Lord to spread in us.

As the element of God increases in us, the kingdom of God spreads in us.

At the same time, the natural element decreases, for there is the breaking of the outer man.

On the negative side, there’s the breaking of the outer man, the breaking of the natural life, and the subduing of every part of the soul.

On the positive side, there is the increase of the element of God. In this way, the kingdom of God comes in us.

The Kingdom of God is the Realm of the Divine Species: we are Born of God to be God-men!

We need to realize that, as believers in Christ, we have been born of God to be children of God (John 1:12-13).

This means that, just as we were born of our human parents to be human beings, so we were born of God to be God-men.

Through the birth of our human parents, we enter the realm of the human species and are human beings.

Through our birth of God, we enter the realm of the divine species to be God-men.

In John 3 the kingdom of God refers more to the species of God than to the reign of God.

Through incarnation, God became man to enter into the human species, and man becomes God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to enter into the divine species (John 1:1, 12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4). Wow!

God took the step of becoming a man to enter into the human species through incarnation, and we human beings take the step of regeneration to be born of God and enter into the realm of the divine species. Wow!

In order for us to enter into the divine realm and enjoy the riches of all that God is, we need to be born of God to have the divine life and the divine nature (John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5-6; 2 Pet. 1:4). Amen!

How can we, human beings, enter the realm of the divine species?

No species can enter into the realm of another species, but God made a way for us to enter into the realm of the divine species.

We can enter into the realm of the divine species by being born of God to have His life and nature.

From the very beginning of the Bible we see that God, when He created all things, He created them according to their kind with the exception of man.

Man was created according to God’s kind, for man was created in God’s image and according to His likeness.

According to Gen. 1:26, God created man not according to man’s kind but in His image and according to His likeness to be God’s kind, God’s species. Hallelujah!

We as believers in Christ, who are born of God by regeneration to be His children in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, are more in God’s kind than Adam was, because we have God’s life and nature.

When Adam was created, he only had the outward appearance of God without the inward reality, but we have God’s life and nature.

We, the believers in Christ and the children of God, have the reality of the divine life, and we are being transformed and conformed to the Lord’s image in our entire being (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; 8:29).

Not only are we born of God to be God-men but even more, we are growing in this life, we are living by this life, this life transforms us, and we will be conformed to the image of Christ to be the same as He is in every possible way. Hallelujah!

Little by little and day by day we are being transformed by the renewing of our mind so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ; as we behold Him and reflect Him, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another degree of glory.

Our second birth, our regeneration, caused us to enter into the kingdom of God to become the species of God.

A man begets men, a dog begets dogs, and a cat begets cats; God begets gods. Wow.

We are gods, in the sense of being God-men, human beings born of God with His life and nature.

We will never be God in His Godhead; only He has the Godhead, but we can be the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function.

Hallelujah, we as children of God are in the realm of the divine species (John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5).

As believers in Christ, we are God-men in the divine species, that is, in the kingdom of God (1 John 3:1).

We need to realize this in our daily living today; we need to see that we are God-men belonging to the species of God.

If we realize this, we will live not by our natural life but by the divine life so that we may express God and not express ourselves.

Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are not just sinners saved by grace but God-men who are born of God to be part of the species of God! Wow, Lord, thank You for regenerating us with Your life and giving us Your divine nature for us to be in the realm of the divine species! Praise the Lord, we are not just human beings created by God in His image and according to His likeness but even more, we’re God-men having God’s life and nature! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for our regeneration, our entrance into the realm of the divine species. Thank You for coming into us as life so that we may be God-men living in the realm of the divine species to express God. We want to live in this realm today. Save us from living merely in the natural realm by our natural life; may we live in the kingdom of God in reality so that we may express God! Hallelujah, the believers in Christ are God-men in the divine species, that is, in the kingdom of God! Praise the Lord!

Aspects of Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine Species as Seen in the Gospel of John

The Gospel of John, a gospel of life presenting us Christ as the God-Savior, shows us many aspects of the believers’ living in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species.

This Gospel is very mysterious, for in it we see Christ as life coming to impart Himself into man to regenerate man, shepherd man, resurrect man, cause man to live by Him, and make man the same as God in every possible way.

We need to prayerfully consider this Gospel and allow the Lord to shine on us so that we may see some of the practical aspects of our living in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species.

John 1:16 says, Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.

Our Christian life in the realm of the divine species, the kingdom of God is a living by receiving grace upon grace.

Amen, we need to receive grace upon grace, even receive of the Lord’s fullness, to enjoy Him to the uttermost.

Our Christian life is a life of enjoying the Lord. John 4:14 says, The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.

We have received the divine life at the time of our regeneration, and this life is like a fountain of life gushing up and springing up into eternal life.

Day by day we need to drink the Lord as the living water and let Him flow out of us.

John 6:57 says, He who eats Me, He also shall live because of Me.

How do we live the Christian life? How do we live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species? It is by eating Christ so that we may live because of Him.

Our Christian life is a life because of Christ; we live Christ and express Him because of Him, by our eating Him. Amen!

John 15:9 says, As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

Thank the Lord, He loved us even as the Father loved Him, and today His love is in us; we can abide in His love. We can enjoy the Lord’s love and abide in His love.

John 15:11 says, These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.

Hallelujah, the Lord spoke to us many things so that His joy may be in us, and His joy in us is being made full.

As we come to the Lord in His word and enjoy Him, we enjoy Him, and we are full of joy; this joy is being made full. Hallelujah!

John 3:21 says, He who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be manifested that they are wrought in God.

As we enjoy Christ as truth, we do things in truth, and we do the truth, for we live Christ; we live in the light, we come to the light, and our works are manifested to be wrought in God.

We not only do works: our works are wrought in God. It is us who do the works, but they are wrought in God.

John 4:23-24 says, An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him.

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.

Today we can worship God in spirit and truthfulness. We worship Him in reality, and we do this by exercising our spirit.

As we contact the Lord day by day, even throughout the day, we worship Him in our spirit and with Christ as the reality of all the offerings.

John 15:7 says, If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you.

As we abide in the Lord and enjoy Him in His word, His words abide in us, and whatever we ask, He will do for us.

Our asking is in the abiding, and our asking is in oneness with Him; it is actually He who asks in our asking.

We are so one with the Lord in the realm of the divine species that our asking is His praying in our praying. Amen!

John 14:20 says, In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. Wow!

We believers in Christ are in Christ, Christ is in the Father, and Christ is in us; our Christian life is in the Triune God.

If we know we are in Christ, we will simply abide in Him, and we will live one spirit with Him.

John 15:12 says, Love one another even as I have loved you. His love is in us, His love is being perfected in us, and we love others even as the Lord loved us.

Even as He is, so we are today. Even as He lived, so we live today.

He lives in us, we live in Him, and He is expressed through us as we live one spirit with Him.

May we exercise our spirit day by day to live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species!

Lord Jesus, we want to live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species today. Keep us enjoying You as grace, even as grace upon grace. We want to drink You and be filled with You as the living water so that You may flow from our inward being! Amen, Lord, flow in us and out of us today! We want to eat You and live because of You so that You may live in us as we live because of You! Amen, Lord Jesus, thank You for loving us and for giving us Your love; we want to abide in Your love today. Keep us in Your word, enjoying You in the word and having Your joy in us being made full. May we be those who do the truth and come to the light so that our works may be manifested that they are wrought in God. Amen, Lord, we worship You in spirit and in truthfulness today! We exercise our spirit today to abide in You and let Your words abide in us so that we may be one with You in our prayer, asking and praying in the abiding! Hallelujah, we believers in Christ know that Christ is in the Father, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and our daily life is in and with the Divine Trinity! Be everything to us today. May we love one another even as You have loved us. Amen, Lord, keep us in You today so that we may live in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” ch. 12, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Kingdom of God (2024 October ITERO), week 1, The Kingdom of God – the Realm of the Divine Life and of the Divine Species.
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