The Incarnation of Christ is Closely Related to God’s Purpose in His Creation of Man

God’s purpose is to have a corporate God-man who would express Him and represent Him, and the incarnation of Christ is closely related to God’s purpose the creation of man.

As we look deeper into the matter of eating Christ as the meal offering to become the reproduction of Christ for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, we need to realize that the meal offering is Christ Himself with His God-man living.

If we read the gospel of Luke in particular we see the God-man living of the Lord Jesus, the Man-Savior as typified by the meal offering. The Bible is interconnected, and what the Lord spoke in Lev. 2 is related to the book of Genesis and to the Gospel of Luke.

In Lev. 2 we see the meal offering for God’s satisfaction and man’s nourishment; in Genesis 1 we see God’s purpose in creating man; and in Luke we see the God-man living of the Lord Jesus, the first God-man.

The meal offering typifies Christ in His humanity as food for God and especially for those who have fellowship with God and serve God.

The meal offering is both for God and for man to enjoy and be nourished, and in God’s purpose the meal offering is very important because, as we eat Christ with His God-man living, we live because of Christ to express God as the reproduction of Christ (John 6:57).

The key is eating Christ as our meal offering so that He can live again in us and through us in His divinely enriched humanity. Yes, Christ lived a perfect human life and expressed the Father in everything He did, but now we can eat Him, and we can live because of what we eat.

When we eat the human life of Jesus by praying over God’s word, saying Amen to His word, and letting the word operate in our being inwardly and be applied to our situations outwardly, the human life of Jesus becomes our human living today.

The only way we can become the duplication of Christ – His enlargement, His reproduction – is by eating Him as the meal offering, by eating the human life of Jesus through the exercise of our spirit.

When we eat Christ as our meal offering, we can live and magnify Him; when we eat Christ in His word, the wonderful, excellent, and mysterious God-man Jesus Christ who lived in the Gospels will live in us also.

May we learn and practice eating Jesus with His human living; may we digest Him and assimilate Him, and may we live the same kind of life today – Jesus living again!

The Incarnation of Christ is Closely Related to God’s Purpose in His Creation of Man

The Gospel of Luke in particular unveils the God-man living of the Lord Jesus, the Man-Savior who is typified by the meal offering. In Genesis 1 we see that God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that man would express God and represent Him (Gen. 1:26).

God is love, light, holiness, and righteousness; man was created in the image of God with these human virtues to match God and express God. However, the man that was created by God only bore God’s image – Adam didn’t have God’s life within him.

What God desires to gain is a God-man, a corporate God-man that would express Him and represent Him for the fulfillment of His purpose.

When Christ came, He came as God becoming man – God was incarnated to be a man, and Christ’s incarnation is closely related to the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating man.

Christ came as the first God-man – He brought God into man to restore and recover the damaged and lost humanity, and to express God in His attributes through His human virtues. This is a very deep and profound matter, related to the divine and mysterious living of the Lord Jesus.

In the Gospel of Luke we see the kind of man that God intended to have in Genesis 1 and 2 (see Luke 8:39; Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7, 9). God’s purpose is to have a corporate God-man in order to express Him and represent Him (Gen. 1:26-27; Luke 1:68-69, 78-79).

In His creation of man God had a purpose, which is to create man to be His reproduction, for He wanted to have a corporate man who would express God and represent Him with His authority.

However, Adam – the first man – failed to fulfill God’s purpose, so Christ as the second man and the last Adam came to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man.

The incarnation of Christ is closely related to God’s purpose in His creation of man (see Rev. 4:11; Eph. 1:9; 3:11; Gen. 1:26-27; John 1:14; Luke 1:35).

God created all things for His will, which is to gain a reproduction of Himself; the incarnation of Christ is with God’s purpose in view. Christ came 4000 years after the creation of Adam; He put on “red clay” – He put on the flesh, and in that flesh there’s divinity mingled and mingling with Him.

For the first time in human history there was a person who was outwardly a regular human being, but within Him there is the glorious God living, dwelling, and being mingled with Him. The Holy Spirit came to empower and overshadow Mary, and the holy thing which was born in her was of the divine essence.

Christ as the first God-man was conceived of the Holy Spirit; His source was the Spirit, and something holy was born here. Hallelujah, Christ’s incarnation is for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in His creation of man!

In 1 Tim. 3:16 we see the great mystery of godliness: God manifested in the flesh. Godliness refers not merely to piety but to the living of God, the manifestation of God in the flesh, in the church. The great mystery in this universe is that God is manifested in the flesh.

It is for this that Christ came – God became a man so that man may become God to produce a corporate God-man for the manifestation of God in the flesh as the new man.

Thank You Lord Jesus for being incarnated to fulfill God’s purpose in His creation of man. Thank You for coming as the first God-man to do God’s will, that is, be the God-man who expresses God and represents Him with His authority. Amen, Lord, cause us to see Your purpose, which is to have a corporate God-man in order to express God and represent Him. May we eat this Jesus, eat His humanity, and drink of Him, until we are filled with Him, saturated with Him, and fully one with Him, so that we may have the same life and living as He did for the fulfillment of God’s purpose!

Christ as the first God-man is the Perfect Man with the Human Virtues and the Complete God with the Divine Attributes

The Lord Jesus – the first God-man – is a composition of the divine essence with all the divine attributes, and the human essence with all the human virtues (see Luke 1:35, 75; 2:40, 52).

In Christ God put on human nature to be the first God-man; He is both the perfect man with the human nature, the human essence, and the human virtues, and the complete God with the divine nature, the divine essence, and the divine attributes.

When Christ was on earth, He lived a life that was a composition of the divine attributes and the human virtues; He lived the divine attributes through His human virtues, and this was the highest standard of morality.

Even from His conception the Lord was begotten of Mary with the divine essence to be a God-man. His conception is strikingly different from the conception of John the Baptist.

The conception of John the Baptist was God’s miracle – He came in with His divine power to cause the overage human essence to conceive and bear a son; this son was not of the Spirit but was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15), lacking the nature of God.

However, the conception of Christ as the Man-savior was God’s incarnation (John 1:14), and He was constituted not just by the divine power but also with the divine essence added to the human essence, hence producing a God-man with two natures – divinity and humanity.

God joined Himself to humanity so that He may be manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) and might be a Man-Savior (Luke 2:11).

Christ as the Man-Savior is a genuine man with the real human nature and perfect human virtues – He was a real human being, He was a genuine man, and His human virtues were perfect.

Christ as the complete God has the true divine nature and the excellent divine attributes – He was the complete God (not just one of the Triune God), He had the true divine nature, and His divine attributes were excellent. Hallelujah!

Because Christ as the Man-Savior is a genuine man with the real human nature and the perfect human virtues, He is qualified to be our Savior (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 2:14; John 19:5). As a genuine man, He is qualified to be our Savior.

As the complete God with the true divine nature and the excellent divine attributes, Christ is able to empower and ensure His ability to save man (Col. 2:9; 1 John 1:7; Acts 20:28).

Because Christ is the complete God, His salvation is eternally effective, His blood has an eternal efficacy (we can apply His blood any time), and He is able to save us to the uttermost, for He always lives to intercede. Hallelujah for our Christ – the reality of the meal offering – who is both the complete God and the perfect man!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as the complete God and the perfect man to be our Man-Savior. Your real human nature with Your perfect human virtues qualify You to be our Savior, and Your true divine nature with Your excellent divine attributes ensure Your ability to save us eternally. Hallelujah, our Lord Jesus is qualified to save us, He is eternally saving us, and His salvation, grace, love, power, and blood are eternally effective! Lord, we praise You as the first God-man, the mingling of God with man!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Luke, msgs. 1-3, 11, 56-57 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 5, Eating Christ as the Meal Offering to Become the Reproduction of Christ for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Jesus Christ, the genuine, complete, / Moral, perfect Man revealing God; / In His saving grace to fallen man, / In the Jubilee of grace. (Song on, Jesus Christ, You are the Man-Savior)
  # There Manhood, all perfection, / And Godhead-fulness shine; / God’s love and Man’s affection, / The human, the divine; / A life, a death, transcendent, / Revealing God as love: / Here, lowly Man, dependent— / God over all, above! (Hymns #64)
  # Christ is God incarnated, / Born according to God’s plan / To bring divinity, into humanity, / By mingling with man. / Christ is God incarnated, / He became the Son of Man; / A man of flesh yet without sin, / Accomplishing redemption, / He was a perfect man. (Song on, Christ is God incarnated)