Living a Life of the Highest Standard of Morality as the Reproduction of Christ

As the reality of the meal offering for us to eat and become a reproduction of, Christ lived a life that was the mingling of the divine attributes and the human virtues, a life of the highest standard of morality.

He was not just a good, moral, ethical, right, and just person, but He lived by the life of God and the divine attributes were manifested and expressed in His human virtues. Even from His conception, Christ had the divine essence, for He was conceived of the Holy Spirit as the mingling of the divine and human essence.

Then, after He was born, the Lord lived a normal human life, becoming strong, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him (Luke 2:40). He was the first God-man, a man mingled with God, a man in whom the divine life and the human life were mingled.

He as the complete God had the divine life with the divine nature, the divine essence, and the divine attributes, and He as the perfect man had the human life with the human nature, the human essence, and the human virtues. This is wonderful and yet so mysterious.

He lived a God-man life on earth for the satisfaction of the Father and for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. The divine essence was added to the human essence, thus producing a God-man with two natures – divinity and humanity.

The Lord Jesus is the Man-Savior, a genuine man and a complete God. He is not a phantom but a genuine man, a man with the real human nature and the perfect human virtues for the qualification to be man’s Savior.

Because He is a genuine man living the highest standard of morality, Christ is qualified to be our Savior. He is also the complete God with the true divine nature and the excellent divine attributes to empower and ensure His ability to save man.

If He was only man but not God, His ability to save would not transcend time and space. But because He is both a genuine man and a complete God, He is fully qualified to be our Savior, and His salvation is eternally effective.

At any point in time we can open to the Lord, call on His name, and be saved. We can apply the blood that was shed on the cross by faith today, since Christ is both man and God, and as God He has the power and ability to save.

Hallelujah for our Man-Savior who is both qualified to save us and He is able to save us to the uttermost, throughout all time an eternity!

As such a One, He is qualified to be the meal offering for God’s food and satisfaction, and for our enjoyment and supply. As we eat Christ as the meal offering, we become His reproduction as the meal offering for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.

Christ Lived a Life that was the Mingling of the Divine Attributes and the Human Virtues – this is the Highest Standard of Morality

When He was on earth, the Man-Savior lived a life that was the mingling of the divine attributes and the human virtues – this is the highest standard of morality (Luke 2:40, 52).

We are all familiar with the matter of morality, but what is this highest standard of morality? Is it just high morality, good morals, great ethics, and being right? The highest standard of morality is an exceptional living which cannot be compared to the common level of morality; it is not just to be good, moral, ethical, and kind, but higher than this.

Christ expressed in His humanity the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues, by which He attracted and captivated people (see Matt. 4:18-22; 19:13-15; Mark 16:7; Luke 8:1-3).

Christ didn’t live His human life in the flesh but lived His divine life in resurrection, and the bountiful God was richly expressed through His virtues, and He lived the highest standard of morality.

Although He lived His human life in the flesh, Christ didn’t live by His human life but He lived by the divine life in resurrection; this is why He was so attractive. There was nothing outwardly about Christ that was attractive; He was a man of sorrows, but He lived a life of the highest standard of morality, and others just followed Him and were drawn to Him.

There was something about this carpenter’s son – who didn’t have a glorious countenance but was a man of sorrows, something indescribably attractive about Him, that people followed Him.

The divine nature with its attributes was expressed in the Lord’s human nature with its virtues; thus, the living of the Lord Jesus was humanly divine and divinely human (see Luke 1:26-35; 2:7-16, 34-35, 40, 52).

In His ministry, Christ as the Man-Savior expressed His divine attributes through His human virtues (see Luke 7:1-17, 36-50; 10:25-37; 15:11-32; 23:42-43).

In the cases of the centurion who had a sick servant, the sinful woman who came and broke the alabaster flask and anointed his head and feet, and even on the cross when one of the robbers rebuked and the other took His side, the Lord Jesus lived a life of the highest standard of morality by expressing the divine attributes in His human virtues.

When a leprous man came to Him and said, Lord, if you are willing, cleanse me; the Lord didn’t just cleanse him by His word, but He stretched out His hand, touched him, and said, I am willing: be cleansed (see Luke 5:12-16).

This man was sick for many years, people ran from him, and here was One who not only was willing to heal him but did was not expected of Him: He touched the sick man, was full of compassion and love for him, and healed him.

Christ’s human virtues were enriched by His divine attributes, and He lived a life of the highest standard of morality. God’s bountiful attributes such as His love, light, holiness, and righteousness were lived out in the man Jesus, and God’s attributes became Jesus’ virtues.

It was this kind of living that qualified the Lord Jesus to be our Man-Savior; He saves us, the sinners, by His divine-human living, by a living that is humanly divine and divinely human. His living is the dynamic power by which He saves us.

Thank You Lord for coming to live a life that was the mingling of the divine attributes and the human virtues, a life of the highest standard of morality. Thank You for coming as the first God-man to have such a wonderful God-man living in which the bountiful God with His rich attributes was expressed and manifested in a man with His human virtues. Oh Lord, we want to not just appreciate You but eat You, eat Your human living, and be filled with You as such a One who is the reality of the meal offering.

Living a Life of the Highest Standard of Morality as the Reproduction of Christ

The gospel of Luke is so wonderful and bountiful – here we see not just Christ the Savior coming to die for us, but a Man-Savior who expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic human virtues.

Whether He spoke, traveled, did things, or did nothing, Christ simply expressed God in His human living by not living His human life in the flesh but by living His divine life in resurrection, thus living a life of the highest standard of morality.

As revealed in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord Jesus had the highest standard of morality (see Luke 1:31-32, 35, 68-69, 78-79), which is the standard of life required by God – a life in which the divine attributes are expressed in the human virtues.

The Lord Jesus said, You therefore shall be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48). This means that our living today has to be the duplication of the living of the Lord Jesus, a living of the highest standard of morality, a living in which the divine attributes are expressed in our human virtues.

The highest standard of morality is the living of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Man-Savior whose life was a composition of God with the divine attributes and man with the human virtues.

God’s intention in His New Testament economy is that we all the believers in Christ would become a reproduction of Christ, the God-man, having the highest standard of morality – a life in which we express Christ in all the human virtues created by God for man.

This means that we need to not only appreciate what the Lord Jesus is and has done, but eat Jesus, be well nourished by enjoying Him in His word, and we will become a duplication, a reproduction, of Jesus on earth.

We need to not only be good, right, moral, legitimate, and ethical, but live a life beyond what is moral, legitimate, or expected, and live a life of the highest standard of morality like the Lord Jesus.

When others hate us, we should love them; when others persecute us, we should pray for them; when others need us, we should more than care for them (see Luke 6:35; 7:36-50). God is expressed in the living that is according to the highest standard of morality (Luke 5:12-16).

He was expressed in the human life of Jesus on earth, and He wants this One to be reproduced in our daily life. In His economy God desires to reproduce Christ in us so that we may be those who express the bountiful God in His rich attributes through our human virtues, thus living the same kind of life that Jesus lived when on earth.

This doesn’t mean that we should do our best to imitate Jesus and ask ourselves, What would Jesus do in this situation…? Rather, we need to eat Jesus, open to Him, drink His humanity by exercising our spirit to contact Him and pray over His word, and He will be infused into us, with the spontaneous result that we will live Jesus.

Lord Jesus, make us those who live a life of the highest standard of morality, a life in which the divine attributes are expressed in our human virtues. Oh Lord, we cannot live such a life in and by ourselves, and we don’t want to seek to improve ourselves or outwardly imitate You. We come to You, Lord, as the first God-man, and we want to eat You, be filled with You, and be saturated with You, so that spontaneously we may live the same kind of life as You did. Live in us, Lord, and express God in us today!

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. 16-17, 25-26, 34-35, 62-63 (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:
  # Flesh He became, the first God-man, / His pleasure that I God may be: / In life and nature I’m God’s kind, / Though Godhead’s His exclusively. / His attributes my virtues are; / His glorious image shines through me. (Song on, What miracle! What mystery!)
  # Christ is a genuine man, / The perfect and finest man, / Obedient, serving, no appearance of evil, / The finest personality, / Divinity expressed through humanity. / Christ is the pattern for our human living. / His perfect life is filling us. / Christ is the pattern for our human living, / The fine and balanced humanity of Jesus! (Song on, Christ is a genuine man)
  # Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / In all things Thy will be done; / I but a transparent vessel / To make visible the Son. (Hymns #403)