When we see that, as believers in Christ, we are God-men, we will realize that our living must be the living of a God-man, the same kind of living that the Lord Jesus had when He was on the earth.
Even though the Lord Jesus was God incarnate, He didn’t live by His own life, He didn’t do His own work, and He didn’t speak His own words.
The Lord Jesus lived God and expressed God in everything – all that He did was actually God’s doing from within Him and through Him (see John 14:10-11). He denied Himself and lived by the life of the Father, not by His own life (John 6:57).
Today we as the many believers in Christ and the many God-men need to also live the same kind of life as the first God-man, the prototype. As Peter says, He is the original copy, and we are His xerox-copy, His photocopy, by following in His steps and by taking Christ as our model (1 Pet. 2:21).
We have received Christ as our life, and we are taking Christ as our person – we simply need to live the life of a God-man by denying ourselves and living by the divine life in us, as the Lord Jesus did.
Our Christian life should not be a life according to law, ethics, morality, religion, or even “according to the Bible”; our Christian life should be a daily living by denying our natural life and living by the divine life in us, allowing God’s divine attributes to be expressed through our human virtues.
This is a corporate God-man living in the many God-men believers regenerated by God with His life, and this kind of living expresses God and makes His happy.
The Lord Jesus Lived by the Life of the Father, and He Expressed God
If you read the Gospels carefully, you will realize that the Lord Jesus as God incarnate did not live by a certain “code”, He didn’t do His best to “fulfill the law”, and neither did He lived merely an ethical, moral, or scriptural life.
The Lord Jesus didn’t do things because “that’s what the law says” – He was the fulfillment of the law, but the life He lived was by the Father and with the Father. The Lord Jesus simply expressed God and lived God, and everything He spoke was the words of the Father, everything He did was what the Father did, and His living was the Father’s living.
The real and most intrinsic meaning of incarnation is not merely that God became a man and lived a perfect life on earth; it is that incarnation produced a God-man who lived on the earth not by His human life (as good as it was) but by the divine life.
The Lord Jesus had a perfect, sinless, and holy life, unstained by sin or death, and yet He still denied Himself and lived by the Father. He lived a life daily under the cross so that He might live by God, express God, and magnify God in His living.
Because He denied Himself and took the Father as His life and person, God’s divine attributes saturated His human virtues and God was displayed in His living in an excellent and aromatic way. Wow, what a life He lived!
This One, Christ, was the first God-man as the prototype, and the many believers on earth are the mass reproduction and continuation of this first God-man.
Today we need to live the same kind of life as the Lord Jesus lived to express God and magnify Him in our living, both individually and corporately!
Living a God-man Life by the Divine Life and Not by our Human Life
It may sound crazy to the ears of a natural man, but all believers in Christ as the many God-men are meant to live not by their natural human life (as good and moral as it may be) but by the divine life in them.
We are the expansion, the increase, the reproduction, and the continuation of the first God-man – the Lord Jesus Christ – and we should live the same kind of life that He lived while on earth (1 John 2:6).
How can we live such a life? The Lord Jesus set up a model for our God-man living when He was on earth, and we now today need to live the same kind of life by being crucified to live, so that God might be expressed in humanity (Gal. 2:20).
This is the key: being crucified to live, living by the divine life and not by our natural human life, so that God might be expressed! Christ in His human living left us a model, a pattern, an example, for us to copy today in our human living (1 Pet. 2:21) – He was the original copy for spiritual “xeroxing”, and today our living needs to be a photocopy of His living.
This means that we shouldn’t be occupied with improving our behavior or ethics, morality, etc – we need to simply make sure that we are occupied and thoroughly filled with the Triune God (2 Cor. 3:17; 13:5; Eph. 3:16-19)!
Today God is the all-inclusive, life-giving, compound, even sevenfold intensified Spirit with our spirit, and this One in us can live the same kind of life that the Lord Jesus lived while He was on the earth. Let Him live in you by allowing Him to fill you and saturate you with Himself!
Our only occupation and preoccupation is to enjoy Christ and be filled with Him, so that He might live in us the God-man life for the expression of God in man!
We have been crucified with Christ – our old person has been nullified – and now Christ as the Person lives within us. This living is a corporate living, the living of Christ in all of His believers, and He lives in us the same kind of life He lived while on earth.
We daily need to exercise our spirit to live the God-man life by denying our natural life and living by the divine life in our spirit, and God’s divine attributes will fill our human virtues to be expressed through them.
This is what the church life and the whole world needs today – many God-men who live a God-man life for the corporate expression of God!
Lord Jesus, we love You. Thank You for setting up a pattern, a model, for us to follow and copy in our living today. Make us those who don’t live by the natural life but by the divine life in our spirit. We turn to You right now, Lord, and we take You as our life and person. We want to cooperate with You and let You live in us. We don’t care for being good people or moral people – we want to be real God-men living a God-man life, the duplication and continuation of the life the Lord Jesus lived while He was on the earth! Lord gain the corporate God-man living in all the local churches on the earth today!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures (ch. 2), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose, week 7 / msg 7, Arriving at a Full-grown Man (1) Taking Christ as Our Person and Living the Life of a God-man.
- Further reading: recommending msgs. 52-54 from the Life-Study of Mark (by Witness Lee) – very enlightening and helpful.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Jesus lived the God-man pattern, / Set the way for us to follow, / He denied His natural man and / Was obedient unto death, / Once He was the only God-man; / Now we are His duplication. / As the many grains we’re blended / As His corporate reproduction.
# The One New Man has Christ our Lord / As a Person, expressing God, / Subdues Satan for God’s purpose. / Body of Christ with Christ our Head, / Supplying us with His riches; / Many members, all functioning, / Yet all are one, yet all are one / With Christ as life. With Christ as life.
# 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.
# Oh, what a thought! Oh, what a boast! / Christ shall in me be magnified. / In nothing shall I be ashamed, / For He in all shall be applied. / In woe or blessing, death or life, / Through me shall Christ be testified.
Praise You Lord Jesus!!