In order for God to fulfill His purpose, He needs a full-grown corporate man through which He can be expressed and represented. Based on the book, The Experience of Life (by Witness Lee) and the ministry of the age, for the next nine weeks we will be getting into a new topic called, Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose.
Particularly, this week we will be diving into a wonderful topic called, A Full-Grown Corporate Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose Through the Experience of Life in the Fourth Stage.
We need to receive a specific mercy from the Lord so that we may be released from any preoccupation that hinders us from receiving the Lord’s present and instant speaking, His shining, and His blessing.
We may be preoccupied with doctrinal truths, pursuit of spirituality, practical handles on the Christian life, being active and zealous for the Lord, preoccupation with working for God, pursuing a certain position in the world or the church, or anything that preoccupies us and doesn’t allow the Lord to break through in us and speak to us.
We want to be open to the Lord as members of the Body of Christ and believers in the lord, so that we may learn from Him, see more in His word, and allow Him to unveil us, expose us, take us on, and cause us to grow in life.
The Lord first wants to supply us, equip us, motivate us, encourage us, and also touch us. No untouched person can be useful to the Lord in the long run. May He have a way in us!
Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose
God’s eternal purpose, as revealed in Gen. 1:26, is to have a corporate expression of Himself in humanity, and to have a representation of Him on earth. For this purpose, God made an economy through which He can gain thousands of men in His image to express Him and represent Him.
He wants a people who would reign with Him, who live in the Body, and who can engage in spiritual warfare so that He with them would turn the age and bring in the kingdom of God. For His purpose of having an expression and representation on earth, God needs a full-grown man (see Eph. 4).
God can’t be expressed through an immature boy or teenager. He created a full grown man, Adam, but this man failed Him. He Himself became a man and, through death and resurrection, He regenerated millions with His divine life to be His Body, His expression.
However, unless God’s children – the believers in Christ – arrive to the fourth stage in life, the maturity of a full-grown man, God cannot be properly expressed and represented on earth. The Lord could have billions of children of God on earth, but if they do not grow in life unto maturity, His purpose is not fulfilled.
This is why we need to enter into the fourth stage of the growth in life, going on from dealings with the conscience, the self, the flesh, and the natural man, so that we may arrive at a full-grown man! We need to grow unto maturity until we know the Body of Christ, we know ascension, we reign in life, we can engage in spiritual warfare, and we all arrive at the full stature of Christ!
This is NOT beyond us – it is NORMAL for us to grow in life unto maturity until we all arrive at a measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ!
The Importance of Man in God’s Purpose as Seen in the Bible
If you read the Bible carefully you will realize that there’s a mysterious thought concerning the relationship between God and man. God wants to enter into an organic relationship with man, and for this He Himself became a man.
Even more: God’s desire is to become the same as man so that man would be made the same as God is in life and nature but not in the Godhead. The desire of God’s heart is set on man, and He wants to gain man to be His expression and representation on earth (Gen. 1:26).
God’s central thought, God’s arrangement, and God’s desire are related to man. Yes, God has many angels, and they all are serving Him faithfully, but He cannot be expressed in full through them. The way God can be expressed, represented, and satisfied, is by gaining a corporate man who is one with Him and is the same as He is!
We need to reject any natural or religious though that “we want to be like an angel” to please God. God wants a man. We should never despise the fact that we are men. The Bible conveys a mysterious thought concerning the relationship between God and man (see Gen. 1:26; Ezek. 1:5, 26; 1 John 3:2b; Rev. 4:3a; 21:11b).
Specifically in the vision of the four living creatures in Ezekiel 1 we see that man is the means of God’s manifestation, of God’s move, and of God’s administration. The four living creatures typify the living Body of Christ as the means for God’s move, administration, and manifestation under God’s throne.
The four living creatures had the appearance of a man, and the One sitting on the throne above the clear sky had the appearance of a man.
Apart from man, God cannot be manifested, He cannot move, and He cannot carry out His administration. When we speak for God and speak God forth by prophesying, we manifest God and others see Him among us.
Apart from bearing the appearance of a man, God’s glory cannot be manifested. God Himself demonstrated this by becoming a man, the Son of Man, the Man-Savior, and by expressing God in humanity in a rich way. God’s move depends on man – when man moves, God moves! If we don’t speak the gospel, if we don’t go to the uttermost part of the earth to bring the good news, how will God save man?
Also, the center of God’s administration – the throne of God – depends on the four living creatures having the appearance of a man (see Jer. 17:12; Rev. 4:2, 6). That’s why right now there’s a Man in the glory, and the One above all, in whose name we are saved and who is the Ruler and King of the universe is a MAN, Jesus Christ!
God wants Christ with many God-men like Him to rule and reign for Him, expressing Him to the uttermost and bringing in God’s kingdom on earth so that His will may be done! What a high view of the importance of man in God’s plan does the Bible reveal!
Thank You Lord for creating us as men in Your image and with Your likeness! Grow in us more today, Lord, and increase the measure of the stature of Christ in us. Cause us all to arrive at the stature of a full-grown man in Christ that we may express You and represent You on earth. Lord, save us from remaining infants and immature in the divine life. We thank You for regenerating us to make us God-men – now go on in us and cause us to grow unto maturity that we may be the corporate new man that expresses You and represents You!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration (besides the Word of God and my Christian experience): bro. Ron Kangas’ speaking in this message and portions from, Life-study of Ezekiel (msgs. 4-5), 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/msg 1, A Full-Grown Corporate Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose Through the Experience of Life in the Fourth Stage (you can buy this morning revival book here).
- Hymns on this topic:
# O I’m a man— / I’m the meaning of the universe! …/ Christ lives in me – / He’s the meaning of my human life!…. / The church is Christ – / His expression on the earth today! …. / The local church – / Is the new and real family life! …. / What shall we do? / We should go and tell the world of this!
# All things forgetting, cleaving unto Christ, / Applying Him until maturity; / Let us count everything but loss for Him, / For Him, our All in all, eternally.
# Out of death and into life, / Done with all divisive strife! / Free indeed to love but Thee, / Growing to maturity! / “Amen, Jesus,” is our prayer / To the purging work, whate’er; / Now Thy church must desperate be / More the growth in life to see.
About aGodMan
Yes, amen, brother. We need to grow and mature in the divine life, so that God would have a full-grown man – a corporate man – that expresses Him in full and represents His authority properly. Amen, Lord, give us today's portion of grace that we may grow in life!
I was impressed by this point that we need to grow and mature. The fulfillment of God’s purpose depends on this. Lord, cause some growth in us today!