Throughout the Bible we see that God desires to be one with man and for man to be one with Him, and in particular this is seen in the resemblance of God and man in their images and likenesses. Wow!
This week in our Crystallization-study of Jeremiah and Lamentations we come to a colossal crystal, The Principle of Being One with God as Revealed in the Book of Jeremiah.
There are many mysteries in the Word of God, such as the mystery of the Triune God, the mystery of the person and the work of Christ, the church as the mystery of Christ, the kingdom is a mystery, godliness is a mystery, and the mystery of God’s economy.
The mystery of God’s economy is the mystery of deification of man, that is, that man would become God, that man would be deified, divinized, not for man to become God in His Godhead, as an object of worship, but rather, for man to become the same as God in His organic salvation.
It is a blasphemy to say that we men are becoming God to be worshipped by others, but we would not be truthful to the word of God to say that we are not becoming God in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead.
In His great divine economy, which is according to His purpose based on His heart’s desire and good pleasure, God made made in His image and according to His likeness so that man would become the same as He is in life and nature.
This is a great and mysterious matter, for God and man resemble each other, and eventually become the same as each other in life and nature. Wow!
It all started with the creation of man; man was created in the image of God and with His likeness (Gen. 1:26); God took red earth, clay, and made a man who looks like Him and resembles Him.
Man is made to be like God within and without; man was not created according to mankind but according to God, so man is not mankind but God-kind.
Right there in the first chapter of the Bible we see this great matter of God desiring that man would look like Him, resemble Him, and be like Him.
Various theologians and church fathers throughout history saw this great truth in the Bible, and they coined this term, deification; Athanasius said, God became man that man would become God.
This reveals the whole scope of God’s salvation for man: God became a man, died for man, redeemed man back to God, solved the problem of sin, and now can be forgiven, justified, reconciled to God, and organically saved in the life of God until he becomes the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function.
We believers in Christ are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), and by partaking of that nature, by taking in and receiving the life of God, God has a way to save us by transforming us, renewing us, and eventually conforming us to the image of Christ.
Eventually, God will conform us to the image of Christ, saving us to the uttermost; He regenerates our spirit, He renews and transforms our soul, and He will finally transfigure our mortal body so that our entire being would be conformed to Him!
When He comes, we will be like Him, for we will see Him even as He is!
This is not an instant miracle, but the result of a long process of God’s work according to His economy, a process of imparting Himself into our entire being to fill us, saturate us, transform us, and renew us from all the old things in an organic way; the result of such a process is that we are gloried to be the same as He is! Wow!
Eventually this consummates in the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!
God’s Desire to be One with Man and for man to be One with Him can be seen in the Resemblance of God and Man in their Images and Likenesses
There is deep truth in the Bible that expresses God’s desire for Him to become man so that man would become God in life, nature, expression, and function; this can be seen in particular in the resemblance of God and man in their images and likenesses.
The Resemblance of God and Man as seen in the Creation of Man
Right from the creation of man, man was set apart and made differently from any other creature; in Gen. 1:24-26 we see that God had a council among the Godhead and said, Let Us make man in Our image and according to Our likeness, and let them have dominion…
There was no “mankind” created by God in His creation; God didn’t create mankind but rather, what He created was after His own kind, God-kind.
Man was created according to God in His image and likeness, and He breathed the breath of life into man (which became man’s spirit) so that man would be like God and look like God, contact God and receive God (Gen. 2:7). This is amazing!
God took red earth, clay, and made a figure of Himself, and He breathed the breath of life into man; man became a living soul with a spirit to contact God. Hallelujah!
What God created was a reproduction of Himself.
From our very creation we are made to resemble God; here we see the resemblance of God and man.
God made man with a special faculty, a special third part (besides the body and the soul) – the spirit in man, so that man would communicate with God, contact God, and receive God to be his life and everything; in this way God would come into man and make man the same as He is in life and nature.
The Resemblance of God and Man as seen with Christ coming to visit Abraham, Manoah, and Daniel
In Gen. 18:2-3 there were three men that appeared to Abraham, and one of these men was Christ – Jehovah – while the others were two angels (19:1).
This means that, two thousand years before His incarnation, God appeared as a man when He visited His friend Abraham (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23).
It’s almost as if God couldn’t wait until four thousand years after Adam was created to become a man; He wanted to be a man, and He visited Abraham not as God in glory but as a man, a friend, in an intimate way, to fellowship with him at the same level.
God’s heart is to become a man, and if God appears to a man, He is a man, because man is made in the image and likeness of God so that God and man would eventually be one and the same, the same kind.
In Judg. 13:3-6 and 22-23 the Angel of God (God, Jehovah, a man of God – Christ) appeared to Manoah and his wife (Samson’s parents) before Christ’s incarnation. This “man of God”, “Angel of God”, and “Jehovah” were actually Christ Himself.
Furthermore, Daniel saw a vision of Christ as the Son of Man before Christ’s incarnation; according to Daniel 7:13-14, Daniel saw the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of Days – the God of eternity – and they brought Him near Him.
To Him it was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him! Amen, His dominion is an eternal dominion, which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed!
How can this be, that Christ would appear as a man even before He was actually incarnated to be a man?
We don’t know, we can’t explain, for it is a mystery; but this is what the Bible says, and God wants to be a man, He becomes man, He comes as a man….Hallelujah!
Adam himself was a type, a prefigure, of Christ, as seen in Rom. 5:4, and Christ is the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), the second man. God and man resemble each other.
Praise You Lord for Your desire to become a man so that You may be one with man and make man the same as You are in life, nature, expression, and function, to fully match You! Wow, Hallelujah for such a high peak of the divine revelation in the Bible, that God became man to make man God in life and nature but not in the Godhead! Thank You for creating us not as mankind but as God-kind, in the same image and likeness as God. Hallelujah, we bear God’s image and have His likeness so that we may receive God as life, be filled with God, and even become the same as God in every possible way! Wow, Lord, what a thought is this! Continue to unveil us to see the resemblance of God and man as seen in the holy word!
The Resemblance of God and Man as seen in Christ’s Incarnation, Ascension and His Return
Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15); God is invisible – we can’t see Him with our physical eyes, but He has an image, which is Christ.
Christ came as the Word becoming flesh (John 1:1, 14); He is God who became flesh to come in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3) and not having the sin of the flesh (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). Wow!
Christ’s incarnation is one of the greatest events in the universe, for God Himself became a man; God didn’t become an angel, an animal, or a great creature – He became a man, for He made man in His image and according to His likeness for Him to one day become a man. Hallelujah!
Christ put on humanity, and He became flesh; that flesh was not the same as your flesh or mine, which has the element of sin.
Christ is God becoming flesh, and in this flesh there’s no sin.
Even more, Christ, who exists in the form of God, took the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, in His incarnation (see Phil. 2:6-8).
God did not only become man; Christ put aside the form of God and took the form of a slave, and He lived the life of a man on earth. When others saw Him, they didn’t see the great God or the Almighty; they saw a man, even a lowly man, a man despised and accustomed to being shamed.
He existed in the form of God, but He didn’t consider this as something to be grasped; rather, He took the step of adopting the likeness of men in the sinless flesh.
In this we see the resemblance of God and man, for Christ was incarnated to be a man according to God’s desire for God and man to be one. Hallelujah!
As he was being martyred, Stephen looked up at the heavens and saw them opened, and he saw Christ as the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56); this indicates that even after Christ’s ascension to the heavens, He is still the Son of Man! Wow!
Christ didn’t become man just to redeem man and help man to “go to heavens”; Christ’s becoming man is something deep in the heart of God, something that God desires to do and be in a deep and profound way – God wants to become man so that man would become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
So then, after Christ became a man, lived a human life, died an all-inclusive death on the cross, and resurrected and ascended, He didn’t put off humanity – He continued to be and He continues to be the Son of Man!
Even after He died, resurrected, and ascended in the heavens, Christ still looks like the Son of Man; He didn’t give up His manhood but brought it into divinity in His resurrection.
Hallelujah! Lo, in heavens Jesus sitting: Christ the Lord is the Son of Man enthroned! There’s a Man on the throne!
And when Jesus returns, He will come as the Son of Man; He said in Matt. 26:64, You will see the Son of Man at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven; this shows that, when Jesus comes back, He will still be the Son of Man! Hallelujah!
The One who is returning to rapture His overcomers and to draw His believers to Himself in His second coming is not God – it is the God-man Jesus, the Son of Man! This really shows how much God desires that He and man would be one, and that man would be one with God. All we can say is,
Praise You Lord for Your intention for God and man, man and God, to be one and the same! Thank You for coming to be incarnated to be a man, even the Son of Man; You came to us in the likeness of the flesh of sin yet without the sin of the flesh. Thank You Lord Jesus for taking the form of a slave to become in the likeness of men; You were found in fashion as a man in incarnation. Hallelujah, praise the Lord Jesus, the God-man, God incarnated to be a man! Thank You Lord for being a Man in Your resurrection and ascension, and even right now, You are the Son of Man on the throne! Hallelujah, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Lord and God of this universe is a Man, Jesus Christ the God-man! We praise You Lord Jesus, the Son of Man, for You will return not just as God but also as a man – You as the Son of Man will come on the clouds of heaven! Hallelujah!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, msgs. 2, 4, 7, 11, 13 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 6, The Principle of Being One with God as Revealed in the Book of Jeremiah.
- Hymns on this topic:
– We praise Thee for Thy heart’s intent / That man Thy likeness should possess, / That with Thy life and nature filled / Thine image he should manifest. (Hymns #32)
– Thou, “Last Adam” wast entitled, / And wast called the “second man”, / Head of all the new creation, / Better than the first man. / On this earth in life and conduct / Thou indeed wast Son of man; / Now in heaven with this nature / Thou dost still appear as man. (Hymns #62)
– Lo! in heaven Jesus sitting, / Christ the Lord is there enthroned; / As the man by God exalted, / With God’s glory He is crowned. (Hymns #132)
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