Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26; Matt. 16:13; 26:64; 24:30; 1 Cor. 15:45, 47; Luke 1:35

DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 2 & DAY 3 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 2　DAY 1　»

　　1 Cor. 15:45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul”; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.

　　47 The first man is out of the earth, earthy; the second man is out of heaven.

　　First Corinthians 15:47 unveils Christ as the second man…. Out of the earth denotes the origin of the first man, Adam, and earthy, his nature. As the first man, Adam is the head of the old creation, representing it in creation. As the second man, Christ is the Head of the new creation, representing it in resurrection. In the entire universe there are only two men: the first man, Adam, including all his descendants, and the second man, Christ, comprising all His believers. We believers were included in the first man by birth and became a part of the second man by regeneration. Our believing has transferred us out of the first man into the second. In regard to our being part of the first man, our origin is the earth and our nature is earthy. In regard to our being part of the second man, our origin is God and our nature is heavenly. Out of heaven denotes both the divine origin and the heavenly nature of the second man, Christ. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3180-3181)

　　Christ being the last Adam implies the termination of the first man. In the universe there are only two Adams and two men. The first Adam is Adam our forefather, and the last Adam is Christ (1 Cor. 15:45)….The last Adam is the conclusion of Adam, the first man. The last of anything is the termination of that thing. Hence, the last Adam is the end of Adam. Christ became a man. As a man, He ended the Adamic race; Adam is terminated in Christ. The first Adam is the beginning of mankind; the last Adam is the ending.

　　The last Adam indicates an ending, and the second man indicates a new beginning. Christ being the last Adam means that He terminated Adam, whereas Christ being the second man indicates that He is a new beginning. We were all in Adam, and we were all terminated in Christ. Now we are in the second man, and we are in the new beginning. To be terminated is to be crucified; to be in the new beginning is to be in resurrection. We are in Christ as the last Adam; we have been terminated in Him. We are also in Christ as the second man; we have a new beginning in Him. As the last Adam, He ended the old man. When He was crucified, our old man was crucified with Him (Rom. 6:6). His death as the last Adam was for God's dealing with our old man. As the end of the old man, He crucified the old man and terminated the old creation. The old man is the representative, the center, of the old creation; hence, by destroying the old man, Christ terminated the old creation.

　　Christ, the last Adam, became in resurrection a life-giving Spirit. According to 1 Corinthians 15:45, the first man, Adam, became a living soul, and the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. This verse implies both the old creation with the soul as the center and the new creation with the Spirit as the center. Adam, the first man, was the head of the old creation. When God created him, Adam became a living soul. This means that he became a person, a human being. In Hebrew Adam means “man.” Christ being the last Adam implies a termination and conclusion of the old creation. The old creation ends with a man, the last Adam. This man who terminated the old creation became in resurrection a life-giving Spirit. Now the Spirit is the center and lifeline of the new creation. The old creation was created by God, whereas the new creation comes into being not by creation but by resurrection. Therefore, verse 45 implies two creations: the old creation with man, a living soul, as its center and the new creation in resurrection with the life-giving Spirit as its center. Through incarnation Christ became the last Adam to die on the cross for the termination of the old creation, and through resurrection He as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit to germinate the new creation. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3181-3183)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 26, 314

«　WEEK 2　DAY 2　»

　　Gen. 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…

　　Luke 1:31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus.

　　35 And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy thing which is born will be called the Son of God.

　　God designed man to be one with Him. Because God designed man this way, He created man in His image and after His likeness. Image refers to the inward being, and likeness, to the outward appearance. Actually, God created man in His own image with the intention that man would be His duplication. Furthermore, for man to become a duplication of God, he must have the capacity to contain what God is. Therefore, man was made in God's image to be His duplication and after His likeness to be His expression. God's purpose in creating man was that man would be His duplication in order to express Him. In order for this purpose to be carried out, it is necessary for man to receive God and contain Him as the tree of life. However, Adam, the man created by God, failed in God's purpose and damaged God's design. Thousands of years later, the Man-Savior came to fulfill God's purpose in creating man. (Life-study of Luke, p. 491)

　　Through the incarnation of Christ God in the Son became a man. What a great matter this is! God had created man with a purpose according to His design, but man failed Him in His purpose and destroyed His design. Instead of creating another man, God Himself came to be the second man (1 Cor. 15:47). God came to be the second man not in the Father nor in the Spirit but in the Son.

　　The Man-Savior as the second man was not created; rather, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a human virgin. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit in order to have the essence of God, and He was born of a human virgin in order to have the human essence. Therefore, this man was a composition of two essences, a composition of the divine essence and the human essence. Hence, He was the mingling of God with man. Because this wonderful One was a composition of two essences, the mingling of God with man, He was a God-man.

　　A crucial matter concerning the God-man is that He lived a human life filled with the divine life as its content. Contrary to what some may think, the Gospel of Luke is not merely a book of stories. This Gospel is a revelation of the God-man who lived a human life filled with the divine life as its content. As the One who lived such a life, the Man-Savior had the divine nature with the divine attributes, that is, with the divine love, light, righteousness, and holiness. The divine nature with its attributes was expressed in the Man-Savior's human nature with all the human virtues.

　　Because the Man-Savior's divine nature with the divine attributes was expressed in His human nature with the human virtues, it is difficult to say when He was living on earth whether it was God loving others or a man loving. In the life of the Man-Savior we see a love that is the love of a God-man, the love of the One who lived a human life filled with the divine life. Because the Lord lived in this way, His love was the human virtue of love filled with the divine attribute of love.

　　Certain cases recorded in the Gospel of Luke illustrate the fact that the Man-Savior's love was a love in which the attribute of divine love is expressed in the virtue of human love [cf. Luke 10:25-37; 7:36-50; 23:39-43]….His love…was a human love filled with the divine love and also strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine love….The Lord's living was a matter of the human virtues filled, strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine attributes. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 491-493)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Luke, msgs. 56-57; Life-study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, msgs. 2, 4; CWWL, 1990, vol. 1, “The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man,” ch. 1

«　WEEK 2　DAY 3　»

　　Heb. 2:17 Hence He should have been made like His brothers in all things that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest…

　　Luke 10:33-34 But a certain Samaritan,…when he saw him, he was moved with compassion; and he came to him and bound up his wounds and poured oil and wine on them. And placing him on his own beast, he brought him to an inn and took care of him.

　　The Man-Savior was born of the human essence with the human virtues…to restore and recover man's virtues from the damage of man's fall….For example, the virtue of love has been damaged. A brother may love his wife very much one day, and the next day he may be unhappy with her and even think of divorcing her. This is a strong sign that his human love has been damaged.

　　The love a girl has for her mother is also a damaged love. A girl may be very loving toward her mother at one moment, but this love is easily broken and may suddenly change. This proves that a girl's human love for her mother is a fallen and damaged love.

　　The human virtues of righteousness and holiness have also been damaged by the fall. Our righteousness has so many “holes” in it that it can be compared to a beehive. Can you count how many holes you have in your righteousness? Our love, brightness, righteousness, and holiness have all been damaged.

　　The Man-Savior's incarnation was not only to rescue our virtues from the fall; His incarnation was also to restore and recover our virtues from the damage of the fall. Something may be rescued without being restored, or may be restored without being recovered. Our human virtues need to be rescued, restored, and recovered. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 504-505)

　　Due to the influence of tradition, many Christians have the wrong concept concerning the Lord's salvation. Their concept is that our Savior, Jesus Christ, came merely to save us from hell and to bring us to heaven….The Man-Savior's way of saving us is much higher than this.

　　According to His way of saving us, the Man-Savior first brought God's attributes into man's virtues. Then He lived a life with the human virtues filled, strengthened, enriched, and sanctified by the divine attributes. In such a living there is saving power….When He saves us, He comes into us as the One with the human virtues filled with the divine attributes. Such a life saves us from within and uplifts our human virtues, restoring, sanctifying, and transforming us. A person who is saved in this way will surely not go to hell. Instead, he will go to the place where God is.

　　However, suppose a person could actually be saved according to the natural concept of merely being rescued from hell and brought to heaven. If Christ simply stretched forth His hand to lift us out of hell into heaven, God would not be pleased. He would say to such a person, “I am not happy with what you are. Your person is offensive to Me. I don't want you to remain here in heaven with Me.”

　　We need to see that the Man-Savior's way of saving us is not superficial. In order to save us, He, the very God, came into man, bringing God's attributes into man's virtues. While He was on earth, He lived the life of a God-man, with the divine attributes filling His human virtues. Eventually, He died on the cross and was resurrected. In His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Now as the life-giving Spirit He enters into us to bring God into our being and to fill our virtues with God's attributes. In this way we are being saved day by day. We are being saved in the way of the Lord's restoring, His transforming.

　　He came into His followers and made each one of them a mystery. This is the reason that, as believers, we are a mystery to our relatives and friends….Our being a mystery is altogether due to the Man-Savior, the God-man, whose divine attributes fill His human virtues to produce the highest standard of morality. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 506-507, 509)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Luke, msgs. 58-60

«　WEEK 2　DAY 4　»

　　John 5:19 …The Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

　　4:34 Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.

　　In John 5:30 the Lord Jesus said, “I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” In John 6:38 He went on to say, “I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” In these verses we see that the Lord Jesus did not do or seek His own will.

　　In a very real sense, our will represents our whole being. Yes, in one sense our being is represented by our mind. The mind, however, represents our being only in thought; the will represents our being, or our soul, in its doings. You may have thought about many things, but how many of those things have you done? Perhaps out of a hundred matters we have thought, only two have been accomplished. The point we are making here is that our mind represents our being in thought, and our will represents our being in action, in deeds.

　　The fact that the Lord Jesus did not seek or do His own will indicates that while He was living as a man, He was not living by His own mind, will, and emotion. This means that He was not living by His own life. Here “life” equals our being, and our being is composed of our mind, will, and emotion. The Man-Savior, the God-man, lived as a man, but He did not live by His own mind, will, and emotion. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 523-524)

　　The Lord Jesus had a genuine man's living by God's mind, will, and emotion—to express God in God's attributes. The Lord did not seek His own will but God's will. He came not to do His own will but to do God's will. This means that He came to live as a man not by man's life, but by God's life. He lived by God's mind, will, and emotion to express God in God's attributes. These attributes are contained in and mingled with His human virtues.

　　The Lord Jesus lived a genuine human life, yet in His life we see the divine element and also certain divine factors. This life did not express man; it expressed God. This is the God-man's life and living.

　　In the living of the Lord Jesus, man's mind, will, and emotion became the organs to contain God's life. We may compare these organs to the fingers of a glove. Just as the fingers of a glove contain the real fingers, so the Man-Savior's mind, will, and emotion contain God's life. The five fingers of a glove are not real fingers but contain the five fingers of a human hand. In a similar way, the Lord's mind, will, and emotion are organs containing God's mind, will, and emotion. This was His God-man living.

　　If He had lived on earth only a short time, there would have been only a momentary expression of the divine attributes in His living. Such a brief expression could be compared to a rainbow, which appears for a while and then vanishes. The Man-Savior lived a full human life for thirty-three and a half years. During those years He was proved to be without defect or imperfection. He did not fail in any way. His virtues were an image for an expression of God's attributes. Therefore, God was expressed in His living.

　　The Lord's God-man living constituted His qualification to be the Man-Savior. At the same time, this living constituted a prototype to His believers…. This prototype is for the “mass production,” the reproduction, of the God-man in the believers. In a factory, a great deal of time may be spent to produce a prototype. Once the prototype has been produced, it is then used for mass production. In a similar way, the Man-Savior's God-man living constituted Him a prototype so that He may now be reproduced in us. Praise the Lord for the prototype and for the mass production! (Life-study of Luke, pp. 524-526)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Luke, msg. 61

«　WEEK 2　DAY 5　»

　　John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

　　2 Cor. 3:18 But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.

　　In the life-giving Spirit, the all-inclusive extract of Christ, there is not only the essence of what Christ is, but also the element of the process through which He has passed. As such an extract, this Spirit comprises the divine element with the divine attributes and the human element with all the human virtues. This Spirit includes the element of the Lord's wonderful life of expressing God. The Spirit also includes the element of the rescued, restored, recovered, improved, polished, sanctified, strengthened, empowered, and uplifted human virtues. Have you ever realized this? The all-inclusive life-giving Spirit contains the element of the Man-Savior's uplifted human virtues. (Life-study of Luke, p. 532)

　　The New Testament reveals that the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ is the indwelling Spirit. We need to realize this when we are tempted to lose our temper. You may say, “Lord, help me,” or you may simply say, “Lord!” If you consider your experience, you will realize that when you call on the Lord's name, something moves within you and even mingles with you. This is the life-giving Spirit moving in you and mingling with your spirit.

　　Of course, there is nothing wrong with asking the Lord to help us. But this kind of prayer can distract us from the indwelling Spirit. If we pray in this way, we may expect the Lord's help to come from the third heaven and may feel that we need to wait for His help to arrive. But when we call on the Lord's name, realizing that He is the life-giving Spirit dwelling within us, we shall sense Him moving in us and mingling with us. We experience this because the One who moves in us and mingles with us is the life-giving Spirit as the extract of the all-inclusive Christ. Simply by calling on the Lord's name, we can sense the mysterious, all-inclusive extract moving in us.

　　The first step in the reproduction of the God-man is that we be reborn of the pneumatic Christ in our spirit with His divine life and nature. Regeneration and transformation are two steps in the process to reproduce the God-man. The Man-Savior as the God-man is the unique prototype. God intends to reproduce, or mass produce, this prototype through regeneration and transformation. This reproduction takes place by the regeneration of the pneumatic Christ in our spirit and through the transformation by this same pneumatic Christ in our soul. Through these steps we become the reproduction of the God-man. This reproduction is the mass production of the unique prototype. Praise the Lord that we have been regenerated once for all and that we are now in the process of being transformed!

　　In Luke we see how Christ was incarnated and lived the life of a God-man. In Philippians we see how Christ is lived out from us in order to have many duplicates of Himself. All Christians should be duplicates of the unique God-man.

　　How can we be such duplicates, such reproductions? First, we need to be reborn of the pneumatic Christ in our spirit, and then we need to be gradually transformed by the pneumatic Christ in our soul. Then spontaneously we shall live Christ, the God-man, by the bountiful supply of His Spirit, taking His mind and shining the word of life as luminaries reflecting His brightness. We shall also be found in Christ with Him as our surpassing righteousness, in the power of His resurrection, and conformed to His death. Then we shall express Him in all the human virtues created by God for man. With the divine attributes of the God-man these virtues are strengthened, enriched, and filled. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 532-534, 537, 543)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Luke, msgs. 62-63

«　WEEK 2　DAY 6　»

　　1 Cor. 2:9 …”Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man's heart; things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

　　Phil. 4:11 …I have learned, in whatever circumstances I am, to be content.

　　13 I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.

　　According to my experience, nothing pleases the Lord so much as for us to realize that He does not want us to do anything. He only wants us to love Him, to open ourselves up to Him, and to let Him live from within us….From the very beginning when God created man, God had no intention to ask man to do anything for Him. God's intention was to create a vessel to contain Him and to express Him, so God only wants an opening of the vessel. If the vessel is open, God can fulfill His purpose, but if the vessel is closed, God's purpose is frustrated.

　　God wants us only to love Him and to keep ourselves open to Him. “Lord, I love You. I fully realize that I am just an empty vessel, yet You treasure this earthen vessel because this earthen vessel was created by You according to Your eternal plan to fulfill Your heart's desire. Lord, I just love You. I like to contain You. I like to be filled up with You. I like to be saturated and permeated with You. Have mercy upon me that I may keep myself open to You all the time.” (CWWL, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” pp. 239-240)

　　You yourself are just a peculiarity. Without the Lord filling you as a vessel to work out something from within you, your whole being is a peculiarity. The only solution to our problems is the filling up of the Lord within us. And this depends upon our loving Him and keeping ourselves open to Him all the time. The proper prayer, the deeper prayer, the genuine prayer, is just to keep yourself loving Him and open to Him….You will be a living vessel absolutely calmed down so that your Master has the absolute free course to fill you up. When He fills you up, He does everything for you. Then you simply enjoy His doing. This is the proper, genuine Christian life. A genuine Christian life is one that loves the Lord and keeps itself open to the Lord and stops its doing. Then the Lord comes in and the Lord does everything and this vessel just contains the Lord and enjoys the Lord's filling up and enjoys the Lord's doing. This is the proper and genuine Christian life. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” p. 247)

　　Today those of us who have some amount of experience of the Lord can testify that when we love Him, pursue Him, and fellowship with Him, we spontaneously live in a condition that is beyond human description. We can endure what others cannot, and we can live a life that others cannot, even a life that goes beyond humility and meekness. We can live such a life because we live by the Lord. The Lord Jesus was a great mystery when He was on the earth. Hence, as the followers of Jesus, we also become a mystery that is incomprehensible to others. At times they think that we should lose our temper, yet we behave as if nothing has happened. At other times, they think that we should jump with joy, yet we act as usual. When they think that we should weep, we still can praise, and when they think that we should exult, we bow down in worship. We live not according to the environment but according to the Lord's moving and leading within. Sometimes our environment is very good, and apparently we should be happy and rejoicing. Nevertheless, within we feel that we have fallen short of the Lord's glory, that we have not sufficiently caused those who are around us to know the Lord, and that we have not adequately expressed Him and lived Him out before them; therefore, we weep in self-reproach. This is the mystery of being a Christian, which is incomprehensible to the Gentiles. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 1, “The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible—Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church,” pp. 138-139)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” ch. 22; CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Basic Lessons on Life,” lsns. 1-2