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Christ's incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God's intention in His creation of man—Gen. 1:26-27; John 1:1, 14; Luke 1:31-32, 35; 2:40, 52:
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The incarnation of Christ is closely related to God's purpose in the creation of man in His image and according to His likeness—that man would receive Him as life and express Him in His divine attributes—Gen. 1:26; 2:9; Acts 3:14a; Eph. 4:24.
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The Man-Savior was born of the human essence with the human virtues in order to uplift these virtues to such a standard that they can match God's attributes for His expression—Luke 1:35:
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As the One who was conceived of the divine essence with the divine attributes to be the content and reality of His human virtues, Christ fills the empty human virtues—Matt. 1:18, 20.
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The divine attributes fill, strengthen, enrich, and sanctify the human virtues for the purpose of expressing God in the human virtues.
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Through His incarnation Christ brought the infinite God into the finite man—Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 14; Col. 2:9.
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Christ is both the complete God and the perfect man, possessing the divine nature and the human nature distinctly—Lev. 2:4-5.
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Christ is the God-man, a person who is the mingling of divinity with humanity—Luke 1:35; Phil. 2:5-8:
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In Him we see all the divine attributes and all the human virtues:
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Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence, He possesses the divine nature with the divine attributes—Matt. 1:18, 20.
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Because the Lord Jesus was born of the human virgin with the human essence, He possesses the human nature with the human virtues—Luke 1:26-35.
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Christ's human living was the living of a man who lived God to express the divine attributes in the human virtues—7:11-17; 10:25-37; 19:1-10.
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Christ expressed in His humanity the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues—7:36-50; Heb. 2:17:
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Christ expressed the divine attributes of love, light, holiness, and righteousness—Eph. 3:19; John 8:12; Acts 3:14a.
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Christ's aromatic virtues include His mercy, compassion, meekness, forbearance, lowliness, obedience, faithfulness, and truthfulness—Heb. 2:17; Matt. 9:36; 11:29; 2 Cor. 10:1; Phil. 2:8; Rom. 5:19; 2 Cor. 11:10.
Morning Nourishment
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)
Today's Reading
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