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The Gospel of Luke records the history of the God-man living of the first God-man; now this history needs to be written into our being—2 Cor. 3:3.
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When the Lord Jesus saves us, He comes into us as the One with the human virtues filled with the divine attributes—Luke 2:10-11, 25-32; 19:9-10:
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As the life-giving Spirit, He enters into us to bring God into our being and to fill our virtues with God's attributes—1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17.
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Such a life saves us from within and uplifts our human virtues, sanctifying and transforming us—Rom. 5:10; 12:2.
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The Christ who lives in us is still the One who possesses the human virtues strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes—Gal. 2:20:
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The Christ who is being dispensed into us is a composition of the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues—4:19.
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Christ is now seeking to live in the believers the kind of life that He lived on earth; within us He is still living a life that is a composition of the divine attributes and the human virtues—John 14:19b; 2 Cor. 10:1; 11:10.
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If we would become a reproduction of the first God-man and live Christ as the God-man, we must be reborn of the pneumatic Christ in our spirit and be transformed by the pneumatic Christ in our soul—John 3:3, 6; 2 Cor. 3:18.
Morning Nourishment
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)
Today's Reading
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