«　WEEK 5　DAY 3　»

　　Luke 1:35 And the angel…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.

　　Rom. 8:29 Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.

　　We use attributes in relation to God and virtues in relation to man. The Lord Jesus possesses both the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues…. Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence, He possesses the divine nature with the divine attributes. Because He was born of a human virgin with the human essence, He possesses the human virtues. Therefore, while He was on earth, He lived a life that was both human and divine. He lived a human life, but in that life the divine attributes were expressed. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 655)

　　In the Lord Jesus man and God, God and man, are mingled to form a composition full of the divine attributes and the human virtues.

　　In His incarnation Christ, the very God,…was conceived of God to have the divine attributes, and He was born of mankind to have the human virtues…. In Christ the divine attributes and the human virtues are one; that is,… mingled together as one….Therefore,… He lived a life on earth with the attributes of God expressed in the virtues of man.

　　Today the Christ who lives in us is still the One who possesses the human virtues strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes. 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. While He was on earth, He lived a life that was a composition of these two. From the time of His resurrection He has been seeking to live in the believers the kind of life He lived on earth. This means that within us today Christ is still living a life that is a composition of the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues. If we see this, we shall say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 655-656)

　　In the Man-Savior’s God-man living, man’s virtues became a shell, an image, to express God’s attributes so that God may be expressed in man’s living. From this we see that our human virtues—our love, brightness, holiness, and righteousness—are just a shell, the image created by God [Gen. 1:26]. If we see this, we shall have the answer to the question… concerning why it was necessary for the Lord Jesus to live on earth for thirty-three and a half years before He died to accomplish redemption. 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….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 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,… [which 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. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 525-526)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 61-62; CWWL, 1989, vol. 1, “The Glorious Vision and the Way of the Cross,” chs. 3-5; CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living,” chs. 1, 9-10, 13