«　WEEK 5　DAY 5　»

　　Eph. 2:19 So then you are… fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

　　1:22-23 …The church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.

　　When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He expressed the divine attributes as His human virtues in all His actions. That expression of His virtues was the manifestation of God in the flesh. Outwardly, people saw Him as Jesus from Nazareth, but He was God manifested in the flesh. For example, after the Lord Jesus fed the five thousand, there were many leftovers…. But the Lord instructed His disciples to gather the broken pieces left over that nothing would be lost (John 6:12). After all the leftovers were picked up, everything was clean and in order. This was the virtue of the One who is resurrection (11:25). When the Lord left the things in the tomb in good order, this was also a testimony of His resurrection (20:7). When we exercise our spirit and do things in resurrection, this is a display of our Christian virtues. These Christian virtues are expressions of the divine attributes and are the manifestation of God in the flesh. This is God’s living in man. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3663-3664)

　　Even though we [in the church life] are in the flesh, we should not live by the flesh. We should live in and by resurrection so that God may live in our living, making us Him in His attributes as our virtues for His manifestation.

　　Not only Christ Himself as the Head is the manifestation of God in the flesh, but also…the church as the Body of Christ and the house of God is the manifestation of God in the flesh—the mystery of godliness. According to the context, godliness in 1 Timothy 3:16 refers not only to piety but also to the living of God in the church, that is, to God as life lived out in the church. Both Christ and the church are the mystery of godliness, expressing God in the flesh. The church life is the expression of God; therefore, the mystery of godliness is the living of a proper church (1 Cor. 14:24-25). God is manifested in the church—the house of God and the Body of Christ—as His enlarged corporate expression in the flesh (Eph. 2:19; 1:22-23).

　　The manifestation of God in the flesh began with Christ when He was on earth (John 14:9). The manifestation of God in the flesh continues with the church, which is the increase, enlargement, and multiplication of the manifestation of God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:15-16). Such a church becomes the continuation of Christ’s manifestation of God in the flesh—Christ lived out of the church as the manifestation of God. This is God manifested in the flesh in a wider way according to the New Testament principle of incarnation (1 Cor. 7:40; Gal. 2:20). The principle of incarnation is that God enters into man and mingles Himself with man to make man one with Himself (John 15:4-5). The principle of incarnation means that divinity is brought into humanity and works within humanity (1 Cor. 6:17; 7:40; 1 Tim. 4:1). The great mystery of godliness is that God has become man so that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to produce a corporate God-man for the manifestation of God in the flesh (Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; Eph. 4:24).

　　God has imparted Himself into us, making us one with Him and also making Him one with us. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”…We are the same as God in the divine life, the divine nature, the divine element, and the divine essence but not in the Godhead. Today we are the flesh in which God can be manifested. God is manifested in the flesh, but we need to realize that God can never be manifested by the flesh. The flesh is merely the earthen vessel. It is not the key to carry out God’s manifestation; the key to God’s manifestation in us is our spirit. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3664-3665)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The God-men,” chs. 1-2; Life-study of 1 Timothy, msgs. 3, 6; Life-study of 2 Timothy, msgs. 7-8