Outline

«　WEEK 2　DAY 2　»

　　Col. 3:4 When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.

　　2 Pet. 1:4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature…

　　Phil. 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

　　In these days I am burdened to release the high-level truths in the Word, and I welcome every opportunity to do this. One of these high truths is the matter of participating in God’s divinity. How marvelous that we, fallen human beings, can be one with the Lord! Such a thought is surely very high. Now we need to see something even higher—that as God-men, we have the divine right to participate in God’s divinity.

　　The phrase participate in means not only to partake of but to partake of for enjoyment. It indicates that we possess something and that we enjoy what we possess. We, the God-men, have the divine right to participate not in heaven but in God’s divinity. We all need to realize that we can participate in God’s divinity, that is, participate in God. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification,” p. 214)

　　We were created not in man’s image and according to man’s likeness but in God’s image and according to God’s likeness [Gen. 1:26]. Thus, human beings have the image and likeness of God. However, at the time of creation, man did not have God’s life. But now as God-men, those who have been born of God to be children of God, we have the right to participate in what God is and even to become God in life, in nature, and in expression but not in the Godhead.

　　First, as the God-men, we have the divine right to participate in God’s life. John 3:15 tells us that everyone who believes into the Lord Jesus will have eternal life. Eternal life is the divine life, the life of God. We are human beings, but we can have God’s life. We were created in God’s image and God’s likeness but without God’s life. Through regeneration we have been graced by God with His divine life. Through regeneration He has put, has dispensed, His life into our being.

　　Since Christ is the embodiment of God, for Christ to be our life [Col. 3:4] means that God is our life.

　　As God-men, we also have the divine right to participate in God’s nature…God chose us in Christ with a particular purpose—to make us holy [Eph. 1:4]. Holy means not only sanctified, separated unto God, but also different, distinct, from everything common…Only God is different, distinct, from all things. Hence, He is holy; holiness is His nature. God intends to make us holy even as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). To be holy is to participate in God’s holy nature. Having chosen us to be holy, God makes us holy by imparting Himself, the Holy One, into our being, so that our whole being may be saturated and permeated with His holy nature. For us, God’s chosen ones, to be holy is to partake of God’s divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4).

　　Because we have become God-men through regeneration, we also have the right to participate in God’s mind. This means that we, who are human, can have a divine mind…We need to let Christ’s mind be our mind [Phil. 2:5]. Ephesians 4:23 says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The spirit here is the regenerated spirit of the believers, which is mingled with the indwelling Spirit of God. Such a mingled spirit spreads into our mind, thus becoming the spirit of our mind. The more the mingled spirit penetrates our mind, saturates our mind, and possesses our mind, the more our mind becomes like God’s mind. This is to make His mind our mind, and this is to participate in God’s mind. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification,” pp. 214-215)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification,” ch. 4; CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Organic Union in God’s Relationship with Man,” ch. 4