Outline

«　WEEK 4　DAY 2　»

　　Rom. 1:3-4 Concerning His Son, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

　　8:29 …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.

　　Christ is a descendant of David, yet He has been designated to be the Son of God [Rom. 1:3-4]. This is the mystery of God becoming man to make man God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. The two, God and man, are thus built together, constituted into each other. In Christ God has been constituted into man, man has been constituted into God, and God and man have been mingled together to be one entity, which is called the God-man. (Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, p. 207)

　　We need to be clear about the life of Christ, the first God-man, on the earth. He was both God and man, having the divine life and the human life… Christ lived a life of humanity, not by His human life but by His divine life.

　　He died to live. He was dying every day during His whole life of thirty-three and a half years. He died to Himself that He might live to the Father (John 5:19, 30; 8:28). I like this phrase dying to live. Christ died to Himself in order to live out the divine attributes as His human virtues. Christ was under the cross all the time on the earth, expressing not Himself but the Father…The disciples saw the Lord Jesus, but when they saw Him, they saw the Father [14:9]. Christ lived a life under the cross all the time until He was practically crucified on the cross to accomplish His all-inclusive death for God’s eternal redemption of His chosen people.

　　Christ made Himself, the first God-man, a prototype for the mass reproduction of many brothers, the many God-men (Rom. 8:29)…God and man will become one entity, and that one entity is the mingling of divinity with humanity. This mingling will consummate in the New Jerusalem, which is the conclusion of the entire Bible.

　　First Peter 2:21 says that Christ as the first God-man was a model for us. We need to live a life that is a copy, a reproduction, of the life of Christ. In Matthew 16:24 the Lord said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” This is to live a life of bearing the cross in the steps of Christ (1 Pet. 2:21b).

　　You have to put to death by the Spirit in His resurrection whatever your body does [Rom. 8:13]. This is to be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection. No one in his natural life can put everything that his body does to death. But we, the God-men, who are the reproduction of the prototype, can. We can know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

　　Such a life of dying to ourselves and living to God is for Christ, the first God-man, to be formed in His many brothers, the many God-men, for the building up of His organic Body that the eternal economy of God might be carried out…We need to die to live so that the many God-men can become the building material for the building up of the Body of Christ to carry out God’s eternal economy.

　　Thus, a number (not all) of His brothers, the many God-men, through His death and in His resurrection may be constituted to be His overcomers to close this age and to bring in His kingdom age. This is the real meaning of our being a Christian. It is a life of dying every day…I hope we all would be brought into the reality of Philippians 3:10: “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures,” pp. 54-56)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” ch. 8