Scripture Reading: Luke 1:35; Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:24; Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10
Ⅰ
In Christ God and man have become one entity, the God-man—Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Matt. 1:18, 20-23:
A
Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the divine essence and born of the human essence, He was born a God-man; hence, for His being as the God-man He had two essences—the divine essence and the human essence—v. 18.
B
The conception of the Holy Spirit in a human virgin constituted a mingling of the divine nature with the human nature, producing the God-man, the One who is both the complete God and perfect man—Luke 1:35.
C
As a perfect man and the complete God, the God-man has the human nature with its virtues to contain God and express Him with the divine attributes.
Ⅱ
Initially, the Bible speaks of the God-man; today this God-man has become the God-men—Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29:
A
The Lord Jesus, the first God-man, is the prototype for the producing of the many God (1 Pet. 2:21); the many God are His reproduction.
B
God became man (Rom. 8:3) to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind (v. 29; Heb. 2:10); this new kind is God-man kind.
C
The Lord Jesus, the God-man, was a grain of wheat falling into the ground in order to produce many grains as His reproduction—John 12:24:
１
The first grain—the first God-man—was the prototype, and the many grains—the many God-men—produced by this one grain through death and resurrection are the reproduction of the first God-man.
２
The many grains, as the many God-men, are the reproduction of God:
ａ
Such a reproduction makes God happy because they look like Him, speak like Him, and live like Him—1 John 3:2; 4:17b; 2:6.
ｂ
God is in this reproduction; His reproduction has His life, His nature, and His constitution.
D
We need to see that we are God-men, born of God, possessing the life and nature of God, and belonging to the species of God—John 1:12-13:
１
As children of God, we are God-men; we are the same as the One of whom we are born—1 John 3:1; 5:1.
２
Because we have been born of the divine life, we are divine persons.
３
Since we have been born of God, we may say and even we should say that we are God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
４
To think of ourselves as God and to know and realize who we are revolutionizes us in our daily experience—2:20; 3:1-2; 5:13, 20.
５
If all Christians realized that they were God in life and in nature, the whole world would be different—Acts 17:6b.
E
Eventually, the God will be the victors, the overcomers; this will bring in a new revival and will end this age—Rev. 12:11; 14:1; 11:15.
Ⅲ
The one new man is the corporate God-man—Eph. 2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10-11:
A
The first God-man, the firstborn Son of God, is the Head of this corporate God-man, and the many God-men, the many sons of God, are the Body of this corporate God-man—Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:18; 2:19.
B
The God-men, as the regenerated children of God, constitute the new man— Eph. 5:1; 4:24:
１
The one new man is a corporate man, and this corporate new man is the aggregate of all the God-men—2:15.
２
Through His death and resurrection, Christ produced many brothers (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11) who, with Him, have become the universal one new man; this is the corporate God-man, who is God yet man and man yet God.
３
The one new man, as the totality of the God-men, is the corporate Christ— 1 Cor. 12:12.
C
In Christ God became man to produce a corporate God-man for the mani-festation of God in the flesh as the one new man—1 Tim. 3:16; Col. 3:10-11.
Ⅳ
For the one new man as the corporate God-man, we need to live the life of a God-man—Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10:
A
Christ's human living was man living God to express the attributes of God in the human virtues; His human virtues were filled, mingled, and saturated with the divine attributes—Luke 1:26-35; 7:11-17; 10:25-37; 19:1-10:
１
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, though He was a man, He lived by God—John 6:57; 5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:28; 7:16-17.
２
The Lord Jesus lived God and expressed God in everything; whatever He did was God's doing from within Him and through Him—14:10.
３
The Gospel of Mark reveals that the life the Lord Jesus lived was absolutely according to and for God's New Testament economy.
B
As the expansion, increase, reproduction, and continuation of the first God-man, we should live the same kind of life He lived—1 John 2:6:
１
The Lord's God-man living set up a model for our God-man living—being crucified to live that God might be expressed in humanity—Gal. 2:20.
２
We need to deny ourselves, be conformed to Christ's death, and magnify Him by the bountiful supply of His Spirit—Matt. 16:24; Phil. 3:10; 1:19-21a.
３
We must reject self-cultivation and condemn the building up of the natural man; we need to realize that the Christian virtues are related essentially to the divine life, to the divine nature, and to God Himself—Gal. 5:22-23.
４
The One who lived the life of a God-man is now the Spirit living in us and through us; we should not allow anything other than this One to fill us and occupy us—2 Cor. 3:17; 13:5; Eph. 3:16-19.