Living the Life of a God-man (2) Living in the Kingdom of God as the Realm of the Divine Species
Scripture Reading: John 3:3, 5-6; 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 3:1; 2:6
I. The kingdom of God is a realm, not only of the divine dominion but also of the divine species, in which are all the divine things—John 3:3, 5; 18:36:
A. In John 3 the kingdom of God refers more to the species of God than to the reign of God.
B. God became man to enter into the human species, and man becomes God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to enter into His divine species—1:1, 12-14; 2 Pet. 1:4.
C. In order to enter into the divine realm, the realm of the divine species, we need to be born of God to have the divine life and the divine nature—John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5-6, 15; 2 Pet. 1:4:
1. God created man, not after man's kind but in His image and according to His likeness to be God's kind, God's species—Gen. 1:26.
2. The believers, who are born of God by regeneration to be His children in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, are more in God's kind than Adam was—John 1:12-13:
a. We, the believers in Christ and the children of God, have the reality of the divine life, and we are being transformed and conformed to the Lord's image in our entire being—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; 8:29.
b. Our second birth, regeneration, caused us to enter into the kingdom of God to become the species of God—John 3:3, 5-6.
D. To be merely a good man is far away from God's good pleasure; we need to realize that, as believers in Christ, we are God-men in the divine species, children of God possessing the life and nature of God—Eph. 1:5; 1 John 3:1; John 3:15; 2 Pet. 1:4.
E. To realize that we are God-men, born of God and belonging to God's species, is the beginning of the God-man living—1 John 3:1; 2:6.
II. God's intention with Job was that a good man would become a God-man—Job 1:1, 8; 42:1-6:
A. Job was a good man, expressing himself in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity—27:5; 31:6; 32:1:
1. Job feared God positively and turned away from evil negatively—1:1:
a. God did not create man merely to fear Him and to not do anything wrong; rather, God created man in His own image and according to His likeness that man may express God—Gen. 1:26.
b. To express God is higher than fearing God and turning away from evil.
2. Job did not have God within him; thus, God wanted Job to gain Him in order to express Him for the fulfillment of His purpose—Job 42:5-6.
B. God's intention was that Job would become a God-man, expressing God in His attributes—22:24-25; 38:1-3:
1. God ushered Job into another realm, the realm of God, that Job might gain God instead of his attainments in his perfection, righteousness, and integrity—42:5-6.
2. God's intention with Job was to consume him and to strip him of his attainments, his achievements, in the highest standard of ethics in perfection and uprightness—31:6.
3. God's intention was to make Job a man of God, filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ—1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17.
4. God's consuming was exercised over Job to tear him down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself, causing Job to become a God-man expressing God—Eph. 3:16-21.
III. 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—Matt. 1:21, 23; Luke 1:35; Titus 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:5:
A. Initially, the Bible speaks of the God-man; today this God-man has been reproduced to become the God-men—John 12:24; Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29.
B. The God-men, the sons of God, are the duplication and continuation of Christ, the first God-man—John 12:24; Heb. 2:10; Rom. 8:29.
C. A God-man is one who has been born of God and partakes of God's life and nature, becoming one with God in His life and nature and thereby expressing Him—John 1:12-13; 3:15; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 Cor. 6:17.
D. A God-man is constituted with God, having God as his life and his everything; a God-man is man yet God and is God yet man—Eph. 3:16-17a.
E. Christ's human living was man living God to express the attributes of God in the human virtues, which were filled, mingled, and saturated with the divine attributes—Luke 1:26-35; 7:11-17; 10:25-37; 19:1-10.
F. As the reproduction and duplication of the first God-man, we should live the same kind of life that 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 God so that God might be expressed in humanity—Gal. 2:20.
2. We must deny ourselves, be conformed to Christ's death, and magnify Him by the bountiful supply of His Spirit—Matt. 16:24; Phil. 3:10; 1:10-21a.
3. The One who lives the life of a God-man is now the Spirit living in us and through us; we must reject self-cultivation and the building up of our natural man and allow nothing other than this One to fill us and occupy us so that we may live Him and express Him personally and corporately in the church, which is His Body—Eph. 3:16-19; 1:22-23.