AN OVERVIEW OF THE CENTRAL BURDEN AND PRESENT TRUTH OF THE LORD'S RECOVERY BEFORE HIS APPEARING
Message One
The Ultimate Goal of God's Economy— God Became Man That Man Might Become God in Life and in Nature but Not in the Godhead for the Building Up of the Body of Christ to Consummate the New Jerusalem
Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:4-5; 5:26-27; Heb. 2:10-11; 1 Thes. 5:23
I. The "diamond" in the "box" of the Bible is the revelation that in Christ God has become man in order that man might become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem:
A. "After so many years I have been made by God to know only one thing—God became man so that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. This is my unique burden, my unique message" (The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, p. 27).
B. God's eternal economy is to make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead and to make Himself one with man and man one with Him, thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression, that all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues—1 Tim. 1:3-4; Eph. 3:9; 1:10.
C. God created man in a special way—in His image and according to His likeness and with a spirit to contact Him and receive Him; God did not create mankind; rather, He created man according to His kind—Gen. 1:26; 2:7; Zech. 12:1.
D. God became a man in order to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind— John 1:1, 14; 12:24:
1. This new kind is neither God's kind nor mankind—it is God- man kind.
2. "My burden is to show you clearly that God's economy and plan is to make Himself man and to make us, His created beings, 'God' so that He is 'man-ized' and we are 'God-ized'" (A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing, pp. 51-52):
a. We are born of the great God, so we become God in life and nature but, of course, not in His Godhead; we are ranked with God as our great Originator, and we are His children— Gal. 4:6; Isa. 63:16; 64:8; 66:12-13.
b. He became a God-man so that man can become a man-God; eventually, He and we are in the same category, of the same kind, and on the same level.
E. Athanasius, one of the early church fathers, said concerning Christ, "He was made man that we might be made God," and "The Word was made flesh…that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be deified."
II. The most marvelous, excellent, mysterious, and all-inclusive transformations of the eternal and Triune God in His becoming a man are God's move in man for the accomplishment of His eternal economy—John 1:14, 29; 3:14; 12:24; Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Acts 2:36; 5:31; Heb. 4:14; 9:15; 7:22; 8:2:
A. These transformations are the processes through which the Triune God passed in His becoming a God-man, bringing divinity into humanity and mingling divinity with humanity as a prototype for the mass reproduction of many God-men; He became the embodiment of the Triune God, bringing God to man and making God contactable, touchable, receivable, experienceable, enterable, and enjoyable— John 1:14; 12:24; Col. 2:9.
B. God speaks of these transformations in Hosea 11:4 by saying, "I drew them with cords of a man, / With bands of love"; the phrase with cords of a man, with bands of love indicates that God loves us with His divine love not on the level of divinity but on the level of humanity; God's love is divine, but it reaches us in the cords of a man, that is, through Christ's humanity:
1. The cords (the transformations, the processes) through which God draws us include Christ's incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; it is by all these steps of Christ in His humanity that God's love in His salvation reaches us— Jer. 31:3; John 3:14, 16; 6:44; 12:32; Rom. 5:5, 8; 1 John 4:8-10, 16, 19.
2. Apart from Christ, God's everlasting love, His unchanging, subduing love, could not be prevailing in relation to us; God's unchanging love is prevailing because it is a love in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, and for Christ.
3. In spite of our failures and mistakes, God's love is always victorious; love survives everything and holds its place forever; only love is characteristic of a mature man and will last for eternity—Rom. 8:35-39; 1 Cor. 13:8-11; Jer. 31:3.
C. From ancient times, from the days of eternity, the Triune God was preparing to come forth out of eternity into time, to come with His divinity into humanity by being born in Bethlehem as a man— Micah 5:2:
1. The purpose of the incarnation was to bring God into man and to make God man that man may become God in His life and in His nature but not in His Godhead; He is the unique God for people to worship in His Godhead, but we are only God in life and in nature, not in the Godhead.
2. God's move is in man and through man to deify man, making man God in life, in nature, in function, and in expression but not, of course, in the Godhead; because "the Spirit the Holy" has been dispensed into our spirit, we and the Spirit are one spirit (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17), and our spirit is now "a holy spirit" (2 Cor. 6:6).
3. Thus, as God-men, we should not take any action, face any situation, or meet any need apart from the all-inclusive Spirit; the way that we must take today is the way of moving in the move of the Spirit and of having the Spirit moving in our move—Rev. 22:17a; Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:25; Rom. 1:9; Phil. 3:3; cf. Ezek. 1:15-21.
4. In the book of Acts, man moved in God's move, and God moved in man's move; thus, the apostles became the acting God, that is, God in function—16:6-10.
III. Our becoming God in life and in nature but not in the God- head was initiated by God the Father in eternity past by His choosing us to be holy, predestinating us unto sonship; the divine sanctification for the divine sonship is the center of the divine economy and the central thought of the revelation in the New Testament—Eph. 1:4-5:
A. To be sanctified is to be made holy, which is to be separated unto God and saturated with God as the Holy One, the One who is different, distinct, from everything that is common—1 Pet. 1:15-16; Eph. 1:4-5.
B. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy in order for us to become God in nature (v. 4); God is the only One who is holy; for us to be holy we need God in His holy nature dispensed into us, and this holy nature becomes the holy element with which the Holy Spirit sanctifies us (2 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 12:14).
C. He predestinated us unto sonship even before we were created in order for us to become God in life (Eph. 1:5); for us to become sons of God, we must be born of God by the dispensing of God's life into our being (John 1:12-13; 3:6; 1 John 5:11-12):
1. Ephesians 1:4-5 reveals that God chose us to be holy for the purpose of our being made sons of God; to be made holy is the process, the procedure, whereas to be sons of God is the aim, the goal, so that our whole being, including our body (Rom. 8:23), may be "sonized" by God (Rev. 21:2, 9-11).
2. Hebrews 2:10-11 reveals that the resurrected Christ as the Captain, the Author, of God's salvation is leading many sons into glory by sanctifying them.
IV. The divine sanctification is the holding line in the carrying out of the divine economy to sonize us divinely, making us sons of God that we may become the same as God in His life and in His nature (but not in His Godhead), so that we may be God's expression; hence, God's sanctification is the divine sonizing:
A. We say that sanctification is the holding line because every step of God's work with us is to make us holy; the carrying out of the eternal economy of God is by the Spirit's sanctification—1 Thes. 5:23; John 17:17; Eph. 5:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:11; 12:3b; Heb. 12:4-14; Rom. 8:28-29; Eph. 4:30; 1 Thes. 5:19; Rev. 2:7a; Psa. 73:16-17, 25-26.
B. The seeking sanctification, the initial sanctification, is unto repentance to bring us back to God—1 Pet. 1:2; Luke 15:8-10, 17-21; John 16:8-11.
C. The redeeming sanctification, the positional sanctification, is by the blood of Christ, to transfer us from Adam to Christ—Heb. 13:12; 9:13-14; 10:29.
D. The regenerating sanctification, the beginning of dispositional sanctification, renews us from our spirit to make us, the sinners, sons of God—a new creation with the divine life and nature— John 1:12-13; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15.
E. The renewing sanctification, the continuation of dispositional sanctification, renews our soul from our mind through all the parts of our soul to make our soul a part of God's new creation— Rom. 12:2b; 6:4; 7:6; Eph. 4:23; Ezek. 36:26-27; 2 Cor. 4:16-18.
F. The transforming sanctification, the daily sanctification, reconstitutes us with the element of Christ metabolically to make us a new constitution as a part of the organic Body of Christ—1 Cor. 3:12; 2 Cor. 3:18.
G. The conforming sanctification, the shaping sanctification, shapes us in the image of the glorious Christ to make us the expression of Christ; our conformation is our maturity in the divine life through which we participate in God's divinity in full and are solidified in the possession of His divine element—Rom. 8:28-29; Heb. 6:1a.
H. The glorifying sanctification, the consummating sanctification, redeems our body by transfiguring it to make us Christ's expression in full and in glory—Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:23.
V. The divine, dispositional sanctification is carried out by Christ as the life-giving, sanctifying, and speaking Spirit— 1 Cor. 15:45b; 1 Thes. 5:23; Eph. 5:26:
A. Christ as the life-giving Spirit sanctifies the church by cleansing her according to the washing of the water in the word; according to the divine concept, water here refers to the flowing life of God typified by flowing water (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4; John 7:37-39; Rev. 7:17; 21:6; 22:1, 17); we are now in such a washing process in order that the church may be holy and without blemish.
B. The Greek word for washing in Ephesians 5:26 is literally laver; in the Old Testament the priests used the laver to wash away their earthly defilement (Exo. 30:18-21); day by day, morning and evening, we need to come to the Bible and be cleansed by the laver of the water in the word.
C. Paul uses the Greek word rhema when he speaks of the word with its washing process (Eph. 5:26); logos is God's Word objectively recorded in the Bible; rhema is the word of God spoken to us on a specific occasion (Mark 14:72; Luke 1:35-38; 5:5; 24:1-8).
D. As the life-giving Spirit, Christ is the speaking Spirit; whatever He speaks is the word that washes us; this does not refer to logos, the constant word, but to rhema, which denotes an instant word, the word that the Lord presently speaks to us—Matt. 4:4; John 6:63; Rev. 2:7; 22:17a; cf. Isa. 6:9-10; Matt. 13:14-15; Acts 28:25-31.
E. The rhema reveals something to us personally and directly; it shows us what we need to deal with and what we need to be cleansed from (the laver of bronze was a mirror that could reflect and expose—Exo. 38:8); the important thing for each one of us is this—is God speaking His word to me today?—Rev. 2:7; 1 Sam. 3:1, 21; Amos 3:7.
F. One thing that we always treasure is that the Lord still speaks to us personally and directly today; true growth in life depends upon our receiving the word directly from God; only His speaking in us has true spiritual value—Heb. 3:7-11, 15; 4:7; Psa. 95:7-8.
G. The central point of our prayers should be our longing for the Lord's speaking, which enables us to fulfill the goal of His eternal economy according to His heart's desire to have His divine sonship—Luke 1:38; 10:38-42; Eph. 1:5.
H. In a very practical sense, the Lord's presence is one with His speaking; whenever He speaks, we realize His presence within us; Christ's speaking is the very presence of the life-giving Spirit— cf. Exo. 33:12-17; Heb. 11:8.
I. The speaking of the indwelling Christ as the life-giving Spirit within us is the cleansing water that deposits a new element into us to replace the old element in our nature and disposition; this metabolic cleansing causes a genuine and inward change in life, which is the reality of dispositional sanctification and transformation.
VI. Our being sanctified for the divine sonship ultimately consummates in the New Jerusalem as the holy city (Rev. 21:2, 10) and the aggregate of the divine sonship (v. 7); this is the ultimate consummation of God becoming a man in the flesh that man might become God in the Spirit to gain a corporate, great God-man (vv. 3, 22) for the corporate expression, the glory, of the Triune God (vv. 11, 23).