By Panyan,
April 1, 2018 Cloudy
Every time when I contemplated God’s love, I would think of how the Lord Jesus had endured much suffering throughout His thirty-three and a half years. He was hunted by King Herod soon after He was born; He was abandoned, condemned, maligned, and blasphemed by the Jewish chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees since He began to work, for His work went beyond the law; ultimately He was nailed to the cross.
Yet no one can fathom God’s work. By being crucified, He completed His work of redeeming mankind in His sinless flesh, so that we can have the chance to come before God and receive His salvation. God really had paid too much price for saving us mankind. Thinking of this, I was moved very much and so I resolved to follow the Lord properly and repay His love.
However, in recent days, some questions arose in my heart: In the Age of Law of the Old Testament, Jehovah God worked in the Spirit, but why did God become flesh to work in the Age of the New Testament? What’s the advantage of the work of the incarnate God? I was very confused about these questions. Though having searched many scriptures in the Bible, I still didn’t find the answers.
April 16, 2018 Sunny
I was very excited these days because I came across a friend, who I hadn’t seen for a long time, who also believes in the Lord. When I spoke to him about my confusion, he gave me a book of truth and told me it could resolve my questions. For this reason, I couldn’t wait to ask him to fellowship with me about the contents in it.
Through his fellowship about the words in this book, I understood more about the truth of God’s incarnation. The book says: “If God does not become flesh, He remains the Spirit both invisible and intangible to man. Man is a creature of flesh, and man and God belong to two different worlds and are different in nature. The Spirit of God is incompatible with man of flesh, and no relations can be established between them; moreover, man cannot become a spirit. As such, the Spirit of God must become one of the creatures and do His original work. God can both ascend to the highest place and humble Himself by becoming a man of creation, doing work and living among man, but man cannot ascend to the highest place and become a spirit and much less can he descend to the lowest place. Therefore, God must become flesh to carry out His work. … only the flesh of God incarnate could redeem man through His crucifixion, whereas it was not possible for the Spirit of God to be crucified as a sin offering for man. God could directly become flesh to serve as a sin offering for man, but man could not directly ascend to heaven to take the sin offering that God had prepared for them. As such, God must journey to and fro between heaven and earth, rather than letting man ascend to heaven to take this salvation, for man had fallen and could not ascend to heaven, much less obtain the sin offering. Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus to come among men and personally do the work that simply could not be accomplished by man” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)”).
Thank the Lord! These words explained God’s incarnation so clearly. Indeed! God is Holy. How can we humans who are deeply corrupted ascend to heaven to see Him? If we saw the face of God’s Spirit, all of us would be smitten. So God became flesh and came to the filthy land to save us. In the latter period of the Age of Law, people were corrupted more and more deeply by Satan, and lived in sin, often breaking the law and offending Jehovah God; yet without power to overcome sin, their offering the sacrifices and confessing their sins became rituals; they were unable to observe the law and faced the dangers of execution. God didn’t have the heart to see mankind created by Him be condemned and executed by the law, so He was incarnated to be man’s sin offering and bore the sins of all mankind, redeeming them from sins. It was not possible for the Spirit of God to be crucified directly, and mankind was incapable of ascending to heaven to take the sin offering. Therefore, God must become flesh to be a sin offering and personally bear all men’s sins through His crucifixion, redeeming us mankind from the cross, that is, redeeming us from sins. Only in this way can we mankind have opportunities to repent and confess to God and receive the Lord’s salvation. After understanding these, I was very touched: God is holy and possesses no filthiness and corruption, but He would rather endure extreme humiliation to come to the filthy land, eating, staying, and living together with men, in order to save us corrupt mankind. God’s love is so real and His essence is so beautiful and good. Only God will pay such a high price for us mankind!
April 20, 2018 Sunny
Today my friend came to visit me, and then we read the book together. The book says: “The best thing about His work in the flesh is that He can leave accurate words and exhortations, and His accurate will for mankind to those who follow Him, so that afterward His followers can more accurately and more concretely pass on all of His work in the flesh and His will for the whole of mankind to those who accept this way. Only the work of God in the flesh among man truly accomplishes the fact of God’s being and living together with man. Only this work fulfills man’s desire to behold the face of God, witness the work of God, and hear the personal word of God” (“Corrupt Mankind Is More in Need of the Salvation of God Become Flesh”).
After we read this paragraph, he fellowshiped: “Only by being incarnated to do His work, can God bring us His accurate words, His will and His requirements, so that we can have more knowledge of Him. During the period of His getting along with the disciples, the Lord Jesus told them many teachings: being tolerant and patient, loving their enemies, preaching His gospel to the ends of the earth, and so on. He straightforwardly told man how to practice conforming to God’s intention. For example, once Peter asked the Lord Jesus, ‘Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?’ The Lord Jesus directly told him, ‘I say not to you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven’ (See Matthew 18:21-22). From the words of the Lord Jesus, we can accurately understand God’s will, know what He likes and what He hates, and have the accurate way to practice according to God’s word, instead of casting around and conjecturing. So the Lord Jesus’ being incarnated to do His work is helpful for us to understand His intentions and practice His word, and moreover it allows us to get closer to God, genuinely feel the real existence of God, and obtain true knowledge of and faith in God. These are the greatest advantages of God’s incarnation.” Hearing his fellowship, I realized God is so wise and almighty in His work and that God’s incarnation is very beneficial for us mankind to know God and understand His will. If God hadn’t become flesh to work or leave accurate words, how could we corrupt mankind fathom God’s intentions? So God’s incarnation is very essential for us.
April 23, 2018 Sunny
Today in the meeting with my friend, I gained some new insights through reading a paragraph in the book: “The reason why I became flesh is so that you may see what I am and have in My humanity. In the future, I will let you witness what I am and have in My divinity. Things must proceed step by step in this way. Otherwise, people will simply be unable to believe, and they will have no knowledge of Me. Instead they will only be unclear and indistinct about visions and will be unable to have a clear understanding of Me” (“The Ninety-seventh Utterance”). These words are very well spoken! Jesus’ incarnation indeed allowed us to have more knowledge and understanding of the normal humanity of God incarnate and have a closer relationship with God. Otherwise, we would always think that God can do His work in the Spirit and that He is unfathomably mysterious and unapproachable. The incarnate Lord Jesus, who looked just the same as an ordinary person outwardly, underwent a normal human growth process, and ate, clothed, lived, and walked like a normal man and also had emotions. For example, the Lord Jesus cried when He heard the news that Lazarus had died; He felt happy when He saw people were getting married. Not only does God have real, ordinary, and normal humanity, and He also has the divine substance not possessed by man. For example, after Jesus was nailed to the cross and then resurrected, He could penetrate walls, and move and work freely on earth, unfettered by flesh. The most important thing was that the Lord Jesus in the flesh could express the truth, and preach the way of repentance, and moreover He bore the sins of man as the sin offering. He redeemed mankind from sins and forgave their sins so that people could have opportunities to come before God to pray and continue receiving His salvation. Only incarnate God can do such work; none of the corrupt people can. Only in this way can man have more knowledge of God in the flesh, and see His dearness, loveliness, wisdom and almightiness. The significance of God’s incarnation is incredibly deep! God’s incarnation is truly a huge blessing for us who follow God, allowing us to have the opportunity to know God and attain His salvation. Thank God!
This book of truth has brought me so many gains. I finally understood why the Lord Jesus worked in the flesh rather than in the Spirit. This really is a mystery. Only God can explain His own work clearly. Could it be that the words in this book are God’s words? Could it be that they are expressed by God? Could it be that God has returned? I must ask for clarification from my friend right now.
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