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Scripture Reading: John 3:16; Eph. 1:5, 9; Gen. 1:26; Prov. 20:27; Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 3:11; Gen. 2:9; 3:24; John 14:6; Heb. 10:19-20; John 1:1-5, 11-13; 3:6b, 3, 5
I. God so loved the world that He gave them His only begotten Son, that they may receive Him by believing into Him to have the eternal life — the divine life — John 3:16.
II. His good pleasure is to be one with man and make man the same as He is in life and in nature but not in His Godhead — Eph. 1:5, 9.
III. He created man:
А. In His image and according to His likeness — Gen. 1:26.
B. With a spirit (breath of life — spirit of man — Prov. 20:27) for man to receive and contain Him so that man may live by Him as man’s life (signified by the tree of life) and everything — Gen. 2:7.
C. Implanting in their heart eternity (a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy) — Eccl. 3:11.
D. Putting man in front of the tree of life (signifying God, the Creator of man, to be man’s life) — Gen. 2:9.
IV. The way for man to contact God as the tree of life was closed due to man’s fall by:
А. God’s glory, signified by the cherubim.
B. God’s holiness, signified by the burning flame.
C. God’s righteousness, signified by the slaying sword — 3:24.
V. In the New Testament this closed way was opened by the Lord who through His death fulfilled all the requirements of God’s glory, holiness, and righteousness. Hence, the crucified Christ becomes the reopened way for man to contact God as the tree of life — John 14:6; Heb. 10:19-20.
VI. The way the God-man is born of God through regeneration:
А. In the creating of all things, Christ, as the Word of God, is the divine life — John 1:1-4.
B. This divine life in Christ is the light of men shining with the divine life over men in darkness — vv. 4-5.
C. Whoever receives this shining light and believes into Christ, as the Word of God who contains God’s divine life, will have the authority to become children of God — vv. 11-12.
D. They are born not of blood (the physical life), nor of the will of the flesh (the will of fallen man after man became flesh), nor of the will of man (the will of the man created by God), but of God, who is the source of life and the fountain of life — v. 13.
E. All these children are God-men born of God.
F. They are regenerated of God the Spirit to be spirits — gods (3:6b) belonging to the species of God to see and enter into the kingdom of God (vv. 3, 5).
In this series of messages we want to see the God-man living. This God-man living consists of the eight major items of Christ’s organic saving: regeneration, shepherding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, conformation, and glorification. To touch the God-man living means to touch these eight major items. The commencement of the God-man living is our being born of God through regeneration. We need a particular beginning to have a certain kind of living. The living must have the birth as its beginning.
God so loved the world that He gave them His only begotten Son, that they may receive Him by believing into Him to have the eternal life — the divine life (John 3:16). John 3:16 says that God so loved. God loved the world so much, to such an extent, that He gave His only begotten Son to us. This was for the purpose that we may believe into Him and receive Him so that we may have the eternal life. The eternal life is the goal of God’s loving of us. Then we can be His children forming the church, issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating in the New Jerusalem. This conjoins God’s love with the New Jerusalem. God’s love is linked with the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate consummation of God’s love.
God’s good pleasure is to be one with man and make man the same as He is in life and in nature but not in His Godhead (Eph. 1:5, 9). Ephesians 1:5 says that God predestinated us unto sonship according to the good pleasure of His will. Unto sonship means to make us sons. God predestinated us, marked us out, before the foundation of the world so that we could be made His sons according to His good pleasure. If we would ask, “Father God, what is Your good pleasure?” He would say, “My good pleasure is to make Myself one with you and to make you My sons.”
Ephesians 1:9 also speaks of God’s good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself. God has a plan to fulfill, and this plan is to have the church as the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem. We need the entire Bible to understand this one verse of the Bible in Ephesians. The good pleasure of God is to have us as His sons, and eventually, all these sons ultimately consummate the New Jerusalem. We should not forget these items — first, God loves us, and second, He has a good pleasure. According to the revelation of the Bible, God’s good pleasure is to have many sons and have all these many sons consummated as the New Jerusalem.
In view of His good pleasure to have many sons consummated as the New Jerusalem, He created man in a special way.
According to Genesis 1:26, God created man in His image and according to His likeness.
Furthermore, God created man with a spirit for man to receive and contain Him so that man may live by Him as man’s life (signified by the tree of life) and everything (2:7). Man’s human spirit is God’s breath of life. The Hebrew word for breath in Genesis 2:7 is the same word for spirit in Proverbs 20:27, which says that the spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah.
God created man in His image and with a human spirit for man to receive and contain Him. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God put eternity in man’s heart. The things in this universe are mainly of two categories: temporal things and eternal things. In 2 Corinthians 4:18 Paul says, “We do not regard the things which are seen but the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” This verse is the proper explanation of Solomon’s word in Ecclesiastes 3:11. The wise king said that God created everything beautiful in its own time and also put eternity in man’s heart. This matches our human experience. Regardless of how rich or successful a person becomes, he still feels empty. Man has a deep desire for permanent things, and the only things that are permanent are the eternal things. The Amplified Bible says that eternity in man’s heart is “a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy.” We have a sense of a purpose, which nothing can satisfy but God. Only God can satisfy the sense of purpose in our heart.
In God’s creation of man there are three striking things: His image, our human spirit to receive Him, and a divinely implanted sense of a purpose in our hearts working through the ages, which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy. The romance depicted in Song of Songs does not start from the Lord but from the seeker. A person becomes such a seeker because within him there is a sense of purpose to seek something eternal. Nothing can fulfill or satisfy this sense of purpose but God Himself, who is Christ. Many people would think that we are wasting our time, but actually, we are redeeming the time. Those who pursue temporary things are wasting their time. They are busy for nothing. Anything they are busy for is temporary, not eternal. Only One in the whole universe is eternal — the eternal God.
God created man in His image, with a human spirit, and with a sense of a purpose deeply implanted in his heart. Then God put this man in front of the tree of life — signifying God, the Creator of man, to be man’s life (Gen. 2:9).
The way for man to contact God as the tree of life was closed due to man’s fall by God’s glory, signified by the cherubim, God’s holiness, signified by the burning flame, and God’s righteousness, signified by the slaying sword (3:24). The slaying sword was for executing God’s righteousness. God’s glory, God’s holiness, and God’s righteousness were the gatekeepers around the tree of life.
In the New Testament this closed way was opened by the Lord who through His death fulfilled all the requirements of God’s glory, holiness, and righteousness. Hence, now the crucified Christ becomes the reopened way for man to contact God as the tree of life (John 14:6; Heb. 10:19-20). In John 14:6 the Lord said, “I am the way and the reality and the life.” He became the way by being crucified. Hebrews 10 says that today a new and living way has been opened for us through His death. Christ with His death is the reopened way for man to contact God as the tree of life.
Now we want to see the way the God-man is born of God through regeneration, the first item of the organic salvation of Christ. In the creating of all things, Christ, as the Word of God, is the divine life (John 1:1-4). In John 1 there are five great events in the history of the universe: creation (v. 3), incarnation (v. 14), Christ being the Lamb of God for redemption (v. 29), Christ’s becoming the life-giving Spirit for transformation (vv. 32, 42), and the building up of the house of God with Christ as the ladder bringing heaven to earth and joining earth to heaven (v. 51). Ultimately, the consummated New Jerusalem will be the very Bethel, the house of God. Christ as the ladder is for the traffic between heaven and earth. The angels of God, the serving ones, ascend and descend on this ladder to serve us. We are the house, the enjoyers.
In writing about Christ as the Word of God, speaking for God and revealing God, John chose these five events. In creation Christ spoke God. The creation speaks for God. Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God and that without a voice heard, the creation still speaks (vv. 1-4). Paul says in Romans 1:20 that God’s eternal power and divine characteristics can be seen by man through God’s creation. Eventually, millions of items of God’s creation are praising God at the end of the Bible (Rev. 5:11-14). Creation is speaking for God. That is the word of Christ speaking. Incarnation continues to speak and reveal God. John 1:29 says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” This is also a big speaking. Then there is the transforming Spirit transforming the men of clay into stones for the building of Bethel, which will be the consummated New Jerusalem.
These five great events in the history of the universe are the “trunk” of John 1. Out of this trunk a little branch springs up. This branch is that in this Word is life, and the life is the light that shines with the life (vv. 4-5). The divine life in Christ is the light of men shining with the divine life over men in darkness.
Whoever receives this shining light and believes into Christ, as the Word of God who contains God’s divine life, will have the authority to become children of God (vv. 11-12).
These ones are born not of blood (the physical life), nor of the will of the flesh (the will of fallen man after man became flesh), nor of the will of man (the will of the man created by God), but of God, who is the source of life and the fountain of life (v. 13). God is the source of life. He is also the fountain of life that flows. In John’s writings he describes God as the flowing One. Eventually, the Triune God flows out as the river of water of life, and this flow reaches all the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem on the four sides to satisfy and nourish the entire city (Rev. 22:1). God as the fountain flows out as the spring in John 4:14. The Lord gives us the water of life, which becomes in us a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.
Not many Christians have paid full attention to regeneration as they should. Our being born of our parents was our first birth. Then one day we received Christ because of His light, and we were regenerated. We had another birth. But I would ask: Of these two births, which one receives more of our attention — the first birth of our parents or the second birth of God? We should not pay attention to our first birth. We should remember only one birth — our regeneration. Day by day we should not forget that we are children of God, born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Today we believers in Christ know who our Father is. We respect our second birth, the birth in which we were born of the very God.
The children of God are God-men born of God.
We are regenerated of God the Spirit to be spirits — gods (3:6b) belonging to the species of God to see and enter into the kingdom of God (vv. 3, 5). John 1 tells us how we received the authority to become children of God. Then John 3 speaks of regeneration again. Verse 6 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We are flesh and born of the flesh in our natural life. But we were born of God the Spirit to be spirits, gods. That which is born of a cow is a cow. That which is born of a horse is a horse. We are born of the Spirit, and the Spirit is God. John 4:24 tells us clearly that God is Spirit. Because we are born of God the Spirit, we must be gods in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. If we do not believe that we who are born of God are gods, then what are we? That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Our second birth caused us to enter into the kingdom of God to become the species of God. The animals and plants have their particular species. We are born of God, so we are gods belonging to the species of God. We should always remember that we are God-men belonging to the species of God. A God-man does not quarrel with others. This is an intrinsic study of the Word of God.
Regeneration is the first step of Christ’s organic salvation. The washing of regeneration purges away all the things of the old nature of our old man (Titus 3:5). This washing is an organic saving. Without regeneration’s washing, there would be layers of the old creation in our being. Perhaps some would feel that they are not of the species of God but of the “species” of Americans. This species should be washed away. We need to see that regeneration as the first step of Christ’s organic saving is to wash away the layers of the old creation of our old nature.
We must not forget that we are God-men belonging to God’s species. As God-men born of God and belonging to God’s species, we cannot speak to our spouse in a loose way. A husband must be a God-man, living as a God-man. To be merely a good man is far away from God’s good pleasure. We need to see that we are God-men, born of God and belonging to God’s species. This is the beginning of the God-man living.
God loves you. God has a good pleasure to make you the same as He is. He is God, so you must be God also. A God-man living is God living. This kind of teaching is much higher than the teaching concerning how to be holy or victorious. In my early days as a believer, I saw many books on how to live the Christian life, but these books did not really reveal the way. How can you be holy? You can be holy by living a God-man life. How can you be victorious? It is only by living a God-man life. Never forget that you are a God-man, born of God and belonging to God’s species.
