Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26; 3:15; 22:18; 2 Sam. 7:12-14; John 12:24
In this message I have the burden to speak a word on a very striking matter — the reproduction of God.
After God created the heavens and the earth, one of the angels rebelled and became God’s enemy, Satan. This ruined God’s original creation. Eventually, God came in to repair, remodel, and restore the universe. In this restoration God created billions of living creatures, including all kinds of birds and animals. Although God created so many living creatures, not one of these creatures was like Him. So God made man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26). Therefore, man was not created according to his own kind but according to God’s kind. God did not create mankind; He created man according to God’s kind.
After God finished the creation of Adam and his wife, He looked upon everything that He had made. As He looked upon the earth and everything in it, only Adam and Eve were His delight, His “hobby.” Only they could make God happy because only they were His kind. When God looked at Adam, He might have said, “I am pleased to see man. This is My hobby; this is My kind.” However, God’s hobby was far from complete because at that time man had only God’s image and God’s likeness but not God’s life and God’s nature. Man had God’s image, but he did not have God Himself.
According to His eternal plan God Himself had to become a man. God is almighty and omnipotent, but He never does things in a fast way. We may have an idea and then act upon it immediately. God is not like this. He is very slow and full of patience. He made an economy in eternity past. Then He created the heavens and the earth. Later He repaired and restored the ruined creation, and as the last work in His restoration and further creation, God created man, His hobby. Yet that was not God’s real hobby. God’s real hobby is that God Himself would become a man.
After Adam’s fall and after promising Eve that He would come as the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), God waited thousands of years before becoming a man. If I had been His companion, I would have said, “God, since the desire of Your heart is that You become a man, why would You not do this right now? You told the fallen man that You would come as the seed of the woman. Why would You not come as this seed today?” If God had been asked such questions, He might have said, “I am not small like you are. I am great, and with Me a thousand years are as one day.”
Approximately two thousand years after making the promise in Genesis 3:15, God promised Abraham a seed that would be a blessing to all the nations (22:18). God seemed to be saying, “Abraham, you will have a seed. This seed will be I Myself becoming a man to be the blessing to all the earth.” Unable to be patient, Abraham followed Sarah’s suggestion that he have a child by her handmaid, Hagar. Instead of producing the promised seed, Abraham produced a wrong one, Ishmael. God, however, continued to wait before becoming a man.
After another thousand years, up to David’s time, God still had not come as a man. But God told David that he would have a seed who would be God’s Son (2 Sam. 7:12-14). This Son is just God Himself. God prophesied to David concerning this seed, but He still did not come as a man.
Eventually, after another one thousand years, four thousand years after the creation of Adam, God came to be a man, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a human virgin (Matt. 1:20, 23). He grew up for thirty more years, but no one knew that He was God become a man, a God-man.
One day the Lord Jesus, the God-man, said that He was a grain of wheat falling into the ground to die in order to become many grains (John 12:24). These many grains are actually many gods as the reproduction of God. The first grain — the first God-man — was a prototype, and the many grains — the many God-men — produced by this one grain through death and resurrection are the mass reproduction. This is the reproduction of God. When some hear that God has been reproduced, they may be shocked and say that such a word is nonsensical. Nevertheless, this is what is revealed in John 12:24.
God’s real hobby is to have His reproduction in many nations around the globe. Such a reproduction makes God happy because His reproduction looks like Him, speaks like Him, and lives like Him. God is in this reproduction, and His reproduction has His life, His nature, and His constitution. What a great matter this is!
Although we are God’s reproduction, this reproduction — God’s hobby — is not so complete or perfect, because many of us who have God’s life do not live by His life. Some do live by God’s life, but they do not live by His life continually. Perhaps in the morning they live by God’s life, but later in the day they may lose their temper and live like a scorpion. This means that in the morning they are gods, but later they are “scorpions.” In the evening they may become even worse, living like the devil, Satan. It is not too much to say that a believer in Christ can live like Satan. One day the Lord Jesus turned to Peter, someone who loved Him, and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan!” (Matt. 16:23a). Because Peter had become Satan, he needed to bear his cross so that Satan could be put on the cross.
In our daily living we may be God at one time, a scorpion at another time, and Satan at yet another time. Because this is our actual situation, we surely need to be transformed. Do you know what our God is doing today? God is doing the work of transformation in us with patience.
Since the ministry began in the United States in 1962, I have actually ministered only one matter — God becoming a man that man may become God in life and in nature. However, it was not until February 1994 that I received such a clear view with a heavy burden to tell God’s people that we all are God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
To know who we are and to realize who we are revolutionizes us. Suppose a certain brother who has been living like a scorpion realizes that, as a child of God, he is God in life and in nature. Immediately this brother will be radically changed. The atmosphere and everything related to him will also be changed. If all of today’s Christians realized that they were God in life and in nature, the whole world would be different.
During the past ten months, I have often checked with myself: “Is a God-man like this? You have spoken that the believers have become God in life and in nature, yet what are you now? Are you God or are you something else?” My answer has been to repent and ask for the Lord’s forgiveness because at least some of the things I did were not in Him or according to Him. This realization has revolutionized me.
On the one hand, outwardly God as the Ruler of the universe has done many things so that people from everywhere in the world can be blended. On the other hand, God has a recovery on earth, and His recovery has been under His leading for seventy-two years. During these years He has released thousands of printed messages, and these messages are in thousands of homes. These messages have been received in many countries around the world. On a regular basis I receive letters of appreciation. Recently someone wrote to me saying that he had been listening to lies about us, but when he read the Life-study of Galatians,his eyes were opened and he could see the truth. Such publications have reached many nations, and we believe that the Lord will use them to gain what He desires.
Christianity has been on earth for more than nineteen centuries. It has kept and continues to teach the fundamental faith. But its fundamental faith has not reached the peak of the divine revelation — that God became a man through incarnation and then passed through human living, death, and resurrection in order to have a mass reproduction of Himself. Because fundamental Christianity has not reached this peak, the fundamental teachings have become stale. As a result, many in the denominations do not have a goal, and they do not know where they should go. Even many leading ones in today’s Christianity do not know how to go on; they have nowhere to go. Visit the Christian bookstores and see what kind of books are being sold there. Many books are filled with old, stale fundamental teachings.
Because fundamental Christianity has become stale, it has lost its impact and effect, like salt which has become tasteless (Matt. 5:13). Who is the salt among the Christians in the United States? Salt is supposed to kill corruption, but where is this killing power among today’s Christians? In most communities it is hard to tell who are Christians and who are not Christians. All the people are about the same.
I am glad that during the last ten months the Lord has released the matter of the high peak of the divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. Recently, I wrote in Chinese a hymn on God becoming a man that man may become God in life and in nature. Many saints are beside themselves with joy when they sing this hymn. It is very difficult to translate this hymn into English. The following is a literal translation:
The following is a translation of this hymn in poetry to the tune of #499 in Hymns:
According to this hymn, it is a great miracle and a deep mystery that God has a way to be joined to man and mingled with man. God became man that man may become God. Such an economy is incomprehensible to both angels and man. This economy is of God’s desire, and it will reach, attain, the high peak of God’s goal. Ultimately the holy city, Jerusalem, will be the aggregate of all the visions and revelations throughout the Scriptures. The Triune God and the tripartite man will become a loving couple in eternity as man yet still God. Divinity and humanity will become a mutual abode, and the glory of God will be expressed in humanity radiantly in splendor to the uttermost.
I hope that the saints in all the churches throughout the earth, especially the co-workers and the elders, will see this revelation and then rise up to pray that God would give us a new revival — a revival which has never been recorded in history.
