Bible Verses for Reference:
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us, (and we beheld
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of
grace and truth” (Jhn 1:14).
“I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jhn 14:6).
“Jesus said to him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet
have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father;
and how say you then, Show us the Father? Believe you not that I am in
the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak to you I speak
not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else
believe me for the very works’ sake” (Jhn 14:9-11).
“I and my Father are one” (Jhn 10:30).
Relevant Words of God:
The meaning of incarnation is that God appears in the flesh, and He
comes to work among man of His creation in the image of a flesh. So, for
God to be incarnated, He must first be flesh, flesh with normal
humanity; this, at the very least, must be true. In fact, the
implication of God’s incarnation is that God lives and works in the
flesh, God in His very essence becomes flesh, becomes a man.
from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
The Christ with normal humanity is a flesh in which the Spirit is
realized, possessing normal humanity, normal sense, and human thought.
“Being realized” means God becoming man, the Spirit becoming flesh; to
put it plainly, it is when God Himself inhabits a flesh with normal
humanity, and through it expresses His divine work—this is what it means
to be realized, or incarnated.
from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
God become flesh is called Christ, and so the Christ that can give
people the truth is called God. There is nothing excessive about this,
for He possesses the substance of God, and possesses God’s disposition,
and wisdom in His work, that are unattainable by man. Those who call
themselves Christ, yet cannot do the work of God, are frauds. Christ is
not merely the manifestation of God on earth, but instead, the
particular flesh assumed by God as He carries out and completes His work
among man. This flesh is not one that can be replaced by just any man,
but one that can adequately bear God’s work on earth, and express the
disposition of God, and well represent God, and provide man with life.
from “Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Because He is a man with the essence of God, He is above any of
created humans, above any man who can perform God’s work. And so, among
all those with a human shell like His, among all those who possess
humanity, only He is the incarnate
God Himself—all others are created humans. Though they all have
humanity, created humans are nothing but human, while God incarnate is
different: In His flesh He not only has humanity but more importantly
has divinity. His humanity can be seen in the outer appearance of His
flesh and in His everyday life, but His divinity is difficult to
perceive. Because His divinity is expressed only when He has humanity,
and is not as supernatural as people imagine it to be, it is extremely
difficult for people to see. … Since God becomes flesh, His essence is a
combination of humanity and divinity. This combination is called God
Himself, God Himself on earth.
from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
His incarnate life and work can be divided into two stages. First is
the life He lives before performing His ministry. He lives in an
ordinary human family, in utterly normal humanity, obeying the normal
morals and laws of human life, with normal human needs (food, clothing,
shelter, sleep), normal human weaknesses, and normal human emotions. In
other words, during this first stage He lives in non-divine, completely
normal humanity, engaging in all the normal human activities. The second
stage is the life He lives after beginning to perform His ministry. He
still dwells in the ordinary humanity with a normal human shell, showing
no outward sign of the supernatural. Yet He lives purely for the sake
of His ministry, and during this time His normal humanity exists
entirely in service of the normal work of His divinity; for by then His
normal humanity has matured to the point of being able to perform His
ministry. So the second stage of His life is to perform His ministry in
His normal humanity, is a life both of normal humanity and of complete
divinity. The reason that, during the first stage of His life, He lives
in completely ordinary humanity is that His humanity is not yet equal to
the entirety of the divine work, is not yet mature; only after His
humanity grows mature, becomes capable of shouldering His ministry, can
He set about performing His ministry. Since He, as flesh, needs to grow
and mature, the first stage of His life is that of normal humanity,
while in the second stage, because His humanity is capable of
undertaking His work and performing His ministry, the life the incarnate
God lives during His ministry is one of both humanity and complete
divinity. If from the moment of His birth the incarnate God began His
ministry in earnest, performing supernatural signs and wonders, then He
would have no corporeal essence. Therefore, His humanity exists for the
sake of His corporeal essence; there can be no flesh without humanity,
and a person without humanity is not a human being. In this way, the
humanity of God’s flesh is an intrinsic property of God’s incarnate
flesh. To say that “when God becomes flesh He is entirely divine, is not
at all human,” is a blasphemy, because this is an impossible stance to
take, one that violates the principle of incarnation. Even after He
begins to perform His ministry, His divinity still inhabits the human
outer shell when He does His work; it is just that at the time, His
humanity serves the sole purpose of allowing His divinity to perform the
work in the normal flesh. So the agent of the work is the divinity
inhabiting His humanity. It is His divinity, not His humanity, at work,
yet it is a divinity hidden within His humanity; His work is in essence
done by His complete divinity, not by His humanity. But the performer of
the work is His flesh. One could say that He is a man and also is God,
for God becomes a God living in the flesh, with a human shell and a
human essence but also the essence of God.
from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
The life that Jesus
lived on earth was a normal life of the flesh. He lived in the normal
humanity of His flesh. His authority—to do God’s work and speak God’s
word, or to heal the sick and cast out demons, to do such extraordinary
things—did not manifest itself, for the most part, until He began His
ministry. His life before age twenty-nine, before He performed His
ministry, was proof enough that He was just a normal flesh. Because of
this, and because He had not yet begun to perform His ministry, people
saw nothing divine in Him, saw nothing more than a normal human being,
an ordinary man—as when at first some people believed Him to be Joseph’s
son. People thought that He was the son of an ordinary man, had no way
of telling that He was God’s incarnate flesh; even when, in the course
of performing His ministry, He worked many miracles, most people still
said that He was Joseph’s son, for He was the Christ with the outer
shell of normal humanity. His normal humanity and His work both existed
in order to fulfill the significance of the first incarnation, proving
that God had entirely come into the flesh, become an utterly ordinary
man. That He had normal humanity before He began His work was proof that
He was an ordinary flesh; and that He worked afterward also proved that
He was an ordinary flesh, for He performed signs and wonders, healed
the sick and cast out demons in the flesh with normal humanity. The
reason that He could work miracles was that His flesh bore the authority
of God, was the flesh in which God’s Spirit was clothed. He possessed
this authority because of the Spirit of God, and it did not mean that He
was not a flesh. Healing the sick and casting out demons was the work
that He needed to perform in His ministry, an expression of His divinity
hidden in His humanity, and no matter what signs He showed or how He
demonstrated His authority, He still lived in normal humanity and was
still a normal flesh. Up to the point that He was resurrected after
dying upon the cross, He dwelt within a normal flesh. Bestowing grace,
healing the sick, and casting out demons were all part of His ministry,
were all work He performed in His normal flesh. Before He went to the
cross, He never departed from His normal human flesh, regardless of what
He was doing. He was God Himself, doing God’s own work, yet because He
was the incarnate flesh of God, He ate food and wore clothing, had
normal human needs, had normal human reason and a normal human mind. All
of this was proof that He was a normal man, which proved that God’s
incarnate flesh was a flesh with normal humanity, not a supernatural
one.
from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
The humanity of God incarnate exists to maintain the normal divine
work in the flesh; His normal human thinking sustains His normal
humanity and all His normal corporeal activities. One could say that His
normal human thinking exists in order to sustain all the work of God in
the flesh. If this flesh did not possess a normal human mind, then God
could not work in the flesh, and what He needs to do in the flesh could
never be accomplished. Though the incarnate God possesses a normal human
mind, His work is not adulterated by human thought; He undertakes the
work in the humanity with a normal mind, under the precondition that He
possesses the humanity with a mind, not by the exercise of normal human
thought. No matter how lofty the thoughts of His flesh are, His work
does not bear the stamp of logic or thinking. In other words, His work
is not conceived by the mind of His flesh, but is a direct expression of
the divine work in His humanity. All of His work is the ministry He
needs to fulfill, and none of it is conceived by His brain. For example,
healing the sick, casting out demons, and the crucifixion were not
products of His human mind, could not have been achieved by any man with
a human mind. Likewise, the conquering work of today is a ministry that
must be performed by the incarnate God, but it is not the work of a
human will, it is the work His divinity should do, work of which no
fleshly human is capable. So the incarnate God must possess a normal
human mind, must possess normal humanity, because He must perform His
work in the humanity with a normal mind. This is the essence of the work
of the incarnate God, the very essence of the incarnate God.
from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
The incarnate Son of man expressed God’s divinity through His
humanity and conveyed the will of God to mankind. And through the
expression of God’s will
and disposition, He also revealed to people the God that cannot be seen
or touched in the spiritual realm. What people saw was God Himself,
tangible and with flesh and bones. So the incarnate Son of man made
things such as God’s own identity, status, image, disposition, and what
He has and is concrete and humanized. Even though the external
appearance of the Son of man had some limitations regarding the image of
God, His essence and what He has and is were entirely able to represent
God’s own identity and status—there were merely some differences in the
form of expression. No matter whether it’s the Son of man’s humanity or
His divinity, we cannot deny that He represented God’s own identity and
status. During this time, however, God worked through the flesh, spoke
from the perspective of the flesh, and stood in front of mankind with
the identity and status of the Son of man, and this gave people the
opportunity to encounter and experience the true words and work of God
among mankind. It also allowed people insight into His divinity and His
greatness in the midst of humility, as well as to gain a preliminary
understanding and a preliminary definition of the authenticity and the
reality of God.
from “God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
Although the appearance of God incarnate is exactly the same as a
human, He learns human knowledge and speaks human language, and
sometimes He even expresses His ideas through mankind’s means or
expressions, the way He sees humans, the essence of things, and the way
corrupt people see mankind and the essence of things are absolutely not
the same. His perspective and the height at which He stands is something
unattainable for a corrupt person. This is because God is truth, the
flesh that He wears also possesses the essence of God, and His thoughts
and that which is expressed by His humanity are also the truth. … No
matter how ordinary, how normal, how lowly God’s incarnate flesh is, or
even how much people look down on Him, His thoughts and His attitude
toward mankind are things that no man could possess, and no man could
imitate. He will always observe mankind from the perspective of
divinity, from the height of His position as the Creator. He will always
see mankind through the essence and the mindset of God. He absolutely
cannot see mankind from the height of an average person, and from the
perspective of a corrupt person. When people look at mankind, they look
with human vision, and they use things such as human knowledge and human
rules and theories as a measure. This is within the scope of what
people can see with their eyes; it’s within the scope that corrupt
people can achieve. When God looks at mankind, He looks with divine
vision, and He uses His essence and what He has and is as a measure.
This scope includes things that people cannot see, and this is where God
incarnate and corrupt humans are entirely different. This difference is
determined by humans’ and God’s different essences, and it is these
different essences that determine their identities and positions as well
as the perspective and height from which they see things.
from “God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
His work and His utterances directly represent the Spirit, the work
He does is carried out by the Spirit, and the words He speaks are spoken
by the Spirit. These things are merely expressed through the incarnate
flesh of God; in actual fact, they are the expression of the Spirit. The
work He does and the words He speaks represent His substance.
from “Practice (7)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
The flesh worn by the Spirit of God is God’s own flesh. The Spirit of
God is supreme; He is almighty, holy, and righteous. So likewise, His
flesh is also supreme, almighty, holy, and righteous. Flesh such as that
is only able to do that which is righteous and beneficial to mankind,
that which is holy, glorious, and mighty, and is incapable of doing
anything that violates the truth or morality and justice, much less
anything that betrays God’s Spirit.
from “A Very Serious Problem: Betrayal (2)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
The incarnate God is called Christ, and Christ is the flesh donned by
the Spirit of God. This flesh is unlike any man that is of the flesh.
This difference is because Christ is not of flesh and blood but is the
incarnation of the Spirit. He has both a normal humanity and a complete
divinity. His divinity is not possessed by any man. His normal humanity
sustains all His normal activities in the flesh, while His divinity
carries out the work of God Himself. Be it His humanity or divinity,
both submit to the will of the heavenly Father.
The substance of Christ is the Spirit, that is, the divinity.
Therefore, His substance is that of God Himself; this substance will not
interrupt His own work, and He could not possibly do anything that
destroys His own work, nor would He ever utter any words that go against
His own will. Therefore, the incarnate God would absolutely never do
any work that interrupts His own management. This is what all man should
understand. The essence of the work of the Holy Spirit
is to save man and is for the sake of God’s own management. Similarly,
the work of Christ is to save man and is for the sake of God’s will.
Given that God becomes flesh, He realizes His substance within His
flesh, such that His flesh is sufficient to undertake His work.
Therefore, all the work of God’s Spirit is replaced by the work of
Christ during the time of incarnation, and at the core of all work
throughout the time of incarnation is the work of Christ. It cannot be
commingled with work from any other age. And since God becomes flesh, He
works in the identity of His flesh; since He comes in the flesh, He
then finishes in the flesh the work that He ought to do. Be it the
Spirit of God or be it Christ, both are God Himself, and He does the
work that He ought to do and performs the ministry that He ought to
perform.
The substance of God itself wields authority, but He is able to fully
submit to the authority that comes from Him. Be it the work of the
Spirit or the work of the flesh, neither conflicts with the other. The
Spirit of God is the authority over all creation. The flesh with the
substance of God is also possessed of authority, but God in the flesh
can do all the work that obeys the will of the heavenly Father. This
cannot be attained or conceived by any man. God Himself is authority,
but His flesh can submit to His authority. This is the inner meaning of
the words: “Christ obeys the will of God the Father.” God is a Spirit
and can do the work of salvation, as can God become man. Anyway, God
Himself does His own work; He neither interrupts nor interferes, much
less carries out work that is mutually conflicting, for the substance of
the work done by the Spirit and the flesh are alike. Be it the Spirit
or the flesh, both work to fulfill one will and to manage the same work.
Though the Spirit and the flesh have two disparate qualities, their
substances are the same; both have the substance of God Himself, and the
identity of God Himself. God Himself has no elements of disobedience;
His substance is good. He is the expression of all beauty and goodness,
as well as all love. Even in the flesh, God does not do any that
disobeys God the Father. Even at the expense of sacrificing His life, He
would be whole-heartedly willing and make no other choice. God has no
elements of self-rightness and self-importance, or those of conceit and
arrogance; He has no elements of crookedness. All that disobeys God
comes from Satan; Satan is the source of all ugliness and wickedness.
The reason that man has qualities alike those of Satan is because man
has been corrupted and worked on by Satan. Christ has not been corrupted
by Satan, hence He has only the characteristics of God and none of
those of Satan. No matter how arduous the work or weak the flesh, God,
while He lives in the flesh, will never do anything that interrupts the
work of God Himself, much less forsake the will of God the Father in
disobedience. He would rather suffer pains of the flesh than go against
the will of God the Father; it is just as Jesus said in prayer, “Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I
will, but as You will.” Man will choose, but Christ would not. Though He
has the identity of God Himself, He still seeks the will of God the
Father, and fulfills what is entrusted to Him by God the Father, from
the perspective of the flesh. This is something that is unattainable to
man. That which comes from Satan cannot have the substance of God, only
one that disobeys and resists God. It cannot fully obey God, much less
willingly obey the will of God. All man apart from Christ can do that
which resists God, and not one can directly undertake the work entrusted
by God; not one is able to regard the management of God as their own
duty to perform. Submitting to the will of God the Father is the
substance of Christ; disobedience against God is the characteristic of
Satan. These two qualities are incompatible, and any who has the
qualities of Satan cannot be called Christ. The reason that man cannot
do the work of God in His stead is because man does not have any of the
substance of God. Man works for God for the sake of man’s personal
interests and of his future prospects, but Christ works to carry out the
will of God the Father.
The humanity of Christ is governed by His divinity. Though He is in
the flesh, His humanity is not entirely like that of a man of the flesh.
He has His own unique character, and this too is governed by His
divinity. His divinity has no weakness; the weakness of Christ refers to
that of His humanity. To a certain degree, this weakness constrains His
divinity, but such limits are within a certain scope and time, and are
not boundless. When it comes time to carry out the work of His divinity,
it is done regardless of His humanity. The humanity of Christ is
entirely directed by His divinity. Aside from the normal life of His
humanity, all other actions of His humanity are influenced, affected and
directed by His divinity. Though Christ has a humanity, it does not
disrupt the work of His divinity. This is precisely because the humanity
of Christ is directed by His divinity; though His humanity is not
mature in His conduct before others, it does not affect the normal work
of His divinity. When I say that His humanity has not been corrupted, I
mean that the humanity of Christ can be directly directed by His
divinity, and that He is possessed of a higher sense than that of the
ordinary man. His humanity is most suited to being directed by the
divinity in His work; His humanity is ablest to express the work of the
divinity, as well as ablest to submit to such work. As God works in the
flesh, He never loses sight of the duty that a man in the flesh ought to
fulfill; He is able to worship God in heaven with a true heart. He has
the substance of God, and His identity is that of God Himself. It is
only that He has come to earth and become a created being, with the
exterior shell of a created being, and now possessed of a humanity that
He did not have before; He is able to worship God in heaven. This is the
being of God Himself and is inimitable to man. His identity is God
Himself. It is from the perspective of the flesh that He worships God;
therefore, the words “Christ worships God in heaven” are not in error.
What He asks of man is precisely His own being; He has already achieved
all that He asks of man prior to asking such of them. He would never
make demands of others while He Himself gets free from them, for this
all constitutes His being. Regardless of how He carries out His work, He
would not act in a manner that disobeys God. No matter what He asks of
man, no demand exceeds that which is attainable by man. All that He does
is carrying out the will of God and is for the sake of His management.
The divinity of Christ is above all men, therefore He is the highest
authority of all created beings. This authority is His divinity, that
is, the disposition and being of God Himself, which determines His
identity. Therefore, no matter how normal His humanity, it is undeniable
that He has the identity of God Himself; no matter from which
standpoint He speaks and howsoever He obeys the will of God, it cannot
be said that He is not God Himself. Foolish and ignorant men often
regard the normal humanity of Christ as a flaw. No matter how He
expresses and reveals the being of His divinity, man is unable to
acknowledge that He is Christ. And the more that Christ demonstrates His
obedience and humility, the more lightly foolish men regard Christ.
There are even those who adopt toward Him an attitude of exclusion and
contempt, yet place those “great men” of lofty images upon the table to
be worshiped. Man’s resistance to and disobedience of God come from the
fact that the substance of the incarnate God submits to the will of God,
as well as from the normal humanity of Christ; herein lies the source
of man’s resistance to and disobedience of God. If Christ had neither
the guise of His humanity nor sought the will of God the Father from the
perspective of a created being, but was instead possessed of a super
humanity, then there likely would be no disobedience in any man. The
reason man is always willing to believe in an invisible God in heaven is
because God in heaven has no humanity and He does not have a single
quality of a created being. So man always regards Him with the greatest
esteem, but holds an attitude of contempt toward Christ.
Though Christ on earth is able to work on behalf of God Himself, He
does not come with the intention of showing all men His image in the
flesh. He does not come for all men to see Him; He comes to allow man to
be led by His hand, thereby entering into the new age. The function of
Christ’s flesh is for the work of God Himself, that is, for the work of
God in the flesh, and not to enable man to fully understand the
substance of His flesh. No matter how He works, it does not exceed that
which is attainable to the flesh. No matter how He works, He does so in
the flesh with a normal humanity, and does not fully reveal to man the
true countenance of God. Additionally, His work in the flesh is never as
supernatural or inestimable as man conceives. Even though Christ
represents God Himself in the flesh and carries out in person the work
that God Himself ought to do, He does not deny the existence of God in
heaven, nor does He feverishly proclaim His own deeds. Rather, He humbly
remains hidden within His flesh. Apart from Christ, those who falsely
claim to be Christ do not have His qualities. When juxtaposed against
the arrogant and self-exalting disposition of those false Christs, it
becomes apparent what manner of flesh is truly Christ. The more false
they are, the more such false Christs show off themselves, and the more
capable they are of working signs and wonders to deceive man. False
Christs do not have the qualities of God; Christ is not tainted by any
element belonging to false Christs. God becomes flesh only to complete
the work of the flesh, not simply to allow all men to see Him. Rather,
He lets His work affirm His identity, and allows what He reveals to
attest to His substance. His substance is not baseless; His identity was
not seized by His hand; it is determined by His work and His substance.
Though He has the substance of God Himself and is capable of doing the
work of God Himself, He is still, after all, flesh unlike the Spirit. He
is not God with the qualities of the Spirit; He is God with the shell
of flesh. Therefore, no matter how normal and how weak He is, and
howsoever He seeks the will of God the Father, His divinity is
undeniable. In the incarnate God exists not only a normal humanity and
its weaknesses; there exists even more the wonderfulness and
unfathomableness of His divinity, as well as all His deeds in the flesh.
Therefore, both humanity and divinity actually and practically exist
within Christ. This is not in the least empty or supernatural. He comes
to earth with the primary objective of carrying out work; it is
imperative to be possessed of a normal humanity to carry out work on
earth; otherwise, however great the power of His divinity, its original
function cannot be put to good use. Though His humanity is of great
importance, it is not His substance. His substance is the divinity;
therefore, the moment He begins to perform His ministry on earth is the
moment He begins to express the being of His divinity. His humanity is
solely to sustain the normal life of His flesh so that His divinity can
carry out work as normal in the flesh; it is the divinity that directs
His work entirely. When He completes His work, He will have fulfilled
His ministry. What man ought to know is the entirety of His work, and it
is through His work that He enables man to know Him. Over the course of
His work, He quite fully expresses the being of His divinity, which is
not a disposition tainted by humanity, or a being tainted by thought and
human behavior. When the time comes when all His ministry has come to
an end, He will have already perfectly and fully expressed the
disposition that He ought to express. His work is not instructed by any
man; the expression of His disposition is also quite free, is not
controlled by the mind or processed by thought, but is revealed
naturally. This cannot be achieved by any man. Even if the surroundings
are harsh or the conditions do not permit, He is able to express His
disposition at the appropriate time. One who is Christ expresses the
being of Christ, while those who are not do not have the disposition of
Christ. Therefore, even if all resist Him or have notions of Him, none
can deny on the basis of man’s notions that the disposition expressed by
Christ is that of God. All those who pursue Christ with a true heart or
seek God with intent will admit that He is Christ based on the
expression of His divinity. They would never deny Christ on the basis of
any aspect of Him that does not conform to man’s notions. Though man is
very foolish, all know exactly what is the will of man and what
originates from God. It is merely that many people intentionally resist
Christ due to their own intents. If not for this, not a single man would
have reason to deny the existence of Christ, for the divinity expressed
by Christ does indeed exist, and His work can be witnessed by the naked
eye of all.
The work and expression of Christ determines His substance. He is
able to complete with a true heart that which has been entrusted to Him.
He is able to worship God in heaven with a true heart, and with a true
heart seek the will of God the Father. This is all determined by His
substance. And so too is His natural revelation determined by His
substance; the reason His natural revelation is so called is because His
expression is not an imitation, or the result of education by man, or
the result of many years of cultivation by man. He did not learn it or
adorn Himself with it; rather, it is inherent within Him. Man may deny
His work, His expression, His humanity, and the entire life of His
normal humanity, but none can deny that He worships God in heaven with a
true heart; none can deny that He has come to fulfill the will of the
heavenly Father, and none can deny the sincerity with which He seeks God
the Father. Though His image is not pleasing to the senses, His
discourse not possessed of an extraordinary air, and His work not as
earth-shattering or heaven-shaking as man imagines, He is indeed Christ,
who fulfills the will of the heavenly Father with a true heart,
completely submits to the heavenly Father, and is obedient to the death.
This is because His substance is the substance of Christ. This truth is
hard for man to believe but does indeed exist. When the ministry of
Christ has been completely fulfilled, man will be able to see from His
work that His disposition and His being represent the disposition and
being of God in heaven. At that time, the summation of all His work can
affirm that He is indeed the flesh which the Word becomes, and not alike
that of a flesh and blood man.
from “The Substance of Christ Is Obedience to the Will of the Heavenly Father” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
He makes painstaking efforts for us, loses sleep and appetite for us,
weeps for us, sighs for us, groans in sickness for us, suffers
humiliation for the sake of our destination and salvation, and His heart
bleeds and sheds tears for our numbness and rebelliousness. Such being
and possessions of His are beyond an ordinary person, and cannot be
possessed or attained by any of the corrupted. He has tolerance and
patience possessed by no ordinary person, and His love is not possessed
by any created being. No one apart from Him can know all of our
thoughts, or have such a grasp of our nature and substance, or judge the
rebelliousness and corruption of mankind, or speak to us and work among
us like this on behalf of the God of heaven. No one except for Him can
possess the authority, wisdom, and dignity of God; the disposition of
God and what He has and is are issued forth, in their entirety, from
Him. No one apart from Him can show us the way and bring us light. No
one apart from Him can reveal the mysteries God has not disclosed from
creation until today. No one apart from Him can save us from Satan’s
bondage and our corrupt disposition. He represents God, and expresses
the heart’s voice of God,
the exhortations of God, and the words of judgment of God toward all
mankind. He has begun a new age, a new era, and brought a new heaven and
earth, new work, and He has brought us hope, and ended the life we led
in vagueness, and allowed us to fully behold the path of salvation. He
has conquered our whole being, and gained our hearts. From that moment
onward, our minds become conscious, and our spirits seem to be revived:
This ordinary, insignificant person, who lives among us and has long
been rejected by us—is He not the Lord Jesus,
who is ever in our thoughts, and whom we long for night and day? It is
He! It’s really Him! He is our God! He is the truth, the way, and the
life!
from “Beholding the Appearance of God in His Judgment and Chastisement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Whatever the age or place in which God is incarnated, the principles
for His work in the flesh remain unchanging. He cannot become flesh yet
transcend the flesh to work; moreover, He cannot become flesh yet not
work within the normal humanity of the flesh. Otherwise, the
significance of God’s incarnation would dissolve into nothing, and the
Word become flesh would become entirely meaningless. Moreover, only the
Father in heaven (the Spirit) knows of God’s incarnation, and none
other, not even the flesh Himself or the messengers of heaven. As such,
God’s work in the flesh is even more normal and better able to
demonstrate that indeed the Word becomes flesh; the flesh means an
ordinary and normal man.
from “The Mystery of the Incarnation (1)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
This flesh is man and also God, is a man possessed of normal humanity
and also God possessed of full divinity. And so, even though this flesh
is not the Spirit of God, and differs greatly from the Spirit, it is
still the incarnate God Himself who saves man, who is the Spirit and
also the flesh. No matter what He is called by, ultimately it is still
God Himself who saves mankind. For the Spirit of God is indivisible from
the flesh, and the work of the flesh is also the work of the Spirit of
God; it is just that this work is not done using the identity of the
Spirit, but is done using the identity of the flesh.
from “Corrupt Mankind Is More in Need of the Salvation of God Become Flesh” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
What is covered in the expressions of the Spirit? Sometimes the
practical God works in humanity, and sometimes in divinity—but overall,
in both cases the Spirit is in command. … The practical God Himself that
is spoken of today works both in humanity and in divinity. Through the
appearance of the practical God, His normal human work and life and His
completely divine work are achieved. His humanity and divinity are
combined in one, and the work of both is[a]
accomplished through words; whether in humanity or divinity, He utters
words. When God works in humanity, He speaks the language of humanity,
so that people may engage and understand. His words are spoken plainly,
and are easy to understand, such that they can be provided to all
people; regardless of whether these people are possessed of knowledge,
or poorly educated, they can all receive God’s words. God’s work in
divinity is also carried out through words, but it is full of provision,
it is full of life, it is untainted by human ideas, it does not involve
human preferences, and it is without human limits, it is outside the
bounds of any normal humanity; it, too, is carried out in the flesh, but
it is the direct expression of the Spirit. … God’s appearance in the
flesh means that all of the work and words of the Spirit of God are done
through His normal humanity, and through His incarnate flesh. In other
words, God’s Spirit both directs His human work and carries out the work
of divinity in the flesh, and in God incarnate you can see both God’s
work in humanity and completely divine work; this is the real
significance of the practical God’s appearance in the flesh. If you can
see this clearly, you will be able to connect all of the different parts
of God, and will cease to place too much of a premium on His work in
divinity, and to be too dismissive of His work in humanity, and you will
not go to extremes, nor take any detours. Overall, the meaning of the
practical God is that the work of His humanity and of His divinity, as
directed by the Spirit, is expressed through His flesh, so that people
can see that He is vivid and lifelike, and real and actual.
from “You Should Know That the Practical God Is God Himself” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Footnotes:
a. The original text reads “and both are.”
Source from：The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven
Recommendation：
Know more of the Church of Almighty God
How did the Church of Almighty God come into being?
Investigating the Eastern Lightning
Why Christians Spread the Gospel?
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