Ⅹ Questions and Answers About the Truth of Incarnation
Question 1: I’ve believed in the Lord for many years. Although I know the Lord Jesus is the God incarnate, I still don’t understand much about the truth of His incarnation. If the Lord comes again and appears just as He did then, working as the Son of man, we won’t be able to recognize Him, and we can’t welcome His coming. The incarnation truly is a mystery. Very few people can understand the truth of it. Please fellowship about what incarnation truly is.
Answer: That’s a very good question. Incarnation is indeed a huge mystery. For thousands of years, no one has understood the truth of incarnation. That is a fact. Almighty God comes in the last days and reveals the mystery of incarnation to man by Himself. Only then do we understand the truth of incarnation. Let’s read some passages from Almighty 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” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” 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” (“The Substance of Christ Is Obedience to the Will of the Heavenly Father” 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” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” 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” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
From Almighty God’s words, we know incarnation means that God’s Spirit becomes a flesh, that is, God’s Spirit is realized in the flesh with normal humanity and normal mind. He becomes an ordinary man to work and speak among mankind. This flesh has a normal humanity and complete divinity. Though ordinary and normal in appearance, this flesh can undertake God’s work, express God’s voice, lead mankind, and also save mankind. That’s because He has complete divinity. This complete divinity is the inherent disposition of God, which His Spirit possesses. Also God’s holy and righteous substance, what God has and is, His almightiness and wisdom, and His authority and power are all realized in the flesh. This flesh is Christ and indeed is the practical God who comes to the earth to do the work of saving mankind. In appearance, Christ is an ordinary and normal Son of man, but there are substantive differences between Him and created humans. The created man has humanity without any divine substance; yet Christ not only has normal humanity, but more importantly has complete divinity. So He has God’s substance, and can fully represent God: He can express all the truths with God’s identity, express God’s disposition and what God has and is, and He can bestow on man the truth, the way, and the life. This is beyond any created man’s capability. When Christ works, speaks and expresses God’s disposition and what God has and is, He expresses all of these in the flesh. No matter how He expresses God’s word and work, He lives in normal humanity all along. So He is of normal flesh, not supernatural. So this proves God has come into the flesh and He has become an ordinary man. It’s this ordinary and normal flesh that fulfills the fact of “the Word appearing in the flesh.” This is the incarnate practical God. Because Christ has complete divinity, He can represent God, express the truth, and save all mankind. Because Christ has complete divinity, He can directly express God’s words instead of conveying them. He can express the truth anytime, anywhere to supply man, water man and shepherd man. He can lead the entire human race. Because Christ has complete divinity, which fully suggests that He has God’s identity and God’s substance, we can say that He is God incarnate, the practical God Himself.
The greatest mystery of incarnation is not about whether God’s flesh looks lofty or ordinary, but that inside this completely ordinary looking man, there is a hidden full divinity. This hidden divinity can’t be discovered or seen by anyone. Just as when the Lord Jesus came to work, if people couldn’t hear His voice and didn’t experience His word or work, then no one would know that the Lord Jesus was Christ and the Son of God. Thus, incarnation is the best way for God to descend secretly among man. When the Lord Jesus came, nobody could tell from His appearance that the Lord Jesus was Christ, the God incarnate. Nor could anyone find that there was divinity hidden inside His humanity. Not until the Lord Jesus expressed the truth and did the redemptive work did man find His words had authority and power and they began to follow Him. It was after the Lord Jesus was resurrected and appeared to man that man truly saw the Lord Jesus was the incarnate Christ, the appearance of God. If He hadn’t expressed the truth and done the work, no one would have followed Him. If He hadn’t testified Himself as Christ, the appearance of God, no one would have recognized Him. We have a conception and imagination: If He’s really God’s incarnate flesh, He would be an extraordinary flesh, like a great man, so majestic, lofty, and dignified, and He not only speaks words with authority and power but also shows us signs and wonders, for only that is the God incarnate; if the flesh looks ordinary like a common man, and has normal humanity, he can’t be the God incarnate. Then let us all recall this. When the Lord Jesus was indeed incarnated to work and speak, no matter how He expressed the truth and God’s voice, no one recognized Him. And when someone testified to the Lord Jesus, they said, “Isn’t he the son of Joseph?” “Isn’t he a Nazarene?” Why did they talk about Him in that way? It’s because Jesus possessed normal humanity outwardly. He looked like an ordinary man, not like a great man at all. So they didn’t accept Him. Actually, God incarnate shall indeed have normal humanity. People will know that the flesh God takes on is ordinary and normal. He shall be just a real and normal man in appearance. If God takes on an extraordinary flesh, a special flesh, not a real human, the significance of His incarnation is gone. Therefore, Christ has to possess normal humanity, and has to be a real human. Only that can prove He is the “Word” become flesh.
Let’s read Almighty God’s word. Almighty God says, “The significance of incarnation is that an ordinary, normal man performs the work of God Himself; that is, that God performs His divine work in humanity and thereby vanquishes Satan. … If, during His first coming, God had not had the normal humanity before the age of twenty-nine—if as soon as He was born He could work miracles, if as soon as He learned to speak He could speak the language of heaven, if the moment He first set foot upon the earth He could apprehend all worldly matters, discern every person’s thoughts and intentions—then He could not have been called a normal man, and His flesh could not have been called human flesh. If this had been the case with Christ, then the meaning and the essence of God’s incarnation would have been lost. That He possessed normal humanity proves that He was God incarnated in the flesh; the fact that He underwent a normal human growth process further demonstrates that He was a normal flesh; and moreover, His work is sufficient proof that He was God’s Word, God’s Spirit, becoming flesh. God becomes flesh because of the needs of the work; in other words, this stage of work needs to be done in the flesh, done in normal humanity. This is the prerequisite for ‘the Word becoming flesh,’ for ‘the Word appearing in the flesh,’ and is the true story behind God’s two incarnations” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
“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. … 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. … 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” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
From Almighty God’s words, we can clearly see the God incarnate needs to have normal humanity and has to be a real man. In appearance, He is still an ordinary and normal man. His humanity is not supernatural. If people judge Christ according to their imaginations and conceptions, they’ll never truly acknowledge Christ and accept Christ. At most, they’ll accept Him as a prophet sent by God, or a man used by God. To know Christ, we must investigate His work and words to tell whether what He expresses is God’s voice, whether His expression is the disposition of God, and what God has and is, and whether the truth and the work He expresses can actually save mankind. Only in this way are we able to know, accept, and obey Christ. If people don’t seek the truth or investigate God’s work, even if they do hear Christ’s words and see the facts of His work, they won’t be able to know Christ. Even if they live with Christ by day and by night, they’ll still treat Christ just as an ordinary man, and will resist and condemn Him. Actually, to acknowledge and accept Christ, we only need to recognize God’s voice, and admit that it’s God’s work. But to truly know Christ’s divine substance, in order to truly obey Christ and love the practical God, what we must do is discover the truth from Christ’s work, and from His words. We need to see God’s disposition and what God has and is. We need to see God’s holy substance, almightiness and wisdom. We need to find God’s loveliness, His kind and thoughtful heart. If we do all these things, we’ll obey Christ truly and worship the practical God from our hearts.
We believers in the Lord all know the way the Lord Jesus preached, the words He expressed, the mystery of the kingdom of heaven He revealed, and His requirements for man, are all truths and the voice of God. They’re the expression of God’s disposition and also what God has and is. The signs that He performed, healing and casting out demons, calming the wind and waves, feeding 5000 men with five loaves and two fish, raising the dead, and so on, these are the manifestations of God’s authority and power, which cannot be possessed or attained by any created being. During that time, the truth seekers like Peter, John, Matthew and Nathanael, recognized the Lord Jesus from His words and work. They found He was the Messiah who was to come and so they followed Him and gained His salvation. The Jewish Pharisees, though having heard the Lord Jesus’ sermons and witnessed His signs and miracles, only believed that He was just a normal and ordinary man with no influence or fame. So they condemned and resisted Him fiercely and fearlessly. And so, eventually they nailed Him to the cross and committed a heinous crime. The Pharisees’ failure is really thought-provoking. It has fully revealed their antichrist nature of hating the truth and God, and also revealed the foolishness and ignorance of the corrupt mankind. Now, the incarnate Almighty God, like the Lord Jesus, does God’s own work in His normal humanity. Almighty God has expressed all the truths that corrupt mankind must possess to be saved and does the work of “judgment beginning with the house of God” in the last days. He not only reveals and judges mankind’s satanic nature and their corruption, but also shows all the mysteries about the six-thousand-year management plan of the salvation that He has for humans. He shows man how to break away from sins, become holy and be saved by God. He reveals to man God’s inherent righteous disposition, what God has and is and God’s unique authority and power…. Almighty God’s work and words have fully shown God’s own identity and substance. Today, people follow Almighty God, because they hear God’s voice from Almighty God’s work and words and see the appearance of God’s words in the flesh, thus returning before His throne to accept His purification and perfection. But the religious people who still resist, deny, and condemn Almighty God have undoubtedly made the same mistake as the Jewish Pharisees. They treat Christ of the last days—Almighty God as an ordinary man. They don’t seek to investigate the truth expressed by Almighty God. In the end, they nail God to the cross again, and have provoked God’s disposition. Obviously, if we hold on to our conceptions and imaginations without seeking and investigating the truth expressed by Christ, we won’t recognize God’s voice uttered by Christ, nor will we accept or obey Christ’s work. As a consequence, we will never gain God’s salvation in the last days. If we don’t know the truth of incarnation, we will not accept or obey God’s work. Besides, we’re likely to be punished and cursed by God for condemning Christ and resisting God. Therefore, seeking the truth and knowing the mystery of incarnation is so extremely important and crucial for us all to be saved.
from the movie script of The Mystery of Godliness
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