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”

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”

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)”

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”

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 meaning, 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”

Footnotes:

a. The original text reads “and both are.”

Source From: Walk In The Light

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