Question 4: You testify that, in outward appearance, God’s incarnation looks just like an ordinary person, just like the Lord Jesus Himself, He not only possesses normal humanity, but also has divinity. This much is certain. What is the difference between the normal humanity of God’s incarnation and that of corrupt man?
Answer: This is a very key issue. An issue that is of chief importance in our understanding of God’s incarnation! When God is incarnated in the flesh to become Christ, man could plainly see the normal humanity in Christ. Christ expresses the truth and does His work in His normal humanity. Even when He performs signs and wonders, He does so in normal humanity, there is nothing supernatural about Him. This allows us to see the very normal nature of Christ’s humanity, because of this, it is difficult for many to believe that Christ is God incarnate. Thus, during the Age of Grace, those who followed the Lord Jesus called Him Christ, the Son of God, but almost no one obeyed and worshiped the Lord Jesus as God Himself. Why was this? I believe this was mainly because Christ’s humanity is very normal, there is absolutely nothing supernatural. In the eyes of men, Christ is just an ordinary person. So no matter how the Holy Spirit testified, man still had difficulty thinking of the Lord Jesus as God. The other issue was that the men of that age experienced far too little of the Lord Jesus’ word, so it was very difficult for them to understand the truth and know the divine substance of Christ. Christ has normal humanity, but very few has a thorough understanding of Christ’s normal humanity. Christ is without sin, His normal humanity is holy. He is without impurities and corruption, arrogance, rebellious disposition, and certainly lacks baseness and selfishness. This is vastly different from man’s humanity, the two are simply incomparable. Let’s read two passages of Almighty God’s word to get a clearer picture.
Almighty God says: “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. Likewise, His flesh is also supreme, almighty, holy, and righteous. Such a flesh can only do that which is righteous and beneficial to mankind, that which is holy, glorious, and mighty; He is incapable of doing anything that violates the truth, that violates morality and justice, and much less is He capable of anything that would betray God’s Spirit. The Spirit of God is holy, and thus His flesh is incorruptible by Satan; His flesh is of a different essence than the flesh of man. For it is man, not God, who is corrupted by Satan; Satan could not possibly corrupt the flesh of God. Thus, despite the fact that man and Christ dwell within the same space, it is only man who is possessed, used, and entrapped by Satan. By contrast, Christ is eternally impervious to Satan’s corruption, because Satan will never be capable of ascending to the highest place, and will never be able to draw near to God” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. A Very Serious Problem: Betrayal (2)).
“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. … The humanity of Christ is directed entirely 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, and this is precisely because the humanity of Christ is directed by His divinity; though His humanity is not mature in how it conducts itself with 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 commanded 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 most able to express the work of the divinity, and most able 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 essence 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” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Essence of Christ Is Obedience to the Will of the Heavenly Father).
From Almighty God’s word, we see that because God’s incarnation has divine substance and the Holy Spirit is realized and dwells within Him, Satan is incapable of corrupting Him. This is because Christ is the truth, is the way, and is the life. He is impervious to Satan’s corruption. Just as with us, if one day we acquire the entirety of the truth, then Satan will also be incapable of deceiving and corrupting us. Then we will truly be of God. We now can clearly see our own corrupt humanity is worlds away from Christ’s normal humanity! Within Christ’s normal humanity, there is the conscience and rationality of normal man, there is true love in His heart for God, and there is true obedience toward God. When Christ works and speaks in His normal humanity, no matter how the evil forces of Satan slander, condemn or blaspheme Him, no matter what difficulties He faces in His work, He always obeys God completely, and to carry out God’s will, He is willing to pay any price. Just like when the Lord Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by Satan, He overcame the temptation of worldly riches and power and thoroughly defeated Satan. And especially when the Lord Jesus was about to be nailed to the cross, despite the weakness innate to His humanity, despite the excruciating torment in His heart, the Lord Jesus placed carrying out God’s will above all else, preferring to sacrifice His own life and have nails driven through His live body rather than abandon God’s will. No corrupt human could accomplish this feat. Not an ounce of the Lord Jesus is arrogant and self-important. Though He is God Himself, living in the company of men, yet the Lord Jesus never puts Himself in the position of God. He humbly hid Himself among men, speaking and working, serving and supplying man; He healed man’s illness and drove out the devils within them, He relieved their worries and resolved their difficulties, even sitting amongst sinners, etc. From the incarnate Lord Jesus we see how Christ’s humanity is holy and good. Christ manifests all aspects of normal humanity. Christ truly obeys and loves God, and loves others as He loves Himself. Thus, Christ is able to undertake God’s commission, do God’s work, and carry out God’s will.
Through this fellowship, we’ve seen how Christ’s humanity is what really counts as normal humanity. Christ is capable of fulfilling God’s commission, doing His work, and carrying out His will. If our humanity could be as holy as Christ’s, would we not then be able to carry out the will of the heavenly Father? Unfortunately, we have all been deeply corrupted by Satan. Our humanity is full of satanic disposition, our words and actions are manipulated by our satanic nature, arrogant, treacherous, greedy, selfish, repulsed by the truth, worshipful of evil… We live like demons, there is nothing normal about such humanity! Though we believe in the Lord, we don’t truly obey Him. When God’s work is not in keeping with our conceptions and illusions, we rebel against, resist, and even betray God. Even those who make significant expenditures for the Lord, who work tirelessly in His service, they do so only to be rewarded and enter into the kingdom of heaven. They do it for their own benefit, not out of consideration of God’s will, or to carry out God’s will. Is this not the true state of the corrupt humankind? As is clear, the true substance of corrupt man is satanic, it is resistant to and traitorous of God, what man manifests is all satanic disposition, there is not a bit of humanity to be found. But the incarnate Christ is different. Because Christ has divine substance and has not been corrupted by Satan, He is without sin. Within Christ there is no rebellion or resistance, no arrogance, selfishness or treachery. Christ is able to obey God and carry out God’s will absolutely. Only Christ’s humanity is normal humanity. This is the substantive difference between the normal humanity of God incarnate and the humanity of corrupt man. There are many who do not know Christ’s normal humanity and even form conceptions and judgments against Christ. What is the issue here? Corrupt man is far too arrogant and obsessed with evil! They worship Satan in their hearts, and follow Satan without even knowing it; they resist and condemn Christ with passion, what unspeakable evil! They are downright degenerate! God has appeared in the flesh, and does His work within normal humanity, yet humans, in their blindness, fail to see, they just can’t recognize Him. How do they expect to gain God’s commendation? How do they expect to be raptured into the kingdom of heaven?
—The movie script of The Mystery of Godliness: The Sequel