1355 The Essence of the Incarnation Is Divine
I
When God becomes flesh and the Spirit is substantiated in the flesh, His essence is divine. God’s Spirit is affixed to His flesh, but He is still almighty. While He is doing His work from within the flesh, His Spirit also operates everywhere. God’s Spirit has the characteristic of being almighty; He controls the entire universe and saves those whom He chooses, and He also works among the churches to enlighten people, while the flesh is doing His work at the same time. However, there are some things the flesh does not know. This not knowing is the normal and practical aspect of Christ. If you deny the aspect of the Spirit because of the practical aspect of the flesh, then you deny that this flesh is God Himself, and you have committed the same error as the Pharisees.
II
The incarnate God is normal and practical. In some matters, He is not as humans imagine—able to know these matters mysteriously without seeing or touching them, not limited by space or geography. That’s not the flesh but the spiritual body. Coming to know God’s incarnation is no simple matter—you must look at it from various angles according to God’s words, make holistic considerations, and absolutely refrain from basing your knowledge on regulations or your own imaginings. During the time when the flesh is at work, it is God Himself that is working: The Spirit is at work and the flesh is also at work, but it’s mainly the flesh that is working—the flesh plays a leading role, while the Spirit performs certain work to enlighten, guide, assist, protect and watch over people.
III
When God becomes flesh, all the manifestations of the flesh are practical and normal, and this practicality and normality is possessed to accomplish the work of conquest and salvation of humankind. The practicality and normality of the flesh is the most normal manifestation of God’s Spirit living in His flesh. No matter what, God’s Spirit and flesh are one, and no one can deny this. Sometimes you have some thoughts and ideas—does the Spirit know what you are thinking? The Spirit of God scrutinizes people’s innermost hearts and knows what people think, but His work is not merely to expose everyone’s thoughts and ideas and revelation of corruption. Rather, He is to express truth from within the flesh to change people’s thoughts and ideas, to change people’s thinking and views, and finally, to change people’s corrupt dispositions.
from The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three