VI. THE PURPOSE OF THE INCARNATION
A. To Bring God into Man
The purpose of the incarnation is to bring God into man. God is in us (1 John 4:15), and we have to realize that the first step God took to get into us was to be incarnated. Furthermore, God was incarnated not only in Jesus but also in us. To be saved is to have God incarnated in you. This is because incarnation brings God into man. Before you were saved, you had nothing to do with God. But since the day you believed into the Lord Jesus, God was incarnated in you. This means that God came into you. In human history, God never came into man until four thousand years after His creation of man. He was born into man to bring God into man. When God comes into a person through regeneration, the incarnation is repeated again.
B. To Make God Man That Man May Become God
in Life and Nature but Not in the Godhead
God in eternity past was God only, but in incarnation He was made man. He made Himself man that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. We may be able to say that we "become like God" in life and nature, but do we have the boldness to say that we "become God" in life and nature? We need to see that we have been born of God, and we are the sons of God. Have you not been born of man? Then are you not man? If you are not man, then what are you? In the same way, since we are born of God and are the sons of God, are we not God? You are whatever you have been born of. If you have been born of Chinese, you are Chinese. If you have been born of Caucasians, you are Caucasian. Since we are born of God, we may say and even we should say that we are God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
The church fathers taught the truth concerning deification in the first four centuries. They pointed out clearly that deification means that the believers in Christ have been made God in His life and in His nature but not in His Godhead. He is the unique God for people to worship in His Godhead, but we are God only in life and in nature, not in the Godhead. We all have to be clear that today we are God-men. Others should be able to sense that we are men plus something else. They may not be able to pin down what we are, but they can sense that we have something more. Eventually, when we speak something concerning Christ, they all will realize that what we have as something more is Christ Himself, that is, God. This is the testimony of a God-man.
(The Move of God in Man, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)
