From the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles - Why Did God Make Man in His Image?

     A lot of people have asked questions like why am I here? Or what is the purpose of my life?  When my husband was in high school, these questions bothered him.  Life didn't make sense to him--he couldn't settle for the philosophy that you live, work, and then die.  My husband was like--Is that all? 



Pussy willows are out again!

    When I read about why God created man in the Life-Study of 1 & Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther, it was a whole different take than what he grew up thinking.  In chapters 2, 4, and 7 Witness Lee talks about how God created man. so He could have a  reproduction. This excerpt explains what that means and is from chapter 2, pages 9 -11:

"After God finished the creation of Adam and his wife, He looked upon everything that He had made....However, God's hobby was far from complete because at that time man had only God's image and Gods likeness but not God's life and nature....According to His eternal plan God Himself had to become a man....Eventually after another thousand years, four thousand years after the creation of Adam, God came to be a man, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a human virgin (Matt. 1:20, 23). He grew up for thirty more years, but no one knew that He was God become a man, a God-man" (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra & Nehemiah. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1995, Print).

      Through Witness Lee's study of both the Bible and church history, he used the expression God-man to describe the two natures that the Lord possesses. As you will see in the article quoted below he wasn't the first to do that.  Way back in the second century the church fathers spoke about why the Lord became a man; this is quoted in chapter 7 on page 48:

"The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4):  "For this is why the Word became man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God" (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3. 19, 1).  "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" (St. Athanasius, De inc., 54, 3). "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57:1-4).  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, pp. 115-116).



       It's obvious God isn't happy to just be a God-man all by Himself. In order to do this ,the Bible shows us that the Lord's divine life needed to get into man.  Later on in this chapter Witness Lee says the Lord told His disciples in John 12:24  how this would happen. Through death the Lord would be like a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that He could be reproduced into many grains, like you and me.  Doesn't this astound you? 
 
     Hearing and reading about this truth has helped me understand what God's goal is, and that He is using everything in my life to accomplish this goal of spreading His divine nature into me.  Knowing this has helped me understand why God has arranged so many things in my life!

  You can listen to excerpts of Witness Lee's speaking the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, & Esther on Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee.   You can also read the online Life-Studies of these books and check out other resources available to enhance your study of the Bible on Living Stream Ministry's website.
 
Other Posts from the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, & Esther:

From the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles - How did Watchman Nee & Witness Lee Take a Stand For the Truth?
From the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles - Why Did God Make Man in His Image?
From the Life-Study of Ezra - How God Used a Gentile King to Fulfill His Purpose
From the Life-Study of Ezra - Why Did Ezra Return to Jerusalem?
How Did God Use Nehemiah's Aggressiveness in Nehemiah 2:20?
Why Did Nehemiah Charge Ezra to Read the Bible to the People in Nehemiah 8:1-8?
What's Really Happening in the Story of Esther?

From the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles - How Did Watchman Nee & Witness Lee Take a Stand For the Truth?

     It’s not easy to take a stand.  Especially when you’re being mowed down by people’s ridicule. In chapter seven of the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah Witness Lee shares about a time when his coworker Watchman Nee took a stand for the truth concerning the assurance of salvation. 

Out on a trail with our grandkids

     He relates that when the missionaries first came to China, they did an excellent job translating the Bible, preaching the gospel, and teaching the Chinese people.  But they didn’t make the matter of the assurance of salvation very clear. 

     That might be surprising to you because about a hundred years have passed, and today this truth is very clear, largely in part because this truth was published in the booklet The Assurance, Security, & Joy of Salvation. 

     But I read that back in the early 1900s the missionaries laughed at Watchman Nee when he shared that believers can have the assurance of salvation.  They thought he was proud to say that people could have this certainty. Because of Watchman Nee’s speaking though, thousands of Chinese people believed this truth.  And today millions of Christians all over the world have been blessed by the stand he took. Witness Lee states that since that time several other truths have been recovered, like the truth concerning the New Jerusalem.  I learned on pages 46-47 of chapter 7 of the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles that Witness Lee's speaking on this matter was influenced by other men of God:

Very few Bible teachers have written anything about the spiritual significance of the New Jerusalem. Among these few are a German teacher from long ago named Tersteegen and our dear friend T. Austin-Sparks, whom I regard as the last of the inner-life teachers.  Like Tersteegen, T. Austin-Sparks saw that the New Jerusalem is not a physical city but a sign with a spiritual significance. Brother Sparks pointed out that the spiritual things concerning God, Christ, and the church are mysterious and that God uses signs to reveal the truth regarding such spiritual things. We took his word and still hold to it (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 1& 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1995, Print).

     The first verse of Revelation even states that God made  things known to the Apostle John by signs.  And a lot of the meaning of the signs were even given to John by the Angel.  For instance, the seven lampstands refer to seven churches in Asia, and the Lamb signifies Christ as the Redeemer. Because of this, surely the last sign in this book which is the New Jerusalem  must also have spiritual significance. 

     So what does the New Jerusalem portray?  In chapter 13 he gives this awesome statement about the New Jerusalem: The consummation of the Bible is the New Jerusalem—divinity mingled with humanity. Divinity becomes the dwelling place of humanity and humanity becomes the home of divinity.  In this city the glory of God is manifested in man, brightly and splendidly (page 89).  In both the Life-Study of Revelation and  chapters 29-44 of God's New Testament Economy he speaks extensively on the spiritual meanings found in the New Jerusalem.  These writings have opened my husband's and my heart to understand a little bit more what the Apostle John was saying here. I'm really thankful that both of these men of God were faithful to stand for the truths that God made real to them! 

 You can listen to excerpts of Witness Lee's speaking the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, & Esther on Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee.   You can also read the online Life-Studies of these books and check out other resources available to enhance your study of the Bible on Living Stream Ministry's website.

Other Posts from the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, & Esther:

From the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles - How did Watchman Nee & Witness Lee Take a Stand For the Truth?
From the Life-Study of 1 & 2 Chronicles - Why Did God Make Man in His Image?
From the Life-Study of Ezra - How God Used a Gentile King to Fulfill His Purpose
From the Life-Study of Ezra - Why Did Ezra Return to Jerusalem?
How Did God Use Nehemiah's Aggressiveness in Nehemiah 2:20?
Why Did Nehemiah Charge Ezra to Read the Bible to the People in Nehemiah 8:1-8?
What's Really Happening in the Story of Esther?