Crystallization-Study Outlines
The Gospel of Luke

Message One

The Incarnation of Christ, the Man-Savior,
Fulfilling God’s Purpose in His Creation of Man

Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26-27; Luke 1:35;
John 1:1, 14; 1 Tim. 3:16

1. In order to know Christ, the God-man, as the Man-Savior, we need to know the intrinsic significance of Christ’s incarnation—Luke 1:35:
   1. In His incarnation Christ brought the infinite God into the finite man—Micah 5:2; John 8:58; Luke 2:40, 52.
   2. In His incarnation Christ was the complete God manifested in the flesh—1 Tim. 3:16:
      1. He was manifested in the flesh not only as the Son but also as the complete God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35; John 8:29.
      2. The entire God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—participated in the incarnation of Christ—1:14; Luke 1:35; Gal. 4:4.
   3. The incarnation of Christ was the union, mingling, and incorporation of the Triune God with the tripartite man—Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 14:
      1. Union concerns oneness in life; mingling is related to the divine and human natures; and incorporation denotes persons coinhering in each other.
      2. Through His incarnation Christ brought God into man and made God one with man—v. 14.
      3. The incarnation of Christ was the mingling of divinity with humanity—Luke 1:35, 42-43:
         1. The weaving together of the gold and the linen threads in the ephod signifies the mingling of divinity and humanity in Christ, the God-man (the two natures remaining distinct in the mingling)—Exo. 28:6.
         2. Through Christ’s incarnation the gold and the linen, divinity and humanity, were woven together, mingled—John 1:1, 14.
      4. As the God-man, the Man-Savior was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence and was born of a human virgin with the human essence—Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:31, 35; Gal. 4:4:
         1. The conception of the Holy Spirit in a human virgin, accomplished with both the divine and human essences, constituted a mingling of the divine nature with the human nature, producing the God-man, the One who is both the complete God and a perfect man, possessing the divine nature and the human nature distinctly, without a third nature being produced—Luke 1:35; 2:40, 52.
         2. This is the most wonderful and excellent person of Christ in His incarnation—Isa. 9:6.
      5. Christ in His incarnation was the incorporation of the Triune God with the tripartite man—John 14:10-11:
         1. God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation; the three of the Divine Trinity are incorporated into one incorporation by coinhering mutually and by working together as one—vv. 10-11.
         2. In His incarnation the second of the Divine Trinity brought this incorporation into humanity—1:14.
      6. As the union, mingling, and incorporation of the Triune God with the tripartite man, the Lord Jesus is the Triune God-man—v. 14; Col. 2:9; 1 Tim. 3:16:
         1. Christ is not only the God-man but also the Father-the Son-the Spirit-man—Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35; John 8:29.
         2. The Savior in whom we believe and whom we have received is the wonderful Triune God-man—Luke 2:11; Acts 5:31; Phil. 3:20.
2. The incarnation of Christ, the Man-Savior, fulfilled God’s purpose in His creation of man—Eph. 1:9; 3:11; Gen. 1:26-27:
   1. It is a great thing to see that the incarnation of Christ is closely related to the purpose of God in creating man—Rev. 4:11; John 1:14; Luke 1:35.
   2. God’s purpose in His creation of man in His image and according to His likeness was that man would receive and contain Him as life and express Him in His attributes—Gen. 1:26-27.
   3. Man was created in God’s image and according to God’s likeness in order to be God’s duplication for God’s expression:
      1. In Genesis 1:26-27 image refers to the inward being, and likeness, to the outward expression—2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; Phil. 2:7.
      2. The image of God is related to His duplication; God created man in His own image with the intention that man would become His duplication—Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10.
      3. Image implies that man has the capacity to take God in and contain Him; God created man in His image to be His container—Gen. 2:7; 2 Cor. 4:7.
      4. Likeness refers to outward form, outward fashion, outward appearance; hence, likeness is a matter of expression—Gen. 1:26; Phil. 2:7:
         1. Man was made in God’s image to be a duplicate of God and according to God’s likeness to have the appearance of God for His expression.
         2. The image is the inward reality of the outward expression, and the likeness is the expression, or the outward appearance, of the image.
      5. The image of God is related to the divine attributes, especially love, light, righteousness, and holiness—1 John 4:8, 16; 1:5; Rom. 3:21-22; Heb. 12:10:
         1. For God to create man in His image means that He created man with the capacity to have His love, light, righteousness, and holiness.
         2. The human virtues created by God are the capacity to contain God’s attributes—Luke 1:75.
      6. In order for God’s purpose to be carried out, it is necessary for man to receive God and contain Him as the tree of life—Gen. 2:7, 9; John 3:15.
   4. Since the first man, Adam, failed God in His purpose, God Himself came in the Son through incarnation to be the second man in order to fulfill His purpose that man would contain Him and express Him—1 Cor. 15:47.
   5. The Gospel of Luke is a revelation of the God-man who lived a human life filled with the divine life as its content, thereby expressing God in humanity—7:11-17, 36-50; 10:25-37; 19:1-10:
      1. The divine nature with its attributes was expressed in the Man-Savior’s human nature with its human virtues; thus, the living of the Lord Jesus was humanly divine and divinely human—1:26-35; 2:7-16, 34-35, 40, 52.
      2. We need to know the Lord as the One who lived a life in which the human virtues expressed the divine attributes.
      3. “Lord, we see Thy glory, / Shown in human beauty, / Full of splendor, manifested / In humanity” (Hymns, #62).