Message Three

The Man-Savior’s God-man Living and Ministry

Scripture Reading: Luke 1:35; 2:40, 49, 51-52; 3:21-22;
5:15-16; 9:51-56; 10:25-42; 23:42-43

1. The Gospel of Luke unveils the God-man living of the Man-Savior as typified by the meal offering—Lev. 2:1-16:
   1. The conception of the Savior was God’s incarnation (the mingling of God and man as typified by the meal offering), constituted not only by the divine power but also of the divine essence added to the human essence, thus producing the God-man of two natures—divinity and humanity—vv. 4-5; John 1:14; Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35:
      1. The Man-Savior is a genuine man with the real human nature and the perfect human virtues for the qualification to be man’s Savior—1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 2:14; cf. John 19:5.
      2. He is also the complete God with the true divine nature and the excellent divine attributes to empower and ensure His ability to save man—Col. 2:9; 1 John 1:7; Acts 20:28.
      3. Christ expressed in His humanity the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues, by which He attracted and captivated people, not by living His human life in the flesh but by living His divine life in resurrection—Matt. 4:18-22; 19:13-15; Mark 16:7; Luke 8:1-3.
   2. Fine flour, the main element of the meal offering, signifies Christ’s humanity, which is fine, perfect, tender, balanced, and right in every way, with no excess and no deficiency; this signifies the beauty and excellence of Christ’s human living and daily walk—Lev. 2:1; Luke 23:14:
      1. He grew up in a family that was filled with the knowledge and love of God’s holy Word, as indicated by Mary’s receiving of God’s word as the Lord’s slave and her poetic praise filled with God’s word—1:37-38, 46-55.
      2. While He was growing in stature as a man, He became strong in spirit; He was filled with the wisdom of His deity and needed the grace of God in His humanity—2:40, 52; cf. 1:80.
      3. At the age of twelve He cared for His Father’s will, but at the same time He was subject to His parents—2:49, 51.
      4. He advanced in grace before God because He was growing in the expression of God according to God’s desire, and He advanced in grace before men because He was growing in the divine attributes manifested in the human virtues; hence, He was growing as a God-man before God and men—v. 52.
      5. He spoke words of grace and showed His steadiness under the threatening of His opposers—4:21-22, 28-30.
      6. He was the exulting One and the weeping One; He exulted in the Holy Spirit for the will of God and wept for the city of Jerusalem—10:21; 19:41.
      7. When the Samaritans rejected Him, He desired to save them, and when people welcomed Him, He withdrew in the wilderness and prayed—9:51-56; 5:15-16.
   3. The oil of the meal offering signifies the Spirit of God as the divine element of Christ—Lev. 2:1; Luke 1:35; 3:22; 4:18; Heb. 1:9:
      1. He was born of the Spirit, and the Spirit descended upon Him as a dove—Luke 1:35; 3:21-22.
      2. He was full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, in the power of the Spirit, and anointed with the Spirit—4:1, 14, 18.
   4. The frankincense in the meal offering signifies the fragrance of Christ in His resurrection; that the frankincense was put on the fine flour signifies that Christ’s humanity bears the aroma of His resurrection—Lev. 2:1-2:
      1. When the Lord was being arrested, Peter cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave, but the Lord healed his ear and stopped the sword—Luke 22:50-51; John 18:11.
      2. Christ’s Spirit-filled and resurrection-saturated living was a satisfying fragrance to God, giving God rest, peace, joy, enjoyment, and full satisfaction—Luke 3:22; 4:1; Lev. 2:1-2.
   5. Salt, with which the meal offering was seasoned, signifies the death, or the cross, of Christ; salt functions to season, kill germs, and preserve—v. 13:
      1. The Lord Jesus always lived a life of being salted, a life under the cross—Luke 12:49-50.
      2. Even before He was actually crucified, Christ daily lived a crucified life, denying Himself and His natural life and living the Father’s life in resurrection as a man of prayer; prayer is the real denial of the self—3:21; 5:16; 6:12-13; 9:28-29; 23:34, 46.
   6. The meal offering typifies our Christian life as a duplication of Christ’s God-man living and our church life as the corporate living by the perfected God-men—Lev. 2:4; Psa. 92:10; 1 Pet. 2:21; Rom. 8:2-3, 11, 13:
      1. If we eat Christ as the meal offering, we will become what we eat and live by what we eat—John 6:57, 63; 1 Cor. 10:17; Phil. 1:19-21a.
      2. The humanity of Jesus is in the Spirit of Jesus; if we drink of the Spirit of Jesus and feed upon the humanity of Jesus, we will become “Jesusly” human—John 6:57; 7:37-39; Acts 16:7; 1 Cor. 12:3b, 13; Num. 20:8.
      3. By exercising our spirit to touch the Spirit consolidated in the Word, we eat the human life and living of Jesus, we are constituted with Jesus, and the human living of Jesus becomes our human living—Eph. 6:17-18; Jer. 15:16; Gal. 6:17; Phil. 1:19-21a; cf. Isa. 7:14-15.
      4. Christ’s life and our individual Christian life issue in a totality—the church life as a corporate meal offering; God desires that every local church be a meal offering to satisfy Him and fully supply the saints day by day—Lev. 2:1-2, 4; 1 Cor. 12:12, 24; 10:17; cf. Psa. 36:8-9; Rev. 2:7; 22:1-2a.
2. The Gospel of Luke unveils the ministry of the Man-Savior in His human virtues with His divine attributes:
   1. The Man-Savior healed the slave of the centurion, who saw that the Lord was a man under authority with the word of authority—7:1-10:
      1. In the Man-Savior’s human virtue, as a man under authority, He was willing to go to the home of the centurion—v. 6.
      2. In the Man-Savior’s divine attribute, He spoke the word of authority to heal the centurion’s slave—vv. 7-10.
   2. The Man-Savior showed pity to a weeping widow by raising up her only son—vv. 11-17:
      1. In His human virtue of compassion, the Man-Savior spoke to the widow and touched the bier of the “only son of his mother” (v. 12); [note: He also healed the daughter of Jairus, his “only daughter” (8:42), and cast a demon out of a man’s son, his “only child” (9:38)].
      2. His divine attributes were expressed in His human virtues by His raising the young man from the dead.
   3. The Man-Savior forgave a sinful woman—7:36-50:
      1. The Man-Savior’s human virtues of affection, kindness, patience, mercy, and understanding were displayed in His fellowship with this woman.
      2. His divine attributes, especially the attributes of divine authority to forgive a person’s sins and His giving of peace to the forgiven sinner, were also displayed—vv. 49-50.
   4. The Man-Savior presented the parable of the good Samaritan to signify the expression of His divine attributes with His human virtues—10:25-37:
      1. The Man-Savior, in His lost-one-seeking and sinner-saving ministry journey (19:10), came down to the place where the wounded victim of the Judaistic robbers lay in his miserable and dying condition.
      2. When the Man-Savior saw him, He was moved with compassion in His humanity with His divinity and rendered him tender healing and saving care, fully meeting his urgent need—10:33-35.
   5. The Man-Savior presented the parable of the prodigal son, showing His shepherding, seeking, and saving spirit with the Father’s loving, forgiving, and compassionate heart—15:11-32; cf. 9:55-56:
      1. A seeking saint should be poor in spirit and pure in heart, and a repentant believer should always have a willing spirit for the things of the Lord and for the church—Matt. 5:3, 8; Psa. 51:12; cf. Phil. 2:20-22.
      2. We must follow the steps of the processed Triune God in His seeking and saving fallen people according to His heavenly ministry of shepherding people with His saving love—Luke 15.
   6. The Man-Savior acted in His human virtues with the divine attributes in His word to the criminal on the cross—23:42-43:
      1. When Christ was being crucified, one of the two criminals who were crucified with Him said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom”—v. 42.
      2. Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise”; this shows the divine attribute of His eternal and indiscriminate love expressed through His cherishing human virtue—v. 43.
3. In order to be one with the Man-Savior in His God-man living and ministry, we must sit at His feet and listen to His word so that we may be infused with His life for the expression of God and with His desire for our service to God unto the building of God—10:38-42; 1:53; 6:47-48.