The first item of God’s New Testament economy is the Word’s incarnation. The second item in God’s New Testament economy is the Son’s living on this earth, which is the continuation of the Word’s incarnation. In the New Testament, the first thing seen is the Word, who was God, becoming flesh. This is the Triune God embodied in a Man. Now this Man continues to live on the earth. He was the embodiment of the Triune God living the life of God. His living is marvelous and needs thousands of words to describe.
God created different lives in His creation. God’s creation began from the lowest life, which is the vegetable life. Flowers, trees, and vegetables are living things, but their life is the lowest. Their life does not have any personality. They do not have any feeling, and thought, or any love or hatred. Then God created the animal life which is higher than the vegetable life. Dogs can like you or dislike you, and sometimes they get mad and bark at you, but this is still not the highest life. The third level of life created by God is on a higher plane. This is the human life. Without the vegetable life, the animal life, and the human life, the earth would be desolate. This earth is quite pleasant and interesting due to these three lives. The highest life in this universe, however, is the life of the tree of life. In Genesis 1 are the vegetables, the animals, and the man created by God. After the creation of man, God brought this man to the tree of life, showing that there was still a life that was higher than the human life (Gen. 2:8-9). This life is the divine life.
In the New Testament a marvelous thing happened—the mingling of the divine life with the human life! When we say that the very embodiment of the Triune God lives the life of the Triune God, we mean this is a living of a combined life, a living of a mingled life. It is a life both human and divine. The human life is wonderful and the divine life is marvelous, but now these two lives are married. The divine life is the husband and the human life is the wife—a wonderful couple! This is the mingling of the divine life with the human life. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of such a mingling, and He lived a life, a particular life, an extraordinary life, a life that is a mingling of the divine life with the human life. In this life, in this living of such a life, we can see all the divine attributes and all the human virtues. This was the life lived by this embodiment of the Triune God in the Man, Jesus. Such a living will develop into the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is just the living of the divine life mingled with the human life. Today the kingdom of God should be the church life—the development of that wonderful living of two mingled lives.
We who are regenerated, who love the Lord, who seek after the Lord, and who are under God’s transformation, must ask ourselves what kind of life we live. We should not merely live a human, ethical life. We must live a combined life—a life that is a combination of the divine life with the human life. Such a life is the church life. Jesus Christ, as the very embodiment of the Triune God, lived such a life. His living sets up a model of the church life, and this life is one that lives God in humanity. The church life should be exactly the same as His living. He was Jesus the Man, yet He lived the Triune God. He was a Nazarene, yet He lived the divine life. When He was twelve, He went to Jerusalem and He behaved, acted, and lived in a way that showed the divine life in a young human being. He was a Galilean human being, but the divine life was lived out of Him. Luke 2 shows us a young, human boy only twelve years old living a life on the highest plane. In that young life we can see the human virtues and the divine attributes. This is the model of the church life. When that young boy lived, the Son, the Father, and the Spirit all lived there with Him. Apart from the Bible, there is no human record of such a life. Such a life is the result of the divine dispensing. The incarnation of the Word was a dispensing that dispensed the Son with the Father by the Spirit into humanity. Then out of this incarnation the life of the Triune God was lived out in a young human being. The four Gospels firstly show us the incarnation of the Word and then present the Son’s living, which was a combination of the divine life with the human life.
The Son’s living on the earth was as the embodiment of the Triune God. Colossians 2:9 refers to “the fullness of the Godhead.” It does not say the riches of the Godhead, but the fullness of the Godhead. The difference between the riches and the fullness can be illustrated by a cup of water. A cup which contains water has the riches of water. It may have the riches of water, but these riches cannot be seen until the water fills the cup to overflowing. Now the riches have become the fullness, which is the expression of the riches. Colossians 2:9 says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. This means the riches of the Godhead are fully expressed in Him. When this Man Jesus lived on the earth, He lived in a way that all the ones around Him saw the fullness of the Godhead. The Godhead in its fullness just flowed out of Him. The fullness of the Godhead not only dwelt in Him, but flowed out of Him. When He lived in that carpenter’s home in Nazareth, He was the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead. He was the very embodiment of the Godhead in its fullness, possessing all that the Father had. In John 16:15 He told us that all that God the Father had was His. He inherited all that God the Father had because He lived as the embodiment of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Even when He was twelve years old He lived in a way that every one saw the fullness of the Godhead flowing out of Him. That was not merely His work or His ministry but His living. He lived out the fullness of the Godhead; therefore, He could say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).