One thing we must realize is that when God gets into us, we eventually become no more individualistic. It is just like the electric light fixtures. Before the electricity flows into them, they are all individualistic. But once the electricity comes, all the light fixtures become one with the electricity, and the electricity becomes their unity. All the fixtures are brought into a kind of unity.
In the same way, Christians should not be individual units. We should have something of unity. Our unity is the very God who is our content within. When God is our content, we are not just so many different individuals. Outwardly speaking we are, but inwardly speaking we are one unity. Suppose there are thirty light fixtures on the ceiling with the electric current flowing through them. Outwardly, they are many individual lights, but inwardly there is only one electricity, through which they become one unity. They all have one content, and that content is their unity. Hallelujah! We are many Christians, but we all have one content; so we all have the same unity. God Himself within us is our content. This is the deepest relation that God has with man.
The outcome of this is that God has a corporate expression, for He has become one with many people. This is the relation the Bible reveals between God and man. There are many other items in the Bible, but they are not so deep. God is not only our Creator, our Father, our Lord, and so many other things. The deepest aspect of God’s relation with us is that He comes into us to be our content in order that we might become His expression. In other words, He becomes our content that He may become us, and we may become one with Him. This is a great, universal undertaking. It is a heavenly, divine, eternal, and holy project. God is working Himself into us to be one with us that He might be our content, and that we might be His expression.
To accomplish this universal, divine project, God has to take seven steps. We are only going to cover one of these during these messages, but we need to look at all seven. The first step is incarnation. I do not mention the matter of creation, because that is too objective. The first main step that God took to accomplish His divine project is incarnation. Incarnation far transcends creation. In creation, God merely made so many things—the heavens, the earth, and man. That was indeed marvelous, but that was not so wonderful as the incarnation. In creation, God never came into the creature. The incarnation, however, is the mingling of God with man. God took the first step to become incarnated by coming into man and being one with man. Incarnation means that God becomes one with man. We all know from the Gospels that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in a manger. He was just a little child born of a virgin, called Jesus. But this little child is called Emmanuel, God with us. He who was named Jesus was God, God with man. Do you believe this? Many Jewish people today do not believe it. They even have the Old Testament which says in Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” yet they do not believe that the child born in a manger at Bethlehem was Emmanuel, God with us. Matthew 1:23 says the same thing: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” In that manger was a little child who was the mingling of God with man. God and man were made one. Though He was a child, yet His name was called Emmanuel, God with us. This corresponds with Isaiah 9:6, which says, “Unto us a child is born...his name is called The Mighty God.” He was God, but He was not merely God; He was God with us.
Before incarnation, God was so great. He was in the heavens, and He was so free. But by incarnation, He became very limited. He was limited in a manger. He had to escape from the land of Canaan to Egypt, and come back from Egypt to the Holy Land. Then He went to the North, to a little city called Nazareth. Eventually, He became a Nazarene, a little man in the city of Nazareth. But we must realize that this was God with man. The incarnation was the mingling of God with man. He was the Word become flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14a). This was the first step.