In this message I have the burden to speak a word on the highest point of God’s gospel—God becoming a man that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
The eternal God in His eternity had a “dream” according to His heart’s desire, and He made a plan, which in the New Testament is called God’s economy (1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 1:10; 3:9). Then God created the universe, making His heart’s desire (Adam) the center. This heart’s desire is nothing less than one who is the same kind as God is (Gen. 1:26), one who would reproduce and fill the whole earth (v. 28).
God made man after His kind. This means that before the fall of man there was no mankind, only God’s kind. Contrary to the definitions given in Webster’s dictionary, from God’s point of view the word mankind is a negative term, for there should be no mankind, only the man created by God as God’s kind. However, after the fall man separated himself from God and became mankind. Through this fall Satan came in to cause trouble, and the whole world was thrown into confusion.
Out of the confused world of mankind, God chose Abraham, whose descendants became the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel should not be listed with the nations, because it was among the nations but not with the nations. This nation was a separate people, a holy people sanctified unto God. God used His elect Israel as a type to signify that, among fallen mankind, God would have a people to come in the future.
Two thousand years after Abraham, the choosing God became a man. This God-man, through His death and resurrection, has made a mass reproduction of Himself. He as the one grain became many grains (John 12:24). The many grains are ground into fine flour and blended together to become one loaf (1 Cor. 10:17). The Lord Jesus as the only begotten Son of God was the one grain, and He made us the many grains, His many “twins,” His many brothers (Rom. 8:29), to be blended into one loaf, one Body. Among us there is no difference in nationality, race, or social rank (Col. 3:11). We are a new kind, “God-man kind.”
Just as there are new words to describe new developments in human culture, so we need new terms and expressions to describe matters in our spiritual culture. God-man kind is such an expression. In Christ God and man have become one entity, the God-man. In God’s creation there was no mankind; there was only man as God’s kind. It was through man’s fall that mankind came into existence. Eventually God became a man to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind. This new kind is neither God’s kind nor mankind—it is God-man kind. Today as believers in Christ, we are God-man kind; we are God-men.