We have seen in the two foregoing messages that the Man-Savior’s incarnation was for the fulfilling of God’s purpose in creating man. In this message we shall go on to consider the Man-Savior’s highest standard of morality. This morality constitutes the Man-Savior’s qualification and the basic factor for His dynamic salvation. The Man-Savior’s morality qualifies Him to save us. Furthermore, His morality is the basic factor for His dynamic salvation. These matters are very difficult to explain, and we look to the Lord for help through His unveiling Spirit.
The Man-Savior was conceived of the divine essence, which actually is God Himself with the divine attributes. In other words, the divine essence is God with all that He is. According to the Bible, what God is is revealed mainly in four aspects: love, light, righteousness, and holiness. God is love (1 John 4:8). Love is God’s intrinsic nature. God is also light (1 John 1:5). Light is God’s shining, His expression. Love refers to what God is intrinsically within Himself, and light refers to God’s expression. Holiness refers to God’s nature and righteousness to God’s way of doing things. According to the full revelation of the Scriptures, God is love and light, and He is also holy and righteous. These are the divine attributes, and the Man-Savior was conceived of God with these attributes.
The divine attributes are for the human virtues. The Man-Savior was conceived of God with the divine attributes for the content and reality of His human virtues.
In understanding this, it is helpful to use the illustration of a glove. If a glove is not filled with a hand, the glove will be empty. The hand is both the content and reality of the glove. Only when the hand is put into the glove does the glove have content and reality. It is the hand in the glove that causes it to have content. Furthermore, when the hand moves, the glove also moves. The glove is designed to fit the hand, but it does not have life. It is the hand that causes the glove to move. When the hand moves, the hand within the glove will be expressed through the glove.
We may say that we are a “glove” designed to contain God as our content and reality. Christ was conceived of God with His attributes to be the content and reality of the “glove” of His human virtues.
As the One who was conceived of the divine essence with the divine attributes to be the content and reality of His human virtues, Christ fills the empty human virtues. Human love, for example, is a shell that should contain the divine love. Without containing the divine love, human love is merely an empty shell. The Man-Savior was conceived of God with the divine attributes in order to fill His human virtues. With Him the human virtues are not empty. However, with us the human virtues are empty. The reason the human virtues are not empty with Jesus Christ, the Man-Savior, is that His human virtues are filled with the divine attributes.