According to His counsel, His will, His good pleasure, and His heart's desire, in time God came to create (Rev. 4:11). First, He created the heavens with all the angels (Gen. 1:1; Job 38:7). At that time none of the angels understood what God was doing. Then God created the earth, a small "ball" in the universe. On this earth God created many different kinds of life in three levels: the vegetable life to show the beauty of the earth (Gen. 1:11-12), the animal life to show the livingness of the earth (vv. 24-25), and the human life to indicate the purpose of God on the earth (vv. 26-28). The vegetable life is the lowest form of life, and the animal life is a higher form of life. The human life is higher still, but it is not the highest life. In Genesis 1 we can see the three levels of life on the earth. Then, in Genesis 2 God brought the completed man as the high life on this earth to a tree—not an apple tree but a tree of life, a life tree (vv. 8-9). This tree of life is the embodiment of life. The life embodied in the tree of life is not the vegetable life nor the animal life nor the human life, but the divine life.
God intended that His created man with the human life would take Him as the highest life that he might be no longer merely a man but a God-man, no longer merely human, but divinely human. It is possible that we have been reading the Bible for many years and yet have never seen such a view. This view is the central thought of the holy Word.
In Genesis 3 the man created by God was seduced by Satan through the serpent and became fallen (vv. 1-6). At such a juncture it seemed that everything was finished; but God is never finished. He would never give up. He came in to seek and to find this fallen man. God said to Adam, "Where are you?" Adam was frightened, trembling, and naked, and he hid himself from God (vv. 9-10). Then God comforted Adam, indicating that he did not need to be afraid of the serpent, for God Himself would be incarnated as the seed of woman to crush the head of the evil one (v. 15). After hearing God's word of comfort, Adam was happy. That word was God's first promise to man, indicating that the very God who created man would one day come to be a man. God seemed to say to Adam, "Wait, Adam; I will become a man. In other words, I will become you. I am the almighty, infinite, unlimited, eternal God, but one day I will be just like you. Now you are in the flesh, and I will be in the likeness of your flesh." Although Adam was happy because of God's promise, he did not see the fulfillment of that promise.
After giving His word of promise to Adam, God was patient and waited for two thousand years, apparently doing nothing to fulfill His word. Then God came in to make another promise, this time to Abraham: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (22:18). God's promise to Abraham was that one of his seed, one of his descendants, would come to be the factor through which the entire earth would be blessed. According to Galatians 3:14 and 16, this blessing was that through faith in Christ, the unique seed of Abraham, all the nations would receive the Triune God as the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit. No doubt Abraham was happy about this promise, but he did not see its fulfillment.
After another two thousand years—altogether approximately four thousand years after the creation of Adam—Israel was under the tyranny of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, there was still a small inn in Bethlehem to which God could come to be born into humanity. Eventually, God came through a virgin and lay in a manger as a small child. That child was the mighty God and the eternal Father (Isa. 9:6). He was the One promised initially as the seed of woman and again as the seed of Abraham to bless all the world with Himself as the consummated Spirit. Although we have a clear view today, at that time no one knew the significance of what was taking place. Herod hated Him and wanted to kill Him. In his attempt to do away with Christ, Herod slew many children (Matt. 2:7-8, 16-18). But this One escaped to Egypt, and after Herod's death He returned to the land of Israel (vv. 13-15).
In the Sunday schools many children are taught the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem and His lying in a manger, but who understands the intrinsic significance of such a story? That is not merely a story; that is the account of the infinite God becoming a man! This is a great thing, for that child lying in a manger was the almighty God, the infinite, eternal One, who became a man.