Jesus was very mysterious. Outwardly speaking, He was indeed a man, but inwardly He was truly God. God’s mingling with man began with this God-man Jesus Christ. He was the first man who had God mingled with Him. Many historians know that the man Jesus was special, but they do not know how or why He was special. The reason that the God-man Jesus was special is that God was in Him and was mingled with Him. Although He was a man, God was mingled with Him. He was special because of God.
When the Lord Jesus was walking on the earth, He asked those around Him, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:13, 15). Surprisingly, those around Him also asked the same question concerning Him. They asked, “Who is He? Who is He really?” He asked people this question, and they also were asking the same question. The Lord Jesus was truly a mystery. He was born from His mother’s womb with flesh and blood, and outwardly speaking, He was the same as everyone else—He shed tears, He grieved, He suffered pain, and He experienced sorrow, exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. In all these things He was exactly the same as other people. However, there was something mysterious about Him—He had surpassing power and wisdom, His words were beyond human imagination, and His character and morality were many, many times higher than that of others. While many people were astonished when hearing Him speak and wanted to hear Him more, others marveled at His acts and wondered who He really was. People asked questions like, “How can this man have such wisdom?” “How can He speak this word of authority?” “Is He not the son of a carpenter?” “Is He not from a small town of Nazareth?” The Lord was a man whose visage and form were marred, yet He was able to calm the winds and the sea, cause the dead to be raised, cause the blind to see, and cause the dumb to speak (Isa. 52:14; Matt. 8:26; 11:5). Who was this man?
The Lord Jesus was the first man who had God mingled with Him. He was the mingling of God and man, and because of this His wisdom was God’s wisdom, His power was God’s power, His authority was God’s authority, and His acts were the expression of God. Sadly, however, those who were beside Him did not know him. The highest human evaluation of Him was that He was the greatest of the prophets. No one knew that this Jesus the Nazarene was a God-man, a man who was the mingling of God and man.
One day when He told His disciples that He had to leave them, one of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us” (John 14:8). The Lord was surprised by this request and asked, “Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father....Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?” (vv. 9-10). What the Lord meant when He said this was, “You see Me as a man, but God is inside of Me. We two—God and I—are one. When you see Me, you see God, because God and I are one. Apart from Me, you cannot find God, because God is in Me.” When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, outwardly He was a man, but inwardly He was God mingled with man.
When Jesus Christ was on the earth, outwardly He was a man, and inwardly He was God. Thus, since God is Spirit, the content of the Lord Jesus is Spirit, and since the Spirit gives life, as the Lord told the disciples, the words which the Lord spoke are spirit and are life (6:63). Why are the Lord’s words spirit? A person’s words are his representation, his expression. Since the Lord Jesus is God, He is also the expression of God, the Word of God, and as the Word of God, His words are spirit.
John 1:1 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Who was this Word? This Word was Christ Jesus. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son [Christ Jesus], who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” Words are the declaration and the expression of man, the expression of the content of man. Why are the Lord’s words spirit? It is because the Lord Himself is the Spirit. The Lord’s words are the expression of the Lord, and the Lord is Spirit within. Thus, what comes out of the Lord is also spirit. The Lord’s words are spirit because the Lord’s words are the expression of the Lord Himself.