Eastern Lightning | Gospel Answers & Questions

In the Age of Grace, God became flesh to serve as a sin offering for mankind, redeeming them from sin. In the last days God has again become flesh to express the truth and to do His work of judgment in order to thoroughly purify and save man. So why does God need to incarnate twice to do the work of saving mankind? And what is the true significance of God incarnating twice?

Answer:

About why God must be incarnated twice to do the work of saving mankind, we should first be clear: With regard to the salvation of mankind, God’s two incarnations have a deep and profound meaning. Because the work of salvation, no matter if we’re talking about the redemption or the judgment and purification and salvation of the last days, cannot be performed by man. It requires God to be incarnated and perform the work Himself. In the Age of Grace, God was incarnated as the Lord Jesus, that is, God’s Spirit clothed Himself in a holy and sinless flesh, and was nailed to the cross to serve as a sin offering, redeeming man from his sinfulness. We all understand this. But as for the return of the Lord Jesus in the last days, why is He incarnated in the flesh as the Son of man to appear and work? Many have a hard time understanding this. If Almighty God had not explained this aspect of the truthand unveiled this mystery, no one would have understood this truth. Now, let’s see what exactly Almighty God has said. Almighty God says, “The first incarnation was to redeem man from sin through the flesh of Jesus, that is, He saved man from the cross, but the corrupt satanic disposition still remained within man. The second incarnation is no longer to serve as a sin offering but to fully save those who were redeemed from sin. This is done so that those forgiven can be delivered from their sins and be fully made clean, and attain a change in disposition, thereby breaking free of Satan’s influence of darkness and returning before the throne of God. Only in this way can man be fully sanctified. God began the work of salvation in the Age of Grace after the Age of Law had come to an end. It is not until the last days, when God has fully purified mankind by doing the work of judgment and chastisement of man for rebelliousness, will God conclude His work of salvation and enter into rest. Therefore, in the three stages of work, only twice did God become flesh to carry out His work among man Himself. That is because only one in the three stages of work is to lead man in their lives, while the other two are the work of salvation. Only if God becomes flesh can He live alongside man, experience the suffering of the world, and live in an ordinary flesh. Only in this way can He supply man of His creation with the practical word that they need. Man receives full salvation from God because of God incarnate, not directly from their prayers to heaven. For man is fleshly; man is unable to see the Spirit of God and much less able to approach Him. All that man can associate with is God’s incarnate flesh; only through Him can man understand all the words and all the truths, and receive full salvation. The second incarnation is sufficient to get rid of the sins of man and fully purify man. Hence, the second incarnation will bring to a close all the work of God in the flesh and complete the significance of God’s incarnation. Thereafter, the work of God in the flesh will have entirely come to an end. After the second incarnation, He will not again become flesh for His work. For His entire management will have come to an end. In the last days, His incarnation will have fully gained His chosen people, and all man in the last days will have been divided according to their kind. He will no longer do the work of salvation, nor will He return to flesh to carry out any work” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

“When Jesus was doing His work, man’s knowledge of Him was still vague and unclear. Man always believed that He was the son of David and proclaimed Him to be a great prophet and the benevolent Lord who redeemed man’s sins. Some, based on faith, became healed just by touching the edge of His garment; the blind could see and even the dead could be restored to life. However, man could not discover the corrupt satanic disposition deeply rooted within him and neither did man know how to cast it away. Man received much grace, such as the peace and happiness of the flesh, the blessing of the entire family upon the faith of one, and the healing of sicknesses, and so on. The rest were the good deeds of man and their godly appearance; if man could live based on such, he was considered a good believer. Only such believers could enter heaven after death, which means that they were saved. But, in their lifetime, they did not understand at all the way of life. They merely committed sins, then made confession in a constant cycle without any path toward a changed disposition; such was the condition of man in the Age of Grace. Has man received complete salvation? No! Therefore, after that stage was complete, there is still the work of judgment and chastisement. This stage makes man pure through the word so as to give man a path to follow. This stage would not be fruitful or meaningful if it continued with the casting out of demons, for the sinful nature of man would not be cast away and man would only stop upon the forgiveness of sins. Through the sin offering, man has been forgiven his sins, for the work of the crucifixion has already come to an end and God has prevailed over Satan. But the corrupt disposition of man still remains within them and man can still sin and resist God; God has not gained mankind. That is why in this stage of work God uses the word to reveal the corrupt disposition of man and asks man to practice in accordance with the right path. This stage is more meaningful than the previous one and more fruitful as well, for now it is the word that directly supplies man’s life and enables the disposition of man to be completely renewed; it is a stage of work more thorough. Therefore, the incarnation in the last days has completed the significance of God’s incarnation and completely finished God’s management plan for the salvation of man” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

From Almighty God’s words we see that in the Age of Grace God was incarnated the first time merely to do the work of redemption, using the crucifixion as a sin offering to redeem us humans from our sinfulness, to relieve us from the curses and condemnation of the law. We had only to confess our sins and repent and our sins would be forgiven. We could then enjoy the bountiful grace and truth which God bestowed upon us. This is the work of redemption which the Lord Jesus did, and is the true meaning of being saved by faith in the Lord. Though the Lord Jesus pardoned us of our sins, we have yet to wrest ourselves from the fetters of sinfulness, for we are still possessed of our sinful nature and satanic disposition. Though we have admitted our sins to the Lord and have gained His pardon, we have no knowledge of our sinful nature, and have even less knowledge of our corrupt disposition, a condition much more serious than sinfulness. We are only capable of recognizing that sin within ourselves which consists of lawlessness, and that which results in the accusation of our conscience. But we fail to recognize the deeper sins, the sin of resistance to God. For instance, we have no knowledge of the root of our resistance to God, or how our satanic disposition is made manifest, how the satanic nature came to be, what Satan’s poisons exist within our nature, where man’s satanic philosophy and satanic logic and rules arise from. So why is it that we have no knowledge of these satanic things? Given that man has been pardoned of his sins by the Lord Jesus, why can’t he wrest himself from the fetters of sinfulness, and why does he even continue to commit the same sins? Is he truly purified once he has been pardoned of his sins? Is he truly then holy? This is a truly practical issue that no one in the Age of Grace seems to understand. Though in our belief in the Lord, we are pardoned of our sins, we still unknowingly commit sins, resisting and betraying God. We believers all have first-hand knowledge of this. For instance, even after putting faith in the Lord, we continue to lie, to be vain, to despise the truth and uphold evil. We are still arrogant, treacherous, selfish and greedy; we are helplessly caught up in the corrupt satanic disposition. We work tirelessly for the Lord, but we do so in the hopes of being rewarded and entering into the kingdom of heaven. When we enjoy the Lord’s grace we are happy and resolute in our faith in the Lord; but as soon as we are faced with disaster, or there is some tragedy in the family, we misunderstand, blame and even deny and betray the Lord. As soon as God’s work is not in line with our conceptions and illusions, we act like hypocritical Pharisees, resisting and condemning God. Do we have first-hand experience of this? What does all this prove? This goes to show that though we accepted the Lord Jesus’ salvation and were forgiven our sins, this does not mean that we have thoroughly rid ourselves of sin and are now holy, even less does it mean that we have become of God and have been gained by God. So, when the Lord Jesus comes again to do the work of judgment in the last days, many from the religious world come to judge, condemn and blaspheme God, publicly announcing Him as their adversary and nailing Him once again to the cross. Could those that publicly condemn and resist God be raptured into the kingdom of heaven just on the basis of their sins being pardoned? Could God allow these evil forces that resist God within the kingdom of heaven? Would God rapture these antichrists, these haters of truth, into the kingdom of heaven? As we can see, though we are pardoned of our sins through our faith in the Lord, we have not fully rid ourselves of sinfulness, rid ourselves of the satanic influences, and have even less so been gained by God and become of God. So, if we wish to rid ourselves of sin and become holy, to be fully gained by God, we must be thoroughly purified and saved by the work of God’s second incarnation. Is this not the case?

We have far too simple a view of God’s work of salvation, as if as soon as our sins were pardoned there were no other issues, and all that was left was just to wait to be raptured by the Lord into the kingdom of heaven. How naive and childish we corrupt humans are! How ridiculous man’s conceptions and illusions! Was sin the only problem to afflict man after being corrupted by Satan? What is the root of man’s sin? What is sin? Why does God detest it? To this day, no one has a proper understanding. Man has been corrupted thoroughly by Satan, to what degree is their corruption? No one is clear. Everyone has to admit it. The reality of man’s thorough corruption was made evident during the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. The fact that humans could crucify the merciful Lord Jesus, who had expressed so much truth, truly showed that man had become the descendant of Satan, the ilk of Satan, and had entirely lost their humanity, they did not even possess the slightest modicum of rationality or conscience. Who among man still possesses normal humanity? Doesn’t man’s resistance and animosity toward God indicate that man has come to the point where it’s either them or Him, where they become irreconcilable with God? Can this problem really be solved by having their sins be pardoned? Who can guarantee that by having our sins pardoned, we won’t resist God or take Him as our enemy? No one can guarantee it! Our sins may be pardoned, but can God pardon our nature, a nature which is resistant to God? Can God pardon our satanic disposition that fills us? God is holy and righteous. Would He allow such evil scum to exist? If we really understood the righteousness of God, would we still dare dream about being brought into the kingdom of heaven? We deeply corrupted humans who had been forgiven of our sins after we believed in the Lord, why did we sin again and resist God? How could we openly deny the existence of God? How could we hate all the truths expressed by God? What were the roots of these problems? It was the nature and disposition of Satan in us humans that made us hate the truth and antagonize God so that we nailed God to the cross again. In that case, what exactly are Satan’s nature and disposition within us? What is its nature? How does God resolve these things belonging to Satan? Without a doubt, God uses judgment and chastisement. And for those who never repent, God will destroy them with disasters. It’s fair to say, without God’s righteous judgment and chastisement, corrupt man would not be conquered, much less would they sink to the ground in deep regret. This is the main reason why God must be incarnated to do the work of judgment. There are many who question and have conceptions regarding God being incarnated to do the work of judgment in the last days. Why is this so? This is because we fail to see the reality of man’s absolute corruption. So, as a result, we don’t have the slightest understanding of the meaning of God’s work of judgment in the last days. We fail to seek and investigate the true way. In this way, how could we possibly accept and obey God’s work?

God’s two incarnations are truly meaningful! The first time that God became incarnate to do the work of redemption was to forgive our sins. He did not deliver us from the domain of Satan completely. The redemption work of the Lord Jesus was only to pave the way for the judgment work in the last days. Only half of God’s salvation work was completed. So the Lord Jesus promised that He would return. He would come again as God incarnate, the Son of man, to do the work of judgment in the last days. As the Lord Jesus said, “For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son” (Jhn 5:22), “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (Jhn 14:10), “He that has seen me has seen the Father” (Jhn 14:9), “I and my Father are one” (Jhn 10:30). In the last days, God incarnate expresses the truth to judge and reveal the substance of our satanic nature and the truth of our corruption. At the same time, He shows us the holy, righteous and unoffendable disposition of God in order to resolve the root causes of our sins and cleanse us of our satanic disposition, so that we will completely break away from the influence of Satan, receive God’s salvation and be gained by God, and become a person who belongs to God. This way, we will be qualified to enter the kingdom of God. This is the meaning behind the judgment work of God incarnate in the last days, and the results of His work of judgment. This kind of results cannot be achieved by the spiritual body.

We humans cannot comprehend the profound depth of significance of God’s two incarnations. So, as for why God has been incarnated twice, and what the meaning of the two incarnations is, for this aspect of the truth, let us turn to several passages from Almighty God. Almighty God says, “The meaning of incarnation is that God appears in the flesh, and He comes to work among man of His creation in the image of a flesh. So, for God to be incarnated, He must first be flesh, flesh with normal humanity; this, at the very least, must be true. In fact, the implication of God’s incarnation is that God lives and works in the flesh, God in His very essence becomes flesh, becomes a man” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

“His humanity exists for the sake of His corporeal essence; there can be no flesh without humanity, and a person without humanity is not a human being. In this way, the humanity of God’s flesh is an intrinsic property of God’s incarnate flesh. To say that ‘when God becomes flesh He is entirely divine, is not at all human,’ is a blasphemy, because this is an impossible stance to take, one that violates the principle of incarnation” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

“Whatever the age or place in which God is incarnated, the principles for His work in the flesh remain unchanging. He cannot become flesh yet transcend the flesh to work; moreover, He cannot become flesh yet not work within the normal humanity of the flesh. Otherwise, the significance of God’s incarnation would dissolve into nothing, and the Word become flesh would become entirely meaningless. Moreover, only the Father in heaven (the Spirit) knows of God’s incarnation, and none other, not even the flesh Himself or the messengers of heaven. As such, God’s work in the flesh is even more normal and better able to demonstrate that indeed the Word becomes flesh; the flesh means an ordinary and normal man” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (1)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

“The significance of incarnation is that an ordinary, normal man performs the work of God Himself; that is, that God performs His divine work in humanity and thereby vanquishes Satan. Incarnation means that God’s Spirit becomes a flesh, that is, God becomes flesh; the work that He does in the flesh is the work of the Spirit, which is realized in the flesh, expressed by the flesh. No one except God’s flesh can fulfill the ministry of the incarnate God; that is, only God’s incarnate flesh, this normal humanity—and no one else—can express the divine work. … That He possessed normal humanity proves that He was God incarnated in the flesh; the fact that He underwent a normal human growth process further demonstrates that He was a normal flesh; and moreover, His work is sufficient proof that He was God’s Word, God’s Spirit, becoming flesh. God becomes flesh because of the needs of the work; in other words, this stage of work needs to be done in the flesh, done in normal humanity. This is the prerequisite for ‘the Word becoming flesh,’ for ‘the Word appearing in the flesh,’ and is the true story behind God’s two incarnations” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

“Why do I say that the meaning of incarnation was not completed in Jesus’ work? Because the Word did not entirely become flesh. What Jesus did was only one part of God’s work in the flesh; He only did the redemptive work and did not do the work of completely gaining man. For this reason God has become flesh once again in the last days. This stage of the work is also done in an ordinary flesh, done by an utterly normal human being, one whose humanity is not in the least bit transcendent. In other words, God has become a complete human being, and it is a person whose identity is that of God, a complete human being, a complete flesh, who is performing the work” (“The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

To be continue...