Almighty God says, “Such an ordinary flesh holds many unfathomable mysteries. His deeds may be inscrutable to you, but the goal of all the work He does is sufficient for you to see that He is not a simple flesh as man believes. For He represents the will of God as well as the care shown by God toward mankind in the last days” (The Word Appears in the Flesh).
1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Acts 17:31 "Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained;"
Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.
Hebrews 1:6 And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
“Did you not desire greatly to see the God in heaven? Did you not desire greatly to understand the God in heaven? Did you not desire greatly to see the destination of mankind? He will tell you all these secrets that no man has been able to tell you, and He will even tell you of the truths that you do not understand” (The Word Appears in the Flesh). Please stay tuned for the musical drama of the Church of Almighty God—Every Nation Worships the Practical God!
The good news that “the Lord Jesus has returned in the flesh” has long since spread in the land of China, and it has begun to spread to the entire universe. However, some brothers and sisters doubt it because they haven’t seen God’s incarnated flesh with their own eyes. They say that if they can see the Lord who has returned in the flesh with their own eyes, they will recognize him and believe in and follow him. People hold such a viewpoint mainly because they are not clear about the pathway to know the incarnated God and don’t know how to seek God’s appearing and follow God’s footsteps. We may think back: For what reason did we believe in Jesus in the beginning? Did we believe in him because we saw his flesh? Certainly not! We all believed in him because of the grace he bestowed, the work of his being crucified to redeem mankind, and the words he expressed. Let’s look at those who had seen the Lord Jesus’ flesh in the age when the Lord Jesus did the work personally. Did they really recognize that Jesus was the coming Messiah, really recognize that Jesus was God, and really believe in him right after they saw him? The Bible records, “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that you are John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He said to them, But whom say you that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16) From this we see that although people of that time saw or contacted Jesus, and his twelve disciples even stayed with him day and night, yet except that Peter recognized Jesus’ identity after the Father revealed it to him (cf. Matthew 16:17), no one recognized that Jesus was the incarnated God Godself because of having seen Jesus “with his own eyes.” And Judas, a disciple who had followed Jesus for years, even betrayed Jesus for thirty silver coins. If he had made certain that Jesus was the Messiah, would he have dared to do that? Besides, didn’t those chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees also see the Savior Jesus? But did they recognize that Jesus was the Messiah? From the facts that they beat and abused Jesus, insulted Jesus, resisted and condemned Jesus, and eventually nailed Jesus onto the cross, it can be completely proved that they didn’t recognize that Jesus was God though they saw Jesus frequently. From this we see that people cannot know God through seeing the incarnated God, and knowing the image of God’s incarnated flesh is not the pathway for them to know God. To know God, the key is to know God’s substance, namely, God’s work, word, and disposition. In other words, whether people can believe in and follow God doesn’t depend on whether they have seen God’s flesh or how well they know the image of God’s flesh, but depends on whether they have a heart of seeking God and a heart of fearing and obeying God. If people seek the truth with a fearful and obedient heart, they will surely be able to know God from God’s work and word. This is because the work God does man cannot do and the word God speaks man cannot speak. We can see this from God’s first incarnation—Jesus. The appearance of Jesus was no different from that of others, but the work of crucifixion he did no one could do in his stead and the word he spoke no one could speak. So, to know God, we should not neglect God’s work and word, much less take investigating the image of God’s flesh as the pathway to know God. Almighty God says, “God is the greatest above the entire universe and in the entire universe. Could he fully express himself with an image of a flesh? God puts on the flesh for doing a stage of work. The image of the flesh does not mean anything…. His incarnate appearance has nothing to do with his management, and it is only for the sake of his work of that time. However, when God is incarnated, he cannot be without a certain appearance, so he chooses a suitable family to determine his appearance. If his appearance had representative meaning, then all those who have regular features similar to his would represent God. Wouldn’t that be greatly wrong?” (from The Word Appears in the Flesh) From Almighty God’s words, we can see that the image of God’s flesh doesn’t mean anything special, nor does it have any representative meaning, much less can it express God’s substance. Thus, we cannot possibly recognize God’s identity from the image of God’s flesh. All this shows that the viewpoint we hold that “as long as we see the Lord Jesus who has returned in the flesh, we will believe in him” is wrong. It is not in accordance with the truth or with the objective fact.
Recommended:
No comments:
Post a Comment