By Weiwei, United States

Editor’s Note:

When working in a foreign country, Weiwei bumps into someone from home whom she hasn’t seen for years, and she learns the news of the Lord’s return. When she hears that the Lord has already returned in the flesh, her pre-conceived notions are shaken to the core. After seeking and investigating, however, she comes to understand the meaning of God’s incarnation.

An Old Acquaintance From Home Brings Amazing News

My name is Weiwei, and at the end of 2016 I came alone to a strange country—America—to work. I am a Christian, and so the church naturally became the only place I could feel at home. But I was disappointed to find that the pastor’s sermons were only either about theological theory, or else he talked about indulging oneself in food, drink and merriment, and even set a specific amount for us to donate. I felt that my life was not being provided for, and I felt great disdain for these methods, and so over time I ended up going less and less to church. After I bumped into Jingyi, I learned that Sister Jiang Ling from our home village was also living in the same city as us, and that her home was a meeting place. I was very happy to hear this, so from then on, I attended meetings with Jingyi at Jiang Ling’s house.

At one meeting, Jiang Ling said to me in earnest: “Did you know, Weiwei, that the Lord Jesus has become flesh and returned already, and is expressing His words and doing His work of judgment beginning in God’s family?”

I was taken aback by what Jiang Ling had said, and I said, “The Lord has become flesh and returned? It can’t be! The Bible clearly prophesies about the Lord’s return: ‘You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11). After the Lord Jesus resurrected, He departed on a white cloud in a transcendent spiritual body. So when the Lord returns in the last days, He will surely come in His spiritual body. How could the Lord possibly become flesh again?”

Smiling, Jingyi said, “Weiwei, let me read God’s words to you. God says: ‘Put aside your view of “impossible”! The more that people believe something is impossible, the more likely it is to occur, for the wisdom of God soars higher than the heavens, God’s thoughts are higher than man’s thoughts, and the work of God transcends the limits of man’s thinking and conception. The more that something is impossible, the more there is the truth to be sought; the more that something is beyond the conception and imagination of man, the more it contains the will of God.’ God is so almighty and wise, and His thought is ever beyond the thought of man. We’ve been corrupted by Satan and our understanding of God is filled with notions and imaginings, and neither do we have the faculty to directly penetrate the spiritual world, so how can we delimit God’s actions to this or to that? Moreover, the prophecies in the Bible contain God’s wisdom and mysteries, and they cannot possibly be as simple as we imagine, and much less will they be fulfilled according to the literal meaning of the words. For example, there are many prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the return of the Messiah. People’s imaginations run wild when they read these words: ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, on the throne of David, and on his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from now on even for ever. The zeal of the Jehovah of hosts will perform this’ (Isaiah 9:6–7). When they read this, they believed that the Messiah who would come to power was the Son of the heavenly Father, that He must be born in a palace, and that He would be transcendent, extraordinary and impressively brilliant, and the way they imagined Him ended up being at odds with the facts. The Lord Jesus was born in a manger in an ordinary, normal body, and therefore people at that time not only did not accept Him, but they also condemned and rejected Him, and nailed Him to the cross, and ultimately they suffered the pain of national subjugation. Does this not serve as a lesson for the failure of one’s faith that comes from explaining the Bible in a literal way? Can such a limited understanding as we have now be the actual facts of the Lord’s work when He returns? Therefore, we cannot delimit God’s work by our own imaginings and notions, but instead only by investigating with a seeking heart will God enlighten us to understand the true meaning of the scriptures.”

Does the Bible Prophesy That the Lord Will Become Flesh When He Returns?

After listening to Jingyi, I thought that what she had said sounded reasonable. The Lord’s coming is a big thing, and we have to investigate it thoroughly. I said, “So is there any basis in the Bible for what you say about the Lord becoming flesh when He returns?”

Jiang Ling said, smiling, “There are many verses of scripture in the Bible which prophesy that the Lord will come in the flesh, such as: ‘Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of man comes at an hour when you think not’ (Luke 12:40). ‘For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation’ (Luke 17:24-25). ‘And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him’ (Matthew 25:6), etcetera. The ‘Son of man’ and the ‘bridegroom’ spoken about in these verses are all referring to God incarnate. The ‘Son of man’ refers to a man who is born of man, and who has a normal humanity. If it referred to the ‘Spirit,’ then it wouldn’t say the ‘Son of man.’ For example, Jehovah is the Spirit, and so can’t be called the ‘Son of man’; angels are spiritual beings, and so can’t be called the ‘Son of man; all that has the image of man, and yet is a spiritual being, cannot be called the ‘Son of man.’ The incarnated Lord Jesus is called the Son of man, and Christ, because He is the incarnation of the Spirit of God, and He became an ordinary, normal man and lived amongst man. It was precisely because God in the flesh was so ordinary and normal that people didn’t believe that the Lord Jesus was God, and they said that He was only a carpenter’s son. Thus, they ridiculed and slandered Him, condemned and rejected Him, and in the end they nailed Him to the cross. Therefore, the ‘coming of the Son of man’ and ‘the Son of man will come’ that the Lord Jesus spoke of, mean that the Lord will come in the flesh when He returns in the last days. If God descended on a white cloud in a transcendent spiritual body, then all people would prostrate themselves in worship, for who would dare to defy or condemn Him then? And the Lord’s prophecy, ‘But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation,’ would not then be able to come to pass.”

To be continue… 

Source From: Our Daily Devotionals

You are welcome to use resources on Our Daily Devotionals such as Devotion for Today and Bible Devotions to enrich your spiritual life.