Answering 100 Questions Related to the Bible

Question (23) Why doesn’t God do the end-time work in the form of the Spirit but through being incarnated?

Answer: God has been incarnated and come to the world the second time. Some brothers and sisters cannot accept this fact and have many misgivings about it: Why does God have to be incarnated again? Can’t the Spirit do the work of saving man? Hadn’t God accomplished the work all the same without being incarnated in the Age of the Law? We have these misgivings mainly because we do not understand the principle by which God chooses to work in the form of the Spirit or through being incarnated. Actually, God decides to work in the form of the Spirit or through being incarnated according to the need of the work and the need of corrupt mankind. He will choose the way that is most advantageous to accomplishing the work and is most beneficial to the corrupt mankind. Among the three stages of the work through which God saves mankind, only the work of the Age of the Law was done in the form of the Spirit, while the work of the Age of the Grace and the work of the Age of the Kingdom are both done through being incarnated. Why does God do the last two stages of the work through being incarnated, then? Almighty God says: “The reason why the works at these two stages are done by God as the incarnated flesh is that they are so important to the entire management work. It can almost be said that, without the works of the two incarnations, the entire management work would have come to a standstill, and the work of saving mankind would have become a vain talk. Whether a work is important or not is determined by the need of mankind, the real situation of mankind’s fall, and the gravity of satan’s rebelling and disturbing the work. And who is the right and competent one for the work is decided according to the nature of the worker’s working and the importance of the work. As far as the degree of the importance of the work is concerned, what way of working should be adopted, the Spirit of God doing the work directly, being incarnated to do the work, or using man to do the work? Among these three ways, the way of ‘using man to do the work’ was first eliminated. And the other two were considered according to the nature of the work and the nature of the Spirit’s working and that of the flesh’s working. And the final conclusion was that it would be more profitable to man for the flesh to do the work than for the Spirit to do the work directly and that the flesh would have more advantages in doing the work. These were God’s thoughts at the time he decided whether the Spirit or the flesh was to do the work. The work at each stage is meaningful and is done with a basis, not based on imagination or done randomly, but has certain wisdom in it. This is the inside story of God’s doing all the work. Especially such an important work as being incarnated to personally do the work among people has his plan in it all the more. Therefore, God’s wisdom and all his being are exhibited in his every act, every move, every idea, and every thought in doing the work. This is God’s being which is more substantial and systematic. All these subtle thoughts are unimaginable to man, unbelievable to man, and even more, hard for man to know” (The Word Has Appeared in the Flesh). From Almighty God’s words, we can see that the way of God’s working in every age is decided according to the need of mankind, according to how important the work is, and according to the nature of the work. In the following paragraphs we will fellowship in detail about the truths regarding these respects.

First, God determines to do the end-time work through being incarnated, not in the form of the Spirit, according to the need of the work.

In the Age of the Law, God did the work in the form of the Spirit because God’s work in that age was only to lead the newborn mankind to learn how to live and it did not involve the transformation of man’s nature. Almighty God says: “In the beginning, when God led men in the Old Testament Age of the Law, it was as if he was leading a child to live. The mankind in the beginning was the mankind newly born of Jehovah, that is, the Israelites. They did not know how to fear God or how to live on earth. In other words, Jehovah created mankind, that is, he created Adam and Eve, but he did not create in them the organ by which they could know how to fear him and how to abide by his statutes on earth. … They just knew to enjoy the enjoyable things among all the things created by Jehovah. And they knew nothing about how they should live on earth to be worthy of being called created beings. If no one directed and personally led such a mankind, they would never have a normal human life and could only be secretly taken captive by satan. … So, after mankind was created, Jehovah had not finished all his work. He had to completely lead mankind into his presence, to cause them all to know how to live together on earth and fear him, and to cause mankind to begin a normal human life on earth after his leading.” “The reason why the work at the first stage was directly done by the Spirit was that people under the law only knew to keep the law and had no more truths than that, and that the work of the Age of the Law hardly involved the transformation of man’s nature, much less have to do with the work of saving man from under satan’s power. Thus, the Spirit of God did the very simple work at that stage that did not involve transforming man’s corrupt nature. The work at that stage did not have very much to do with the center of the management or the work of formally saving man, so it was unnecessary for God to be incarnated to personally do the work” (The Word Has Appeared in the Flesh).

In the Age of the Grace, God worked through being incarnated because the work of that age involved warring against satan. People were increasingly unable to keep the law as they were more deeply corrupted by satan, so it was necessary to redeem them from under satan’s power and necessary to make a sin offering to exchange for mankind. However, the Spirit had no way to be a sin offering, because the Spirit could not be crucified and could not shed blood or undergo suffering. Thus, God had to be incarnated personally and be crucified for man. Besides, if God had not been incarnated but had forgiven man’s sins by saying only one word, though God was able to do that, satan would not have been convinced. It would say, “God, you have not yet gone through any suffering or paid any price. If you forgive man’s sins by saying only one word, it will not do. As man was created by you, you must pay the price and be a sin offering for man.” Almighty God says: “Only his incarnated flesh could be crucified to redeem man, but his Spirit could not at all be crucified to be a sin offering for man. God could directly become flesh to be a sin offering for man, but man could not directly ascend to heaven to take the sin offering God had prepared for man. Thus, ‘God had to come to earth from heaven for several times,’ but he could not let man ascend to heaven to take his salvation, because man had fallen and man could not ascend to heaven at all, much less take the sin offering. So, Jesus had to come among men to personally do the works that were simply beyond man’s capacity. God’s incarnation each time is indispensable. If any of them could be done by his Spirit directly, he would not endure grievances and suffer humiliations to be incarnated” (The Word Has Appeared in the Flesh). God became man’s sin offering through being incarnated and redeemed man from under satan’s power, so satan got nothing against God. Hence, we can see that God had to be incarnated personally to do the redemptive work of the Age of the Grace so that the results could be achieved.