The Mystery of Human Life

Have you ever wondered why you are living in this world and what the purpose of your life is? There are six keys that unlock this mystery.

1. God's Plan: God desires to express Himself through man (Rom. 8:29). For this purpose, He created man in His own image (Gen. 1:26). Just as a glove is made in the image of a hand to contain a hand, so also man is made in the image of God to contain God. By receiving God as his content, man can express God (2 Cor. 4:7).

2. Man: To fulfill His plan, God made man as a vessel (Rom. 9:21-24). This vessel has three parts: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thes. 5:23). The body contacts and receives the things of the physical realm. The soul, the mental faculty, contacts and receives the things of the psychological realm. And the human spirit, the innermost part of man, was made to contact and receive God Himself (John 4:24). Man was created not merely to contain food in his stomach, or to contain knowledge in his mind, but to contain God in his spirit (Eph. 5:18).

3. Man's Fall: But before man could receive God as life into his spirit, sin entered into him (Rom. 5:12). Sin deadened his spirit (Eph. 2:1), made him an enemy of God in his mind (Col. 1:21), and transmuted his body into sinful flesh (Gen. 6:3; Rom. 6:12). Thus, sin damaged all three parts of man, alienating him from God. In this condition, man could not receive God.

4. Christ's Redemption for God's Dispensing: Nevertheless, man's fall did not deter God from fulfilling His original plan. In order to accomplish His plan, God gave His son Jesus Christ to us, to die for our sins. Christ died on the cross to redeem man. (Eph. 1:7), thus taking away his sin (John 1:29) and bringing him back to God (Eph. 2:13). Finally, in resurrection, Christ became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) so that he could dispense his unsearchably rich life into man's spirit (John 20:22; 3:6).
 
5. Man's Regeneration: Since Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, man can now receive God's life into his spirit. The Bible calls this regeneration (1Pet. 1:3; John 3:3). To receive this life, man needs to repent to God and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21; 16:31).

6. God's Full Salvation: After regeneration, a believer needs to be baptized (Mark 16:16). Then God begins the lifelong process of gradually spreading Himself as life from the believer's spirit into his soul (Eph. 3:17). This process called transformation (Rom. 12:2), requires human cooperation (Phil. 2:12). The believer cooperates by allowing the Lord to spread into his soul until all desires, thoughts, and decisions become one with those of Christ. Finally, at Christ's return, God will fully saturate the believer's body with his life. This is called glorification (Phil. 3:21). Thus, instead of being empty and damaged in each part, this man is filled and saturated with the life of God. This is God's full salvation! Such a man now expresses God, fulfilling God's plan! After receiving this life a believer needs to attend Christian meetings in order to be nourished and supplied by the life of God that he may grow and mature in this life. In fellowship with other believers in the Body of Christ a believer can enjoy the riches of the presence of Christ.