God used Moses to do the work of the Age of Law, so why doesn’t God use people to do His work of judgment in the last days? Does He really have to become flesh to do it Himself? What’s the essential difference between God incarnate and the people who God uses?

February 22, 2021

Answer:

Why it is that God must become flesh to do the work of judgment in the last days is a question with which many who thirst for truth and search for God’s appearance are chiefly concerned. It is also a question that relates to whether we can be raptured into the kingdom of heaven. So, it is very important to understand this aspect of the truth. Why is it that God has to incarnate Himself to do His work of judgment in the last days instead of using man to do His work? This is determined by the nature of the work of judgment. Because the work of judgment is God’s expression of the truth and expression of His righteous disposition to conquer, purify, and save mankind. Let’s read some passages from Almighty God’s word.

Almighty God says, “The work of judgment is God’s own work, so it must naturally be carried out by God Himself; it cannot be done by man in His stead. Because judgment is the use of the truth to conquer humankind, there is no question that God would still appear in the incarnate image to perform this work among man. That is to say, in the last days, Christ shall use the truth to teach people across the world and make all truths known to them. This is God’s work of judgment” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth).

“In the last days, Christ uses a variety of truths to teach man, to expose the essence of man, and to dissect the words and deeds of man. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s duty, how man should obey God, how man should be loyal to God, how man ought to live out normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and the disposition of God, and so on. These words are all directed at the essence of man and his corrupt disposition. In particular, the words that expose how man spurns God are spoken in regard to how man is an embodiment of Satan, and an enemy force against God. In undertaking His work of judgment, God does not simply make clear the nature of man with a few words; He exposes, deals with, and prunes over the long term. These methods of exposure, dealing, and pruning cannot be substituted with ordinary words, but with the truth of which man is utterly bereft. Only methods such as these can be called judgment; only through judgment of this kind can man be subdued and thoroughly convinced into submission to God, and moreover gain true knowledge of God. What the work of judgment brings about is man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his own rebelliousness. The work of judgment allows man to gain much understanding of the will of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It also allows man to recognize and know his corrupt substance and the roots of his corruption, as well as to discover the ugliness of man. These effects are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the substance of this work is actually the work of opening up the truth, the way, and the life of God to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the work of judgment done by God” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth).

From Almighty God’s words we see that God’s work of judgment in the last days consists of expressing many aspects of the truth, expressing God’s disposition, all that God has and is, revealing all the mysteries, judging man’s God-resisting and God-betraying satanic nature, exposing and dissecting corrupt man’s speech and behavior, and revealing God’s holy and righteous substance and unoffendable disposition to all of mankind. When God’s chosen undergo the judgment by God’s words, it is as if they are face to face with God, being exposed and judged by Him. When God judges man, He must allow us to see the manifestation of His righteous disposition, as if seeing God’s holy substance, as if seeing the great light cast down from the heavens, and to see God’s word is like a sharp double-edged sword thrusting into our heart and spirit, causing us to endure unspeakable torment. Only in this way can we come to recognize our own corrupt substance and the truth of our corruption, feel deep humiliation, hide our face in shame, and prostrate ourselves before God in true repentance, and then we will be able to accept the truth and live according to God’s word, thoroughly rid ourselves of Satan’s influence, and be saved and perfected by God. Such work as the judgment, purification, and salvation of man can only be done by God incarnate personally.

Having experienced the judgment by Almighty God’s word, we have all felt how God’s holiness and righteous disposition are unoffendable by men. Every letter of God’s word is invested with majesty and wrath, each word strikes to the core of our hearts, thoroughly exposing our God-resisting and God-betraying satanic nature, as well as the elements of corrupt disposition buried so deep within our hearts that even we ourselves cannot see them, allowing us to recognize how our nature and substance is full of arrogance, self-righteousness, selfishness, and treachery, how we live according to these things, like living devils roaming the earth, possessing not even the slightest bit of humanity. God finds this abhorrent and detestable. We feel humiliated and wracked with regret. We see our own baseness and evil and know we don’t deserve to live before God, so we prostrate on the ground, willing to receive God’s salvation. In experiencing the judgment by Almighty God’s word, we truly witness the appearance of God. We see that God’s holiness is undefilable and His righteousness is unoffendable. We recognize the earnest intentions and true love with which God endeavors to save mankind and see the truth and substance of our corruption at the hands of Satan. Thus, in our hearts, we begin to feel reverence for God and happily accept the truth and obey God’s orchestrations and arrangements. In this way, our corrupt disposition is gradually cleansed. The changes we have attained today are a result of God’s incarnation to do the work of judgment. So, only when God’s incarnation expresses the truth, expresses God’s righteous disposition and all that He has and is to carry out the work of judgment, only then do we see the appearance of the true light, the appearance of God, and begin to have true knowledge of God. Only in this way can we see that only God can purify and save us. Apart from Christ, no man can do the work of judgment in the last days. Let’s read some passages of Almighty God’s word.

Almighty God says, “No one is more suitable, and qualified, than God in the flesh for the work of judging the corruption of man’s flesh. … Satan can only be fully defeated if God in the flesh judges the corruption of mankind. Being the same as man possessed of normal humanity, God in the flesh can directly judge the unrighteousness of man; this is the mark of His innate holiness, and of His extraordinariness. Only God is qualified to, and in the position to judge man, for He is possessed of the truth, and righteousness, and so He is able to judge man. Those who are without the truth and righteousness are not fit to judge others” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Corrupt Mankind Is More in Need of the Salvation of the Incarnate God).

“My judgment of you today is because of your filth; My chastisement of you today is because of your corruption and rebelliousness. It is not to display power and prestige among you or to intentionally bully you, but it is because you who were born in a land of filth have been sullied with so much filth. You have simply lost your integrity, your humanity, and you are no different from swine that were born in the vilest of places. It is because of these things in you that you are judged and that His wrath is visited upon you. It is because of these judgments that you have been able to see that God is the righteous God, that God is the holy God. It is because of His holiness and righteousness that He has judged you and visited His wrath upon you. Because He can reveal His righteous disposition when seeing mankind’s rebelliousness, and because He can reveal His holiness when seeing mankind’s filth, this is enough to show that He is God Himself who is holy and without taint, but who also lives in a land of filth. If He were a man who sullies himself along with others and if He did not have any elements of holiness or a righteous disposition, He would not be qualified to judge mankind’s unrighteousness or to be the judge of mankind. If man were to judge man, wouldn’t it be like slapping their own face? How could someone have the right to judge the same kind of person, who is just as filthy as they are? The only One who can judge all of filthy mankind is the holy God Himself, and how could man judge man’s sins? How could man be capable of seeing man’s sins, and how could they be qualified to condemn man? If God didn’t have the right to judge man’s sins, then how could He be the righteous God Himself? When people’s corrupt dispositions are revealed, He speaks out to judge them, and only then can they see that He is holy” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How the Effects of the Second Step of the Work of Conquest Are Achieved).

From Almighty God’s word we clearly see that God’s work of judgment in the last days must be done through expressing truth, God’s righteous disposition, and God’s almightiness and wisdom to conquer, purify, and perfect man. God appears Himself to do this work of judgment in the last days. This work marks the beginning of one age and the end of another. This work must be done by God’s incarnation, no man can do this work in His stead. Why is it that many believe that God should use men to do all His work, instead of being incarnated to do the work Himself? This is unbelievable! Does mankind really welcome God’s coming? Why is it that there are always so many people wishing that God will use men to do His work? This is because men do work in accordance with their conceptions, they do things just how people think they ought to be done. So, most people easily worship man, hold man up on a pedestal and follow man. However, God’s way of working is never in keeping with man’s conceptions and imagination, He doesn’t do things as man thinks they ought to be done. So we have difficulty being compatible with God. God’s substance is the truth, the way, and the life. God’s disposition is holy, righteous and unoffendable. Corrupt man, however, has been thoroughly corrupted by Satan, and is full of satanic disposition; they have a hard time being compatible with God. So, we find it difficult to accept the work of God’s incarnation and are unwilling to study and observe, instead worshiping man and putting blind faith in his work, accepting and following it, as if it were God’s work. What is the problem here? You could say, mankind doesn’t have the slightest clue what it means to believe in God and experience His work, so, God’s work in the last days must be done through the expression of the truth by the incarnation to resolve all of corrupt mankind’s problems. As for some people’s question as to why God doesn’t use man to do His work of judgment in the last days, does this still require an answer? Man’s substance is man, man does not possess divine substance, so man is incapable of expressing the truth, expressing God’s disposition, all that God has and is, and cannot do the work of salvation of mankind. Not to mention, we humans have all been corrupted by Satan and have a sinful nature, so what qualification do we have to judge other men? Since filthy and corrupt man is incapable of purifying and saving himself, how does he expect to purify and save others? Corrupt man would only meet with disgrace because others were unwilling to accept their judgment. Only God is righteous and holy, and only God is the truth, the way, and the life. So, God’s work of judgment in the last days must be performed by His incarnation. No man is capable of such work, this is fact.

Now why did God use man to do His work in the Age of Law? This is because the work of the Age of Law and that of the judgment of the last days are of a different nature. In the Age of Law, men were the newborn human race, they had been only minimally corrupted by Satan. Jehovah God’s work consisted mainly in promulgating laws and commandments to provide a guideline for early man as to how to live on earth. This stage of work was not aimed at changing man’s disposition, it did not require expressing more truth. God merely needed to use man to convey the laws He had established to the Israelites, so that the Israelites would know how to abide by the laws, worship Jehovah God, and live a normal life on earth. Having done so, that stage of the work was thus completed. So, God could use Moses to complete the work of the Age of Law, He didn’t need to be incarnated to carry out the work personally. By contrast, God’s work of judgment in the last days is aimed at saving mankind, who have been profoundly corrupted by Satan. Releasing a few passages of God’s word and promulgating a few laws just won’t suffice in this case. A large amount of truth must be expressed. God’s inherent disposition, all that God has and is must be expressed completely, the truth, the way, and the life must be opened up for mankind, just as if God were to reveal Himself face-to-face with mankind, allowing them to understand the truth and know God, and in so doing, He thoroughly purifies, saves and perfects mankind. God must do this Himself personally through incarnation, no man can do this work in His stead. God can use prophets to release a few passages of His word, but God does not allow the prophets to express God’s inherent disposition, all that God has and is, or express the entirety of the truth, because corrupt mankind is not worthy of doing so. If God used man to express the entirety of His disposition and truth, he would be likely to humiliate God, because man has a corrupt disposition, he is liable to betray his own conceptions and illusions, there must be impurities in his work, which could easily humiliate God and influence the overall effectiveness of God’s work. Also, we are apt to take all that man has and is for all that God has and is, taking man’s impurities in his work for truth. This leads to a misunderstanding and humiliation of God. Also, if God were to use man to express the entirety of His disposition and truth, because of man’s impurities, we would be unwilling to accept and may even resist. Satan would then find fault and make accusations, fanning the flame of our discontent with God, fomenting revolts, and instigating us to establish our own independent kingdom. This is the end result of man doing God’s work. Especially, in the case of God’s salvation of profoundly corrupted man in the last days, men do not easily accept and obey the work of God’s incarnation. So if God used humans to do this work, men would be much less likely to accept and obey. Are these not the plain facts? Look at the elders and pastors of the religious world, is their resistance and condemnation of the work of God’s incarnation any different from the way the Jewish chief priests and Pharisees resisted the Lord Jesus before? God’s salvation of corrupt mankind is no easy task. We must understand how God thinks!

On the one hand, God incarnate’s work of judgment in the last days is to judge, purify and save mankind, on the other hand, and more importantly, God does His work through expression of the truth and expression of God’s disposition and all that He has and is to allow all of mankind to truly know and understand God, and see the appearance of God in the flesh. Let’s read some passages of Almighty God’s word.

Almighty God says, “For all of those who live in the flesh, changing their disposition requires goals to pursue, and knowing God requires witnessing the real deeds and the real face of God. Both can only be achieved by God’s incarnate flesh, and both can only be accomplished by the normal and real flesh. This is why the incarnation is necessary, and why it is needed by all corrupt mankind. Since people are required to know God, the images of the vague and supernatural Gods must be dispelled from their hearts, and since they are required to cast off their corrupt disposition, they must first know their corrupt disposition. If only man does the work so as to dispel the images of the vague Gods from people’s hearts, then he will fail to achieve the proper effect. The images of the vague Gods in people’s hearts cannot be exposed, cast off, or completely expelled by words alone. In doing so, ultimately it would still not be possible to dispel these deep-rooted things from people. Only the practical God and the true image of God can replace these vague and supernatural things to allow people to gradually know them, and only in this way can the due effect be achieved. … Only God Himself can do His own work, and no one else can do this work on His behalf. No matter how rich the language of man is, he is incapable of articulating the reality and normality of God. Man can only know God more practically, and can only see Him more clearly, if God personally works among man and completely shows forth His image and His being. This effect cannot be achieved by any fleshly man” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Corrupt Mankind Is More in Need of the Salvation of the Incarnate God).

“Man’s imaginings are, after all, empty, and cannot replace the true face of God; the inherent disposition of God, and the work of God Himself cannot be impersonated by man. The invisible God in heaven and His work can only be brought to earth by God incarnate who personally does His work among man. This is the most ideal way in which God appears to man, in which man sees God and comes to know the true face of God, and it cannot be achieved by a non-incarnate God” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Corrupt Mankind Is More in Need of the Salvation of the Incarnate God).

“God’s arrival in the flesh is primarily to enable people to see the real deeds of God, to materialize the formless Spirit in the flesh, and allow people to see and touch Him. In this way, those who are made complete by Him will live Him out, they will be gained by Him, and after His heart. If God only spoke in heaven, and did not actually come on earth, then people would still be incapable of knowing God, they would only be able to preach God’s deeds using empty theory, and would not have God’s words as reality. God has come on earth primarily to act as an exemplar and a model for those who are to be gained by God; only in this way can people actually know God, and touch God, and see Him, and only then can they truly be gained by God” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. You Should Know That the Practical God Is God Himself).

“The incarnate God brings to an end the age when only the back of Jehovah appeared to mankind, and also concludes the age of mankind’s belief in the vague God. In particular, the work of the last incarnate God brings all mankind into an age that is more realistic, more practical, and more pleasant. He not only concludes the age of law and doctrine; more importantly, He reveals to mankind a God who is real and normal, who is righteous and holy, who unlocks the work of the management plan and demonstrates the mysteries and destination of mankind, who created mankind and brings to an end the management work, and who has remained hidden for thousands of years. He brings the age of vagueness to a complete end, He concludes the age in which the whole of mankind wished to seek God’s face but was unable to, He ends the age in which the whole of mankind served Satan, and leads the whole of mankind all the way into a completely new era. All this is the outcome of the work of God in the flesh instead of God’s Spirit” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Corrupt Mankind Is More in Need of the Salvation of the Incarnate God).

God’s work of judgment in the last days through incarnation is truly meaningful. God has been incarnated on earth in the last days, living amongst men and proclaiming His word to humankind, expressing His own disposition and all that He has and is to the masses. Who God loves and who God detests, toward whom God’s fury is directed, whom He punishes, His emotional state, His demands of men, His intention for men, man’s ideal outlook on life, values, etc., He informs us of all these things, allowing us to have clear goals in life so that we needn’t cast about aimlessly in vague religious pursuit. Just as God's word says, “The incarnate God brings to an end the age when only the back of Jehovah appeared to mankind, and also concludes the age of mankind’s belief in the vague God.” All those who have gone through Almighty God’s word and work in the last days have a common experience: Even though we have undergone God’s judgment and chastisement, have endured all manner of trials and refinements, and have been profoundly tormented by the brutal, savage pursuit and persecution of the CCP, we have seen God’s righteous disposition come upon us, we have seen God’s majesty and wrath and His almightiness and wisdom, we have seen the manifestation of all that God has and is, just as if we were seeing God Himself. Though we haven’t seen God’s spiritual body, God’s inherent disposition, His almightiness and wisdom, and all that He has and is, have been revealed to us in full, as if God had come before us, face-to-face, allowing us to truly know God and have a heart that fears God so that we may obey whatever plans God has for us until death. We all feel that in God’s word and work we see and know God in a practical and real way, and have thoroughly cast off all conceptions and illusions and become ones truly knowing God. Before, we thought of God’s disposition as loving and compassionate, believing God would continually pardon and forgive the sins of man. But after having gone through the judgment of Almighty God’s word, we have come to truly understand that God’s disposition is not only compassionate and loving, it is also righteous, majestic, and wrathful. Anyone who offends His disposition will be punished. Thus, we can revere God, accept the truth and live by God’s word. Through experiencing Almighty God’s work of judgment in the last days, we have all really and practically come to understand that God’s disposition is holy, righteous, and unoffendable, have experienced God’s compassion and love, truly come to appreciate God’s almightiness and wisdom, recognized how God humbly hides Himself, and come to know His earnest intentions and many lovable qualities: His emotional state, His faithfulness, His beauty and goodness, His authority, sovereignty, His scrutiny of everything, etc. All that God has and is has appeared before us, as if seeing God Himself, allowing us to know God face-to-face. We no longer believe in and follow God based upon our conceptions and illusions, but feel true reverence and adoration for God, and truly obey and rely upon God. We have really recognized that if God hadn’t been personally incarnated in the flesh to express the truth and do the work of judgment, we never would know God, and would be incapable of ridding ourselves of sin and attaining purification. So no matter how you look at it, God’s work of judgment in the last days must be done by God incarnate Himself, no one can stand in His stead. Given man’s conceptions and illusions, if God were to use man to do the work of judgment in the last days, He wouldn’t be able to achieve the desired effect.

—Classic Questions and Answers on the Gospel of the Kingdom

So let’s take a step further and fellowship about the substantive difference between God incarnate and the men that God uses. Let’s take a look at what Almighty God says about this aspect of the truth. Almighty God says,

“The incarnate God is called Christ, and Christ is the flesh donned by the Spirit of God. This flesh is unlike any man that is of the flesh. This difference is because Christ is not of flesh and blood; He is the incarnation of the Spirit. He has both a normal humanity and a complete divinity. His divinity is not possessed by any man. His normal humanity sustains all His normal activities in the flesh, while His divinity carries out the work of God Himself” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Essence of Christ Is Obedience to the Will of the Heavenly Father).

“Because He is a man with the essence of God, He is above all created humans, above any man who can perform God’s work. And so, among all those with a human shell like His, among all those who possess humanity, only He is the incarnate God Himself—all others are created humans. Though they all have humanity, created humans have nothing but humanity, while God incarnate is different: In His flesh He not only has humanity but, more importantly, divinity” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God).

“The divinity of Christ is above all men; therefore, He is the highest authority of all created beings. This authority is His divinity, that is, the disposition and being of God Himself, which determines His identity” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Essence of Christ Is Obedience to the Will of the Heavenly Father).

“Because God is holy and pure, and real and actual, His flesh comes from the Spirit. This is definite and incontrovertible. Not only being able to bear testimony for God Himself, but also being able to completely devote Himself to doing God’s will: these represent one side of God’s essence. That the flesh comes from the Spirit with an image means that the flesh with which the Spirit clothes Himself is essentially different to the flesh of humans, and this difference primarily lies in their spirit” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Interpretations of the Mysteries of “God’s Words to the Entire Universe”, Chapter 9).

“He who is God incarnate shall possess the essence of God, and He who is God incarnate shall possess the expression of God. Since God becomes flesh, He shall bring forth the work He intends to do, and since God becomes flesh, He shall express what He is, and shall be able to bring the truth to man, bestow life upon him, and point the way for him. Flesh that does not have the essence of God is decidedly not the incarnate God; of this there is no doubt. …

… God is God, and man is man. God has the essence of God, and man has the essence of man” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Preface).

Almighty God has made it very clear that God incarnate is God’s Spirit realized in the flesh. Although He has normal humanity, He is of divine substance. The men that God uses, however, are of human substance. They can only be human, and have no divine substance at all. That Christ has a divine substance means that what God’s Spirit possesses—His inherent disposition, His substance of righteousness and holiness, what God has and is, God’s almightiness and wisdom, and God’s authority and power—is all realized in the flesh. This flesh is the flesh with divine substance, the real God who has come to earth to work and save mankind. Because Christ has divine substance, His emotional state, attitudes, viewpoints, and opinions toward various people, events, and things, all of Christ’s thoughts are the truth, they are all expressions of God’s holy substance and life disposition. Christ can represent God completely, can directly express God’s voice, His disposition, and what God has and is through God’s identity. He can bestow upon man the truth, the way, and the life, and this is far beyond the capacity of any created human. It is because Christ possesses complete divinity that He can express God’s word directly, at any time and place, rather than the prophets who only convey a few of God’s words on occasion. All that Christ expresses is the truth and God’s work in the new age. He doesn’t talk about His knowledge and experience of God’s words. Because Christ has complete divinity, He can express the truth at any time and any place to supply, water, and shepherd people, to guide all mankind. And because Christ has complete divinity, He can take on God’s work. He can lead and redeem mankind, conquer and save mankind, conclude the entire old age. But the men God uses are of human substance. They possess no divinity, but are merely human. And so they can only carry out the work of man and fulfill man’s duty. Although they possess the enlightenment, illumination, work, and perfection of the Holy Spirit, at best they can only cooperate with God’s work and express their knowledge and experience. Their words might accord with the truth and benefit others most of the time, but they are not the truth, and they do not stand on equal ground with God’s words. The incarnate God conducts the work of initiating an age and ending an age. He can directly express the truth and guide the entirety of mankind. But the men God uses or the men who have the work of the Holy Spirit are at best merely cooperating with God’s work while fulfilling man’s duty. At best, they are merely expressing their own knowledge and experiences of God’s word, and what they say accords with the truth. No matter how long they’ve worked for God and no matter how much they’ve spoken, they are merely sharing their knowledge and experience of God’s word, they are merely exalting God and bearing witness for God. This is the essential difference between God incarnate and the men God uses or the men who have the work of the Holy Spirit.

God incarnate is of divine substance, and so His work and word are undefiled by man’s thoughts, notions, imaginations, and logic, rather, God incarnate directly expresses all that divinity has and is, and the original meaning of God’s Spirit. Just like in the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus revealed the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, brought the way of repentance, and expressed His disposition of lovingkindness and mercy, and so on. They are all direct expressions of the Spirit of God, are all natural revelations of the disposition of God and all that He has and is. They are all beyond the reach of man’s thinking. In the last days, Almighty God expresses all the truth that will purify, save, and perfect mankind. He reveals God’s holy and righteous disposition that does not tolerate any offense, and uncovers all the mysteries of His management plan, such as the mysteries of God’s incarnation, the differences between God’s work and man’s work, the purpose of God’s management plan, the inside truth of the three stages of God’s work, the root of man’s corruption, how man should break free from sin to attain God’s salvation, mankind’s future destination, and so on. Everything that Almighty God does is all the direct expression of the divinity, is the original meaning of the Spirit of God, which is beyond the reach of man’s thinking. The work and word of God incarnate and His expressed disposition are enough to prove that God incarnate is divine in substance, and that He is no other than God Himself, the One and Only. The men God uses, however, cannot possibly replace God in carrying out His divine work, nor can they directly express the original meaning of God’s Spirit. They can only do the work of human cooperation on the foundation of God’s work, share their knowledge and experience, lead God’s chosen people to enter the reality of the truth of God’s words, bear witness for God and serve Him. This is the fulfillment of man’s duty. They do the work that the human mind is capable of, the work that man can experience, the work that is essentially what man has and is. Because God incarnate and the men He uses are different in substance, their work is completely different in nature. God incarnate differs from the men that He uses, just as much as God differs from man. One has the substance of God, while the other is human in substance. The One with divine substance can do God’s work, while those of human substance can only do man’s work. Everyone who believes in God must understand this.

—Classic Questions and Answers on the Gospel of the Kingdom

“The work of judgment is God’s own work, so it must naturally be carried out by God Himself; it cannot be done by man in His stead.” The word of God is very clear. The work of judgment is God’s own work—it is work that God must carry out among mankind, it is work that God must personally carry out, and it is work that no man is able to do in His stead. No man can do it in His stead; this means that no human can take God’s place in doing this work. Why can no one take His place? Some might say: “During the Age of Law, didn’t God use Moses to carry out His work? Then why can’t God use humans to carry out the work of judgment?” Is there a mystery contained within this? In the Age of Law God issued forth the law and commandments to the Israelites, which could be done by using man. But why is it that man cannot replace God and carry out the work of judgment in the last days? There is a mystery here. What is this mystery all about? Let’s keep reading to see what God has to say about it. “Because judgment is the use of the truth to conquer humankind, there is no question that God would still appear in the incarnate image to perform this work among man.” God has made known the definition of the work of judgment—what is the nature of this work? God says, “Because judgment is the use of the truth to conquer humankind.” How should we interpret these words? What exactly is judgment? Based on the word of God we can understand it as follows: God does His work of judgment by using the truth to conquer man. “The use of the truth to conquer humankind,” we must carefully think these words over. Why can’t man do this work of judgment? Some people say it is because man lacks the truth, so cannot express the truth. This kind of understanding, this kind of acceptance is perfectly fine. Because human beings do not possess the truth and they are not equipped with the truth, they cannot carry out the work of judgment. Some people say: “God is able to make use of prophets to express His word, so could God make use of prophets to express His word to carry out the work of judgment?” No. This is because prophets conveying the word of God and God Himself expressing the truth anytime and anywhere will bring about different results, because prophets are not themselves the truth. What consequences would there be from allowing someone who is not the truth to convey the word of God? Christ, when carrying out the work of judgment in His identity as God, can express the truth anytime and anywhere, reveal what God has and is, and make known the disposition of God. A prophet, however, is not himself the truth and is not able to reveal what God has and is anytime and anywhere. What really is the difference between the results produced by using a prophet to convey God’s word and by God expressing the truth directly? If this is something you can understand thoroughly, then you will have a true understanding of the words, “The work of judgment is God’s own work, so it must naturally be carried out by God Himself; it cannot be done by man in His stead.” “It cannot be done by man in His stead,” what is included within this? It won’t do if God uses human beings or prophets to convey His words. Why is that the case? Why couldn’t that achieve same outcome as God carrying out the work Himself? Once you can see into this issue you will be able to accept these words.

Why wouldn’t it be okay for God to use prophets to convey His word of God to carry out the work of judgment? What outcomes couldn’t be achieved if the work were done that way? Is this something that you can see? If prophets were used to convey the words of God, the results would only allow people to have a little bit of understanding of God’s words. But as for understanding God’s disposition, what God has and is, and the truth that He expresses, regardless of how great an effort a human exerted, it’s impossible to achieve an optimal result. Why couldn’t they achieve an optimal result? The essence of the prophets is that of humanity. Since they are essentially human, could their own expression be what divinity has and is? They absolutely could not do so. … Based on this point, we can see that regardless of how a prophet may convey the word of God, they will not be able to reveal His disposition, nor will they be able to reveal what God has and is, for prophets are human in essence—they are not divine. Christ possesses a divine essence, and in carrying out the work of judgment He can express the truth at any time and any place; He can reveal what God has and is. In Christ, man is able to see the disposition of God, see what God has and is, and see the almightiness and wisdom of God. As for the man used by God, no matter how much of God’s word we come to understand through him, ultimately through him we will still never be able to achieve understanding of God, and even if we can attain a little, it will be very, very limited! You should have clarity on this now, right? So now we should pretty much understand the meaning of God’s words, “The work of judgment is God’s own work, so it must naturally be carried out by God Himself; it cannot be done by man in His stead.” However, people in the religious world are unable to comprehend the meaning of these words—they do not understand them. They believe that since God was able to use Moses to carry out His work in the Age of Law, then God should be able to use man to carry out the work of judgment in the last days. But isn’t this entirely different from what God’s will is? Gaining understanding on this point is the grace of God. People in religious circles cannot grasp this, for they have not experienced God’s work in the last days. They fail to understand so many truths! They lack understanding of many truths. By comparison we have obtained many, many more. Everything in the book The Word Appears in the Flesh is an expression of the truth. It contains truths that have not been obtained through the stages of God’s work that mankind has already undergone since the creation of the world, truths that up to now have not been understood. But today, since we are experiencing the work of God in the last days, we have obtained these truths. Is this not the grace of God? Is this not the profound love of God?

—Sermons and Fellowship on Entry Into Life