Question 7: God’s two incarnate fleshes bore witness that Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. How should we understand Christ being the truth, the way, and the life?
Answer:
If believers can truly recognize that Christ is the truth, the way, and the life, this is truly precious, and shows that such believers have a true knowledge of Christ’s substance. Only such a person can be said to really know God. Christ is the practical God incarnate. Only those that know Christ and can obey Him really know God because the truth, the way, and the life all arise from God, all come from the expressions of the incarnate Christ. Other than Christ, no one can be said to be the truth, the way, and the life, very few people understand this. God uses man’s ability to know God’s incarnation as the standard by which He tests man. Only those that meet this standard in their belief may attain God’s commendation. All those that accept and obey God’s incarnation are the overcomers who are raptured before God to be first perfected. Those that cannot accept and obey Christ will be sent to endure the suffering of the calamities because they do not recognize God’s incarnation and are considered foolish virgins. Just as when the Lord Jesus came, He brought all those lovers of truth and those that accepted His word and truly followed Him atop the mountain, guiding and teaching them personally, while paying not the slightest bit of attention to those of the religious world and those that only believed in God for their own personal benefit because they believed only in the vague God of the high heavens and didn’t accept God’s incarnation. They were blind in their inability to recognize God. So only those that accept and obey the incarnate Christ will receive God’s commendation and be perfected by Him. Why is it that only Christ is the truth, the way, and the life? Let’s read a passage of Almighty God’s word. Almighty God says, “The way of life is not something that anyone can possess, nor is it something anyone can attain easily. This is because life can only come from God, which is to say, only God Himself possesses the essence of life, and only God Himself has the way of life. And so only God is the source of life, and the ever-flowing wellspring of living water of life. Ever since He created the world, God has done much work involving the vitality of life, has done much work that brings life to man, and has paid a great price so that man might gain life. This is because God Himself is eternal life, and God Himself is the way by which man is resurrected” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life). “Only God possesses the way of life. Since God is immutable life, He is thus eternal life; since only God is the way of life, God Himself is thus the way of eternal life”(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life). From Almighty God’s word we see that the truth, the way, and the life all come from God. Only God Himself possesses the way of life. The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jhn 1:1). The Word is God. The Word is God’s word. The Word is the truth, the way, and the life. The Word becoming flesh refers to God’s Spirit materialized in the flesh, that is, the truth, the way, and the life have all come in the flesh. Just as Almighty God says, “The Word has become flesh and the Spirit of truth has been realized in the flesh—that all the truth, the way, and the life has come in the flesh, God’s Spirit has really arrived on earth and the Spirit has come in the flesh” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Practice (4)). God’s two incarnations are both testimony to the fact that He is the truth, the way, and the life. This gives man a profound revelation, it shows us that only Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. Christ’s words and work, all that He has and is are the truth, the way, and the life. This is Christ’s substance. When Christ expresses God’s word, He does so as God Himself doing God’s work, concluding the previous age and initiating a new one, doing the work of an entire age for all of mankind. The word of God that Christ expresses is the entirety of His word in one stage of the work. It is truly the expression of God’s disposition, all that God has and is, the mystery of God’s management plan, and God’s demands and intention for mankind. All of His word is the truth. Not only can it constitute man’s life, it can also supply man with life. Just as when the Lord Jesus came, He expressed all the truth that man required in the Age of Grace, allowing man to confess his sins, repent and return before God, qualifying him to pray to God and come before God to enjoy His grace, and see His compassion and love. This was the effect achieved by the work of redemption. The Lord Jesus’ work allowed man’s sins to be forgiven, redeeming men from sin. The Lord Jesus carried out a stage of work of redeeming mankind, initiating the Age of Grace and concluding the Age of Law. The incarnate Almighty God of the last days has come, expressed all the truths that purify and save mankind, and carried out the work of judgment beginning from the house of God, allowing man to see God’s righteous disposition and almightiness and wisdom, purifying and changing man’s life disposition, so that man may fear God and shun evil, and thoroughly wrest themselves from the influence of Satan, to return before God and be gained by God. Almighty God’s work initiates the Age of Kingdom and concludes the Age of Grace. This shows us that all that Christ says, does, expresses and manifests is all the truth. Only Christ can point man toward the right way, and provide man with life supply and salvation, no man possesses or can express such things. Christ is the wellspring of man’s life, He is the appearance of God. He is the truth, the way, and the life, and is man’s only redemption and salvation. Apart from Christ, no man possesses the truth, the way, and the life, this fact is plain to see!
—Essential Questions and Answers on the Gospel of the Kingdom