The Incarnation
Church of Almighty God
Two Incarnations – First, Jesus of Nazareth; second, the Chinese women from Henan, China, in 1991.
The Second incarnation has No explicit link to the fulfillment of any Bible Prophecy
CAG quotes Luke 17: 24-25 as a prophetic text.
- CAG quotes Luke 17: 24-25 as a fulfilled prophecy. “For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man [emphasis added] be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.” (NASB) CAG claims that “Son of Man” means a physical body, and therefore, God comes back in His second incarnation.
- ““The Son of man” means He is born of a human and that He has normal humanity and can engage in any human activity. If He comes as a spirit, then clearly we can’t call Him the Son of man. That’s why the Lord Jesus’ prophecies of His appearing and coming as the Son of man mean that He will return in incarnate flesh. If God is not incarnate flesh, He couldn’t be called the Son of man, just like Jehovah God, as a Spirit, can’t be referred to as the Son of man. They also linked this with the Lord Jesus’ prophecy: “But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.” They went on saying, “This proves that the Lord will appear in the flesh when He returns. His Spirit is not limited by time or space and everyone fears Him—no one would dare resist Him. If God appeared to mankind in His Spirit form He wouldn’t suffer many things, much less be rejected of this generation. Only the Son of man in the flesh will suffer. This prophecy is about what happens when the Lord Jesus returns, not about what He suffered the first time He became flesh.” Hearing them say this brightened my heart. If the Lord first secretly comes in the flesh and then appears openly on a cloud, all the Bible’s prophecies about the Lord’s coming will be fulfilled and there won’t be any contradiction. “[1]
- Almighty God says, “the suffering the second incarnate flesh endures is greater than that of the first, but this suffering is a result of His ministry in the flesh, which is unlike the suffering of corrupted man. It also stems from the normality and reality of His flesh. Because He performs His ministry in utterly normal and real flesh, the flesh must endure a great deal of hardship. The more normal and real this flesh is, the more He will suffer in the performance of His ministry. God’s work is expressed in a very common flesh, one that is not supernatural at all. Because His flesh is normal and must also shoulder the work of saving man, He suffers in even greater measure than a supernatural flesh would—and all this suffering stems from the reality and normality of His flesh. From the suffering that the two incarnate fleshes have undergone while performing their ministries, one can see the essence of the incarnate flesh. The more normal the flesh, the greater hardship He must endure while undertaking the work; the more real the flesh that undertakes the work, the harsher people’s notions, and the more dangers are likely to befall Him.” [2]
[1] The Church of Almighty God, “Welcoming the Lord’s Return, I Have Finally Welcomed the Lord”, accessed August 6, 2021.
[2] The Church of Almighty God, The Word Appears in the Flesh, “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God”, accessed November 11, 2021; Google e-book, accessed November 11, 2021, 2639; pdf 1613-1614.
Christianity
One Incarnation – Jesus, the Nazareth, born in Bethlehem in the first century.
Old Testament’s Prophecies Fulfilled in the New Testament.
Bible References: Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6, Matt. 1:22-23, John 1:14
- “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14, ESV)
- “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6, ESV)
- “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).” (Matt. 1:22-23, ESV)
- “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, ESV)
- See the 100 Prophecies fulfilled by Jesus pamphlet.
See the 351 Old Testament Prophecies Fulfilled In Jesus Christ; pdf file.
CAG’s Misinterpretation of Luke 17: 24-25
Background: The geographical origin of the Church of Almighty God (CAG) is Henan, China. In the 1990s, all Chinese Christians read the Union version of the Chinese Bible. CAG first uses the Chinese Union version as their proof texts. The followers of Witness Lee use the Recovery version of the Chinese Bible. The Chinese Recovery version was originally translated by Witness Lee of the Local Church. According to multiple sources, CAG began its ministries connected to house churches claimed to be followers of Witness Lee.
First, CAG claims that “Son of Man” is human with a physical body which means Jesus has returned physically in His second incarnation. CAG also claims that Christ returns first secretly, and then openly, i.e. a two-step process. The second step is yet to come. In the second step, when Jesus returns in the clouds which means Jesus will return openly in a spiritual body. If “Son of Man” means a physical body, Jesus, the “Son of Man,” returns in the clouds must also be in a physical body. But CAG has asserted that Jesus will come back openly in the clouds in a spiritual body.
Second, please go to “Luke 17:25” in “Clear Thinking Exercises” below.
CAG's Additional Arguments and Explanations
- CAG claims that God has incarnated the second time as a female. First secretly, and then openly. (See CAG’s other beliefs and practices)
- The core beliefs of the CAG are documented in its own Bible “The Word Appears in the Flesh,” which the church claims that the texts were originated from the recorded spoken words of the female Christ. In reading “The Word Appears in the Flesh,” with the exception of the section that reveals the second incarnation of God was a female, the rest of books uses a third person pronoun such as “He or Him” as it refers to the second incarnation of God. Here is an example: “This time around, God comes to do work not in a spiritual body, but in a very ordinary one. Moreover, not only is it the body of God’s second incarnation, it is also the body through which God returns to the flesh. It is a very ordinary flesh. You cannot see anything that makes Him stand out from others, but you can gain from Him previously unheard-of truths. This insignificant flesh is what embodies all the words of truth from God, undertakes God’s work in the last days, and expresses the whole of God’s disposition for man to understand. …. He will tell you all these secrets—secrets that no man has been able to tell you, and He will also tell you of the truths that you do not understand. He is your gate into the kingdom, and your guide into the new age.”[1]
[1] The Church of Almighty God, “Essential Questions and Answers on the Gospel of the Kingdom (Selections)”, accessed November 11, 2021; The Appearance and Work of Christ of the Last Days, Google e-book, 2782; God has come, He is King, pages 104, 549, 751.
- Despite the lack of biblical evidence in supporting even the idea of a second incarnation, CAG’s female Christ in her “Utterances of Christ of the Last Days” in fact proclaims that she is the second incarnation of Christ. In the section titled: “The Two Incarnations Complete the Significance of the Incarnation,” she says: “Back then, when Jesus came, He was male, and when God comes this time, He is female. From this, you can see that God created both male and female for the sake of His work, and with Him there is no distinction of gender. When His Spirit comes, He can take on any flesh He pleases, and that flesh can represent Him; whether male or female, it can represent God as long as it is His incarnate flesh. If Jesus had appeared as a female when He came, in other words, if an infant girl, and not a boy, had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, that stage of work would have been completed all the same.”[2]
[2] The Church of Almighty God, The Word Appears in the Flesh, “The Two Incarnations Complete the Significance of the Incarnation”, accessed November 11, 2021; Google e-book, 1978; pdf 556-557.
- Further down the page, she makes the following biblically unsound arguments to answer the critics of her original biblically unfounded statements: “In the beginning, when Jehovah created humankind, He made two kinds of human being, both male and female; and so, there is the division of male and female in His incarnate fleshes. He did not decide His work based on the words He spoke to Adam and Eve. The two times He has become flesh have been determined entirely according to His thinking at the time He first created humankind; that is, He has completed the work of His two incarnations based on the male and the female before they were corrupted…. If it be wrong for God’s incarnate flesh to be female, then would it not also have been an error of the greatest magnitude for God to have created woman? If people still believe that it would be wrong for God to be incarnated as female, then would not Jesus, who did not get married and was therefore unable to love His wife, be as much in error as the present incarnation?”[3]
- In addition, the second incarnated Christ, however, does not do the work of God with signs and wonders or miracles. CAG claims that “God does not repeat the same work; He is the God that is always new and never old, and so all that you see today is the words and work of the practical God.”[4] Rather, CAG asserts that, “the work of God incarnate this time is not to heal the sick and cast out demons, but to conquer man by speaking, which is to say that the native ability possessed by this incarnate flesh of God is to speak words and to conquer man, not to heal the sick and cast out demons.”[5] In other words, CAG’s Christ of the last days does only natural speeches in Chinese Mandarin; she does not have a supernatural ability to speak other languages nor possess any other ability to prove or affirm her divine identity.
- CAG’s Holy book, “The Word Appears in the Flesh,” says, “so with Jesus, the meaning of God’s incarnation was not completed, but only partially fulfilled.”[6]
[4] The Church of Almighty God, The Word Appears in the Flesh, “Knowing God’s Work Today”, accessed March 19, 2021, 1342-1343; “Knowing God’s Work Today,” The Word Appears in the Flesh, accessed March 19, 2021.
[5] The Church of Almighty God, The Word Appears in the Flesh, “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God”, accessed March 19, 2021; Google e-book, accessed November 11, 2021, 2641.
[6] The Church of Almighty God, Judgment Begins With the House of God, “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God”, accessed March 15, 2021; Google e-book; pdf 745.
Clear Thinking Exercises
- Jesus’ incarnation was predicted in the Old Testament numerous times (see above), how many times the second incarnation of God was predicted in the Bible, NT and OT?
- If the term “Son of Man” means a physical body which CAG claims that Christ comes back in His second incarnation (secretly), why the same “Son of Man” also means that Jesus will come back the third time descending on the cloud (publicly) in His spiritual body?
- CAG claims that Jesus’ resurrection was not a physically resurrection, but a spiritual one. Does this claim contradict the Bible? If yes, is CAG a form of Gnosticism? [1]
- How could “the suffering the second incarnate flesh endures is greater than that of the first, i.e., Jesus the Nazareth”?
- Luke 17:25 says, “But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.” (NASB) The word “and” in both the Union and Recovery versions are translated to the Chinese word: “again.” This mistranslation might have contributed to misunderstanding of the phrase “and be rejected by this generation” as “again be rejected by this generation.” This mistranslation has switched the words “this generation” to “the current generation” of the readers. In other words, by reading one’s own meanings into verse 25, “the Son of Man” must suffer many things (at Christ’s first incarnation), again be rejected by this generation (Christ’s second incarnation’s generation). Unfortunately, all other Bible translations correctly translated the word “and,” which forces the timing of Christ’s “suffering and rejection” (in verse 25) in the same generation. For CAG, “He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation” becomes a bigger problem. That is, the second incarnated Christ not only must suffer “many things” but also suffering as a male physical body. But what kind of “many things” and where is the physical male body of the second incarnated Christ? Clear thinking enhances discernment!