I.　The Bible reveals that in eternity past God wanted man to be one with Him that man may be His duplication, His corporate expression—Gen. 1:26-27:

A.　God's good pleasure is to be one with man and make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in His Godhead—Eph. 1:5, 9-11; 3:2-11.

B.　This good pleasure of God which became God's purpose, the divine economy hidden in Himself, has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit so that all may be enlightened—3:5, 9.

C.　The great mystery of the universe is that God became man to make man God in order to produce a corporate God-man for God's manifestation—1 Tim. 3:16.

D.　God's desire is to have His reproduction throughout the earth; this reproduction makes God happy because it looks like Him, speaks like Him, and lives like Him—Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2.

II.　God, according to His design, created man in a particular way so that man was made with a capacity to contain God as his life and content—Gen. 2:7, 9; Psa. 36:9; John 1:4; 10:10; 1 John 5:11-12; Rev. 22:1-2, 14:

A.　He created man as a vessel to contain Him as the unique content—2 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 9:21-23.

B.　He created man in His image and according to His likeness—Gen. 1:26:

1.　Man was created in the image of God inwardly and according to the likeness of God outwardly.

2.　God made man in His own image that man may have His inward being to become His duplication.

3.　God made man according to His likeness that man may have His outward manifestation to become His expression.

4.　Since man was created according to God's kind, his human virtues can contain and express God's attributes of love, light, holiness, and righteousness.

C.　 He created a spirit for man to receive and contain Him that man may live by Him as his life and everything:

1.　Man's human spirit is God's breath of life—Gen. 2:7; Prov. 20:27.

2.　The heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man is for containing and expressing God—Zech. 12:1.

D.　He implanted eternity in man's heart—Eccl. 3:11; 2 Cor. 4:18:

1.　Man has a deep desire for permanent things, and the only things which are permanent are the eternal things.

2.　Eternity in man's heart is "a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy" (The Amplified Bible).

E.　He put man in front of the tree of life—Gen. 2:9:

1.　God's intention is for man whom He created to eat the fruit of the tree of life that man may receive Him and live by Him.

2.　This indicates that God wanted man to receive Him as his life and content.

3.　Due to man's fall, the way for man to contact God as the tree of life was closed by God's glory, holiness, and righteousness—3:24.

4.　This closed way was opened by the Lord Jesus who fulfilled all the requirements of God through His death so that man can contact God as the tree of life—John 14:6; Heb. 10:19-20.

F.　By eating the fruit of the tree of life, man receives God into him as life that he may become a God-man, a man who is filled with God as life and who lives the God-man living, having the divine attributes filling his human virtues:

1.　The God-men have two lives, human and divine, living together as one mingled life—Rom. 11:17-19.

2.　The God-men are born of God with God's life and nature to live by a mingled life in a mingled nature in order to build up the Body of Christ as God's manifestation.

III.　God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to us, that we who believe into Him and receive Him would have eternal life and become His children, forming the church, issuing in the Body of Christ, and consummating in the New Jerusalem as God's ultimate goal—John 3:16; 1:12; Eph. 1:22-23; Rev. 21:2-3.