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Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:29; Phil. 3:10-11; 4:8
Very few Christians today understand what are the main items of God’s full salvation in Christ. God’s full salvation does not save us only from eternal perdition. Of course, salvation from eternal perdition is included in God’s full salvation. We need to be impressed that God’s full salvation in Christ includes six definite items: first, regeneration, that is, to be reborn; second, sanctification, that is, to be sanctified subjectively in our disposition, not just objectively in our position; third, renewing, that is, to be renewed; fourth, transformation, that is, to be transformed; fifth, conformation, that is, to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God; and sixth, glorification, that is, to be glorified.
We need to realize that each of these six items needs God’s dispensing. Without God’s imparting of Himself into our being as life, we could never be regenerated. In regeneration the main thing is that God gives us an injection to impart, or to dispense, Himself as life into our being to regenerate us, to cause us to be born again. Regeneration is the issue of God’s impartation, of God’s dispensing. Then God continues to dispense Himself into us. After regeneration He sanctifies us by dispensing Himself as the holy nature into our being. Such a dispensing adds a new element into us, just as an element is added into a chemical compound. First, the element of God as life was imparted into our being, causing us to be reborn. After this, God continues to impart Himself into us as the holy nature. In the whole universe, only God is holy. God makes us holy by imparting Himself, that is, by dispensing Himself, as the holy element, the holy nature, into our being. This results in a “compound” in which there is an element that is holy.
God also desires to have a new creation. However, we are old, so God has to renew us. The renewing in God’s salvation is not like the renewing of a house by putting a coat of paint on it. In God’s salvation we are renewed not by outward “painting” but by an inward renewing through the adding of a further element from God into our being.
The Body of Christ is the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man. It is the Triune God mingled with the believers. This simple definition is the conclusion of my study of Paul’s writings in his fourteen Epistles. God’s new creation work is nothing but to dispense Himself into us, His chosen people, to mingle Himself in His divine element with our human element, making divinity and humanity one. He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years as the model, the example, of the divine mingling. The man Jesus was the mingling of God with man. He was God, and He was also man; He was a God-man. Even the term God-man does not express the notion of mingling adequately. While Jesus was working and walking on this earth, He was the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man. That was Christ, and this Christ today has been enlarged, has been increased. This increase is the church. The church is the mingling of the Triune God with us, the tripartite man. Such a mingling is carried out by dispensing — not a once-for-all “injection” but a continuous dispensing day by day. Every day God dispenses Himself into us little by little. The issue of this divine dispensing is sanctification.
Because God wants us to be a new creation, He must dispense Himself as the newness into our being to renew us. In the sixty-six books of the Bible, only one verse tells us that God is always new, like an evergreen. In Hosea 14:8 our God is likened to an evergreen tree, a green fir tree. Because He is evergreen, He Himself becomes the evergreen element. Now He is dispensing Himself into our being as such an element to renew us. I do have the sense that every day I am newer. I am not older; I am newer. I am not old, because I am being renewed. Something of God as the “evergreen tree” is being dispensed into my being.
The next step in God’s salvation is transformation. God’s salvation not only renews us but also transforms us from one form to another form. Even to transform us from one form to another form is not adequate. We need to be transformed to another definite form. Thus, there is the need of conformation to conform us to the image of the firstborn Son of God.
The last item in God’s full salvation is glorification. To be glorified is to be completely conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God.
The accomplishment of God’s full redemption and salvation in Christ is in the conformation of the transformed believers. The New Testament directly mentions conformation only once, in Romans 8:29, which says, “Those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.” However, in other verses the thought of conformation is implied. Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” This verse says that as we behold and reflect Christ like a mirror, we are being transformed into His image. Although the word conformed is not used directly here, the preposition into is used, indicating that our being transformed into the image of Christ implies conformation.
First John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” To be made like the Lord in His glory also implies conformation.
The conformation of the transformed believers conforms the transformed believers into the image of the firstborn Son of God in resurrection. There is one verse, Romans 8:29, that clearly and definitely says that the believers will be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. We will be conformed not in a general way but in a specific way to the definite image, the real likeness, of the firstborn Son of God. This verse does not speak of our being conformed to the image of the only begotten Son of God but of our being conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. We need to consider why this verse speaks of God’s only begotten Son and why Romans 8:29 refers to the firstborn Son of God. It seems that it would be sufficient to say that we will be conformed to the image of the Son of God, without including the adjective firstborn. Christ was born in His humanity to be the firstborn Son of God in resurrection (Acts 13:33), and in His resurrection we, His believers, were also born to be the many sons of God, His many brothers (1 Pet. 1:3). Thus, we are to be conformed to the image not of the only Begotten but of the firstborn Son of God.
Now we all are under God’s transformation for His conformation. Transformation is for conformation. Transformation merely transforms us from one form to another form. It does not specify into what form we are transformed. But conformation does tell us to what form we are being conformed. We are being conformed to the image, to the form, of the firstborn Son of God.
From my youth I heard Christians stress very much the matter of following Jesus. At that time I did not understand what this meant, so I did not like this term. I said that Jesus was here nineteen hundred years ago, but today He is away. Since He is away and I cannot see Him, how can I follow Him? Then I was told that Jesus is loving; thus, to follow Jesus is to love others. I replied that Confucius taught the same thing: Confucius advised us to love others. Thus, to love others is to follow Confucius. Then what is the difference between following Jesus and following Confucius?
Thank the Lord for Paul. Paul also says that we must follow the Lord. But he tells us in this way: “Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Paul did not use the word follow; he used the word imitate. He was an imitator of Jesus; thus, he became another Jesus. By imitating Paul, we also become imitators of Jesus. Paul’s use of the word imitate is an improvement over the term follow, but it is still somewhat ambiguous.
As a young person, I saw the matter of imitating, but I did not see the matter of being conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. It is not a matter of imitating Jesus but of being conformed to His image. This means that in life, in nature, in appearance, in taste, in everything and in every aspect, we become exactly the same as He is. Eventually, we not only become the same as He is, but He and we, we and He, become one entity. He becomes us, and we become Him. The seven lampstands in Revelation 1 are all the same but they are seven, not one. However, we and Christ are not only the same, but the same one. For this we must be conformed to His image, the image of the firstborn Son of God.
The transformed believers are conformed into the image of the firstborn Son of God in His divinity to express the attributes of the processed God in the resurrected Christ. The attributes of God are the attributes that belong to God. When Christ was living on this earth, He expressed the attributes of God, which are love, light, holiness, and righteousness. I studied the Ten Commandments item by item. I did my best to find out what the Ten Commandments show us. Eventually, I found out that the Ten Commandments of the law show us a picture of God in four items. The Ten Commandments show us that God is love, God is light, God is holy, and God is righteous. These are the four basic elements — love, light, holiness, and righteousness — with which the Ten Commandments were composed.
When Jesus lived on this earth, He expressed God. First, He expressed God in these four items: in love, in light, in holiness, and in righteousness. By reading the four Gospels, we receive the impression that the One portrayed in the record of the four Gospels is high in love, high in light, high in holiness, and high in righteousness. Eventually, we must conclude that He Himself is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. He loves us; He enlightens us; He is holy, even the embodiment of holiness; and He is righteous, even the very composition of righteousness. When we see Him in such a way, we admire Him, and we also realize that we are very different from Him. We cannot love even our wife, let alone our enemies, but He loved His enemies (Luke 23:34). With Him there was no darkness. Wherever He went, there was light because He is light (Matt. 4:16; John 8:12). Wherever He went, there was holiness, and there was also righteousness. This is the expression of God in Christ’s divinity. Christ can be so loving, so enlightening, so holy, and so righteous because He is God. In ourselves, we cannot be like Him; but in Matthew 5:48 He told us that since we are the sons of God, we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. We can be perfect because the Father has come into us.
The transformed believers are conformed also into the image of the firstborn Son of God in His resurrected humanity to express the virtues of the uplifted man in the resurrection of Christ. While Christ was on this earth, He expressed God in His divinity — in love, in light, in holiness, and in righteousness. Not only so; He also expressed the human virtues in His uplifted humanity. When Jesus was on the earth, He was very meek, and He was also humble. God does not need to be meek or humble. Meekness and humility are human virtues. Hence, Philippians 2:7 tells us that Christ emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of men. This is not divine but human. Thus, on the one hand, Christ expressed God’s divine love, divine light, divine holiness, and divine righteousness, and on the other hand, He expressed human virtues such as meekness, humility, obedience, and forbearance.
In 2 Corinthians 10:1 Paul says that he entreated the believers in the meekness and gentleness (or, forbearance) of Christ. Then, in 11:10 he says, “The truthfulness of Christ is in me.” Meekness, forbearance, and truthfulness are three human virtues. God does not need to forbear. However, when Christ was on this earth, He lived as a man under all kinds of persecution and trouble. He was very meek, and He was continually forbearing, continually bearing people in a meek way. Moreover, in His dealing with people, He was always full of truthfulness. He did not express any kind of crookedness; rather, He expressed only truthfulness. He said, “Let your word be, Yes, yes; No, no; for anything more than these is of the evil one” (Matt. 5:37). But sometimes He did not answer yes or no. He always answered in a high way, in the way of life, in a way that expressed God (John 4:20-24; 8:3-9; 9:2-3).
While Christ lived on this earth as one person, on the one hand, He expressed God’s divine attributes, such as love, light, holiness, and righteousness, and on the other hand, He expressed the human virtues, such as meekness, humility, and forbearance. Today we are His believers, and He is dispensing Himself into us in both His divinity and His humanity. When He was on this earth, He was both divine and human in the way of mingling. The New Testament first tells us that Christ as the Son of God was the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18). Eventually, in His resurrection He was born to be the firstborn Son of God (Col. 1:18; Rom. 1:4; 8:29). In the only begotten Son of God there is only divinity, but in the firstborn Son of God there is both divinity and humanity. Through incarnation God branched Himself out of His divinity into humanity. Thus, as a God-man who walked on the earth, He was both God and man, but His humanity had not yet been brought into divinity. Romans 1:4 tells us that through resurrection He was designated the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness. In resurrection the humanity of Christ was brought into divinity and was fully “sonized.” It is in this way that He could become the Firstborn among many brothers.
Did we receive Christ while He was the only begotten Son or after He became the firstborn Son? Is the very Christ whom we have received the only begotten Son of God or the firstborn Son of God? The answer is that we all have received a Christ who is no longer the only begotten Son of God but who has become the firstborn Son of God. In other words, the very Christ whom we have received is both divine and human. In His divinity He expresses God, and in His humanity He expresses man. In His divinity He expresses the divine attributes, such as the divine love, the divine light, the divine holiness, and the divine righteousness, and in His humanity He expresses the human virtues, such as meekness, humility, forbearance, and obedience.
As imitators of Christ, we imitate Him not in His divinity but in His humanity. We all need to be meek, humble, and forbearing. Regardless of how others treat us, we should still be happy; we should not complain but should still love others. Philippians 2:14 tells us to “do all things without murmurings and reasonings.” Murmurings and reasonings are related not to divinity but to humanity. If in one day we do not murmur or reason, we are the most holy people. The fact is that we murmur in nearly everything. The husbands murmur to their wives, the wives murmur to their husbands, and the children murmur to their parents. Sometimes we murmur to the windows and even to the bed. Paul says that if we live Christ, we should do all things without murmurings and reasonings. This is the top humanity. When I look at my own experience regarding this matter, I realize that I am the same as others; I cannot do all things without murmurings and reasonings. Only Jesus can do this.
Philippians 1:19 says, “I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” The bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ can save us from our murmurings and reasonings. Our married life and our family life are a life of murmurings and reasonings. Only Jesus can live a life without murmurings and reasonings. We cannot do this, because we are not Jesus. This is why we need God’s dispensing, little by little, into our being. Those who know me well can testify that my murmuring today has been greatly reduced from what it was twenty years ago. This is because I have received more dispensing from Christ.
To be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God is to be conformed to One who is both divine and human. As Christians, we need to express God in His divinity, and at the same time we need to express man with the proper humanity. We are God-men. As such, we should always be meek and humble. This is not related to God’s divinity, because God does not need to be meek and humble. On the other hand, sometimes we need to express God in His divinity. People may offend us to the uttermost, yet we would not hate them but would still love them. This is not human; this is divine. This is not love on the human level but love on the divine level. We can do things and express things that no one else can, because we have God’s divine dispensing within us. We can forgive and forget. Only God can forgive by forgetting (Heb. 8:12); human beings cannot do this. When we human beings forgive people, we always remember the offense; we do not forgive by forgetting. However, when God forgives, He forgets. We are those who are under God’s divine dispensing. Because of this dispensing, we can forgive as He forgives. When we forgive, we forget. This is not a human virtue; this is a divine attribute.
First, we need to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God in His divinity. Then we need to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God in His resurrected humanity to express the virtues of the uplifted man in the resurrection of Christ. On the one hand, we express the divine attributes, and on the other hand, we also express the human virtues. Both are in resurrection. Christ is the only begotten Son of God and the firstborn Son of God altogether to be our portion in resurrection. After He resurrected, we received a resurrected Christ with His divinity and also with His humanity. Hence, today we can express both His divinity and His humanity in His resurrection.
God conforms the transformed believers to the image of His firstborn Son by dispensing the element of the resurrected Christ as the firstborn Son of God into the believers for their conformation. We need to realize that all day, from morning until evening, God is working in us to dispense the element of the resurrected Christ into us. Every day the resurrected Christ is being added into our being. This is why He became the life-giving Spirit. As the life-giving Spirit within us, He is continually dispensing Himself in His resurrected element into us.
The element of the resurrected Christ is dispensed into the transformed believers for their conformation through the believers taking the resurrected Christ both in His divinity and in His humanity as the model of a God-man. God is dispensing, and we must respond to His dispensing by taking the resurrected Christ in His divinity and in His humanity as the model of a God-man, that is, of One who is both divine and human.
Now we are in Christ’s resurrection. Resurrection is a power. It empowers us to be conformed to Christ’s death (Phil. 3:10). Every day the resurrected Christ dispenses Himself into us to work out one thing, that is, to conform us to His death.
If someone such as our wife, our mother, or our roommate mistreats us, we should react by being conformed to Christ’s death. If someone mistreats us and we lose our temper, this is definitely not to be conformed to the death of Christ. Whatever happens to us, we should maintain the attitude that we are dead persons. A dead person does not react to anything. This is to be conformed to the death of Christ.
When Jesus was standing in front of the Jewish rulers and the Roman rulers, He was challenged and accused, but He did not react or speak a word (Matt. 26:59-63a; 27:12-14). That was the image, the form, of His death. We are His imitators, receiving His dispensing. He is now dispensing Himself into our being, yet our environment does not help us. Everything in our environment would irritate us and stir us up to react. At such times we need to be conformed to the death of Christ. No one can do this, but the resurrected Christ can do it. The resurrected Christ is within us, and this resurrected Christ within us is the very resurrection power. He empowers us to be conformed to His death. He lives in us, helping us to be conformed to His death. So, eventually, we have no reaction to anything in our environment. We are conformed to Christ’s death not by our capacity, not by our ability, but by Him in resurrection as our capacity.
Paul says that he was able to do all things in Him who empowered him (Phil. 4:13). The “all things” here include whatever is true, whatever is dignified, whatever is righteous, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is well spoken of, and whatever is excellent and worthy of praise (v. 8). We are able to do these things not in ourselves but in the One who empowers us. This is to be empowered by the resurrected Christ to be conformed to His death. Eventually, we will be conformed to Him as the firstborn Son of God with two natures — divine and human.
In Philippians 3:11 Paul says that he was aiming at the out-resurrection — the outstanding resurrection, the extra-resurrection — as a prize. If we would be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God, a reward, a prize, will be given to us — we will participate in the out-resurrection from the dead, which is the extra-resurrection. All believers who are dead in Christ will participate in a general way in the resurrection from the dead at the Lord’s coming back (1 Thes. 4:16; 1 Cor. 15:52), but the overcoming saints will enjoy an extra, outstanding portion of that resurrection.
